Cloud MarketingOriginal Thinking by Norm Johnston

Contents

01. neW old Media 02. tHird liFe03. Meta Men04. MrC05. transForMers

Introduction

Five key Cloud Marketing trendsintroduCtion

There has been much talk over the past year about the Cloud. For those of you not familiar with the idea, the

Cloud is a term coined to describe a future Internet that acts as a repository for all data, content and applications and is accessible from anywhere and from anything, including the proverbial kitchen sink.

Most of the chatter on the Cloud has been around computing; witness the recent Microsoft Cloud Computing advertising campaign.

In contrast, this booklet provides you with some insight into what we think will be the key implications for marketers. We’ve identified five key Cloud Marketing trends, which are all explained and exampled in the following pages.

New Old Media: in an IP-enabled world marketers will need to rethink how they approach today’s old media. TV in particular will go through a major change as it begins to function and feel more like today’s PC Internet experience.

Third Life: mobile, “the third screen”, will increasingly be used to layer the Internet’s virtual world into our real world. Marketers will need to think about their presence in and use of this new augmented and interconnected environment all around us.

Meta Men: If you think you have a lot of data now you haven’t seen anything yet. Marketers will need people, processes, tools, and plans for this coming tsunami of digital data.

Managing Real-time Customers: In dynamic environments such as Facebook and Twitter, marketers will need to manage customers in real-time in order to build greater advocacy and sales in an increasingly socially-networked and influenced world.

Transformers: Marketers will have an unprecedented opportunity to transform their advertising by mashing-up and creating new forms of Cloud content and applications that provide real value to customers.

The Cloud can sometimes feel very Star Trek, but remember it is real and happening now. Dave Evans, Chief Futurist at Cisco recently stated that there are already thirty-five billion devices that are connected to the Internet. He estimates that there could be a trillion in the future. So tap into your inner nerd and enjoy this tour through the Cloud and the exciting opportunities for you and other marketers today and tomorrow.

TV Re-invented

neW old MediaI love TV. There, I said it.

It actually feels rather good, particularly after fifteen-years persuading clients not to focus on TV. I can already hear the cries of “Judas” amongst my fellow digital folk. However, before throwing me into the IAB dungeon, let me explain: in the next few years TV will be one of the most dynamic and exciting areas of the digital business.Bear with me.

First, the demise of TV has been greatly exaggerated. According to a recent Forrester research, European teenagers (of all people) watch more TV than any other media channel – 10.3 hours a week. UK BARB data indicates that we are watching one more hour of TV every week than 10 years before. What happened? Fragmentation has helped via more and better programming options. Even the dreaded PVR seems to increase TV viewing consumption: 18% according to Sky.

Perhaps more importantly, media consumption is no longer a zero-sum situation. A few years ago you had to make a physical choice between watching TV and surfing the Internet; your clunky-old PC was often in another room. The ubiquity of wireless broadband and mobile now enables punters to watch TV and surf the Internet at the same time. Thus a new love affair has been formed between old and new media: TV programs are the number one discussed topic on Facebook.

So TV viewing is alive and well, but what about TV advertising? Well, that’s another story. While PVR’s increase TV program consumption, it also leads 91% of US moms with the technology to skip the ads. TV also has some stiff competition from that pervasive new kid on the block, the Internet. So the TV industry has wisely embraced an old proverb: if you can’t beat them, join them.

Which brings me to the second reason I love TV; the old enemy is embracing the Internet itself. TV broadcasters, manufacturers, and a gazillion other players are scrambling to bring all of the advantages of today’s Internet to the TV of tomorrow in the hopes of reversing the shift of ad spend back to TV. In the UK, Sky and Canvas are building momentum behind their respective systems. In the US, several cable companies have banded together under Project Canoe to roll-out an addressable digital TV platform. Best Buy is pimping LG Internet-enabled TV’s and generating new revenue streams by directing customers to video on-demand sites. WPP, Microsoft, Apple, and Google are all investing in various hardware, software, and partnership models.

tV PrograMs are tHe no.1 toPiC disCussed on FaCeBook.

New Old Media

Google TV

Will tHis Future tV internet Be tHe saMe as todays PC internet?yes & no.

