So the Geico Cavemen commercials really are being spun into a TV show? A similar thought came to me when I heard that ABC had green-lighted a one-episode pilot as when I was walking through the mall this past weekend and saw an otherwise good looking man dressed in tattered camouflage shorts, a polo shirt and bright blue sneakers …. “Who told him that was ok?”

Seriously. Who asked us, the America public, if this was ok? What team decided they should take these underdeveloped characters and turn them into their own television sitcom/comedy-drama? Are we really this starved for entertainment? I’d LOVE to have been sitting in the room as the idea was pitched “you know those Geico cavemen ….. that would be a great TV show. Think of the marketing! It would be really popular with the 18-25 segment!” Geico said they were “excited to have an opportunity to do brand extension.” Note: Geico IS getting royalties for use of the characters (ca-ching). However, they did spent $403 million on ad time and space in ‘05 (source: TNS Media Intelligence) which is believed to have gone up 20% in ‘06. Maybe they just want some of their money back?

IMO, characters from commercials should stay in commercials. Dunkin’ Donuts “time to make the donuts” guy didn’t get a spin off, Aunt Jemima didn’t, and neither did the Taco Bell dog or Tony the Tiger. These are corporate mascots not TV show personalities. THAT above anything else is why it won’t work. I don’t want to see Tony the Tiger battle his anger issues, get caught in a love triangle or be stuck in awkward social situations. Sure… brands would love their commercial’s mascots to be spun into a TV show! “Free” branding! But, this one might just bite them in the bottom. This will really not be funny. And I begin to wonder how this might potentially hurt them. Will they appear greedy? If the show flops, will its negative press be tied to the Geico brand? Is any press really good press?

Hey big brands…. you want some killer marketing? Try a viral marketing program a la Diesel.

In these days of technology marketing, many marketers dream of going “viral.” Ahhh yes. Your video, so loved that it is sent by one person to 10, and by those 10 to 10 more … becoming a virtual phenomenon.

I recently read a blog post from Ad Age about Diesel’s latest viral campaign. No, I wasn’t a recipient of the viral campaign. Apparently I’m not young and hip enough to wear Diesel clothing. Marketing such trendy fashion to me could in fact tarnish their otherwise “cool” brand.

Anyway. This campaign is crazy (check out the ransom video). Essentially, what they did was stage a kidnapping that played out in video on their website. Two young and beautiful women (the “Two Heidies” as they were called) steal a Diesel underwear collection, kidnap the sales manager and lock themselves in a hotel room saying that they want to be “famous supermodels.”

In their demands they say that they want to be put in Diesel’s next advertising campaign and want the name ‘Diesel’ changed to ‘Heidies’ … because it’s “much younger, cooler, fresher…” They give until Friday or they will destroy the stolen underwear collection.

For the next five days, visitors to the site were encouraged to participate. One such way to get in on the action was to submit your name, which would be spelled out and placed between “the Heidies”. Users were also permitted to request things of the Heidies, such as “Have a pillow fight.” Imagine that.

The production was indeed elaborate, but it paid off for Diesel. This has to be the most innovative viral marketing campaigns that I have heard of.

I have come across two great examples recently where doing good is good business. I sense this is more than just a coincidence and is really a trend that should be monitored if not co-opted by other firms. The two things I came across are uniquely well conceived online marketing plans/ideas. So before I riff on the broader implications of the do-good trend let’s take a look at each example.

The first is from Microsoft and launched last month. It’s a new marketing plan involving their Live Messenger product. You may recall it by its previous name MSN Messenger. It is a popular and mature product that is free to use and ad supported. Many of you might not have noticed the rotating banner ads at the bottom of Live Messenger, they are easy to miss, but between pay per placement and pay per click they generate a modest profit. In a brilliant marketing move Microsoft has put a spin on the term “IM” and has created the “I’M Making a Difference” campaign. The essence of the campaign is that by choosing from one of the several worthy charities such as the Boys and Girls Club, Multiple Sclerosis Society, Sierra Club, etc and inserting a corresponding symbol at the end of your display name, Microsoft creates an ad revenue share with that charity.

So at no cost to you some of the revenue Microsoft receives for showing the ads that you are ignoring is sent to the charity you have chosen. An “i’m” symbol shows up at the end of your display name that shows that you are participating in the program. It is a brilliantly simple and well executed idea and should serve to increase users brand affinity for Live Messenger, which is a perfect complement to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates’s epic charitable efforts. The halo effect for the advertisers should not be ignored, perhaps leading down the road to higher placement fees which leads to more net dollars for everyone involved. An excellent, and rare, example of making something you are already doing help others. I encourage others who use Live Messenger (over 250 million have a version of it installed) to give it a try.

