Jaffe Juice

JJTV #6: I heart Charmin

I'm a two-ply guy myself...especially when it comes to marketing.

Hats off to Charmin. This is the kind of stuff we need to be focusing on, not 30-second spots, newspaper ads, banners and buttons and interns to manage our twitter accounts.

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CES La Vie in HD!

I'm back from my first CES and besides the side effects of acute lack of sleep and the looooong road to recovery ahead, the buzzing in my head is the best kind possible.

If you've been following my blog or my tweets, you'll know that I went to CES as Panasonic's guest, but also as their partner. With regards to the former, I had the pleasure of participating in a Spotlight presentation to talk about the future of Web Marketing. With regards to the latter, my company - crayon - worked with Panasonic to bring along a diverse and talented group of individuals to the show.

Going into the show, one might have referred to them as blogger, podcasters, vloggers, content creators, or even the slightly cruder but industry appropriate, influencers. However, having been a part of the experience, I would most certainly replace all of those terms with these descriptors: Humans, consumers, customers, Moms and Dads.

(photo courtesy of Steve Garfield of SteveGarfield.com)

Pansonic's whole positioning centers around the harmonious balance and interconnectedness between technology and humanity (ideas from life; ideas for life) and no where was this more prevalent than at CES.

If you think about it, every day we are forced to be schizophrenic - separating our personal lives from our professional lives. In business, we fight every day for integration - but what is integration really? Is it print, TV and online playing nice with one another? Or is it something a lot more profound, namely the ability to join forces with our customers - as partners; the gift of being able to participate in their lives and communities (and to be welcome); the propensity to engage in meaty, healthy discourse and dialogue with them?

...'er yes. That's it. That's what Living in High Definition is all about.

For me, the highlights (if video isn't available yet, it soon will be) of CES and this program were plentiful. They included (from the sublime to the ridiculous):

1. Making 6 new friends (or extending existing friendships) in the form of Chris, Steve, Stacy, Ponzi, Melissa and Vicki and in particular the time when we sat down and talked about this experience together. It's not often you'll get to see video like this that gives you a look inside the Kimono, but then again, there was pretty much no restriction in terms of what was on and off the record. All I can tell you is that this was 100% unprepared and unscripted...and there was some additional conversation once the camera was turned off (not intentionally) that I will remember for the rest of my life.
2. Meeting the Calandro's (yeah, thanks for that!) and the Pollak's
3. The dinner we had with the 6, together with our Panasonic clients - and in particular the moment when we got to share birthday cake with 6-year old Matthew Calandro. This is probably one of the seminal moments in my career....where everything I wrote in "Join the Conversation" came to fruition. Indeed, marketing can be a conversation. I saw it with my own two eyes. Cluetrain was wrong, only limiting this to markets. We - the marketers - are as much a part of the equation as our customers are.
4. The time we spent with Panasonic North America's Chairman, Yoshi Yamada. There will be some video of this soon to share. Mr Yamada was amazing...his empathy, genuine interest and care is something that you just can't fake.
5. My spotlight presentation
6. Meeting Tom Dickson, CEO of Blendtec and the face behind, "Will it Blend?"
7. Meeting Mario (of the Mario + Luigi duo) and coming back to a framed photo of us in my son's room
8. Meeting Philip Scoble. It's a long story :)

I'm very honored that people are embracing this program so much. Brian Morrissey wrote this piece in Adweek, although I'm not sure I agree with him that this is "Advertorial 2.0." The content creation component was just one aspect of this program and I'm pretty certain that everyone who participated - directly or indirectly would vehemently agree that - even with a 2.0 slapped on it - the crude description of advertorial doesn't come close to capturing the genuine emotion and relationship component associated with this effort.

My full Flickr set is here, but if you want more....just search for the LiHD tag (on Flickr; on Twitter; on YouTube etc)

Additional posts/recaps from Greg Verdino, Chris Brogan and the Calandros.

Who gives a shit about toilet paper?

I'm sorry but I couldn't resist that post title.

On Saturday night I was in Times Square and came across the Charmin (and Duracell) pop-up retail restroom "experience", which apparently is in its third year now.

With trendy, good-looking hosts and hostesses and DJ-like Master of Ceremonies with pearls of wisdom such as, "Welcome to the number one urination station in the nation," how could this go wrong?