New Old Media

Will this future TV Internet experience be the same as today’s PC Internet? Yes and no.

tV Will Be Hands Free.TV will no longer be burdened with remote controls. Nintendo’s Wii is radically adapting how a generation of kids interact with the TV screen. Don’t believe me? Just spend a few minutes with Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect to see how motion sensors and voice recognition will fundamentally change the TV experience.

tV Will Be intelligent.Your TV experience will be personalized and customized with programs, applications, branded content, and old fashioned advertising all based on your personal preferences. Think Sky+ mashed with MyYahoo powered by Amazon’s recommendation capability.

tV Will Be on-deMand.All audio-visual content (TV, film, etc) will be available for your instant-viewing pleasure. You’ll just need to search for it, just like on YouTube. Linear viewing will still exist, particularly for live events, but will no longer dominate as it does today. Some on-demand content will be exclusively sponsored by brands, or even developed by brands who are no longer constrained by old linear program formats and models.

tV Will Be addressaBle. Brands will precision target specific households based on demographics and behaviour across digital devices; consumers will see a new TV ad based on what they’ve searched for on their PC or an application they used on their mobile phone. Like online banners, the much-maligned 30-second “TV spot” will survive, albeit more targeted and less fundamental to the creative experience.

XBOX Kinect

Kraft TV Kitchen Sync demo

tV Will Be e-CoMMerCe enaBled.Your household data and credit card will be stored in your set-top box, thus enabling you to simply buy, sample or act on whatever product ad you see during your TV viewing experience. Content will be tagged so via your TV you can immediately add all of the recipe ingredients from the latest Jamie Oliver show to your weekly Tesco shopping basket.

tV Will Be soCial. Programs will be shared and recommended amongst friends while conversations about politics and sport, previously confined to the PC or the pub, will be accessible, right there on the screen.

tV May Be Free.Imagine a credit card company paying a premium member’s annual cable bill in return for exclusive advertising rights to that household.

Will it be smooth sailing? Not really.

Malthusian industry cynics will say it will never happen. Kool-Aid fuelled digital shysters will lead clients into doomed, widely-optimistic excursions. Walled-garden strategies will fail. Start-ups will earn headlines one day, and go bankrupt the next. Clients will test, retreat, and test again. Agencies will struggle to manage more real-time digital data. Creative egos will be bruised by social networks filtering out their precious ads. Just like the old-new media of the PC Internet, the new-old media of the TV Internet will surely surprise, frustrate, and delight us in many ways.

Will it Be sMootH sailing?not really.

Kraft TV Kitchen Sync demo

New Old Media

Our Mindshare Shanghai office recently worked with Heineken to help them launch one of China’s most successful IPTV projects to-date. Mindshare worked extensively with SARFT and SMG, Shanghai’s leading IPTV network and China’s second largest media conglomerate, to develop a sophisticated interactive platform that enabled customers to fully experience Heineken’s sponsorship of this major tennis tournament. From their normal TV viewing experience, consumers could access a Heineken sponsored virtual channel, which included on-demand video content of tournament highlights, an interactive game, the latest scores, as well as special Heineken promotions and merchandise. Heineken’s virtual channel was supported by TVC’s targeted in playback and video-on-demand as well as interactive promotional banners on the EPG. On average consumers spent 10 minutes engaging with the bespoke Heineken IPTV channel playing games and watching video footage, significantly and cost-effectively increasing the brand’s reach, engagement, and results from what a normal TV campaign would have delivered.

HeinekenShanghai aTP TenniS TournamenT iPTV VirTual channel

Case study

Mindshare shanghai

New Old Media

ATP1000

Photos from the Heineken ATP Tennis Tournament in Shanghai

The merging of the real and virtual worlds

tHird liFeLast weekend I took my three young boys to the Tate Modern Gallery for a quick tour of some the world’s best modern art. My plan to disperse some cultural wisdom was quickly quelled by their surprising knowledge of various obscure pieces of art. It was only later that I realized that they had “borrowed” my Google Nexus One phone and had cleverly deployed Google Goggles to dazzling effect.

Google Goggles is a clever little application that enables you to simply take a photo of anything from a landmark building to a painting. Google then matches your photo to a vast image database and voila you get a detailed explanation of exactly what you are viewing. It may sound of passing interest to most brands until they realize Goggles can also be used on bar codes, logos, and products; and instead of Frida Kahlo, the user could get product reviews, pricing comparisons, and any “likes” from your social graph.

Google Goggles is remarkable for more than just its ability to do visual searches; Goggles is yet one more example of how the Internet is going through a massive transformation. At the Tate my kids didn’t “log-on”, type a single word, or even follow a Web link. For them the Internet was simply there: all around us, in the air, up in the clouds, and easily accessible via dad’s Nexus phone. Google Goggles is one small example of how the Internet has been freed from its previous constraints of keyboards, the World Wide Web, and PC’s.

