Lexy Meyerson's blog

Witchery Man Campaign and Fake Stephen Conroy @ Social Media Club Sydney

Last night marked Sydney's first official Social Media Club meet-up at the Oxford Hotel in Darlinghurst. Despite having our Anzac Day public holiday stripped from us this year, the party vibe last night made me question whether all the other agency folk were still out celebrating from a long bender of a weekend.

Based on last night's huge turn out (close to 300 people turned up), I am assuming that Social Media Club Sydney will continue to run these monthly meetings. The intended forum is to use these sessions to present social media case studies and examples of what has and what has not worked.

There is one rule and one rule only (it's kind of like Fight Club :) ) - "no pitch/ no sell"! What does this mean? Those presenters who are clearly trying to flog a product or a service will have to face the consequences.

Last night's session was about two recent social media events in this country: the success of the Fake Stephen Conroy Twitter account and the Naked Communications Witchery Man campaign. These cases were presented by Adam Ferrier (Managing Partner of Naked Communications) and Leslie Nassar (Telstra employee and the 'fake' Stephen Conroy).

I enjoyed last night's meet-up, particularly Adam's account of the Witchery Man campaign and the seed behind developing the woman with the jacket love story.

A lot of people have been and are still carrying on about the importance of ethics and moral accountability in client service in general and when developing social media campaigns such as these. I have to agree to an extent but Adam made a fair point last night. We are all in a creative game whether it be advertising, public relations or marketing. Our job, for the large part, consists of creating myths and storytelling in a way that makes consumers want to connect with a brand. This is exactly what the Witchery Man campaign did.

Was it successful? Well, yes it was. The campaign objective was to drive talkability and that's exactly what it did. People are still talking (look at me - case and point)! If the client is happy and the agency involved isn't losing business as a result of the campaign, than I think it's fair game.

I'm sure others out there are just wishing they had done it first!

 

Social Media Club Sydney

Heading off to the Social Media Club Sydney Inaugural Event in the next 10 minutes. The tickets were snapped up very quickly and people have been encouraged to give the organisers a heads-up if they can't make it so they can open the availability up to other interested parties.

I am heading there tonight with my own posse - Graham White (Managing Director, Howorth), Brian Giesen (our digital guru at Ogilvy PR in Australia) and my colleague, Jonathan Nguyen.

See you all there! I'll make sure to update my blog tomorrow for those of you that can't make it tonight.

 

Cheers!

MySpace CEO exits business

Co-founder and CEO of MySpace , Chris DeWolfe , will soon be stepping down from his executive role at the company.

There is little information on the reasons behind Chris's departure other than the following internal email that was leaked on the web.

This email was sent to Fox Interactive employees by Jonathan Miller , News Corp CEO Digital Media.

 

To FIM Emplo yees:

 

I am writing to share the news that MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe will be stepping down from his executive role in the near future. He has agreed to serve as a strategic advisor to the Company and will remain on the board of MySpace China.

 

In addition, I am currently in discussions with MySpace President Tom Anderson regarding his role within the organization.

 

I want to take this opportunity to thank them both for their incredible contributions to the Company, and for pioneering one of the greatest social media revolutions of our time. I wish Chris nothing but the best in any new endeavors and, like many in this industry, am eager to witness his next innovations.

 

I understand the importance of having a dynamic, inspiring and innovative management team, and am dedicated to ensuring that MySpace continues to benefit from the highest levels of passion and enthusiasm.

 

I also want to thank everyone across FIM for giving me the opportunity to work with all of you. With MySpace, IGN, Photobucket, Fox Audience Network and our Digital Publishing Group, this is an exciting collective of properties and I’m enthusiastic about the opportunities that lie ahead.

 

I hope to meet and work closely with many of you over the weeks and months to come.

 

Best regards,
Jonathan Miller

 

If anyone has any other details to share, please spill.

The Science of Love

Love is no longer an emotional, irrational and, at times, spontaneous feeling. It now appears to be methodic and rational and there appears to be a formula behind it, as an Oxford University professor and his team have recently unearthed.

A mathematical test has been developed that calculates the probability of whether a relationship will be prosperous. 700 couples participated in the study which was conducted by a maths expert. The subject matter expert predicted the divorce rate with 94 per cent accuracy.

Couples were asked to face each other and have a 15 minute conversation on a somewhat contentious issue such as sex, finance or in-law relationships. The scores were then plotted against a graph that determined, with accuracy, the outcome and success of a marriage and whether it would lead to divorce.