I came across the other “do good” idea a few weeks ago. The company is Green Dimes, and it has been up and running for the past six months. The company has built an internet based business model around junk mail. No, not the Viagra ads you receive in Outlook, but the junk mail you receive in your mailbox at home. They state that each year the equivalent of 100 million trees are used to create the junk mail we come home to every day and promptly throw in the trash. They act as a well connected intermediary to several “Do Not Mail” lists and let you customize which junk mail you actually want to receive. In a nice marketing twist they plant a number of trees on your behalf. Even their 1 year plan plants 12 trees. They keep a running tracker on their home page of how many trees they have saved/planted and how many pounds of junk mail they have stopped from being delivered. It’s a well conceived business that is venture backed and, to use the classic marketing phrase, “makes a great gift”. Several catalog dependent companies such as Mrs. Fields cookies have noticed a growing number of opt out requests coming from Green Dimes asking for recipients to be taken off of the company’s bulk mailing list. A note to catalog marketers to think about perhaps integrating their email and snail mail preference centers into one area.

So, do two examples of businesses doing good business by doing good make a trend? Actually, there are many more examples, some of which you may know of and I have yet to come across. So, please comment away on this post if you know more good examples.

The broader trend I see is that, increasingly, customers want to see, or will want to see, everyday companies doing their part to be good citizens. Particularly for the younger generation of consumers, this may become a requirement to prove your brand’s credibility. Old line businesses such as with British Petroleum’s “Beyond Petroleum” campaign and Charlotte-based NUCOR Steel’s “It’s our nature” website stories have been well done. However, those two firms have much to prove as far as whether their intentions lead to credible actions. So keep an eye out on your competitors, they may be more green or charitable than you. Whether they are or not, it may well be time for you to take the initiative to position your brand as a leader in this area. And you might enjoy the monetary benefits while you help everyone else enjoy the more tangible benefits of your efforts.

Our very own Wade Forst moderated this month’s Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA) last night, titled Branding 2.0: The New Online Community. The event had an amazing turnout of around 200 people.

Wade was able to pull two speakers from heavy-hitting consumer brands; Tom Daly with Coca-Cola’s Global Interactive Marketing and Michael Friedman, who is in charge of Strategy and Planning for Darden Restaurant’s interactive marketing.

The topic of Web 2.0 is a popular one. Last night’s event touched on some very interesting ways consumers are interacting with brands online.  For those of you not able to attend the event, here are some of the key take-aways:

• Consumers will be part of the brand with or without you. It’s your job to leverage and enable the consumer’s interaction - without it feeling unauthentic (i.e. Dove’s video advertisement on YouTube).
• Support what customers are doing and do not dictate their actions. To work you have to let them interact freely with your brand.
• Seeding can be risky because people can be vocal about authenticity.
• You can’t buy viral.  Something will either catch on or it won’t. Forcing it won’t appear natural and consumers will be turned off.
• Fish where the fish are - don’t try to get them to swim in your pool first.
• It’s not just about sending people to your website any more.  Interaction with your brand happens within multiple, fragmented mediums.
• Companies have less and less control over brand today. You must relinquish full control and seek to guide and influence it.
• There are different kinds of KPIs for user generated content. It’s not all about driving traffic; there is a reinvigoration of the importance of brand lift online. 

I stumbled across a post on Fast Company’s blog about Calvin Klein’s new fragrance. Written by an authentic GenY-er, the post makes an excellent point about how tragically wrong the branding of this fragrance went. The article that got him on his hysterical Gen Y rant appeared in the New York Times Thursday Styles.

Before I launch into my own hysterical marketing rant ….. I can appreciate CK’s desperation to create a new “hit” fragrance. I mean, CK One (THE fragrance in my youth), which pulled 90 million yearly in its prime is now collecting only a third of that. They need a new hit fragrance.

The article talks about the grass-roots market research the company did; eventually leading to the trademark of (brace yourself) “TECHNOSEXUAL” to describe its target audience of “casual hookup” text messengers. Ouch. Maybe they didn’t do their homework. This same word has in the past been used to describe people who are “attracted” to machinery. (Yikes!) In the end, this intensive research yielded “in2U” … a play on GenY’s abbreviated text communication.