In fact it is becoming increasingly hard to determine what is offline and online anymore. Google and many others are in the process of seamlessly combining the real world with the online world into something entirely different. Soon the Internet will be embedded into and weaved throughout everything and into everyone; an indistinguishable mashing of your real physical first life and the Internet’s second virtual world into a “Third Life”, a new space brought to you by that third screen, the mobile phone.

seaMlessly CoMBining tHe real World WitH tHe online World.

Google Goggles in action

tHe internet Has Been Freed FroM its PreVious Constraints oF keyBoards, tHe World Wide

WeB, and PC’s.

Third Life

Layar, an innovative Dutch company, has created an augmented reality application that lets you get useful information on your physical surroundings via your mobile phone. Simply look through your mobile and you’ll get virtual signs, images, and data layered on top of your real surroundings. This virtual Layar will help guide you to local restaurants, stores, and banks. Both General Motors and Ford are integrating similar augmented reality technology into their windshields so your GPS directions will be layered on to the road in front of you, as well as pointers to your local Burger King or HSBC branch.

Microsoft are not satisfied with only three dimensions; they are experimenting with time. Microsoft’s Bing Maps enables you to time travel by viewing superimposed historical images on to modern views. Leave it to Google to respond with Historypins, a tool that allows you to “pin” old photos on to modern day surroundings. Imagine taking an historical Victorian era walking tour around London wearing your physical Google Goggle glasses, which will seamlessly integrate ancient photos of horse and buggies into the real physical surroundings before your eyes.

However, it is not just objects being integrated into Third Life. The recent wave of geo-location tools like Gawker Stalker, Foursquare, Loopt, Facebook Places, and Google Latitude let you virtually track your friends’ physical locations; essentially tagging, indexing, and mapping your social graph on to Third Life’s grid. If you’re having trouble recognizing someone you can also try new face recognition technology. Think Goggles for people. Apple recently acquired Polar Rose, a company that will enable you to take a photo of someone and pull up their Facebook or Linkedin page. The Astonishing Tribe from Sweden are developing a similar Android application called Recognizer.

Google Maps History Pin

Loopt geo- location tool

Google Maps History Pin

MiCrosoFt are not satisFied WitH only tHree diMensions.

Third Life

Another blurring between the real and virtual worlds took place in Turkey where Mindshare worked with Kimberly-Clark’s Kotex to develop an innovative campaign featuring a virtual rock star called Kita. Teen girls could interact with Kita everywhere from Facebook to Twitter. However, in the ultimate Third Life experience, the virtual Kita made an appearance at a real world concert. The very unreal Kita was beamed on to a very real physical stage where she performed a live duet with Kerecem, a well-known Turkish rock star. Kita is not alone. Groups like Gorillaz are also holding virtual, real world concerts.

Brand marketers may be scratching their heads at this stage. Most are probably not even aware that this blended real and virtual world even exists. It is indeed early days, and Third Life manifestations such as augmented reality are very young and nascent. However, the next few years will see a rapid maturity in and adoption rate of these technologies; in particular as smartphone penetration rates go up, which will be fuelled by the on-going mobile operating system

battle particularly amongst Microsoft, Google, and Apple. Brands need to begin to understand this new world now or risk getting caught on the back foot just like the early days of the World Wide Web.

What can they do now?

First, they need to experience and comprehend Third Life and the implications of these technologies. Simplistically, what do you want to appear when someone Google Goggles your brand, icon, or products? What data, messages, and promotions can you add to Layar to ensure your brand is best positioned in this blended real and virtual environment? How can you better activate your own offline brand assets – posters, print, stores – to build positive advocacy and incremental reach in Third Life? For example, in Belgium, Mindshare worked with Nike to enable consumers to use their mobile phone to “Like” its products via QR codes and “Like” icons on their outdoor advertising. In Israel, Coca-Cola used RFID chips embedded into bracelets to let participants “Like” various attractions at a marketing event.

So the next time your children start gawking through their mobile phone just keep in mind that they may be seeing something quite extraordinarily different from you. While Third Life may be invisible to most of us, it is most definitely a very real, virtual growing world full of opportunities for as well as threats to brands.

Kita perform

ing on stag

e with

Ker

ecemMost

Marketers are not eVen aWare tHis Blended real and Virtual World exists.