I find it really interesting that we can now rationalise feelings that are sometimes so irrational. Who would have thought that love could be so scientific and so formulaic?

I am going to take this test for my own relationship just for the fun of it. I'm confident that the results will be glowing :) 

A penny for your thoughts on the science of love.

Revealed: The fake Stephen Conroy is...

Finally the identity of the Fake Stephen Conroy Twitter personality has been revealed as a Telstra employee, Leslie Nassar. I think we're all sad to lose the entertaining posts but never fear, I'm sure the next Fake is just around the corner :)

Does anyone know if the actual Leslie Nassar is on Twitter? I clicked on the person I thought was him and unfortunately received a 'this page does not exist' message.

Anyway, I'm loving these Fakes. Can anyone share any other good ones that are good entertainment value and worth the follow?

 

Happy 20th Anniversary to the World Wide Web (WWW)

Happy birthday to the World Wide Web (WWW)! Todays marks a twenty year milestone for the Internet.

The Web has come a long way since its creation and inception by Tim Berners-Lee, British computer software guru and other scientists at the European particle physics laboratory (CERN) twenty years ago. [Read more here].

The Internet was originally developed to facilitate a more passive type of information sharing between thousands of scientistics around the world - sharing their research and key findings and enabling others to view and comment, on a basic platform, despite geographical borders that separated them.

Today, the Internet is a pervasive and essential part of everyday life. It is no longer just a passive tool for basic computing tasks that we engage in for work and personal use such as email, web surfing and research and is now an all-immersive and interactive version 2.0 and 3.0 of the Internet we once knew.

We have since seen the emergence of a collaborative and interactive Internet with the rise of Web 2.0 tools and social media such as social networking sites, video sharing sites, blogs and micro-blogging tools. This is changing the very nature of the Web.

Happy birthday WWW and I look forward to seeing what you look like in another 20 years. If anyone has an future vision they would like to share, please feel free.

Forrester research: More business buyers engage in social media

I came across some really interesting information this morning on B2B buyers in the online space that I wanted to share on with you all.

The information firstly appeared in Groundswell - a book by Forrester Research - and was also recently referenced by Marketing Pilgrim in an articled titled 'B2B Buyers Dig Social Media'.

The latest Forrester report is titled 'The Social Technolographics of Business Buyers' and it suggests that B2B buyers have a very high participation in social media such as blogs, social networks and forums.

The main points that Marketing Pilgrim refer to include:

91% of these decision-makers consume social media including blogs, video, and customer reviews

69% of 'Spectators' use social media for business purposes

55% of the B2B buyers in the survey are Joiners—they’ve created profiles on social networks

After Spectators, the most popular role is Critics (people who leave comments on blogs, review products, etc.), with 58% of those sampled engaging in this activity, and 37% using it for business purposes

Other than the Inactives, B2B buyers in IT fields were more engaged in social media—but the gap between IT buyers and non-IT buyers is narrowing

43% are creating media, including blogs and videos

 

It's truly phenomenal to see B2B increasingly integrate more closely in the social media space! Now it would be great to see more case studies on the succesful use of social media in the B2B sector! Feel free to share any you may know of.

The impact of the global recession on social media

I'm keen to understand how the global recession is impacting social media and particularly the North American powerhouse, Silicon Valley. I'm interested in the develpments occurring at Silicon Valley mostly because today we can consider it the backbone behind a lot of the big Web 2.0 companies.

Belts seem to be tightening in all industries across the board - banking, automotive, retail and so on - yet we're still seeing big injections of capital in many of the Web 2.0 companies.

Take micro-blogging service Twitter for example. It was announced this week that Twitter has managed to raise $35 million in venture capital in spite of the challenging economic climate. This capital has come from Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital.

Are venture capitalists finally seeing the real value of Web 2.0 in helping deal with challenging times ahead?

I think that social media will come out on top in these tough times as people start using it as a means of cost-saving on entertainment. This is especially important at a time when people are becoming increasingly budget-conscious and are rather choosing to bunker indoors and save their pennies.

I'm a good example of this. I seem to find myself on fewer outings to the movies and instead I keep my cinema experience to my lounge room with my LCD TV, entertainment system and complete surround sound system. In fact, I can't remember the last movie I saw at the cinemas but I could rattle off at least five DVDs that I have watched at home. I also spend less time travelling and more time talking to my friends overseas via Facebook and Twitter.

