Capital C

Social Media mirrors the Internet

 Social Media Today dug up some telling stats on Twitter and Facebook usage indicating how social media demographics mirror those of T'Internet. Social media isn't simply a kid's domain.  In fact, with platforms such as Twitter, kids aren't even the early adopters.

 Take-home:  What makes an early adopter/influencer is not youth, but enthusiasm, utility and connectivity.

The Cube hits the Globe!

Our Nissan Hypercube Campaign was just featured in The Globe and Mail- Nissan Cube.

The Macbeth Effect and the power of feeling

Marketers devote immense resources towards achieving intimacy with the consumer's mind. We feel that if we get what makes them tick, we'll be able to manipulate their purchase decisions. We talk about insight, mental states and consumer perception. But are we downplaying the importance of visceral states in the buying process?

I just revisited this brilliant study exploring the 'Macbeth Effect', a phenomenon named after Lady Macbeth's incessant hand-washing ("Out, damn'd spot!") following King Duncan's murder. The researchers asked subjects to focus on unethical deeds and noted that this increased their demand for sanitary products such as soap and antiseptic wipes. Furthermore, participants were made to think about their own past unethical deeds and were given the option of sanitizing their hands.

Afterwards, participants who had chosen to clean up were less likely to volunteer their time for an altruistic purpose. They were also less likely to express feelings of guilt, regret, shame or embarrassment in a survey.They had literally 'washed away their sins' and rescued their threatened morality.

Mental and emotional resonance are essential, but we can't underestimate the power of the physical when we create our campaigns. To flourish as  brands, it has to be about head, heart, and hands.

- Hiten

* 1st image courtesy lernie

How Magazines Can Survive the Digital Age

*This post originally appeared on Socially Mediated Life on June 4, 2009.

How Magazines Can Survive the Digital Age

Too Much Choice?

I recently revisited the excellent 'Paradox of Choice' and stumbled across this classic study on the 'too much of a good thing' dilemma. It seemed like the perfect opportunity for a visualization...
 

In Conversation With Corrine: President of Fresh Intelligence

Real-time Intel-gathering has quickly become a key weapon in a marketer's arsenal. To learn more about what it entails, we chatted with Corrine Sandler- President of Fresh Intelligence, Cap C's exclusive research arm, and this week's 'Woman of the Week' at Women's Post.
Key snippets from our tête-à-tête below:

Q: How has Fresh Intelligence grown/changed since partnering with Capital C and moving into our digs? What is your vision for Fresh Intel over the next few years and how does Cap C contribute to it?

C: We've enjoyed immense growth through the incredible Capital C client roster as well the credibility and exposure Cap C has brought to Fresh Intelligence.
Capital C and FI have the same vision – building brands through  consumers and shoppers' eyes. If the insight is right, everything else is right.
Our vision is to be the most “creative” dynamic intel-gathering company in North America. Working within Capital C's visionary and entrepreneurial environment is an asset that enables us to get there.

Q: What is the core philosophy behind Fresh Intelligence that distinguishes it from other research firms? What assets are you able to leverage that give you a leg-up over the competition?

C: It’s a combination of our technology platform, our people and our thinking. We don’t engage in traditional conservative methodology. We push the limits of market research and Enterprise feedback management. Today its all about cost, speed and accuracy and FI delivers way above competitors on all three.

Q: Here at Cap C, we've been exploring consumer interaction through many of our recent campaigns such as the Nissan Cube Launch.Give us your thoughts on consumer engagement as a means to gain insight. Do you reckon it's the future of your field?

C: Of course, market research today is about consumer engagement, it’s about a dialogue not interruptive monologue. The only way to learn from consumers today is to engage them and put them at the heart of marketing. That’s why online panels are slated to grow by 54% in 2009- within 5 years every brand, organization etc. will own one…. We're on the leading edge of this.

Q: Marketing has changed dramatically over the past few years, and those who haven't adapted have been swept away. In order to flourish in today's environment, what new skills/qualities must a marketer bring to the table?