Third Life

Indians are absolutely fanatical about cricket, which has rapidly become the country’s favorite sport. In 2010 Nike needed to devise a creative way to break through this cricket clutter to get Indian teens focused on football and their international sponsorship of players like Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo, particularly given the upcoming World Cup in South Africa. Supported by insights into young male teens and their use of mobile phones, our Mindshare Mumbai team developed an innovative mobile marketing program that enabled sports obsessed fans to virtually try on their favorite player’s jersey via augmented reality at Write the Future zones across shopping malls in cities like Mumbai and Delhi. Over 60,000 consumers “wore” the jersey of their favorite football player, and more importantly most shared it with their friends on social networks like Orkut and Facebook, thus multiplying the program’s reach by over four amongst a difficult to audience to engage.

nikeWriTe The FuTure augmenTed realiTy

Case study

Mindshare MuMbai

Third Life

60,000ConsuMersWore tHe Jersey oF tHeir FaVourite FootBall Player

Augmented Reality Mock-up

For the first time Mindshare’s digital talent has surpassed our traditional talent, if even a distinction exists anymore. In short, we have far more geeks than ever before. Fun geeks but alas folks who tweet endlessly, debate the merits of Flash versus HTML5, and bond over meta-tagging strategies. Within a few short years we have gone from Mad Men to Revenge of the Nerds. Welcome to the age of Meta Men and Women.

Preparing for a 35 zetabyte world

Meta Men

Meta Men

Kraft RFID Tag

Of course this is only the beginning. Over the next few years there will a huge demand for these skills as the world becomes ever more connected to the Internet. In effect, everything and everyone will become part of “the Cloud”, the name often given to this ubiquitous Internet of the future. Devices such as TV’s, mobile phones, and eReaders will mean great chunks of previously analogue content will now be available online. Everyday products such as milk cartons and Pokemon cards will get connected via RFID tags; the German government predicts the number of RFID tags in their country will go from today’s 86 million to 23 billion by 2020.

People will also continue to expand their digital profiles leaving more useful and inane data on their every movement, Facebook “like”, purchase, and behaviour. The average individual currently passes 3,254 pieces of personal information into a database every week, a figure that will surely increase as the Facebook generation grows older.

MindsHare Has FarMore geeks tHan eVer BeFore. “eVerytHing and

eVeryone Will BeCoMe Part oF tHe Cloud”

“tHe aVerage indiVidual Currently Passes 3,254

PieCes oF inForMation into a dataBase eVery Week ”

Meta Men

All of this means data and more data. Vast amounts of data. EMC estimates that the digital universe of data will increase to 35 zetabytes, or 35 trillion gigabytes. At the moment we are only generating a measly 1.2 zetabytes, just enough data to fill a stack of DVD’s from the moon and back or the equivalent to the amount of data that would be generated by everyone in the world posting messages on Twitter continuously for a century. So what can you do with only 1.2 zetabytes? The answer is a lot.

For a start marketers can now target specific audiences better than ever before. Mindshare now has bespoke technology that enables us to aggregate a user’s behavioural data across the Internet thus pinpointing very specific audiences and their purchase states. So rather than just buying specific media sites our team “buy” a target audience across all media networks and then use the behavioural data to map specific advertising messages to that individual’s stage in the purchase funnel. For example, a young woman who searches on “small automobile” in Google and visits fashion Web sites will receive a Ford Fiesta online ad across relevant media sites. With geo-targeting we can also encourage our target consumer to take a test drive at her local Ford dealership. Our specialists can go a step further by refining our audiences’ profiles and driving up ROI by comparing our online database to real shopping behaviour from offline and online loyalty and retail databases.

In total our bespoke targeting technology has over 900 consumer data variables that can be used to optimize, frequency cap, de-duplicate, and analyze all advertising activity in real-time based on advanced attribution modelling and ROI analysis. Importantly we only use non-personally identifiable information. In others words, the consumer remains anonymous throughout the process.

That last part is worth noting. For with all of this data comes a great responsibility to make sure we don’t succumb to the dark side of the Internet. As of December 1, 2010, there were over 600 million users on Facebook, whose founder Mark Zuckberg recently stated “having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” In a recent poll of US employers, 35% of companies had rejected applicants because of information they found on Facebook. Insurance companies are increasingly using technology to analyze an applicant’s Facebook history to assess potential health issues. The Internet is full of examples of companies who flout privacy concerns and flog personal data.

at tHe MoMent We are only generating 1.2 ZetaBytes.

