Montreal-based clevercupcakes brand links to Montreal Science Center website with edible QR code
QR codes (Quick Response codes) are nothing new. Toyota subsidiary Denso-Wave created QR codes in 1994 for vehicle part manufacturers to track equipment. QR Codes are popular in Japan and South Korea but have been slower to catch on in the West. A QR code is a matrix barcode presented by a 2D image of black or colored modules in a square pattern on white background.
Either dedicated QR barcode readers or camera phones can read the images. If you want to read a QR code with your iPhone, you need to download a third party app. I love the potential these things have, and the marketing applications are endless. So why aren’t they ubiquitous in the US yet?
Pros – QR codes:
- Hardlinking (linking to the internet from physical world objects). This is too cool. (Yet it also walks a fine line between nature and e. (Imagine a forest carved into a bird’s-eye view QR code: Thoughts?)
Kylie Minogue’s 2010 All the Lovers music video hardlinked nicely with a QR code which scans to produce the word LOVE:
- Convenience and mobility
- Ability to share a vCard (electronic business card)
You have been charged with researching the value of directing a media buy toward a specific platform such as TV, radio, print yellow pages, or Google PPC. How far should your due diligence go? In our digital information bonanza, I miss yesterday’s trip to the university library to pull out a giant binder of full survey research papers. Yes, I can find the full papers online but they are needles in shoddy research SEO haystacks.
Accountability of “research” is diminishing. What is the connection to the accompanying trend of widespread anonymity? Perhaps we’d rather not know.
Granted, survey research has never been guaranteed bias-free. But faster, efficiently indexed information at our fingertips costs us data integrity.
A new study released by AT&T claims that PYP (print yellow pages) advertising is highly relevant for marketers:
…The conclusion that print Yellow Pages are still valuable for advertisers and consumers was confirmed in another study by CRM Associates, which is a market analysis and consulting firm headquartered in Boulder, Colo. -Ken Ray, AT&T Advertising Solutions
Amidst many other studies demonstrating evidence that champions digital media spend, I needed to examine AT&T’s research methods:
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The psychologist in me is fighting her way out…
So many different tweets from all wings of life. Which kind of Twitter bird are you?
Most creative write-in answer (“Other”) wins something money can’t buy. Hint: It happens on Fridays.
I recorded a few thoughts on Google entering social; Google +1 (released 3/30/11) taking on the Facebook Like button; healthy competition:
Note 5/5/12: Audio player above is broken; will fix in the next few days.
Google +1 vs Facebook Like; Social Bookmarking
“Assuming people use it, the social data is very likely to be the key ingredient to the future of Google Search. For now, you can enable +1 here.” -MG Siegler for Techcrunch
With +1 turned on, here’s how search results for “rosebud atlanta” appear to me (the blue +1 button indicates I’ve clicked it. Otherwise it would be transparent): 
Furthermore, intuitively, experiencing online content through one’s Google account makes so much more sense than through Facebook. How can you even get by without a Google account? Google Search, YouTube, Chrome, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Voice, Google Reader, etc. Facebook just lets you share your activity with your network or play Farmville. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
Plus, who wants their every move to be associated with their Facebook profile? This growing trend (e.g., blogs adding the Facebook comments feature) is worrisome. For one, requiring a Google account to do X is something that currently is less offensive to the anti-Facebook folks (anti- with good reasons). Google should incorporate into their business plan seeking the “sign in with ___” route. Obviously they will need to ideate their proposed social network with the most comprehensive market research and testing before launch to compete with Facebook. Start simple.
Humans are social creatures: We like to help one another and feel we are part of a community.
The plethora of thoughtful, informative customer reviews on websites like Yelp, tripadvisor, and Amazon may appear puzzling at first. Many of the reviews surpass being simply helpful; they are invaluable resources when shopping online. More importantly, these unsolicited reviews illustrate and reinforce fundamental principles of society.
Here is a 753-word Amazon Kindle Customer Review by Jeffrey Stanley (a Top 1000 Reviewer). It is on the front page of Amazon, it has received 126 comments as of this posting, and 7012 of 7153 people found Stanley’s review helpful.
Amazon Top Reviewers
Like Foursquare, Amazon has a badge system to reward Top Reviewers. But climbing to the Top 500 Reviewers list or being added to other users’ Interesting People lists is the only compensation (save the Vine product testing group).
There is no tangible reward for the effort of publishing a highly detailed 1545-word iPad review. It is no shock that the iPad reviewer’s moniker is Just Trying to Help.
One must register in order to publish a review. It takes a good half hour or more to compose one of the above caliber. Compensation is a tiny virtual badge. Why do we bother?
