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On a Portland-y note for today’s entry, I present you with a video of “Evil Bee,” a song by the local group Menomena.

The video has been online for a couple of months now, exclusively on the PF Flyers website. As of today, October 31, the exclusive hosting privilege appears to be up, at least according to their site. PF Flyers, if you’re unfamiliar, is a company that has been making stylish shoes for the last 70 years. Through this exclusive hosting agreement, PF Flyers underwrote the video, which is entirely animated and entirely awesome. By doing this they have associated themselves with the band’s scrappy indie appeal and made their site a destination for music and animation fans alike.

Past Menomena videos have all been entertaining but this one certainly takes the quality up a notch. It is exciting to see a company supporting a band in such a productive way. PF Flyers clearly realizes that they don’t need to make a shoe commercial with a Menomena soundtrack—rather than simply licensing a song they have found a way to add value and credibility to their brand without compromising the band in any way.

Aside from the PF Flyer’s page which explains the arrangement, or the actual page the video is played from, the video itself has remarkably little branding. The only hint of PF Flyers involvement is the Pablo Ferro-esque title cards at the end. It’s a refreshing, mutually beneficial take on the business of advertising and music videos.

For the last three years, it seems that every web marketer within earshot has been saying the word “blog” about 15 times a day. And yes, your crotchety system administrator (that’s me) is embarrassed when people use phrases like “technological innovation” to describe blogs, spouting other things like “this has never been done before.” How exciting!

But step back a bit, haven’t we been doing this for a while now? Really, we’ve had these tools on the World Wide Web in place for at least 12 years. There have been sites that are functionally equivalent to blog sites up since the beginning of the web. Before that we used Gopher, and before that, folks typed log entries into whatever flavor of BBS software was popular. Were there non-computerized, distributed, often-updated journals even before computers? Of course there have been, for hundreds of years.

Some people are turned off by the puffed-up, self-aggrandizing notion of publicly distributing one’s own journal. Even more folks just chuckle at bloggers as being a hopeless part of the population that still reads “Wired,” the lonely folks with MySpace pages who waited in line for iPhones. Many techies snicker when people say the word “blog”—it’s because they’re still thinking about the technology, and not the people using it.

Blogging isn’t really about the technology, it’s about a social movement. It’s about economics, and it’s about where people are willing to spend their spare time. It’s like drive-time in radio, and it’s like a commercial during the Super Bowl on television. I don’t want to sound too “woo-woo Web 2.0″ here, but suddenly there are a whole lot more people reading and writing logs. We should be paying attention.

As consumer educators, of course we should be blogging. We need to be there. We should be writing our little hearts out, duking it out in the blogosphere, protecting our customers’ reputations and bringing their solutions to light. Check out some of our cool blogs at the top of this page for some great examples of this. These blogs are non-invasive, entertaining and frequently informative ways to connect with customers and send highly qualified web visitors to our sites. All good.

We need to use this tool while we still can. Blogging as we currently know it won’t be around forever. The behavior we call “blogging” will keep mutating, so the time to get started is now.

And yes, I still think the word “blog” is silly.

Social media’s power has always laid in the hands of the user. And in social media, the user is most always the creator. Be it Tay Zonday, Tom, Lonelygirl15, or the newest star Nick Haley. Money and stardom can happen overnight, turning creators from nobodies in Hoboken to putting them on CNN that same evening.

Social media is here to stay. Those overnight stars influence our lives as advertisers—an idea seen yesterday can become the advertising of tomorrow. But beware, as not all great creations inspire amazing advertising.

And therein lies the problem. Social media has been analyzed and picked apart by all sorts of people, and industry leaders have been trying to harness and control the process and results from the start.

You can’t control it, you can just ride its wave. You create great work, make sure it has appeal and a way of being spread, and place it in the hands of influencers. But be warned, not all great concepts or ideas come into fruition, and some really terrible ones become instant hits.

Sprint’s agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, recently created a line of ads featuring flashlight animation. The art direction and execution are flawless. Its message is clear and consistent with the ad. Check it out.