I just loved everything about this non-traditional approach which addresses two universal tourist (or visitor) needs when walking a metropolitan city: needing to go to a (clean) restroom and recharging batteries (of a cellphone or camera).

The connection between Charmin and Duracell if you haven't realized it already, is Procter & Gamble.

Moreover, this investment achieves an almost impossible objective: how do you get someone to care about toilet paper?

The only detraction in my opinion is that this isn't there 365 days of the year. Personally, I'd pay the rent willingly and forgo things like Stupid Bowl commercials for toilet paper (Toilet Bowl)

Here are a few photos from my iPhone (As I take these snaps, the "MC" says, "did that dude just take a photograph of a man coming out of the bathroom?" Well, yes I did!) and a YouTube video (not mine):

 

 

The iphone sponsorship experiment works for another blogger

My iPhone-for-an-episode experiment certainly created much conversation. For starters and to recap:

• I got my first iPhone within 1 hour of posting the show from Custom Scoop's Chip Griffin
• I got my second iPhone within 1 week from LA's Web Maverick, The Hollywood Podcast's and now my friend, actor Tim Coyne
  • In turn, I decided to give this iPhone to anyone who helps Tim succeed in his efforts to land an audition (and ultimately role) on House
• I then stepped up efforts from one episode to a month's sponsorship in exchange for either a Vaio or Macbook Pro. This time, Real Pie Media's Kirk Skodis stepped up and together, we outlined a sponsorship which included a 2-part 3-way conversation with Movie Marketing Madness' Chris Thilk on the movie business, plus a month-long celebration of experimentation and an audio case study challenge (you can still send in your case study to +1 206 203-3255)
• Next to join the conversation was an actual brand - Dell in the form of Richard@Dell, offering up a brand-spanking, fully-loaded Dell XPS in order to interrupt me from the MacBook Pro purchase.
• And now, another blogger/podcaster has found success using the same value exchange. Congratulations Dan Klass!!!

From now until the end of October, The Bitterest Pill will be both sponsored by and supporting of B Movie Books, a publisher of cool and crazy hardcovers and paperbacks sure to please pulp fanatics everywhere. See the ad to the right to see what I mean.

Love this idea or not, it certainly has sparked a number of very passionate conversations. More importantly, it's certainly been a successful experiment, which is not done yet. Was it panhandling or just a new media spin on an old media barter opportunity? Is it a new business model or way to monetize podcasts? Will I get my HD Flatscreen TV with Surround Sound?

Who knows and who cares?

You do, of course!

Mentos Institution

Trevor is an intern at Mentos. He clearly has nothing better to do with his time than communicate with other board cubicle cohorts throughout his day.

He clearly is very talented though at what he does (in terms of putting together this very interactive website with all the right trappings) and so if you're reading this blog, Trevor, consider this an open invitation to come and work for crayon.

I'll even double the salary Mentos is paying you, although I'm hoping it is fee-less internship.

Seriously though, this is clearly Subservient Chicken 2.0 and there are several key aspects to this that make it very engaging.

Now where it goes from here and how long it lasts is anybody's guess. For what it's worth, I'd like to recommend that the folk over at Mentos seriously consider giving away free Mentos - it's a golden opportunity starting at your in the pimpled-face.

Mac zealots unite!

OK OK OK...I've received enough comments to cause me to pause enough to consider a Macbook Pro as an alternative to the Vaio I'm looking to purchase.

This, coupled with CC's discovery path, has given me enough cause to contemplate a hybrid solution i.e. Mac for all multimedia and PC for Office-apps (Outlook, Word, Excel) I'm even prepared to give up PowerPoint for Keynote :)

One variable that has influenced this process is the fact I'm hearing that Vista is just not compatible (yet) with many programs/applications. There's no way I want to be stuck with hardware plug-and-play problems or apps like PowerGramo, Audacity or Castblaster giving me problems.

Marketing sidebar: Nowhere in this process is the presence or semblance of any life whatsoever from Microsoft, Sony or Apple. CC's post irks me insofar that Apple's inability (arrogance?) to participate in the conversation makes me less likely to consider switching. Whilst I love the fact his community came to his rescue (much like I'm proposing below), I can't help but wonder why brands continue to sit on the sidelines and pretend they're deaf.

