360DigitalInfluence

There are more than 30,000 non-executive members of company boards across Australia. If you are one of them, what are the questions you should be asking about how the business you manage is handling social media?

We’ve put together five “starter” questions that corporate board members should ask to gauge how well the companies they oversee are managing the risks and taking advantage of the opportunities presented by social media.

What other questions should board members be asking?

I’ve come across a few interesting ideas this week. The first:

1. Mountains and Mona Lisa - Samsung >> this has limited application as an emerging media I admit, but I offer it firstly because I was bought up on Wales, but more importantly because it was the precursor to the second idea – which is much more applicable:

2. Monuments and masses – Samsung 3D projections>> 3D projection will grow and grow as a brand experience format. These two ideas  in tandem create quite an interesting space that Samsung is beginning to own – innovation with LED and lighting -  similar to the Crowdsourcing ideas in Liverpool Street and Trafalgar Square that T Mobile had so much success in. There are lots of examples of monumental 3D projections – one most recently by BMW in Singapore. I adore this sort of creative work, because it is the true fusion of physical and digital. It creates both a physical and digital Theatre for the Brand in which consumers co-exist and co-create. Developing these “sustained conversations and dialogues” is core to building brands and emotions between them and consumers.

I also really enjoyed Google Chrome’s browser speed test. In a world full of complications I think it is a good example of how to make an intangible USP, more tangible. Until your competitor, the Opera Browser,  responds with their own  repost the Opera’s Speed test. Both ideas are sort of traditional “advertising stories” but neither will ever pay for media on TV.

A week would not be a week without some passing mention of an iPad, so here are two explorations of the iPad on the left side of leftfiled – the first is the iPad magic show from Japan; the second a low tech adaptation to make the hi tech, better: Velcro + iPad

Also several bookmarks on data visualisations and info-graphics this week – helping creative and data minds meet, or not:
David Armano’s excellent visualisations of our communication and social world: and a few others from Hubspot’s 22 social media Diagrams: and finally a good collection from Nowsourcing .

By now, almost all the western world — and a good chunk of Asia and Africa — have all heard of Apple’s latest breakthrough product, the iPad.

The sheer number of impressions this launch has generated is in itself impressive. But what is even more impressive is the use of early adopters and key influentials to drive the story, enthusiasm, excitement and buzz for Apple, not the company itself.

Remember that Apple is not a company that is that into social media, yet check out the Twitter hashtag #ipad and end user blogs to get a sense for the mountain of coverage and interest generated for the iPad.

How does it do this? Good old-fashioned smart PR and a communications strategy that relies on the magnification effect of early adopters and influentials to amplify launch noise via traditional PR, Word of Mouth (WoM) buzz and aspirational excitement.

Here’s some of the ground rules:

1. Carefully pick and choose your hero product(s) for the year and put as much wood behind these arrows as you can. The iPad was THE launch of 2010 for Apple. The company maintains ongoing influencer relations, a thorough reviewer’s program, and ongoing engagement for other products, like their laptops, iPods, etc., but the focus was iPad and later this year iPhone OS version 4.0. That’s it. Laser-like focus, picking and backing your product bets, not spreading the wealth across a wide product range that all cry out for PR support, even though they may be close to end-of-life (EOL) and have reached the downward side of the S-curve. The other products bask in the halo of the hero products. See what the iPod did for Macintosh sales post launch? See what the iPhone has done for iPad sales?

2. Focus on long term influencer and early adopter relations and engagement. These are your natural allies. Cultivate them, let them talk for you because they ultimately carry far more weight and credibility than your own Press Releases, blog posts or advertising. Engage with not just technology influencers, but with business, social and celebrity folk that give you brand cache and style. It’s no accident that Stephen Fry is an Apple fan boy, so is half of Hollywood, thanks to decades of engagement with product placement on set and off set, with the stars themselves. Every episode of Seinfeld has a Macintosh and a small statuette of Superman in the background. Check it out next time re-run comes on. At one point, Jerry Seinfeld had a Mac too (and probably still does even though he did ads with Bill Gates last year).