And here, from Pika Pika is the inspiration for the ad, from the social media world. Following suit, a young man from England, Nick Haley, loved his iPod Touch so much that he decided to make his own commercial. He put it on YouTube and someone in marketing at Apple caught notice. Since then Haley has been contacted by TBWA/Chiat/Day in order to create a professional version for broadcast. Creativity truly can come from anywhere—check out Haley’s rough version.

Tonight marks the final night of Portland Fashion Week. Dubbed as one of the most sustainable and eco-friendly fashion weeks around, I found myself walking into an industrial warehouse this past Monday for my very first fashion show. It should be noted that “excited” would not even be an applicable term—I had been looking forward to this for weeks.

I had scoured the PFW website beforehand and was excited to see what all was in store—this all looked so glamorous in “Sex and the City” re-runs! Even though my date and I committed the cardinal sin of arriving WAY earlier than everyone else, it was really nice to get in at the beginning and be able to scour the floor before the throngs started to arrive. We took the extra time to be able to introduce ourselves to some of the presenters and exhibitors (there were only a handful), and I was excited to receive some business cards with the designer’s websites on them.

Working in online PR, I immediately visited these sites first thing Tuesday morning—what I found, however, was a bit disappointing. You see while some of these sites were beautiful and artistically sublime, when it came to interaction the results were pretty dismal. In my opinion, fashion should be something for us all to come together ever—something which goes beyond showing, and delves deeply into explaining and relating to.

It is truly fascinating to see what people find beautiful.

And THIS is what could set some of these websites apart. Don’t simply show me your collection and then tell me where I can buy them (don’t let me even get started on the lack of shopping carts)—tell me why you made it! Tell me what inspired you! Allow your consumers to comment!

Fashion blogs are one of the easiest blogs to manage—content never runs out! One day a designer can write about a recent trip to L.A., the next day they can share some new designs, and the day after that they can throw up a link to another designer that really moves them… there are so many options.

I understand that these designers and artists are already pressed for time, but watch what happens when you start to engage a bit more—your audience will as well.

Just for fun, included here are some of my favorite shots from Portland Fashion Week—enjoy!

The AP is carrying an article about sports fans and their superstitions.

“It didn’t take Heather Pate long to figure out why her beloved Auburn University football team had begun losing. It was the pink toothbrush.

Pate, a lifelong fan of the school, has long refused to own anything with even a hint of red, the color of archrival Alabama. That puts her among the one in five sports fans who say they do things in an attempt to bring good luck to their favorite team or avoid jinxing them, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday.”

One thing about folks who have hard-core superstitions is their devotion to the superstitions. People usually don’t say from the beginning “the Ducks won’t lose as long as I wear my Yell-O shirt every game-day.” It takes someone being very observant to the fact that for four weeks they wore the same T-shirt on days the Ducks won. Then, the one day they wore a different shirt the Ducks lost, but when wearing the original shirt on two more game-days resulted in Duck wins.

Wearing the same shirt every Saturday may seem a little obsessive compulsive to some people, but noticing the trends between a change in shirt and a team losing is just solid analytics.

There are all sorts of analytics programs available for tracking visitors and their actions on websites. Just collecting the data isn’t enough, though. These programs don’t do any good if you don’t have someone looking at the trends to match up changes in usage with what the causes may have been. This often can take a fair amount of detective work to figure out.

Many times companies have designers changing graphics on the front-end, user interface folks moving links and buttons around on a page, while programmers and system admins are making updates to code and servers on the back-end all at the same time. Nailing down the item that most effected the trends can take someone who’s able to really drill down and figure out what had the catalyst was.

I always find the best place to start is matching your T-shirts with the trends your seeing. I’ll let you know if that continues to work after the USC-UO game this weekend.

Here comes the last post in my series on how to build a web presence. Some of you have been eagerly awaiting this, while others are just glad that this series is coming to an end. Either way, here are the links to my first couple of posts in this series:

1. How to analyze your web presence
2. How to optimize your web presence

Now that you have analyzed your web presence to identify and understand ongoing conversations, and have optimized your existing web presence; it’s time for the last step in building a successful web presence. The third step in building a successful web presence is to actually participate and publicize or as I like to call it, particize. Here are some tactics that we frequently employ to help our clients particize:

• Encourage and reward current costumers who contribute to online conversations and reviews
• Establish a board of customers (heavy users, fans, bloggers, partners and journalists) to engage in product development and marketing efforts
• Plan and implement an online PR program
• Answer questions relevant to your business on Yahoo Answers
• Film quick little instructional videos about your products and upload them on YouTube
• Upload high quality product images on Flickr
• Set-up and manage topical discussion groups about your category on networking sites
• Implement a blogger relations program
  • Point bloggers to content that would interest their readers
  • Leave comments on other blogs and point back to resourceful content
  • Communicate!