So here's what I'd like to do. As part of UNM2PNM, I'd like to invite one (or more) Jaffe Juice reader(s) - Mac lovers of course - to Westport, CT to spend a day with me and help "train me" AKA "convert me" to the cult of Mac. We'll possibly head out to the Apple store at the Westchester Mall to pick up the machine (customized beforehand), spend the day in my Westport office, have a lavish lunch (with wine), takes photos with my Nikon D80 camera and record both an episode of Across the Sound and possibly an iMovie.

In fact the goal of the day will be to do all of this with the new Macbook Pro.

Who's interested?

Virtual Thirst

On Monday, crayon helped launch our first official effort on behalf of our client, Coca-Cola. I attended the two press launches from a lounge at Heathrow Airport and my hotel room in Cannes! The project, named Virtual Thirst: Coke + Alt + Refresh, involved Second Life, but not in the way you might have thought.

For starters, it was a very atypical entry into the Virtual World of Second Life (Coca-Cola has been very active in Virtual Worlds, but until now had not done anything official in SL). Instead of purchasing an Island and creating a grandeous ediface of brash self-congratulation, this was a lot more understated and ground up. I use the analogy of planting a seed and with the right amount of nurturing, maintenance, light, water etc (you get it), something special sprouts up...

Another nuance was that this was not about SL for SL's sake. Virtual Thirst is about interpreting anything along the continuum of "the metaphorical quenching of thirst" to expressing the essence of the Coke brand and what it means to you. In this particular case, Second Life became the perfect way to bring unfettered creativity and limitless imagination to life.

Finally, the third element to the program was that we worked - and continue to work - extremely closely - with the Second Life community. The initial protoypes (see below) were all created by the SL community; we tapped into an advisory board of SL influencers and finally we have a judging committee of SL stalwarts.

So what is the program? In a nutshell, design (any way you choose to) a "machine" that "vends" an experience. Think the exact opposite of a rectangular box that dispenses cans. Find out more at www.virtualthirst.com or just visit the pavillion on crayonville Island and experience these machines yourself. In the interim, here are some video showcases of the initial prototpes to wet your appettite...'er quench your thirst...you know what I mean :)

The Dance Bottle - created by Audio Zenith

The Experience Machine - created by Zee Kaos

The Vintage Truck - created by Latok Neumann (music by Now is Now)

Jukebox - created Latok Neumann (music by Matthew Ebel)

Family (self) Portrait

M&M's have a new initiative out, called Become an M&M. They've promoted it like crazy via TV and Print (to name a few)

So I took a visit, based on what I thought would be an incredible mash-up opportunity i.e. upload a photo and have your facial characteristics embedded into a familiar M&M profile.

The reality was a much more basic experience i.e. choose from a fairly limited range of customizable features and characteristics.

Also the "server" wasn't working, so all my family portrait (below) wasn't able to be saved and remixed/used for additional functionality. Guess the M&M maintenance factory is closed on weekends...

All in all, an idea with tons of potential but subdued impact due to a limited execution. Pity.

When context is so good, it's positively bad

Yesterday, I flew NorthWest to Detroit (I spoke at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business in a speaker's series associated with The Yaffe - no relation - Center for Persuasive Communication)

I had the pleasure of meeting long time listeners/readers in the form of Derek Mehraban and Catherin Juon.

En route to the plane, I spent some time in the NorthWestern Lounge at La Guardia Airport (including some good surreal time in crayonville) and noticed a rather interesting promotion on the front desks of the lounge.

The promotion was for Zicam, a "homeopathic" cold remedy tablet (I've seen similar ones for Airborne offered at Admiral's Clubs), which you would think was perfect for the cold/flu season. That said, what does it say about flying, especially when one factors in the infamous "sick air" that gets circulated continuously en route.

I guess it would be the equivalent of a pop-up retail booth at departure gates selling life insurance...

I buy the Airborne promotion because of its "preventative" qualities/positioning, however the Zicam one left me....well....a little.....cold.

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a Colonel!

Colonel Sanders is at it again. And this time, by the likes of it, he's appealing to Martians who aren't as concerned about trans-fats as I guess we are.

It's an interesting play, which comes along with "The making of...", a hidden message treasure hunt and aerial shots.

Would have been even more delicious with a Google Earth/Microsoft application/functionality.