C: Creativity and an experiential nature. We need to constantly experiment, find new ways to gain knowledge, reach our market and learn from them.
Marketing is a combination of gut feel and science, and those that can bridge the gap and act swiftly in today’s dynamic marketplace will inevitably be the winners. It’s the calculated risk that's going to reap the reward.

Flaccid Brands: The Coolidge effect

The Coolidge effect is a biological phenomenon whereby males display a greater libido and rate of sexual performance given the introduction of new sexually receptive females. So although the male will not be physically able to re-mate with the current female, ‘things’ will start to happen if another lass saunters in.

I wonder if this relates to our experiences with brands. We are unable to respond to copycat products, clichéd slogans, flaccid campaigns…There’s just no go.

We now need a very different kind of brand novelty, one that engages us deeply by making us central actors in the brand story . Faris over at TIGS has a great riff on what he calls 'pseudo-modern communication', whereby the individual's actions are made  "the necessary condition of the cultural product."

Involvement at the conceptual level is the new black.

- Hiten

Corrine named 'Woman of the Week'!

Corrine Sandler, President of Fresh Intelligence, was named 'Woman of the Week' at Women's Post magazine.

Partnering with Fresh Intelligence has allowed Cap C to move to a 'collect and collaborate' model.  By tapping into their tech expertise and real-time research savvy, we're able to arrive at just-out-the-oven insights. Mmmm

Full interview & photos here. Kudos Corrine!

Jim Balsillie and the NHL

Why Jim Balsillie, owning an Hamilton Franchise, would be good for the NHL, Toronto Maple Leafs, Media, and Southern Ontario.

The obvious is that he has the economic means,
he is a passionate Canadian and a rabid hockey fan. The less obvious, and yet potentially of more value is that J im Balsillie  and his partner and co-founder of RIM, Mike Lazaridis will be recognized as our generations Alexander Graham Bell or Fredrick Banting.  They created RIM and with it put a computer within arms reach of desire.  Jim Balsillie is deeply entrenched in the Waterloo region, and is funding or guiding many innovations to further enhance communications and socialization.
Any sports league would benefit from having Jim Balsillie as of their owners.  He brings a profound and possibly unmatched knowledge of social media, and a Waterloo network of inventors that are working on the next generation of how we will interact and connect as humans on this planet.
The NHL could leverage Jim Balsillie and his platform to revolutionize how sports leagues engage, embrace and energize their fan base, in Canada and around the world.  This would create a new and deep pool of revenue for the owners in every market.

Why a Hamilton franchise be good for the Toronto Maple Leafs
Attention is the oxygen of any entertainment business.  With unlimited entertainment choices, and a new generation of consumers who are socializing not in bars or in front of television sets but on their computer or gaming platforms, anyone, including the Toronto Maple Leafs will have to work harder at getting their attention, and motivating them to watch or come to their games.  A rival franchise just up the road would create tension, fuel conversation, and create a division of fans as they sided up for each team.  All of this sparks conversation, and debate, enagementment, and more importantly interest and attention.

Why a Hamilton franchise is good for the media
Building on my point above, this type of tension and debate, are great stories to also socialize in the media.  Add Wayne Gretzky coaching in our home court, a slate of young guns that power Phoenix, and you are selling papers, and driving eyeballs in front of the television set, to sports channels, and on the web.  All of which brings in advertising dollars.

Why a Hamilton franchise is great for Southern Ontario
Hamilton and Windsor have been hit hard by the manufacturing recession that has destroyed this infrastructure for the past twenty years.   They need a renaissance and this team would be one.  A focal point to help them in their migration from manufacturing to a service based economy.
More importantly this franchise will bring in the Kitchener/Waterloo economy of innovators and entrepreneurs, the people that will help reinvent Canada’s future economy.
It will be an ideal opportunity for Torontonians, and in fact all of Canada to learn more about companies like Open Text and Igloo, and to realize why our tax dollars need to be invested in technology, and innovation going forward.

