Viva La Sell-Phone Revolución

Google was nothing. If you want to see the next battlefield of global ad titans look at that cell phone in your hand (but not while you're driving, please). Mobile marketing has the potential to be both extremely effective and extremely irritating if not done right. Imagine the possibilities...

• Opting into a program where you get a text coupon to your favorite restaurant if it's lunchtime and you are within one mile.


• Taking a phone survey in the check-out line about how your shopping experience was to get a discount when you reach the cashier.


• Scanning a bottle of wine at the store with your phone to see if any other stores within 5 blocks carry it cheaper.


• Watching video ads while you wait in line as a way to reduce your cell phone bill.


• Getting an automatic text whenever one or more of your friends is GPS detected arriving at your favorite nightclub or restaurant.


• Getting paid to forward a sponsored video or text message to a friend.

In some of these examples you can see the potential for good or ill. The bottom line is mobile marketing is coming. It will be bigger than direct mail. Bigger than print and bigger than online. It is the first platform that can reach consumers everywhere they go. The key will be doing it in a way that lets them stay in control.

Doing vs. Seeming

Some people are good at doing. Others are good at seeming to do. Truth is, you need to be good at both.

People who are good at doing but can't seem to do are martyrs. They arrive early, stay late, sacrifice weekends and never get any credit because they don't know how to cash in the capital their hard work generates. These people are rarely rewarded for their sweat.

People who are good at seeming to do are divas. They rush from meeting to meeting, go on about how busy they are and always look to be carrying a heavy load of responsibility. These people are eventually exposed as frauds.

The key to success is to both do and seem to do. That way you contribute and get your share of praise and reward.

Tryvertising

Have you noticed it too? The Happy Mass Market Consumer of the 1950's and 60's morphed into the Jaded, Beaten-Down, Skeptical Consumer of 2008? I suppose 58 years with the Marketing volume knob cranked to 11 has made us just a little tone deaf.

People are tired of the same old interruption marketing model, as in "We interrupt this program to bring you..." "Here's a billboard to interrupt your view of the city" and "Sorry to interrupt dinner with this phone call, but we thought you'd really like to know about...".

Tryvertising is an emerging marketing trend that doesn't rely on interrupting you to get your attention. Instead, it uses technology, events and social networks to introduce products via sampling. Here are some examples from SpringWise of Tryvertising in action...

• Fireplace maker opens restaurant full of fireplaces.


• Reaching moms via word of mouth in Australia.


• Free commuter shuttle service with products on the bus.


• Taste strips in magazines that dissolve on your tongue.


• Beauty and Fashion samples in a tube, delivered to your door.

One act is worth 1000 ads

My friend Steve just got back from visiting NYC with his family. Driving to the airport for their departure they got stuck in a famous Park City snowstorm and missed their flight so Delta had to book them on a later flight. When they arrived at the gate their Delta gate representative said she had noticed that Steve and his family were no longer sitting together and had already shuffled things around so they could all be together on the flight. Steve was so impressed that he told her "You've got me. I'm now a Delta fan".

How many TV ads would it have taken to get Steve to feel that way? Maybe no amount ever could. Yet it just took one employee who cared enough to notice a problem and fix it on her own. Marketing is less about ad campaigns and more about instilling a sense of pride and empowerment in employees to delight customers.

Is mental privacy a right?

Email spam.
Escalator steps with logos.
Parking lot strip sponsorship.
Paying you to change your legal to name to "Pizza Hut".

Sometimes I'm convinced marketers won't stop until every inch of the earth is covered by logos like a NASCAR stock car. The next new frontier? Your cerebellum.

Marketers are now stuffing consumers into MRI machines to see if their frontal lobe lights up when they watch that new Verizon ad (if it were me, it would be the lobe that makes me feel pissed and woozy). Marketers are also experimenting with hypersonic sound projectors so you think someone is whispering "They’re following you" in your ear as you stand in front of the spy section at Borders. Researchers can even emit frequency waves that make you feel a strong sense of euphoria or empathy.

So, do we have the right to mental privacy? As writers for Wired and Fast Company point out, mental privacy may be the next big human rights battle. The government has already established that it has rights to our memories, just ask anyone who's been subpoenaed.

How about this tip. Instead of using Jedi mind tricks to get people to buy, why don't we just do as Seth Godin says and make remarkable products that sell and advertise themselves? Seems simple, although an empathy ray will come in handy when I tell my wife I need an iPhone.

