A little over a week ago I attended a marketing and technology conference, hoping to  A) see what the competition is up to and B) maybe learn a few things. As it turns out, I got to do both. We work very hard to stay current on social media marketing, and as a rabid iPhone user I’m already quite familiar with the mobile data hog trend that’s sweeping the tech world (as is my wife, she pays the AT&T bill). What did open my eyes were some numbers presented by Famous Rhodes, Director of eBay Motors.

Some facts Famous bright to light:

• Mobile phone internet commerce is fastest growing commerce sector
  • Smart phones went from 0% to 20% of mobile market in 8 years
  • Over 100 MILLION iPhones have been sold worldwide
  • 160,000 Google phones are activated every DAY
  • By 2013, 40% of internet traffic will be mobile
  • Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4 models in the first weekend it went on sale
  • iTunes already has over 225,000 apps
  • Google’s Android has over 70,000 apps in less than one year

Those are BIG numbers. As a communications professional, my goal is to make sure as many qualified eyeballs as possible see my client’s message. The tough part is keeping a finger in a LOT of pies, from Facebook fan pages and YouTube video channels to forums, print PR, TV, newspapers, Twitter and more. The key to conglomerating all this info into a single channel isn’t the computer or TV like everyone predicted 20 years ago – it’s the phone. As it stands I check my email, twitter, facebook and website on my phone constantly. I think most consumers under 40 do the same.

That said, the key moving forward is to obtain an M-Commerce leadership position now, while the field is still young and growing. The video game and fashion industries have already taken a foothold, automotive is lagging behind. We have several new projects in development that will help clients put all data into a single channel available on any phone, and that’s the key to streamlining all the communication strategies into a single stream of information. Of course the info has to be fun and entertaining, otherwise what’s the point?

I’ll have more exciting news regarding these programs soon, in the meantime enjoy Pete, Roger and Keith doing their thing.

The last six months have been really interesting from a crisis PR standpoint. The combination of the public’s insatiable demand for information, the online media world’s never ending quest for clicks, and some unforeseeable circumstances have created some really interesting case studies on how a crisis can unfold and how companies should deal with them in the current new media landscape.

I know this topic has been done to death, but a month later now that the dust has settled, it’s interesting to see how things unfolded. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, the public had been clamoring for more info on the upcoming iPhone 4G, which Apple wouldn’t even acknowledge existed. Then, in late April, the news broke: Gizomodo, a tech blog owned by Gawker Media (which also owns two of our favorite sites, Jalopnik and io9), had possession of a top secret iPhone 4G prototype, dissected it, and they were telling all. Sounds like a hollywood gossip column piece.

As it turns out, an Apple engineer went drinking, forgot the prototype on his stool and an observant (but unscrupulous) passerby picked it up, figured out what it was, called a different tech blog, and when they passed called Gizmodo – who paid for it. They photographed the phone, posted the story, and it got so much buzz is promptly crashed the Gawker comment server. That same night, a lawyer from Apple swung by Giz editor Jason Chen’s house and picked up the phone. Then, the police raided Chen’s home, seized his property, and Apple made rumblings about theft and lawsuits. As it turns out all pretty much settled back down to normal, and Chen ended up scoring huge traffic for his site without anything more than a verbal slap on the wrists. Then the buzz began that Apple leaked the phone on purpose to generate buzz, a silly notion to anyone who has witnessed one of Steve Job’s well-orchestrated summer unveils at Macworld. This is a company that likes to control every minute detail of its message, so leaking a story to a snarky tech blog isn’t its style. Even Gizmodo says so.

At this point, the good news is the world is snapping up iPads like crazy and people are clamoring for the new 4th Gen iPhone. On the other hand, the company’s handling of the situation (denial, then a theft complaint resulting in a raid) makes the normally friendly feeling Apply seem pretty Orwellian. So… less than a week later when Ellen DeGeneres makes a cutesy little farse commercial for her talk show about how hard texting on the iPhone can be (she’s right… especially if you have fat thumbs), you’d think the Cupertino company would just roll with it. Nope… they made a stink with the network and demanded Ellen apologize. You can see the commercial and the apology here:

So… now the company has two killer products, one that’s selling like mad and another coming soon, and Jobs looks like Darth Vader piloting the Death Star. Not good. What could they have done differently? I’m sure the company has a few agencies on 7-figure budgets to tell them, but in my humble opinion they should have done the following:

1. Stick with “no comment” until the phone was confirmed missing

2. Once confirmed, own the mistake, admit it was a prototype phone, thank Gizmodo for finding it and returning it (even before they did so… put the pressure on) then make a statement explaining that every once in a while these things happen, they’re glad reaction has been positive, and thanks to Gizmodo for treating the phone with respect. Other changes are imminent, so this isn’t the final model, but everyone got a sneak peek.