“35% oF CoMPanies reJeCted aPPliCants BeCause oF WHat

tHey Found on FaCeBook”

Meta Men

Marketers need to be more aware than ever that they risk a significant consumer backlash if they fail to proactively take responsibility for following industry best-practice when it comes to data protection and privacy. For precisely that reason Mindshare and WPP are working with organizations like the IAB to launch initiatives like Privacy Matters, which supports education, easy opt-out, and self-regulation when it comes to issues like using cookie data for targeting.

What will keep our Meta Men and Women busy in the future? “Lifetracking” is a growing online trend where companies keep an opt-in online record on everything from how much coffee you drink to your sleep patterns (myzeo.com). Imagine the insights our analysts could glean from correlating sleeping patterns to product preference?

sMart Marketers Will reCogniZe tHe CoMing data tsunaMinoW.

WPP Privacy Matters Icon

“MindsHare and WPP are Working WitH organiZations

like tHe iaB tolaunCH initiatiVes like

PriVaCy Matters”

Meta Men

Greatgoodbye.com and 1000Memories.com take things one step beyond. Both sites enable you to maintain your social profile after death, thus continuing to send messages to your social graph from beyond the grave. Arguably a growing target audience given that there are currently over 5 million dead people still “alive” on Facebook. With a lifetime of data stored online consumers may even give their favourite brands permission to keep recommending products to their loved ones after they pass away, thus requiring a very dramatic redefinition of a customer’s lifetime value.

While preparing for your eternal life on Facebook what should marketers do now? What’s becoming increasingly clear is that marketers without a plan run the risk of simply being drowned in a sea of data. Smart marketers will recognize the coming data tsunami now and build a scalable platform that will enable their companies to capture and rapidly respond to real-time information. To do so requires an honest assessment of their current data strategy, technology, processes, and of course people, including whether they have replaced some of today’s Mad Men with the Meta Men and Women of tomorrow.

oVer 5Mdead PeoPle are still ‘aliVe’ on FaCeBook.

1000memories.com | Redefi ning Customer Lifetim

e Value

grea

tgoo

dbye

.com

Mindshare Worldwide has worked with HSBC over the past few years to develop a sophisticated online acquisition engine that leverages the latest digital technology to continuously improve ROI and meet their ambitious growth targets. In particular, HSBC used our proprietary ZAP technology to target very specific but anonymous customer segments based on their online behaviour. Relevant HSBC advertising units are served to consumers who have triggered particular creative messages based on their keyword searches, Web site visits, and other online activity. The ZAP system can identify consumer interest in a particular HSBC product, their stage in the purchase funnel, and the most impactful creative assets and messages based on demographic information, location, previous responses and preferences, and other variables. Mindshare has also developed a bespoke version of its Live

OS digital dashboard, which provides HSBC with real-time results across all forms of digital paid, owned, and earned media; our turn-key API’s collect data on everything from display, paid search, natural search positioning, Web site conversion data, and online consumer buzz and sentiment. Connecting the Live OS data with ZAP has enabled our “Meta-Men” to greatly improve HSBC’s results.

HsBC

20%deCreasein Cost Per lead

accounT acquiSiTion Program

Case study

Mindshare LOndOn

Meta Men

HSBC Leaderboards

Mindshare’s Live OS Digital Dashboard

inCrease in leads

Managing real-time customers

It’s official. I’m old. Conclusive proof has come to light. First, I still ring a door bell with my index finger. Apparently today’s Nintendo DS trained youth use their thumbs. Second, I still mainly communicate via email, which is something “old people do” according to research from Jeff Cole and the USC’s Center for the Digital Future. Today’s youth prefer to use social networks like Facebook to communicate with others. That’s not to say that email is completely dead. Microsoft’s latest Context Matters II research points out that email is still the top activity online.

MrC

MRC

However, that same research clearly indicates that when and how people are using email is evolving; online users increasingly have a burst of email in the morning, and spend the rest of the day communicating via alternative tools like IM, Twitter, or Facebook.

Who cares? Well, probably all of those companies who have spent the last decade migrating their Customer Relationship Management programs from snail mail to very elaborate email-based platforms. What was a brilliant idea in 2003 – sending out regular cheap, customizable email newsletters – now looks increasingly antiquated in a world of 600 million Facebook users poking, posting, and liking. What’s more alarming is that a lot of this activity is directed at brands. Air Asia now has over 74,000 “fans” regularly engaged with the brand on its official Facebook page. Why bother with email when you can get instant information and a rapid response from your favourite brand or fellow fan in real-time?