As you begin to build your own web presence, please keep in mind that there are many more opportunities to explore that might be specific to your industry, products or services. If you have any questions, shoot me an email and I’d be happy to help you get started.

Earlier this week I started a new book (YES, I know it surprising that I read things other than Digg’s daily top ten) and, amazing enough, I’m already more than halfway through it (mind you it’s barely over 100 pages). Now, enough about my literary challenges and onto the book at large, which is “The Dip” by Seth Godin.

Seth Godin is widely known throughout the marketing community for his fun-to-read, extremely well-written and insightful books on topics like how to be remarkable, how to turn friends into customers and why all marketers are liars, just to name a few. The particular title I’m reading, “The Dip,” was released earlier this year and teaches readers when, why and how to quit. I know, I know, quiting should never be an option; and personally, I’ve grown up hearing my father yell “don’t be a quitter.” However, as Godin explains, quitting is an option and when done at the right time and in the right place it’s the best option. In fact, strategic quitting is the secret of most successful organizations.

Alright, so I’m not going to go into a full-fledged book (report) review, instead I’m talking about just one of “The Dip’s” topics; “the infinity problem.” What’s “the infinity problem?” I’m glad you asked, because it’s a problem all of us in the marketing and advertising sector face. In short, “the infinity problem” is defined by the insanely large number of choices consumers have. Think about it: you’re shopping for a digital music player and there’s a thousand different options, or you’ve run out of toilet paper and you have to choose between the the single, double, triple or quadruple roll, not to mention the 10 different brands to pick from. You get the point… no matter what product or service you’re shopping for, there’s an infinite number of choices.

Why is “the infinity problem” a problem? Put simply by Godin, when consumers are faced with so many different options they, for the most part, do one of three things: 1.) buy nothing, 2.) buy the cheapest, or 3.) buy the best. That’s why word-of-mouth is so important. After all, how else would someone know what the best product or service is? Furthermore, that’s why the web is so powerful. In my opinion, the most efficient solution to “the infinity problem” lives on the internet, which is what we (and the R2morrow blog) are all about.

Stay tuned, as there’s more to come in part two, Infinity Problem Solutions, the R2morrow way.

Companies are finally realizing the benefits of making their own unique Facebook pages as marketing tools.  Corporations such as Target, Chase Education and Victoria Secret are using the social resource to connect with generation Y on a more intimate level.  If you are contemplating joining the revolution by jumping on the “book” proceed with caution.

Below is a Facebook survival guide to increase visitor appeal.

• Research: If you are not familiar with Facebook, spend time educating yourself. Study other company pages to generate your own ideas. Also, look at other users comments—notice that not all of them are positive and most are uncensored.

• Add value: Whether you are creating attention to a worthy cause, or making a new innovative service, give people a reason to visit your site so you aren’t forgotten and ignored.  Since Facebook is centered on a community, spark a positive conversation amongst friends.

• Be Yourself: You wouldn’t attend a cocktail party in clothes you are not comfortable in, or talk about issues you are unaware of; the same issues holds true on Facebook.  Stick with your brands core values.  Continuity is key—all products, services and causes on your site should support your company’s image.

• Creativity: Thinking outside the box is vital to a successful account.  Though the sites are free to visit, remember you are competing against people’s most valuable asset—their time.   Be brilliant, and generate a fascinating service, cause or product that gets people talking.

• Is this just another advertisement? If you answered yes, return to step one.  Most people know that your company account is another form of advertisement, but if you build your page with useful attributes you will be forgiven.  If you construct a page that is just another print ad you will be ignored.

With everyone and their little sister using popular web services like Twitter, Flickr and the countless blog options available it’s easy to become overloaded with RSS feeds. While there are a number of free applications and web services for aggregating the feeds you follow, most of the time you are limited to a rigid format for both processing and reading.