Social Psychology | Why We Share
Humans are evolutionarily motivated to share information primarily by the desire to help their friends or network. Second, sharing or recommending a product/brand serves to establish oneself with certain values or associations; it reinforces one’s identity. Robert D. Putnam touches on this idea of social capital in Bowling Alone.
Facebook is a petri dish for social helping.
... read more Post a comment (1)Lucky Charms is a favorite cereal of mine. It’s the white version of Count Chocula (my true favorite cereal). Count Chocula was one of General Mills’ monster-themed breakfast cereals (first released in 1971 with the strawberry-flavored Franken Berry). Chocula is difficult to find nowadays, especially outside of the Halloween season. I still enjoy my Lucky Charms, though. (“Gotta have my Pops Charms!”) The last supply of sugared oats and marbits that I purchased had a wonderful kids back-of-the-box activity:
The Power to Fly activity:
Here’s How!
Fold the book at line A to make the launch ramp that will send your star marbit on its way. Flicking your star is allowed to see how many times you can follow Lucky through the cloud.
In this digital age, Lucky the Leprechaun believes he can entertain kids by asking them to cut out a piece of cardboard from a Lucky Charms cereal box, fold it, and flick it into the hole in the box.
To gain the Power to Fly, kids do not need their parents’ permission to access some promotional URL. They need not dig through the lightly sweetened for a compact disc which must be inserted into a computer. All they have to do it cut and flick. It is so refreshing. (Note: luckycharms.com does have an online game, but that is necessary for this brand with its demographic and competition. I have no qualms.)
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Brand conversation listening is important (obviously).
But simple, vague advice like “Listen to the conversation around your brand” and “Join the conversation” is inadequately qualified. I can find eggheads on Twitter who’ve tweeted these very platitudes. Without explanation, they’re worthless.
“Join the conversation” has become my cringe phrase of choice, replacing my favorite Sarah Palin gems “maverick” and “reign in spending” and “shore up.” Well, maybe those are worse.
Listening vs. Eavesdropping
I heard something poignant; may it guide our mavericky marketing ears: We should listen but not eavesdrop. (Idea from Steven van Belleghem, The Conversation Manager on Jaffe Juice podcast #145.)
A brand that eavesdrops and replies to the most insignificant mentions interrupts the consumers’ conversation, instead of politely jumping in where it is useful. This is where social media becomes a time suck. Plus, actions speak louder than words. Imagine a nasty tweet about your brand from a Twitter complainer who has a major sense of entitlement post-this crazy time of brand democratization. You must be able to differentiate the bitching from the truly problematic:
Properly handled tweet worth a reply:
 ComcastWill :@everysandwich can you send us an email we_can_help@comcast.com so we can have this resolved for you 2010-11-25 00:46:00 |
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Waste of everyone’s time, please unjoin the conversation even though you’re amusing:
... read more Post a comment (3)Multiple Social Networks
Services that simultaneously post updates to multiple social media networks have become more popular. The first time I took issue with this was when LinkedIn added the ability to copy Twitter on a status update, and enabling vice versa by adding the hashtag #linkedin to a tweet. Some people abuse this: LinkedIn is simply not Twitter. The only updates on LinkedIn that you should duplicate on Twitter are few and far between. One acceptable category is professionally related posts, e.g. conference or event information/learnings. However, as wildly insightful and disruptive I felt my tweets at the last Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA) Email Marketing event were, no one on LinkedIn would want to see ten tweets within two hours about email marketing. Further, Twitter jargon pasted onto other sites can lack translation and context:
Check all those social sharing boxes and disperse your status with SEO greed — I will unfollow you. Remember that social = human. With all the noise, why follow one person on six networks if this social superstar carbon copies even half of their posts? I know Dino Dogan says content isn’t king. But shouldn’t it be?
Location-Based Social
Posting Foursquare check-ins on Twitter is usually annoying. The marketing folks I love following who typically tweet excellent content cheapen themselves by announcing check-ins to Taco Mac. Maybe some people think they are giving their online persona a personal touch by sharing places they visit. However, realize that spamming your followers with your every move is not analogous to the heralded Sharpie Susan act of uploading a thoughtful, personal avatar instead of a sterile logo (or worse, of course: the unthinkable dreaded egg head).
The reason different social media platforms exist is that each offers a different experience, and the parameters for participation vary. The expected candor on LinkedIn differs from Facebook. The demands of my beloved Twitter are greater (and arguably more challenging) than a blog that has free reign on length. Twitter is more forgiving about punctuation, spelling, and abbreviations because everyone understands 140 characters is limiting. Actually, this makes Twitter harder and more fun. Economy of words is powerful. If Twitter ever increases the character limit, I will quit. Besides, we have found ways to get around it. For example:
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