Once the cat is out of the bag, ride the positive PR and buzz and move up the release date. Oh… and don’t put the smack down on the friendly dancing TV host. She makes a living being snarky and poking fun at things… why make the target on your back even bigger?

As it turns out, the video was captured with a rig like the one used by Helivideo; basically a high-def Canon 7D mounted on a radio controlled helicopter. It works for the government with the predator drone, so why not the car industry? See the video below:

Aerial video with a Canon 5D , 7D helivideo.com from Eric AUSTIN on Vimeo.

Having been on shoots with real helicopters, I can attest to the fact that its outrageously expensive and the results are not always predictable. Poor weather, camera shake, and the fact that engine and rotor noise drown out ambient noise are all risks when working with a full-size chopper. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to work with Helivideo soon, it seems like a fantastic option that will revolutionize the promotional video market for the transportation industry.

When the smoke cleared on Sunday, over 60 vehicles had run through the cones and the Hotchkis team gave over 400 rides in three company test vehicles. Formerly conservative, drag-race-only Mopar fans were raving about how much fun they had, and many trekked back to the booth in the Manufacturer’s midway to learn more about suspension systems. We shot about 20 hours of high-def video, so we’ll have several chopped up and posted soon. There was a visible perception shift with the crowd by the end of the weekend. They understood handling for the first time, and they were pumped up about it.

Changing hearts and minds is what PR is all about. I just finished reading What the Dog Saw, by Malcom Gladwell, the author of Tipping Point. The first section of the book focuses on Ron Popeil, the owner of Ronco and the innovator of using late-night infomercials to push products like the Showtime Rotisserie and Food Dehydrator. According to Gladwell’s book, Popeil comes from a long line of pitchmen, who in the ’20s and ’30s would sell their wares on the Jersey Shore boardwalk with live demos. Ron took his live demo to late night TV and made millions.

In the age of social media and short-attention-span theater, human nature remains the same. People want to experience something in order to buy it. Magazine articles are great, but reading a story about something someone else did is a very passive experience. The beauty of events like Mopars at the Strip, any of the GoodGuys Shows with autocross or shootouts like the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge is that they get people to partake in a real-world roller coaster ride. They have a great time, then they tell their friends. The key is tying that experience to a product. Otherwise its just entertainment – which is fine and good, unless you’re trying to make money on the deal. Having a sponsor banner hanging next to the registration booth for an event is good. Giving the participant a ride in a vehicle with your products on it where they can actually feel the difference is great.

Taking a cue from Ron and his rotisserie, we recognize that giving a few hundred people a ride is wonderful, but then sharing that person’s experience with the world is much more powerful. Since TV has become fractionalized by DVR technology and hundreds of channels, spending tens of thousands of dollars on a 2am airtime slot probably isn’t the best choice. Instead, we’re sharing the experience with the world through real-time Facebook and Twitter updates, and video posted to YouTube and the forums. The goal: to help people live in someone’s shoes as they have a thrilling ride for a about two minutes.

With that in mind, one of our other clients – Spectre Performance – is sponsoring a wild event called the Speed by Spectre 341 Challenge. It’s the rebirth of an old Ferrari Club event called the Virginia City Hillclimb. They’re closing a mountain road in southwest Nevada and letting supercars run the road for time. It’s scary, dangerous, and very very cool. So far we’ve signed up several major car builders, supercar owners, a few superstar drivers and most of the major media outlets to cover the event. Only a few dozen will participate, but hopefully thousands can experience it. To illustrate, we put together a little video featuring footage the Spectre crew shot in 2002 when company owner Amir Rosenbaum set the record (which still stands):

Anyway, those are just some random thoughts on why experience is making a comeback. Stay tuned for some vids from Vegas.

-Dan

First and foremost: I know there are companies out there that develop and make money with those cutesy little social networking games like Farmville. Strictly speaking, I’m not a fan. I don’t care how many pigs you bought or chickens you traded, and don’t really want it cluttering up my news feed. However, there are a few companies out there doing an excellent job using Facebook to help further their business. They key here is that they don’t push a specific product or try to tell you anything – they use Facebook the way it was originally intended when it was a social tool developed by a few Harvard students – as a fun, entertaining branding tool. The best corporate Facebook pages I’ve seen weren’t even profiles, they were fan pages.

A company with an active fan page that gets updated regularly, has an energetic fan base that posts and replies to content daily and grows constantly is a powerful thing. Again – not to sell X number of widgets through SALE SALE SALE! type tactics, but by developing a relationship with an audience so they look forward to and enjoy your content – and by extension, your brand. We do that through on-the-scene video clips, guessing games, behind-the-scenes photos and more. Comp Cams does an excellent job with their fan page, and I have to give a big tip o’ the hat to Chris Douglas and his crew for the work they do – if you haven’t seen it, log into Facebook and search Comp Cams, it’s worth it.