Why the impasse?
Gary Betman and Jim Balsillie are both great leaders.  They achieved their stature by being in control of their destiny and their agenda.   Jim Balsillie made a brilliant strategic move to go afer a franchise with the purpose of relocating, and in doing so created a loss of control for Gary Betman.  The courts are now ruling on a decision that could effect sports franchises everywhere.
Plan to move this agenda forward

Obama won his election by rallying the individual voter, and ironically he did much of his communication through his blackberry, sending out millions of messages a day.  We need to rally Canadians to embrace the idea of a team.   Let the NHL, our favourite NHL Teams, Politicans and Media know we like the idea.
We need to have the Toronto Maple Leafs come out in favour of this team, and set an aggressive yet still affordable fee for having a  team locate within their franchise territory.   This will require the high end lobbying you see when big corporate and political deals get done.

We need to show the NHL and the NHL Owners what life would be like with Jim Ballisille as an owner.  What can RIM bring to the table?  What can millions of RIM users bring to the table?  What does the Waterloo and Kitchener economy of entrepreneurs, who are currently revolutionizing communication bring to their table.   New and bold ways to engage the fans and media, and the dollars that come with that.

We need to separate the emotions of two great leaders, and the disruption caused one’s agenda and destiny by the other, and get back to a rationale look at the NHL in Hamilton with this great Canadian at the helm.

Tony Chapman

Alterna and Us

Alterna hires Cap C for rebranding, exciting stuff!

Thinking Outside the Cube

Great article in the National Post on our Cube experiment!

Tony- AdLounge Twitter Interview

Here she be

20 Righteous Rules for Social PR: we.e book #3

Download 20 Righteous Rules for Social PR
This we.e book is about the new role of PR within the changing media landscape. It's a topic I've been obsessed with for the past while, and needed to get it out of the doodle pad and into the world.

Sticky Sociology Meets Social Media- we•e book #2

Download Sticky Sociology Meets Social Media
Recently, I've been digging though some books and papers on sociology, and found a massive wealth of jump-off points into insights and ideas around social media.
This little collection of thought doodles is the result of some of those mental meanderings.
Have a look, keep in mind the concepts have been bent to conform to our new idea space and landscape.

Hooky & Sticky Social Media Ideas - our first e-book!

Here it is folks.
I'm calling it a wee-book: readable in 15 minutes!
Have fun.
Download Hooky & Sticky Social Media Ideas

Thoughts on Community Nurturing

As we plan a project which will involve the cultivation of a user community, I've found myself looking around for best and worst practices on the subject. I found the newbie issue interesting. Here' a few things I've learned.
Support Newbies
Have a community manager actively support new arrivals, like any social situation they need to feel at home. The conversion of new members to established members is a critical transition point for any social system.
Newbies Need a Low Risk Environment
Once the threshold has been crossed, and the hero's journey begins, there is a lot of unease and fear of failure. A bad experience or negative connection can cause a user to detach, and possibly become a detractor. Establishing a sense of belonging and attachment at this point is THE MOST CRITICAL, if you explore attachment theory.
Newbies Must be Comfortable to Ask Stupid Questions.
'There are no stupid questions' has to be one of the commandments, respected by community managers and the group at large. Get a friendly FAQ going immediately, make it readable. The Slashdot community has a great one, it's a full education.
Get the Community Supporting Each Other
I suppose this is the essence of self organization, but the sooner newbie get involved in helping, the more solid the community will become. There's a great story about the Delancy Street Foundation from the book Influencer. The mission is one of the most successful 'rehab' communities in the world. Mission Director Dr.Daniel Silbert discusses how she quickly throws new members into a supporting role for even newer members. This causes them to learn, commit and attach faster to the values of the community. This self organization is key to the health of your community.
Social Intelligence Coaching
There must be strict 'be nice' policies in place, ecouraging the kind of emotional and social intelligence that any real or virtual community thrives on. Documentation on 'how to help' or teach or learn can be helpful, and celebrating the top helpers goes a long way. This documentation can be a white paper or ebook that has value beyond the specific community.
Look at Reward Strategies
Establish levels of rewards for people who are active in supporting and facilitating. Badges are one idea.  Or reward them with funded 'real world' meetups. The support community should be a micro community in it's own right.

What Would Google Do?