Andy Warhol 2.0

Andy Warhol 1.0 is obsolete. We've moved beyond everyone getting 15 minutes of fame and now you just need to be famous to 15 people. Media fragmentation, blogs and social networking like MySpace and Facebook create a new definition of fame where millions are "famous" to their own inside guild of friends and fans. The site http://www.justin.tv/ lets you broadcast every minute of your life to people who don't have one.

And even fame, in the traditional Brad Pitt, Jennifer Alba sense, is losing value. No longer are Hollywood A-listers a guarantee of box-office bonanzas. Just ask Colin Farrell (Alexander), or Halle Berry (Catwoman) or Lindsay Lohan (I Know Who Killed Me). America is smitten with Hollywood’s scandals in rehab more than Hollywood’s talent on the screen.

So I suppose the good news is everyone has a shot to be famous in their own little sphere. The bad news is, everyone has a shot to be famous in their own little sphere...and it's getting pretty loud out there.

Torch goon squad is a Chinese PR disaster

Tibet protesters keep disrupting the Torch Relay for Beijing’s 08 Olympic games despite China's goon squad of thugs trying to protect it. China calls these guys "Flame Attendants" but it was revealed yesterday that they are really Chinese paramilitaries dressed in pastel blue track suits.

The London media called these guys "Horrible Chinese Thugs" and they have been criticized by torch bearers like Konnie Huq who said, "They were barking orders at me, like 'Run! Stop! This! That!' and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, who are these people?"'

Strong-arm tactics may work in China but it's not going over well everywhere else. If the Beijing Olympic committee had any clue they would immediately yank these torch tyrants and replace them with kinder, non-threatening attendants, leaving security to local police along the route....not that I'm trying to help the Chinese government or anything.

China hopes the Olympics will help change its reputation as a human rights abusing, oppressive government that’s willing to squash dissent at any cost. Ironically, the torch relay goon squad has eloquently demonstrated that China is exactly that, no matter how spiffy their track suits look.

This little piggy went to market

Did you know you can buy a motor home big enough to park your car in it? Just think about that for a second. Here in America we have developed to a point where we park our cars inside our bigger cars. Yes, our cars have garages.

Some might see this as a symbol of proud US prosperity but it gives me the unnerving feeling that the end is nigh.

Adam Smith's economic principles of the invisible hand, free markets and the division of labor have driven the US economy to dizzying heights, so much that we’ve reached a point of catastrophic success. We've become so successful with capitalism that a shadow factor has entered the stage--unbridled greed--and it's chipping away at our economy. The sub-prime credit crunch is just the beginning.

We as Americans consume so much that we've heavily indebted ourselves to pay for Seven-brand jeans, pimped-out Hummers, home theater systems, spring break, sickeningly large motor homes and a million other trifles we want but don't need. US GDP growth is driven largely by debt, which is why the stock market soars each time the Fed cuts rates.

Now don't misunderstand; I'm all for greedy capitalists, but only the ones who can pay cold cash for the stuff they lust after. When Adam Smith wrote "Wealth of Nations", I think he pictured capitalism serving a society where people focused on their needs, not one where they mortgaged their futures to buy singing mounted fish or diamond-studded teeth grills.

This is capitalism-extreme, hijacked to the outer frontiers of where it was intended to go.

Multiplying our choices

Malcom Gladwell gave a talk at TED about choice. His point was that we as consumers don't just want spaghetti sauce, we want extra chunky, garden-style with four cheeses. We also want lemon-apple no-spot dishwasher detergent, and medium rare Gouda-cheese crusted fillet mignon with caramelized onions and a mango reduction.

The point is, we as consumers are unique people with nuanced needs so marketers, ever happy to oblidge, respond by multiplying our product options to the most subtle detail.

While this approach has been profitable, it has also introduced friction and stress into our lives. Have you ever stood in the grocery aisle wondering which of the 10 kinds of Wheat Thins you should buy? Or wondered which of the 15 cable TV plans to select? Sometimes just the rainbow blur of colors whizzing past me as I push my cart through Target is enough to make me dizzy. According to Wikipedia, there are 18 kinds of Chips Ahoy cookies. 18!

There's something nice about simplicity and just being happy with what's in front of you. Sometimes I long for the days of chocolate or vanilla, plain Levi jeans and a 1-page cafe menu. Marketers have learned they can make money by multiplying choice, but I've learned I can be happy by dividing choice down to just the best two or three options.

Welcome to the jungle, baby! You're gonna die!