Now for my rant – having recently been inundated with a few hundred resumes before hiring a few new staffers, let me float this out into the ether: to all of you under the age of 30 hoping to one day gain work in the real world: over-sharing on the internet is not a good idea. I have friends, family and even some business associates that insist on sharing totally inappropriate stuff on Facebook on a regular basis. No, I don’t care when you’re eating chicken. I don’t want to hear your racist political statements, and I don’t want to see a picture of you hammered in the bathroom. Please keep in mind this content lives forever on the web and can one day bite you in the ass. A status update is not a note passed in homeroom, it can’t be thrown away. Same goes for your business fan page: have fun, make it entertaining, but be weary – it will live forever.

To wrap things up, I’ve got a link to a fantastic story about how to best utilize Facebook for business written by Ayelet Noff at at TheNextWeb.com. From tips on increasing exposure to making the most of your content, her story – 10 Steps to Create The Ultimate Facebook Fan Page for your Brand – is a great read. Enjoy.

Until Next Time,

Dan

I’m not going to spend time in this post talking about “web 2.0″ or the importance of leveraging social media as a means to market your brand. I’ve said it all before, and frankly if you’re a)reading this post, or b)anyone born after 1980 you already know it.

Instead I’m just going to point out a fantastic article Charles Hull from Archrival wrote for MediaPost about developing Facebook apps to promote your brand. He’s right-on, if you can develop a fun, easy-to-use app that promote your brand without bombarding people with constant updates and notifications, it will become viral and produce the desired effect.

I can’t tell you how many brand-promotional apps I’ve tried that ended up making me angry because they either harvested my profile info to push content to my friends that didn’t opt-in, or slammed my inbox with junk. Those have the opposite effect and should be avoided. In any case, a good article so enjoy!

For those of you who didn’t see the cover of January’s Entrepreneur Magazine, they ran a major feature on a NYC startup called Animoto. The company is run by four friends: two software geeks, a music major and a film student.

Together they cooked up a sweet little piece of software that allows users to upload photos, pick from a pretty wide list pre-licensed music (or upload their own) and hit the GO button. Then Animoto takes over, analyzing the images and music and creating a slide show with slick transitions that match the visuals and sound. Then it gives you a code to upload to YouTube. The entire process takes about 30 seconds.

The process is pretty cool, particularly for those who don’t always want to spend time in iMovie cutting videos and would rather post a quick slide show. I did one about a car show a client sponsored just for fun. Check it out:

This was accomplished with the free version of the software. Upgrade to the Pro version (about $250) and you can use higher-resolution photo, make shows as long as you want (the free version is limited to 30 seconds) and it’s fully licensed to use commercially. Imagine the promotional possibilities for real estate agents, restaurants, photographers, even car dealers! Just upload your shots, pick some music and BAM, you’ve got a slick little video to post on your site.

September 11th was a terrible event and a true turning point in the trajectory of our nation. However it seems like ever since that horrible day, the cable news networks (and in their wake the local news and papers) have been trying to feed the ratings beast and fill that gaping maw of round-the-clock coverage with a never ending series of scandals and blown-out-of-proportion disasters. Remember Elian Gonzales? How about Terry Schiavo, Drew Petersen, Octomom, etc? Most recently the networks made it sound like the residents of Fargo, ND, needed to build an ark and wait for the end of the world to fall on them. Except… it didn’t happen. There was some rain, an some damage, but people did what they had to do and moved on.

I used to be a journalist, actually made a living at it too. I live and breathe media as a PR flack, and I understand how news cycles work. However the combination of “feed the beast” news programming and the war between mediums has created a situation where bad situations get blown up into major catastrophes, which causes panic and perpetuates the problem. I believe that’s exactly what happened with this economic downturn. Every seven years or so the economy goes soft. However reporters screaming about “the next great depression” certainly caused some damage to the American psyche and made the situation worse.

I’m seeing very strong signs that this thing is starting to get better. People are spending money again, business is picking up for nearly everyone I speak with. Are we out of the woods? Not quite yet… but things are certainly looking up from my perspective.

So what’s next? Smile. Be positive. Go out to dinner. Wax your car and go for a drive. Get back to the important stuff, working hard and having fun. Hopefully one day soon the newsdesk editors I pitch on a regular basis will start doing some positive stories and we can all get back to normal. Save the scary music and crisis graphs for the unfortunate day when they’re actually appropriate.

Of course, John Stewart says it best.