Great news: Three panels we’re involved with have made it to the live vote at SxSW Interactive.
That means we need your help. The votes of people like you account for 30% of the total judging criteria.
Monthly Archive for August, 2010
Full disclosure: we’re capitalists here at iQ.
Yes, we follow social, and, yes, we are all for the betterment of the world, but here is a story that caught our eye because it both did good and showed real results.
Fast Company has a great story about Causium and a business model that might make sense in a very practical way.
It raised $500,000 for the Room to Read charity (on its way now to $1m), but it’s the model that’s noteworthy. Because it raises the question, especially for pharma’s mega-brands: What if every customer had the opportunity to make a micro-donation to a cause that was specific to the therepautic category, or disease state?
So, cancer patients might support the American Cancer Society. Or diabetes patients might support American Diabetes Association (you get the idea).
Simply by the power of suggestion.
The big news in my inbox this week is New York City garbage trucks. No fewer than seven people have sent me B.L. Ochman’s article about the codes appearing on the sides of 2,200 New York City Department of Sanitation trucks. When good citizens snap a picture of the little 2-dimensional codes with their cell phones, they’re taken to a video from the NYC Media show “The Green Apple: Recycling.”
Clever, sure. But people are talking about the article because of its controversial subhead: “a Betamax vs. VHS Format War Awaits.” Ochman pits traditional QR codes against upstart SMS versions – claiming the two will compete in an all out war for our clicks.
This is a case of hiding a challenging user experience in a friendly technology guise. SMS doesn’t have a chance.
In this video, Pepsi SVP, Chief Consumer Engagement Officer, Frank Cooper, gives a brief description of how Pepsi used the $20m from the Super Bowl ad they didn’t run to start a grassroots effort. The concept can be found here on the Refresh Everything site.
Sure, the site has 5 million unique views and 20 million hits, but as he starts to talk about brand behavior, etc., he mentions all the items a marketing person would want to discuss — traffic, votes, reach, frequency, etc., — but listen for Pepsi’s goal: culture.
Most of the ads on Wired.com are just that – ads. Clever headlines, great photography, and a simple call to action: buy me.
GE’s new campaign takes another strategy entirely. Their ad is a mass invitation to get involved in the GE Ecomagination challenge. Read Full Entry
Page 2 of 2