Of course this is just the beginning. By the time I finish this article there will be a few thousand more Facebook users, not just in the US or Europe but in places like Indonesia, who with their 37 million users is now the second largest Facebook market in the world.

As more and more of these Facebook users opt-out, disregard, and migrate away from email, marketers will have to reinvent their approach to CRM to meet a new breed of always-on consumers. These young users expect dialogue with brands in real-time, not when someone in the CRM team pushes the monthly email newsletter button. All of which puts those email based CRM platforms under the spotlight. In short, asynchronous brand conversation is being replaced by synchronous brand dialogue. Just like the great migration from snail mail to email, once again the CRM model is being turned upside down, or literally inverted; in the age of Facebook, brands must now embrace the new reality of Managing Real-time Customers.

“asynCHronous Brand ConVersation is Being

rePlaCed By synCHronous Brand dialogue”

soCial netWorkers exPeCt dialogue WitH Brands in real-tiMe.

MRC

Of course some brands have already embraced this new ethos. For example, Unilever’s Impulse brand has transitioned its CRM program to Facebook, where its audience of young teenage girls already spend significant time. The Impulse Diaries program acts as an on-going MRC platform fully integrated and sustained within Facebook.

The Diaries is a combination of pushed and pulled marketing content, as well as real-time contributions and dialogue between brand and fan. Impulse campaigns, sponsorships, events, and news are all published and most importantly shared on the site. Impulse’s TV advertising even promotes the Facebook destination rather than the brand’s traditional Web site. The result: over 62,000 active fans regularly engaged with the Impulse brand.

The Diaries program is a cost-effective, insightful move by the Impulse team, which is further supported by Syncapse research that demonstrates the power of embedding your brand into the social graph. For example, on average fans spend an additional $71.84 on products for which they are fans compared to those who are not fans. Furthermore, 38% of respondents reported that they would likely become a fan of a brand if they saw a family member or close friend do so; a statistic not lost on the Facebook team as they roll-out social plug-ins and programs like Sponsored Stories.

facebook.com/theimpulsediaries

“38% oF resPondents rePorted tHat tHey Would

likely BeCoMe a Fan oF a Brand iF tHey saW a FaMily MeMBer or

Close Friend do so”

62,000 Fans regularly engage WitH tHe iMPulse Brand on FaCeBook.

MRC

twitter.com/TWELPFORCE

dell uses tWitter to ProMote oFFers & ProMotions in real-tiMe.

twitter.com/DellOutlet

The Impulse team isn’t the only example of a brand embracing MRC. Dell uses Twitter to promote their latest offers and promotions in real-time; to-date they have generating well over $7 million in sales. Best Buy has launched their Facebook “Twelpforce” to crowd-source solutions to common consumer electronics problems. Starbuck’s 20 million fans get rewarded with discounts for checking-in using the Places feature, not to mention the ability to share their new product ideas and innovations with the My Starbucks team. Albion Bakery in London has launched BakerTweet on Twitter to lets their customers know in real-time what baked goods have just emerged from the oven.

Once consumers get used to a local bakery tweeting about baked goods in real-time you can imagine what their expectations will be for some of the world’s best-known brands.

Where to start? Before jumping into MRC we advise clients to go through a four step process, conveniently all starting with the letter “A”. First, define your “Aims” so everyone has clarity on what you are trying to achieve. From the examples illustrated above it’s clear that social networks can deliver on everything from sales to branding to customer service to research to all of the above. Second, ensure you understand

the needs and behaviour of your “Audience”. Different audiences use different social networks for very different purposes. Third, carefully develop your “Approach”. In our experience, this is where most brands fail. They often rush into places like Facebook only to disappear for extended lengths; provide slow, corporate responses to very personal, real-time needs; and in worse case scenarios break best-practice community management rules like publically escalating arguments with angry customers.

Before launching ensure you assemble the right skills, rules, processes, and technology. We would highly recommend embracing one of the new MRC technology platforms, such as Buddy Media. Buddy Media enables you to cost-effectively manage your entire Facebook footprint across the globe in every market. Similar to the early days of the Internet, brands are now confronted with a myriad of unmeasurable and inconsistent Facebook brands sites. Buddy Media addresses user navigation issues, enforces brand consistency and integrity, and allows for re-publishing of Facebook content across your social footprint, not to mention helping with the final “A”; quickly and easily “Analyzing” your performance via bespoke reporting and optimization tools.