Enter Yahoo! Pipes, the coolest thing to ever come out of said company as far as I’m concerned, and I’m not including Flickr because they acquired it after it was already a mature service. Essentially what Yahoo! Pipes lets you do is take inputs (feeds, web pages, Flickr, maps, CSV files) and run them through a limitless combination of modules for processing that information.

The truly amazing part of all of this is that Pipes then offers you the reprocessed feed in a variety of formats for free, allowing you to create fanciful content mash-ups with little technical knowledge. This is not to suggest it is easy, as there is a degree of experimentation and troubleshooting needed to succeed with Pipes. Nor does the service solve the problem of re-using your feeds once they are processed. You’ll still need to use a reader, embed your results into a web page or use the ugly Yahoo! results page that is provided. For these reasons Pipes exists in a strange place, far beyond the grasp of the average web user, and perhaps not flexible enough for the experienced developers. Still, there are enough of us in the middle that will have lots of fun playing with Pipes. Pipes is still a young service (still in beta) and no doubt it will continue to get more intuitive and powerful.

In about an hour of experimentation I had created a simple Pipes application that combines Twitter feeds belonging to four of my co-workers, reorders them chronologically and spits out the first 10 results. I also set up a filter on each feed so no one person would dominate my mash-up by posting the 10 most recent entries. It’s all fairly intuitive and there are plenty of example files on the Pipes homepage that can be cloned and modified.

Another exciting feature is the Pipes interface, which allows you to drag components around on an empty pane and connect inputs and outputs with stretchy cords, reminiscent of audio programs that let you patch signals with lifelike physical cords.

Keep your eye on Pipes, it has the potential to be a big deal if it catches on and developers find it to be as flexible and convenient as Yahoo! and many others hope it will be.

To be a “somebody” in advertising you have to do two things, continuously and cautiously.

1. Push the limit—meaning, do something out of the ordinary, whether through humor or shock. You have to catch the viewers attention and then do something to keep it. Most of the time clients push back and resist, though there are a few willing to take a chance, and even then it’s still hit or miss—and the viewers will always let you know when you’ve gone to far. But at that point it’s too late, you’ll always lose the consumer battle.
2. Be at the cutting edge of technology. There’s a reason why there’s so much money being spent on figuring out consumer and viewer behavior (why people do what they do). It’s so the advertisers can find a way to manipulate it. Mobile advertising hasn’t struck it big yet, but YouTube will be making sure that you get your 30 seconds of ad love.

A lot of people have misnamed our current time as the “Information Age,” but in today’s society it’s more of an “Attention Age” (not my term, but not as defined by this guy). Advertising and blogging hold true to this notion more than ever. Just because you put your product out there and provide information, doesn’t mean anyone is paying attention.

Though Respond2 is traditionally a DRTV agency, we too toe that line, as long as it makes sense for the client and has a positive ROI; all the while we are being cautious of our viewers attention span. We’re forging new ground in DR and making a name for ourselves along the way (FreeToCompete.com).

Okay, off the soapbox. The fusion of the above-mentioned notions is why I love ShaveEverywhere.com (Philips Body Groom) so much. ShaveEverywhere.com definitely pushes that line metaphorically and literally. It tackles a taboo issue with humor and education—it’s able to grab your attention, and makes you laugh at yourself and push yourself to rethink some of the ideals that you and your buddies in a damp locker-room forged in the 6th grade after a mini-sword fight.

I applaud Philips for being able to trust their agency and allow this to be pushed forward. The topic is as chuckle-friendly as they come, but could have been doomed from the start had Philips decided to keep the reigns too tight. This is evident in a lot of ads that we see on television and the web. It’s almost great, but something is holding it back. Typically, that almost is a result in someone, somewhere who is risk-phobic.

The execution, design, user navigation and interaction are flawless. The site is clean in design and simple in understanding, but gets the point across without overwhelming or turning you off. They knew their consumer, the consumers behavior and language. It’s almost as if they were a hesitant 13-year-old boy with a can of shaving cream, locked bathroom door and a hysterically screaming parent/sibling (I’ve said too much). Here’s to pushing the line, however gently it may cut that edge! CHEERS!