What is painfully obvious is how incredibly out of touch CK was when they began this initiative. Honestly … in2U? Yes, technology has advanced quickly. Yes, GenY uses text and instant messages and social media more than any generation before them. And, yes all marketers will have to respond to this shift. But, I don’t think it means patronizing their lifestyle with SILLY advertising.

Yes Silly. The article says: “A typical line from the press materials for CK in2u goes like this: ‘She likes how he blogs, her texts turn him on. It’s intense. For right now.’” Bleeeeh.

Off my rant, I have to give CK some positive marks for recognizing they need to address this audience with relevant branding. But ask any GenY-er and they’ll tell you they want nothing more than to get away from blatant advertising, let alone be the obnoxious target of it. They like to feel like they’ve uncovered their own brands and then spread it around with their peeps. Get it? Think Scion. Talk about underground marketing with a HUGE GenY following.

BUT. You never know …. I have not heard their online strategy. If they are able to effectively (quietly) infiltrate social media, they just might create a following. Because one thing is true in technology, and certainly with GenY, it’s always changing. CK might just be able to crack this egg if they can put themselves in the right places, even if the messaging is “wrong.”

A viral marketing attempt is mistaken for a series of bombs placed around Boston this morning, and completely disrupt rush hour traffic. The campaign consists of light brights made of LEDs and are apparently characters called “Mooninites” from the adult cartoon, “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.”

(Watch the video)

After the first sightings of the unknown devices the police were called on the scene to investigate the ‘bombs’. The bomb squad detonated a few of the devices and have declared that the light brights are an apparent ‘hoax’.
“It’s a hoax — and it’s not funny,” said Gov. Deval Patrick.

But personally I think its hilarious that you could possibly mistake an adult swim character light bright for a Bomb!

After a short and bumpy ride on the technologically savvy bandwagon, the generous, yet equally thoughtless, minds of Sony’s marketing department decided to take one for the team and call themselves out for not completely reading their Web 2.0 manual. At the same time, they taught us all and important lesson by clearly defining the unmitigated importance in the interwoven domains of tech, marketing, and consumer relationships.

Realizing that, in the past weeks, ‘viral’ was one of the many ephemeral buzz words that brought much excitement to our interactive halcyon; Sony took two doses of YouTube with a side of deception, but forgot to ring their doctor in the morning. The company, previously known for its’ edgy and successful marketing campaigns teamed up with Zipatoni, a customer activation firm, to create a fictional taping of a hired foolish rapper (actor) endorsing their PSP. After strategically placing their brilliant short on YouTube, Sony closed shop early, ran to catch the last bandwagon home, and left their campaign’s fate in the hands of a ubiquitous buzz word.

Here’s where Sony falls short: rather than reaping the benefits of a well thought out and relevant marketing campaign, they took the road more traveled, failed trickery 101, and lost the trust and respect of their coveted ‘generation MySpace.’

Aleks Krotoski, from Guardian Unlimited explains why businesses should approach the interactive marketing realm of integrated tech resources with caution. He defends, “Transparency is key in the modern advertising-savvy marketplace. Bad fakes can be spotted a mile away, and good fakes often get found out with a fanfare of negativity…The most important currency online is trust.” Unfortunately, Sony learned this lesson the hard way when realizing the only thing that spreads faster than a successful viral marketing campaign is a disturbing ‘dog and pony show’ disguised as the campaign valedictorian, class of Web 2.0.

Sony further realized this truth with a slap on the wrist from their consumers and the gaming community. Intent on fully utilizing life’s proverbial mulligan, Sony released a statement tacking the viral campaign’s downfall to speech that was “too funky fresh,” and the fact that they were just “a little too clever.” Nothing says “I’m sorry” like “I’m smarter than you.”

In other news, the Guinness Book of World Records announced today that the heaviest package ever sent by post was received by Sony. The contents: a seemingly countless number of dictionaries all with the definition of clever flagged.

Starbucks just recently launched a very engaging holiday microsite with some great viral capabilities. The site is located at (http://www.itsredagain.com) and lets the user browse through holiday traditions and even submit their own… in hopes that it will be engaging enough to get posted, or even better get produced (see the cook-off video #1).

The “Personalized Greetings” section lets the viewer send a personalized holiday greeting to a friend via text-to-speech or a phone-in message. This “record by phone” technology allows for real-voice recordings sent via email with your greeting. The technology provided by Oddcast makes for an even richer new-media experience.

With viral campaigns being so popular lately, it isn’t surprising that companies are realizing the importance of these microsites and the marketing power of rich-media, Email and SMS.

I hope you enjoy the link, your experience and your warm mocha-lota-no whip-ginger-latte.