So how does this translate into the iPad launch? How do these uber-strategies map with launch tactics? Well, here’s a synopsis:

The iPad launched officially on April 1, but embargoes were set for March 31. This means a wave of launch buzz and hype 24 hours prior to people being able to buy one (not counting the rumours and speculation in the prior nine months).

Key influencers were seeded with Product Verification & Testing (PVT) units three to four months out in some cases, depending on when these units were deemed stable enough and of sufficient quality to pass muster for people that will forgive non-production machine foibles because they love the technology and because they consider themselves Apple-insiders. These units went to key Apple business partners/friends (remember Google CEO Eric Schmidt got a pre-production iPhone and not so surreptitiously flashed it at Davos, where it stole the headlines rather than dry economic prognostications?), celebrities, technology gurus, etc. Also note that they all honoured the strict Apple NDAs — no insider wants to be ostracized and get thrown out of the club.

Journos/key bloggers in the US (a very select few, high impact folks) had their iPads under NDA for a week prior to launch, enough for them to play and enjoy, but not enough time for them to be too heavily critical. Launch reviews reflect that and it’s commonsense when you think about it. The shine always rubs off the shiny new toy the longer you have it. This early enthusiasm sets the tone for the launch coverage, providing the initial launch gestalt.

Celebrity Twitter-ers helped fuel the social media buzz. Stephen Fry was on the US West Coast at launch (funny how that happened) and put up video of the un-boxing of his iPad. He openly Tweeted he had one a day prior to the rest of the population. Robert Scoble did the same thing, except for the video of the unboxing (he later went out and bought two more iPads because his family kept hijacking his — and Tweeted about it). Reviews popped up the day before the official launch by Walt Mossberg and David Pogue in the US — two of the most highly respected tech journos in the country. Surgical media placement and engagement for maximum impact rather than a broad ‘hit as many as you can’ approach most companies take.

Foreign (that is, non-US) media got flown to a glitzy New York event and even if there was no pricing for their markets, they got to play with units at launch in salubrious surroundings and with high profile Apple execs. They in turn also had the opportunity if they were keen enough to buy their own units in the US, which judging by the coverage, a good few did, thereby continuing the buzz momentum.

And the result is, as you can see, a wave of initial great coverage that drives WoM, then sales and sets the tone.

More importantly its a self-reinforcing cycle of clever, surgical market engagement that fuels Apple’s mystique as a cult rather than as a technology company.

And the interesting thing is that other companies with ‘insanely’ great products could be doing the same to build their own mystique and stories. Mass communications doesn’t have to be massive, just smart.

Postscript: The iPhone OS 4.0 was announced a few days ago. Only Apple developers are supposed to have the beta code for testing. Stephen Fry, who last time I checked can’t cut a line of code, Tweeted yesterday that he had just installed it on his 3G iPhone. General availability for the masses is not expected until the northern hemisphere summer/autumn (fall).

Our colleagues at OgilvyOne in New York have launched a global search for the “World’s Greatest Sales Person”.

Lucky finalists will win a fellowship at OgilvyOne and a trip to Cannes International Advertising Festival to pitch their ideas.

For more information and to enter, checkout the Ogilvy YouTube Channel!

Thanks very much to the nearly 300 people from across Asia who dialled into our webinar on “Social Media for B2B Companies”, hosted in partnership with the Wall Street Journal Asia and Citrix Online.

As promised we have uplosed the presentation deck to Slideshare and have updated to include links to a few great additional resources that you can use to help your business get started. These links include the following:

• Ogilvy On: Social Media for Crisis Management  
• Ogilvy On: Twitter for Business
• Ogilvy On: Facebook for Business
• Social Media in Asia Presentation
• APAC Statistics and Research (Asia Digital Map Blog)

Hurry! Space is limited for this 30-minute webinar and registration is required.

Join the award-winning Social Media team from Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide for a free 30-minute online seminar powered by Citrix GoToWebinar and done in partnership with The Wall Street Journal Asia.

This webinar will provide concrete examples, action plans and case studies, including:

· 5 key steps for a business-to-business strategy;
· How to build and engage a community of potential and current customers;
· Real-life case studies from successful business-to-business strategies;
· The highly popular – and now extended – Question and Answer section;
· Much, much more…

The seminar will be led by Brian Giesen a senior regional strategist in Ogilvy’s 360 Digital Influence team and moderated by Graham White, Managing Director of Howorth Communications in Sydney.