So take a lesson from Albion Bakery in London. If a local bakery can make a Managing Real-time Customer model work, you can too, even if you still use your index finger to ring a doorbell.

1. aiMs2. audienCe3. aPProaCH4. analyZe

MRC

bakertwee

t.com

/m/1

235

As one of United States’ leading and best-known electronics retailers RadioShack has a long-history of deep discounts and very knowledgeable sales staff at its 6,000+ stores across the country. At the end of 2010 RadioShack had an ambitious seasonal goal to get buyers into their stores where their experts could help them find the best electronics gifts for the holidays. Mindshare Chicago helped devise and launch a highly ambitious and innovative mobile marketing program that turned consumers into Holiday Heroes. At the heart of the program was a Foursquare-sponsored utility that rewarded RadioShack followers with exclusive discounts and offers as they checked into various Holiday Hero Hotspots, including destinations such as gyms and coffee shops. Every unlocked Holiday Hero badge was rewarded with another exclusive deal. The program was promoted across both paid and earned channels, including Twitter and Facebook. Thousands of consumers participated in the program and purchased even more RadioShack products. The total spend of the Holiday Heroes was nearly four times the average RadioShack customer. A simple but impactful idea around a mobile utility that helped consumers get more from their holidays both at RadioShack and elsewhere.

radiosHaCkholiday heroeS

Case study

Mindshare ChiCagO

MRC

RadioShack on Foursquare

for iphone

RadioShack on Foursquare

More than just advertising as usual

transForMers

Is it possible that sneakers are at the forefront of Internet marketing? Judging by Nike’s recent online success trainers may be to the Internet what soap and laundry detergent were to the early days of TV. For Nike has boldly embraced the full spectrum of opportunities enabled by the ever-growing Cloud, that ubiquitous, always-on digital repository of content and applications.

FroM PassiVe, intrusiVe Messages to interaCtiVe reWarding exPerienCes.

Brands like Nike are transforming their advertising by mashing-up content and code in new innovative ways previously not feasible or practical in an analogue, short-tail world. In fact, this transformed advertising is often so helpful or so entertaining it doesn’t even feel like advertising, which makes consumers want to search, share, and spend more time with it. In short, Nike and other brands are transforming their advertising from passive, intrusive messages to interactive, rewarding experiences. Take Nike ID, which enables consumers to snap a photo of any colour and pattern and have a pair of bespoke sneakers delivered to them. My kids had a field day capturing images with their mobile phone and creating their own personalized Nike trainers. My boys spent quality time engaged with the brand and never once considered it intrusive, interruptive, or indeed advertising.

Nike is also smart enough to partner with other brands to source content and functionality outside of their core competency in order to create these new mashed-up experiences. For example, Nike has combined forces with Apple to create Nike+, an online experience that enables consumers to sync their trainers with their iPod to monitor their exercise performance and share their progress with a wider Nike+ community. To date thousands of runners have signed up to and regularly use Nike+ to compete with, compare, and coach themselves and their friends.

Yes, Nike still runs 30” TV spots and good old display banners. However, these branded signposts are increasingly leading consumers to online Nike hubs where consumers can find useful online utilities and brand experiences rather than another dreaded micro-site. Furthermore, these branded experiences and applications are often integrated into and distributed as Nike advertising, thus bringing the brand and some real utility immediately to the consumer.

Customize your own Nike iD at store.nike.com

nike is also sMart enougH to Partner WitH otHer Brands to

sourCe Content

Transformers

CouCH Potatoes in india noW HaVe a riCH sourCe oF Fitness.

Nike is not the only transformer in the industry. Pepsi has had remarkable success with their Quaker Oats Heart Healthy initiative in India. Similar to Nike, Quaker Oats found a key consumer need and leveraged the Cloud to blend professional and consumer-generated content and applications into a highly compelling online destination, which now has over 300,000 consumers actively checking on and improving their health not to mention over 25,000 Facebook fans. Mindshare worked with Quaker Oats to develop and promote Goodmorningheart.com, a one-stop destination for health diagnostics, healthy cooking recipes, nutritionists’ advice, calorie counters, and fitness tips brought to you in variety of ways including online video, crowd-sourced content, and sophisticated applications. Similar to Nike, Quaker Oats also partnered in this case with Apollo Hospitals to leverage professional and credible content for the program. We also helped Quaker Oats deploy

these useful health utilities throughout the Internet via paid and earned media, while still using the Good Morning Heart site as central brand hub for all of the featured assets.