I'm a fairly adventurous guy. I like rock climbing. Slot canyons. Camping. SCUBA diving. Football. Slam-dancing at John Tesh concerts...you know, GUY stuff.

And I've always kind of romanticized the concept of being out in the jungle a-la Indiana Jones. Whacking thick brush with a machete, leaping over quick-sand and soaking up all those cool jungle sounds. Maybe you'll laugh but my favorite attraction at Disneyland is the Enchanted Tiki Room.

Well, last month I went to Honduras with my wife on a dive trip and on the flight down I was amping myself up about spending time hiking through the jungle. The day after we arrived I walked a few yards down the road from our 5-star dive resort, gazed up at the menacing jungle mountain before me teeming with fire ants, mud, mosquitoes, ticks, boar, poison ivy and possibly rebel mines and quickly decided it had been too long since my last Pina Colada so I turned back and mentally crossed "Jungle Tour" off my list.

A Navy Seal I ain't.

Speeding along "The Grid"

Particle accelerator physicists have developed a new Internet called "The Grid" that supposedly is 10,000 times faster than the current Internet platform. (Al Gore has already taken credit.) They said that kind of speed will allow us to download huge quantities of data in seconds, transmit 3-D holographic images, bring Africa into the world's economy and dramatically improve human productivity.

Yeah right. It really just means we'll be able to pass along fart jokes, Nigerian scam emails, and let Russian hackers spam us 10,000 times faster.

Seriously though, it's fun to imagine how this could change our lives.

• Could The Grid allow instant translation into any language?


• Could it allow for massive online demonstrations with millions of people?


• Could billions of people take video of every waking moment of their lives and upload it into a massive online history?


• Could it facilitate gigantic, online churches with millions of parishioners?


• When an Amber alert is triggered, could every nearby resident's cell phone instantly go off with a picture of the missing child?


• One day, could you remotely "log in" to the thoughts of other people using mind sensors?

Yet another reason to stay home and surf, I suppose.

Stuff on my mind lately...

• Was it fate? When I brought lunch back to my office from Big City Soup, I realized they switched up my order with the girl in front of me. Turns out her grilled cheese panini was better than my turkey wrap would have been. Did she think the same thing?
  
  


• Why do I like REM's new album Accelerate so much even though the songs have basically no memorable melodies? It's a musical mystery.
  
  


• I'm secretly worried that I sort of admire Obama, even though I could never bring myself to vote for him.
  
  


• It's obvious that there are false arguements on each side of the global warming debate. Isn't there some uninterested third party that can just tell us the truth?
  
  


• Why is it that as soon as I bought an Xbox, all my friends stopped playing online? Am I that bad?
  
  


• Am I a too lazy when it comes to physical labor? Or am I smart for working hard enough to pay someone else to do it for me? How long would my family survive in a national crisis if we had to grow our own crops?
  
  


• I'm beginning to think that 90% of marketers are 90% BS.
  
  


• Current country music is just crap. Then again, so is most Top 40, club and current "alternative". Maybe that's why mash-ups are getting more popular. They put a new twist on good, old music.

400 laughs per day.

My little girls had a friend over today and those musical, girly giggles echoed through the house for hours.

I read somewhere that kids laugh 400 times a day on average and adults laugh 30-50 times per day. I think for most people the amount of laughing you do is inversely correlated to your property tax bill. If you made a chart of my daily laughing quota, it'd probably look like the chart above, so I need to take time to laugh a little more (and I'm not talking about those snarky, black laughs I do when I read about Elliot Spitzer's Client 9 press conference or how morbidly obese Americans now rely on Jazzy Scooters to take out their mail).

An honest gut laugh until tears stream down your cheeks is therapy, joy and endorphins all in one blast. It's the perfect reset button for your soul.

And so it begins...

Justin's list of late-adoptions....

• Cell Phone (adopted in 2001)
• South Park (adopted in 2005)
• Arcade Fire (adopted 2006)
• Being fairly serious about recycling (2007)
• iPod (adopted in 2007)
• Xbox (adopted 2007)
• Disapproval of President Bush (adopted 2007)
• Blogging (adopted April 2008)
• TiVo (planning to adopt sometime in 2010)
  
  Ironic that being a marketing guy, I'm pretty much a late-majority adopter/laggard at so many important things like blogging. We'll see how this goes. I'm not expecting the Pulitzer for this, but at the least a few good friends can check in with me here once in a while and I can keep a record of my thoughts so I can look back and rue them bitterly later. :)