So Why & How Does Sesame Street TWEET?

Sesame Street presented at the 140 Conference in New York last week, giving the audience a taste of why they tweet, what they tweet and how their community differs from engagement to watching behavior. They sometimes have Sesame Street characters tweet using the characters personalities to draw long-time fans in. Below is a video clip I took of the presentation.

Here is a colorful Webdoc taken that paints a picture of the Sesame Street story while incorporating a nice thumbs up for the 140 Conference through inclusion of a tweet they did about the event on-site. The above video could have easily been incorporated in this Webdoc or any other content the Sesame Street team wanted to include to share an angle or tailor a story.

Disclosure: I provide some consulting to the Webdoc team.

Stanchak and Cohen Comb the #BWENY Floor

Below is a great shot of industry writers and thought leaders Jesse Stanchak and Heidi Cohen.

Snapshots from BlogWorldExpo New York: #BWENY

Below are a few random shots from BlogWorldExpo New York at Jacob Javitt's Center last week. Below Gary Vaynerchuk, Jeffrey Hayzlett, H.P. Mallory and Stephanie Agresta on the Social Media Game Changers.

 

Amanda Coolong interviews Webdoc's Vincent Borel on Techzulu

Joseph Morin, Chris Heuer

Lewis Howes

Below Webdoc's Olivier DeSimone and Oz Sultan

Renee Blodgett, Chris Brogan who was on site signing books on the show floor. (GO book sales - you can get a copy of Trust Agents here:)

Social Media Game Changers: Vaynerchuk, Hayzlett & Mallory Take It On

Below is a two part video of the opening keynote panel at BlogWorldExpo in New York City with Gary Vaynerchuk, Jeffrey Hayzlett and H.P. Mallory. The discussion? Social Media Game Changers: how social media is changing the roles and rules for sales, customer service, product development and marketing. How social media is propelling leading companies and radically changing the face of industries. More in their chat below:

AdTech San Francisco Keynotes, Takeaways & Notes to Self: #adtech

The lunch keynote at AdTech this past week included CFO of Living Social John Bax, Zynga's Manny Anekal, and global head of social media for Pepsico Bonin Bough.

John Bax says their focus is on "local" and that local ads obviously do the best locally since there's more of an understanding of what their brand is about when you have regional sales guys. "Intimacy works," he says.

Mobile is also an important strategy for them according to Bax. He gives a few examples including a local merchant in Virginia who has a B&B. Within 15 days, they sold all the rooms the vendors wanted to book in advance, focusing on a different strategy for how they promoted weeknights versus weekends.

He also noted that people signed up for things they weren't necessarily searching for. For example, those who signed up for a sky diving promo they did were not proactively looking to go sky diving. Their strategy works if you look at their stats and results - they apparently also sold 2 million movie tickets with Fandango.

Manny Anekal from Zynga came at his presentation primarily from the angle of giving back, i.e., "here's what Zynga is doing to give back to the world." In addition to listing all the things they are doing for social good, he ended with a leave behind for brands wanting to do a campaign with them: "We can get you up and running quickly. We were able to get a major brand up and running within six weeks," he says. He also shared stats and insights into their Frito campaign, which grew their fan base to over a million. 

Bough was his normal funny and dynamic self on stage with a voice volume that was double his two prevoius speakers.  

He started with the Pepsico pitch of products and services under their umbrella, reminding people that they operate in more countries than the UN. Then he proceeded to go primal on us and show a slide of dinosaurs and early man's progression.

"Why we are all dinosaurs?" he shouts out to the audience. His key takeaway was about adapatability in a world that is changing so fast with exponential technologies hitting us year after year making it harder to keep up. 

"Adaptability is key to survival and success moving forward," he notes. “If you cease to adapt, then you cease to survive.”

While I missed Guy Kawasaki's keynote, I did not miss his book signing of new book: Enchantment, which was proof that he nailed it on stage.  The line was so long for both purchases and signing that they ran out of books. 

ESPN's VP Carol Cruz introduced this year's Achievement Awards right before Arianna's keynote. This year's award went to Mars' Carol Walker, who shared the award with Kathy Reardon in a 'classy moment.'

My tweets during the presentation below including AdTech's Brad Berens' share of where advertising numbers have gone up this year. Kudos to Brad and his dynamic team for pulling off yet another incredible AdTech this year.