There are a plethora of online technologies and digital devices out there that provide consumers with their own portal to entertainment. Aside from big screen TVs that bring you a cinema at home, there are also notebook PCs to consider.

Notebooks are another means of cost-effective entertainment to online services such as online gaming, online video, video conferencing and instant connection to friends and family via IM, social networking sites, email or Skype with those embedded with broadband solutions.

Interestingly enough, consumer experts are also already tipping that many Australians will use the planned $950 Rudd Government cash handouts to splurge on games and gadgets, following record spending on electronics last year (as reported by the Courier Mail).

I'll be watching these developments closely but please feel free to share any information specifically around how you think social media will fare in light of the global recession.

New Online Marketing Tool - MadMimi.com

Sorry that i've been off for a while. It was the horrendous extraction of my wisdom tooth that had me out of action for a while. I was crazy to think that I would be back at work or at least on my feet the next day.

I was out for a full week! It was an interesting procedure. There was a lot of trauma to my face. I looked like a chipmunk for the entire week and i'm slowly recouping. No more rest for the wicked so i'm back in and amongst it at work.

Anyway, enough babbling. I wanted to share a very new online tool with my blog community. It's called MadMimi. It's an online email and newsletter marketing tool which allows you to design and manage your own email marketing campaigns. The site also provides online support.

The site is also supported by its own online community - they have a blog that is kept updated and there is an option to follow the founders on Twitter. Kudos to the duo for creating a neat little niche online community. 

The site is free to sign-up and pretty easy to use. It seems to be gaining traction relatively quickly with 5,500 users subscribed already. What I particulary like about madmimi.com is that there is no big corporate push and the guys have no intention to develop an email marketing company off the back of this tool.

And a little bit of vanilla to make you smile on a Friday, the two founders of this company came up with this idea following the journey they went through to promote their little music company. On their website it states "We searched for email services and found millions - but we didn't like them. The outdated templates, the overall spam feel of the promos, and the general lack of joie de vivre in the process".

I'll definitely watch this space to see it grow organically. Happy playing and Happy Friday! :)

A covert operation: Naked causes social media uproar

It was only last week that I was talking about the use of social media and viral videos in particular to promote a brand and cause.

 

I was specifically drawing a comparison between Tourism Queensland's fake viral video that appeared on YouTube with a woman getting a tattoo of the 'dream job' advertisement on her arm and comparing it with the video of Heidi Clarke, the woman with a jacket to return to a mysterious man that she met in the Sydney CBD.

 

Early last week it hadn't been confirmed whether this last video was a fake but now it has been revealed that it indeed is a spoof. It has also been revealed that this is the work of Australian strategy consultancy, Naked Communications .

 

This misleading viral campaign has caused major uproar in social media and has captured many negative comments. These comments are mostly around the idea of using social media to mislead consumers in order to promote a particular cause and also particularly negative comments about the agency itself.

You can read some of these comments here .

 

Was it a clever video? Yes. Did it get people talking? Yes. So much so that this actually caused a stir in both online and offline world. Would it have caused as much of a stir in social media if Tourism QLD hadn't recently admitted to its hoax video? I'm actually doubtful although I don't necessarily agree with these sorts of covert marketing tactics.

 

Naked Communications has taken a beating because of its actions. This is a mistake that anyone could have made and one that a lot are probably guilty of but yet to be found out about just yet. Although I caveat this by saying that we are likely to see a domino effect here and I'm sure there are many more dominos that will start to fall now.

 

We can take a lesson from this. Many savvy marketers are talking about the use of covert marketing and tactics in order to raise brand awareness and eyebrows. Many people believe that this is clever marketing and gets consumer excited. We need to be aware that this is clearly not the case. This sort of behaviour on social media is simpe not acceptable.

 

Perhaps we need to go right bac to social media 101 again. Do we need to retrain people on the core principles that underpin this very medium? It's all about honesty, authenticity and transparency. And you're most certainly damned if you don't!

 

Just look at the flack that the likes of Vespa and Sony have attracted in this past year for using covert marketing as a means to promote a cause. Vespa - slammed! Sony Fake Tourist campaign - slammed!

 

I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on misleading viral campaigns. Do you have any other examples you can share. What other big companies are using covert marketing as a means of promotion?