Join us Wednesday, 3 March at 11:00am (Hong Kong time):

http://bit.ly/aWsvrI

Last week Google announced it’s real time search feature, which I believe is set to forever change the way we think about and use search.

If you haven’t seen it in action yet I recommend you go to the Google home page and search for something topical like climate change.

In the results some movement should catch your eye and there they’ll be – real time search results. Take a moment to just sit back, relax and let the strangely compelling waterfall of information wash over you.

Once you wake from the dull, Google-induced trance you’ll have hopefully experienced an epiphany similar to mine:

Right at this moment people all over the world are talking about you, your business, your brand, your event, whatever it may be, and now as soon as they say it – Google will display it.

So how are we going to influence the conversation and harness the power of real time in 2010?

What do hydrants, voicemails and denial have in common?  They’re all now closely associated with the Tiger Woods brand, according to new research from Nielsen Online.

Today, Nielsen Online provided me with a Brand Association Map demonstrating the impact of the controversy on the Tiger Woods brand – based on analysis of online discussion about Tiger Woods both before and after the controversy.

Not surprisingly, as a result of the recent controversy the Tiger Woods brand has gone from being closely associated with video games, golf and other sports to other, well, less wholesome topics.

While the jury’s still out on how long it will take for the Tiger Woods brand to recover, one thing’s for certain – these less wholesome associations will take far longer to fade away.

For years and years, search has always been the number one reason people go online. Nearly 9 times out of 10 people will start out an Internet session by using Google, Yahoo! or Bing to find a new site or look for information about a product. Advertisers and marketers have spent countless dollars trying to get their attention through sponsored ads.

But, interestingly, new research released from Hitwise earlier this month suggests that in Australia and in other markets across Asia Pacific search may soon move to second most popular online activity – behind social networking. According to the Hitwise report:

Social networks and forums are set to eclipse Search Engines and become the most visited industry for the first time over the coming months, most likely during the weeks immediately before or after Christmas.

The report also shows that search is already the #2 online activity behind social networking in other APAC countries, including Hong Kong and Singapore. Other key findings from the report:

• 11.7% of all visits to social networks originated in Australia
• Facebook is currently the #2 Web site in Australia – and it’s projected to overtake Google
• Search is a popular activity within social networks (MySpace = artists, Facebook = entertainment/utility)
• 26 minutes, 13 seconds is the average time spent on Facebook per visit

These trends could have huge implications on the massive budgets that are spent very day on pay-per-click and search marketing globally. Already, consumers are spending exponentially more time on social networks (27 percent of all time spent online in Australia in the past month was spent on Facebook, according to Nielsen) than search engines.

As more and more brands become not only findable but engagable on social sites, we could start to see social networks as being not only the #1 online activity but the #1 place online where smart brands invest their marketing and advertising dollars to build community and engagement among their customers.

As a bit of a foodie bore I spend a lot of my online life reading and salivating over food blogs. The Guardian newspaper have one of the best food sections around and their online offering really pushes the way in terms of how a good old fashion paper newspaper can get digital and enhance the user experiance even for those of us who sorely miss the rustle of a broadsheet.

The Clickalong series is a fantastic program run by Allegra McEvedy, one of the nicest celebrity chefs around, and based on a program where amateur chefs are in their kitchens cooking together in real time by refreshing their browsers.

Here’s what it entails:

Clickalong is a unique online cooking experience allowing the nation to cook alongside our resident chef in real time. It’s easy – Allegra devises a new, never-before published recipe, you gather the ingredients together and set up your computer in view (or shouting distance) of your kitchen worktop.

Then follow the live, illustrated step-by-step guide and clickalong until culinary success is achieved. Allegra is right there alongside you to answer any questions as the pace quickens.

Then we eat!

The series is so successful that the comments come in at a speed of knots and they have set up a very successful flickr page where the clickalong amateur chefs post photos of their own creations

Maybe we should start our own one with the unusual dishes of our respective countries of residence.  Pigs brain in a sweet plum reduction? Anyone?