1. Carol Walker in touching classy moment shares #achievement award with Kathy Reardon on #adtech stage this AM:http://ow.ly/i/ajSA9:22 AM Apr 13th via HootSuite
2. ESPN's VP Carol Cruz gives Carol Walker industry #achievementaward at #adtech -- http://ow.ly/i/ajRS9:15 AM Apr 13th via HootSuite
3. Brad Berens on the #adtech stage sharing advertising numbers & stats all going up inc attendance: http://ow.ly/i/ajRf

I covered Arianna's keynote in depth here including a two part video. Below she powerfully nailed her talk, which primarily focused on humanity, sleep deprivation, hyper local and hyper connected and balance.

With 1,323 Brands Using Foursquare, Pages Gallery Comes to the Rescue

Foursquare just launched a new section on their site to showcase major brands on its network to make it easier for users to find and follow them. With 1,323 brands using Foursquare today adn the number growing, it's a natural fit for the most renown location-based service on the market today.

The struggle brands are having apparently is that they're not easily discoverable on Foursquare so they're trying to help brands by with a new section called: Pages Gallery, which is a gallery loaded up with company Pages on Foursquare so you can more easily discover them and and follow them if you're interested in what they're doing and have to say. More more in-depth on this announcement and for some examples, check out the Mashable story.

 

Jensen Grand Prix Insider New Mobile App for What's Hot in the Car Racing World

While I was in Austin for SXSW, I ran across the Jensen Motorsport guys who just happened to have this incredible race car parked on the sidewalk. God bless Texas.

They were part of a promotion for Maple Leaf Digital Lounge and in conjunction with Dynamite Network, they announced the launch of the mobile application Jensen Grand Prix Insider.

Jensen Grand Prix Insider features up to the minute content of what' shot and happening in the car racing world as well as exciting contests and promotions offered by their race team partners.

They handed me a flyer about their promo and the announcement, but it lacked the most important details about the app or the promo. After reading the flyer four times, I finally saw a website link in small font but when I went there, it only gave me a form to enter the contest. I kinda need a reason to guys.

I did manage to find their Facebook page but after several searches, still didn't find much about their new mobile app. 

That said, I thought the car was cool and they wooed me into sitting in it and learning more about motorsports in general. And, sitting in the car got me to write this blog post too, but while I'm not the target audience for the mobile app, it would have been great if they included more data up front to make it easy for people who did care about motorsports, to get hooked.

Facebook's Emily White Talks Hyper Local at SIGNAL Event in Austin

Facebook's Emily White talks about the use of social media and social platforms' value in targeting smaller regions. She gave her talk on "hyper local" marketing and social at the SIGNAL event in Austin last week, which was held the day before SXSW kicked into gear.

Arianna Huffington: $300m in Cash, Hmmm, Let Me Think About That One

If you were Arianna Huffington, wouldn't you take the money, even if it meant a relocation to New York as a result? After all, with that kind of exit ($300 million of the $350 million is in cash), you can jet back and forth the 5 hour commute without that much of an inconvenience.

Besides, as part of the deal, she also gets to be in charge of Michael Arrington and his posse at TechCrunch, which should be interesting to watch from the outside -- personally and editorially.

The deal seems like a sweet one for both sides frankly.  

As Kara Swisher points out in her write-up on the AOL acquisition, "the deal gives it a popular branded site that is very good at generating lots of page views and impressions very efficiently–which is the company’s whole thrust these days. That means lots more ad inventory to sell and an injection of content talent, giving AOL the scale it desperately needs."  

The projections look good, so the acquisition is no surprise and frankly, many a conversation in my circles have revolved around who they'll ultimately sell out to over the past few years. They increased their ad sales from $ 31 million in 2010 to a projected $60 million this year. Sweet. I guess it was time to hand over the goods to a 'bigger power', at least on paper.

Let's face it, AOL's branding 'magic sauce' hasn't really taken a strong turn yet, so having both Huffington Post and TechCrunch under their wings, gives AOL editorial direction, identity and a sense of purpose, particularly in the eyes of readers and users who are not exactly living on the leading edge of technology.

With Arianna as Editor-in-Chief, things could get interesting....smart move on Armstrong's part. Her compelling combination of smart aggregated content with original content and celebrity names has become a winning formula others haven't been able to replicate.

As part of the deal, Tim Armstrong will take over from Huffington Post's Chief Revenue Officer Greg Coleman and the existing AOL ad sales head Jeff Levic will remain on board.  

Paul Carr has an amusing and thoughtful take on the acquisition here. He talks about the potential downside of the SEO implications down the road for them (TechCrunch) and the rest of the world (readers). The other downside is that because Huffington Post doesn't remain solely independent, some things will no doubt have to give over time. Having Huffington in the editorial seat for now reduces the risk at least in the short term.