Quaker Oats has gone from passive 30” TV spots simply promoting the product to useful online applications beneficially featuring the product. Couch potatoes in India now have a rich source of fitness and healthy eating help while Quaker Oats sells more of its products, which are weaved throughout every diet and recipe. Quaker Oats even has a mobile application bringing all of this utility right to your phone.

In fact, mobile in particular brings enormous opportunities for brands to create useful applications. For example, Benjamin Moore’s iPhone application enables you to simply snap a photo of any colour to get the matching paint colour code for you to purchase. Toilet paper is even getting into the act. Charmin sponsored Sit or Squat, a mobile application that enables you to find local toilets based on your location. Via this mobile utility, Charmin gives you directions to the toilet, a photo, as well as consumer reviews and ratings to guide your choice.

goodmorningheart.com

leVerage tHe Cloud to Blend ProFessional and ConsuMer

Content

Transformers

sitorsquat.com

VieWaBle to eVeryone PlayaBle anytiMe & aCCessaBle on any iP deViCe.

In The Motherhood

Transformers are also expanding beyond just utilities and applications into entertainment, which has previously been constrained by limited distribution channels and fixed viewing schedules. Companies like Unilever are developing branded content and plugging it into the Cloud where it is viewable to everyone, playable anytime, and accessible on any IP-enabled device.

Unilever’s In the Motherhood remains one of the industry’s best known examples. Mindshare worked with the Suave brand team to produce short, online episodes featuring humorous stories of moms and their kids. The key to the program’s success was that these filmed stories were real-life tales submitted by real moms, voted on by a community, and later professionally filmed in Hollywood. The Cloud enabled Unilever to mash-up consumer-generated content with community management technology into a ground-breaking online video series. In the not so distant future IP-enabled TV will enable consumers to not only choose between today’s prime time programs but also new branded content like In the Motherhood from the likes of Unilever and other transformers.

In the motherhood M

SN Partnership

Transformers

tHe Cloud enaBles neW ForMs oF Content uniMaginaBle BeFore.

Unilever Axe wake up call

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Now some financially-challenged clients may be intimidated by the scale, ambition, and possible budgets of some of these initiatives. Marketers should be reassured that not every transformer idea needs to be big and expensive. We worked with Unilever’s Axe brand in Japan to help them launch and promote their rather erotic Axe Wake-up service mobile application. Axe’s challenge was to get young guys to use the product on an everyday basis rather than just as a “special occasion” cologne. Meanwhile, Axe’s research found that over 80% of young Japanese guys used their mobile phone as an alarm clock. The Axe Wake-up service is a simple, small, and brilliant means to provide the target audience with a useful utility – an alarm clock – that also provided tremendous entertainment. And of course it reminded each individual to use the Axe product on a daily basis. The results were outstanding with thousands of participants downloading and using the mobile application to-date.

The Cloud enables today’s marketers to experiment with new forms of content unimaginable in the constrained channels and formats of yesteryear. Music, video, functionality, applications, and even brands are being mashed-up to create valuable and innovative experiences for consumers. It’s definitely more than just advertising as usual.

We liVe in a tiMe oF exCiting neW PossiBilities

Transformers

In Columbia’s capital of Bogota, there are over 88,700 stray or abandoned dogs roaming the streets in search of food, shelter, and love. Mindshare Bogota worked with Nestlé Purina’s Dow Chow team to develop an ambitious program that helped solved this problem by enabling dog lovers to help feed stray dogs. The “Make the Incredible Happen” program enabled pet owners to feed and support stray dogs by simply registering their own dog on the Dog Chow Web site’s online community. In just two months over 100,000 dogs were registered on the Web site. Furthermore, this “Transformers” idea was extensively covered by Columbia’s press across TV, newspaper, radio and magazines generating significant and free earned media. In the end, Purina not only created a thriving online community of pet lovers regularly engaged with the brand, they also used the Cloud to help solve one of Bogota’s major social issues.

nestle Purinadog CHoWmaKe The incrediBle haPPen

Case study

Mindshare bOgOta

Transformers

Online ads on aldeamascotas.com and caracoltv.com

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Cloud Marketing

Original Thinkingby Norm Johnston