Here's a few of the brain nuggets that stuck in my cranium from the first half of this brilliant book.
(i'll get to hyperlinking this piece soon)
• Customer as Partner; Be careful when you hand over control, (not that you have a choice) because the game is changed; Jarvis takes us through his Dell Sucks story. He points out that control is no longer a reality. Partnership is.
• The Age of the Hyperlink; a hyperconnected universe means you need to be a network or join a network, but connections are key. This is how you get Google Juice. Google juice is that wonderful elixir that gets you respect in the Googleverse. Jarvis points out that GJ might be how companies are evaluated one day. Funny. But possible.
• Be a Platform. Help people accomplish their goals. Be useful, thoughtful, add value. Link to things that people want and need. Have a fresh perspective. Make live wonderful, easy, longer for people and they will reward you with their support and their returned attention. The attention market demands this relationship.
• Get Distributed. Give stuff away, it's the free/gift economy. The more you give the more you get. Back to Google Juice. The key is, within this network, to have one thing your platform is built on that people can only get from you. And link to the rest. Get to know the words and phrases your audience uses. Use them in your content. Be them. Hire them.
• Life is now Public. I love the idea of Publicness; the act of offering your wares and ideas to the world, letting people know who you are, what you do and what you believe. The Cluetrain Manifesto pointed out that humanity and voice will be key to adding flesh to an otherwise intangible creation in the virtual world. But publicness is also about the 'socialization' of your offering, letting everyone see what you and others are up to on your platform.
• Your Customers are your Agency; more than ever, a happy customer is gold. In the world of Twitter, a great experience can be tweeted to hundreds of people. Yesterday, someone tweeted the brand of beer they were about to relax with, and I chose that brand when I made my purchase a few hours later. Talk about top-of-mind! Jarvis is not a fan of ads, he point out that the generation that was bombarded with Yahooooo ads is now Googling feverishly.
• Elegant Organization; FaceBook wunderkid coined this phrase, referring to the concept behind his platform. Elegant org is giving seamless tools to people to organize themselves, their lives and their interests. It's flexible and respectful of the fact that community is something you facilitate, you don't own.
• The Post Scarcity Economy; is a world where we have enough of everything, so we need to enter the gift economy, where adding value is a must. But really, this is social intelligence. You give to get. The 'long tail' or 'mass of niches' is the new reality, where 'gifts' of value and expertise can position you as a platform to 'true fans'.
• The End of the Middleman; The internet hates inefficiency. CraigsList is a great example of connecting classifieds to people without the need for newspaper in the middle. Elegant organization meets the Gift Economy...
• Life in Beta; beta is Googles way of never having to say you're sorry. The beta idea allows you to innovate quickly, make mistakes swiftly, and fix them rapidly.
• Find the Problem Before the Solution; Google is a utility company. They create things that people need. Then they give it away. (they make money as essentially an advertising entity)
• Simplify! Once you figure out the business you're in, get really focused. Compare their home page to Yahoo's. (they actually had issues in the early days, because people kept wanting to scroll down for the content...
That's it for now. Part 2 later.

Toronto Idea Salon - going, going...

Only a handful of tickets left for the Toronto Idea Salon- Sweet LineUp;

Choi’s spicy pork and Twitter

"For the uninitiated, Kogi is one of the hottest food stories in Los Angeles these days. Two Kogi taco trucks roam the streets of L.A. serving tacos and burritos inspired by the flavors of Korean BBQ. The most unique aspect of the business: Kogi uses Twitter to post its street locations, creating a viral following that often leads to two-hour waits for foodies craving Choi’s spicy pork or short rib tacos."
(ripped directly from the OC daily news...)

Modding - the Age of Collaborative Property

Mods are modified games built off of another game's code.
Within this practice you have partial conversions and total conversions. Partial conversions are games that have new content added, while total conversions are totally new games.
We're seeing the same thing being done to the code of a digital culture, where partial and total conversions are expressions of fandom, from videos to music to applications.
Partial converteres are tweakers who just want to quickly express themselves through anothers' work, like doctoring a photo or building on a retweet. Total converters take an idea and run with it, like tribute videos or reworked music tracks.
The Mod Culture will require new rules and laws, as Lessig writes in Remix.
Creativity will evolve, and property will be rethought. The post scarcity economy will make us redefine 'ownership' and rethink intellectual protectionism.