She will apparently be in charge of Engadget, Mapquest, TechCrunch and Moviefone. If its true that one reason they bought them is because their readers make up a significant number of important women with money to spend, then why not put her in charge of more brands?

Photo Credits: Planetpov.com, All Things D and Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

How Do You See New Technologies Impacting Brand Perceptions?

Advertising Week in Toronto this past month kicked things off with James Stewart, Founder, Director and Producer at Canada’s Geneva Film Co. Stewart’s company has produced 3D ads for brands like Sprint and Lexus, among others. A re-run and summary of his talk is re-printed here from TechVibes.

Stewart spoke about where advertising is headed as a result of the explosion of 3D screens in the market in the past year. Although 3D advertising is already pervasive on movie theatre screens (more so in the US than Canada), Stewart assured the audience that 3D advertising will absolutely take off on other screens in the next few years. 

3D TV may seem like a slow moving market because only 6.5 Million 3D television sets were sold last year. However, Stewart said that the “adoption rate is still much faster than HD TV, which took 6 years to get to that number.” Almost every technological device now has a 3D screen coming out – from laptops to tablets and even out of home billboards.

Popular brands like Armani and Oakley are even jumping on the bandwagon and creating designer 3D glasses for consumers to carry around with them. Stewart explained that there are so many stakeholders involved in making 3D technology a success that the spend on 3D advertising will inevitably follow, despite the higher cost of production for 3D ads.

So, if 3D technology will soon be everywhere, you may be wondering how it will impact the way that brands tell stories to consumers. Stewart said that 3D is no longer a gimmick, “it’s just a more immersive storytelling tool.” In addition, Stewart said that this richer, more immersive experience of advertising shot in 3D has been proven to increase brand message retention rates. He explained that ESPN recently conducted a research study on their 3D TV audience during the World Cup. Stewart showed the results of the study which proved that the 3D viewing audience had a 15-16% lift in brand recall, purchase intent and brand likability over the 2D audience after being exposed to ads shown during the World Cup.

In the afternoon, Mitch Joel from Twist Image facilitated a panel discussion sponsored by AOL entitled "Beautifying the Internet: Original Content & Compelling Ads." The discussion was once again focused on how digital media and new technology platforms have impacted the way advertising messages are now being told to consumers.

Mitch Joel opened up the panel discussion by asking “what constitutes good advertorial content?” Matt Straz, Co-founder and CMO of Pictela, a high definition content marketing platform that was recently acquired by AOL, said that “great advertising can actually be content if it’s done well.” He went on to say that “marketers have not been given the right tools to make it work to date.”

Joel then asked the panel to describe what the ideal “content marketing play looks like.” Ceri Marsh, Co-founder of Sweet Potato Chronicles, said that with new technology platforms like the iPad, it is becoming more of a thrill to develop digital content.  She said that the “magazine industry is just learning how to make magazines live in the digital world.” She suggested that perhaps once the magazine industry figures out the right digital model, they may be able to develop a better way for consumers to enjoy ads that live alongside the editorial content online.

The panel agreed that the future of content marketing would involve tailoring your brand message to match the platform on which it is being displayed. Peter Vaz, VP of Digital at M2 Universal, said that “the way you view video on a tablet is quite different than how you view it on TV.” Vaz went on to say that we can expect to see “different versions and extensions of the same message on each digital platform” in the future.

Graham Moysey, General Manager at AOL Canada, argued that one of the biggest barriers to driving better content marketing experiences online is the industry trend to drive down CPMs (cost per thousand impressions). Matt Straz from Pictela explained that the industry currently wants to buy online media at a $1 CPM, while the true value of the content that they want in exchange is closer to a $50 to $100 CPM. Perhaps the compelling 3D experience discussed earlier in the day will have an impact on budgets in the future?

The other pricing-related challenge discussed was the fact that there is a ton of niche content online. However, it is currently hard to monetize that content due to low traffic volumes.  Mitch Joel asked the panel what they thought would be the best monetization model that would scale across all of these niche websites? Matt Straz suggested that perhaps once a website’s traffic gets below a certain threshold, publishers should stop selling banner ads and just sell sponsorships.

The panel discussion ended with the argument that better metrics need to be in place to measure the impact of content marketing and brand storytelling online in the future. They said that the industry is still using traditional advertising metrics because there are no great brand advertising metrics for the web in place today.