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Has Twitter opened up the desktop? Marketers: take note.

Published on

September 25th, 2009

We published a piece late last year called “Why Online Marketers should care about Adobe AIR” If you aren’t familiar with Adobe AIR, it allows you to create or port web applications for use like a traditional computer desktop program, but with much of the interactivity and connectivity of the Web.

This past year has seen AIR’s popularity rise mostly in part because of apps like TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop. These apps, along with scores of others, allow you to plug in one or more of your social media accounts (usually Facebook and Twitter) and then track your social network’s status updates in one application, including posting out your own updates. With people having multiple accounts, hundreds of followers, and continuous updates, launching a bunch of websites to maintain your social existence can quickly become cumbersome. Having an application that sits on your desktop all day becomes an easy way to manage your social-self while still getting some semblance of work done.

Beyond facilitating social media, these apps have clearly gotten people more familiar with downloading and using applications other than a web browser to connect and interact. Further, while a mobile device is a different animal than a laptop, an argument could also be made that the wildly popular iPhone App Store has also made people comfortable downloading, installing and using apps over purely visiting websites.

Branded Desktop Apps (BDAs) have been around forever—remember Southwest Airlines’ “Ding!”? However, the new desktop revolution (read: Adobe AIR) creates more widespread opportunities for marketers. Ever since we began preaching the virtues of branded apps (check out myvisa.com for an example of one of our early efforts for Visa or their current Visa Signature Access Widget we also brought to life), we’ve always tried to hammer home the idea that desktop apps were one of the best ways to gain and maintain consumer mindshare. If a person downloads your application and uses it on a daily basis, what better medium could you possibly invest in than a branded app? What medium provides more consistent brand engagement? You own a piece of real-estate your target consumer looks at nearly every day: their computer.

We surmise the reason more marketers haven’t embraced the space is simply lack of familiarity and that apps are viewed as being “an I.T. thing.” It’s doesn’t necessarily fall into the white-hot social media realm or other common interactive plays like banners, microsites, or even mobile dabbling.

But some forward-thinking marketers who have realized desktop apps are not much different than building a website are thinking big. Last year we worked with the team at HARPO (Oprah.com) to launch the O Dream Board, an AIR creation (note: the HARPO team has since enhanced the application and it now integrates with Walgreens photo technology). Major brands like FedEx, Fox, ebay, and Nickelodeon have also launched AIR apps. Whether these innovations start with I.T., new product development or marketing departments isn’t clear to us in every example, but the point is they are consumer facing, and whether they provide content, entertainment, utility, or all of the above, they are a marketing communication tool.

We encourage our marketing friends to put down the 10th social media whitepaper they’ve read this month and start consider the desktop as an untapped frontier. If you want to check out some cool apps out there, take a look at the Adobe AIR Marketplace.

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Visit our main site or check out our social & viral marketing services to learn more about Upshot Interactive. Also, feel free to drop us a line anytime.

Content Darwinism: what to say?

Published on

July 29th, 2009

in Uncategorized . 0 Comments

My wife, a long time rabid e-newsletter subscriber recently “discovered” RSS Feeds. Of course, I believe I had casually mentioned “you should read some of those via RSS” about 400 times over the last few years, but people are habitual creatures.
Naturally she loves the idea now, but commented, “there’s just so much content!”

With the advent of Twitter and massive surge in brands on Facebook, it seems our information overload has not only increased, but it’s coming at us from all angles. Brands, who would formerly just create a pretty microsite and call it a day are finding they actually have to come up with good things to say on a regular, if not daily basis. Imagine that, you have an opportunity to have a conversation with your brand loyalists at the Social Media Party of the Century, and you’re swaying back and forth, 2/3rds empty drink in hand, searching for something good to say to someone who might potentially pass your good thoughts onto others.

Not long ago, Wired ran an article basically encouraging people to forget about starting a blog. The land rush was over, the biggest blogs had the mindshare. Pack up the car, the pool is full-up.

It makes sense—smart brands have known for sometime now that relevant, valued content, not pushing an ad in people’s faces, is the path to the hearts and minds of consumers online, and to those that have embraced this idea, consumers have reacted in-kind. The by-product, unfortunately, is a glut of content, and much of it mediocre at best. It seems the battle cry is now, “Stay top of mind! Stay top of mind!” so we’re just pushing out content for the sake of pushing content.

So what you should be saying and how often should you be saying it? I can’t answer that in a single blog post. What I can say is follow some basic rules:

When the industry finally figured out email marketing (I’m guessing 1999), the mantra was “relevancy.” Yes, that still holds true for all the new media—Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Mobile, etc. Duh.
Invest in truly good content that speaks to your target audiences. License it, sponsor it, buy it, or create it. Online content can have a long tail and can be repurposed when done cleverly. Think all media: text, video, games, apps. Then talk about it. Use it to drive awareness, and ultimately brand loyalty.
If you have no truly relevant content, and aren’t willing to invest in any, don’t say anything, or say very little. Hire an agency (like us—shameless plug) or just don’t play. You’re hurting more than helping by posting meaningless content that is just an intrusion of someone’s day because the CMO wants the Facebook Page up-to-date (read: people on Facebook will hide your posts)

Did I eat my own dog food here? Did I actually say anything meaningful and relevant? God I hope so…let me know.

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Visit our main site or check out our social & viral marketing services to learn more about Upshot Interactive. Also, feel free to drop us a line anytime.

Emerge Digital: The “Complete” Package

Published on

May 1st, 2009

in Uncategorized . 0 Comments

Cue the film clip.

Remember the scene in Jerry McGuire where Tom Cruise bursts in on Renee Zellweger, his former girlfriend, a wrenched look of anguish on his face (number three in Cruise’s repertoire of five)? Cruise rambles through all his ‘feelings’ until he crescendos into the well-known “you complete me” line. Of course, Zellweger melts into his arms, they get married, they live happily ever after, blah, blah, blah.

At Emerge Digital. We don’t complete you. We extend your reach.

The collective wisdom among interactive agencies is that there are developers who write the computer code upon which all internet applications run (websites, games, widgets, …) and designers who create the look and layout of everything you see in those applications (text, images, visual & organizational flow,…). Both of these roles are essential to any interactive campaign, yet because of the history of advertising, the assumption is that the two are completely independent and that if you can do one, you can contract out the other.

This assumption is just wrong. What’s worse, it creates dysfunction right from the start.

Think of it like a relationship. What you have is two people attracted to each other because each seems to fill a gap in the other. That’s how it starts anyway. But it rarely results in a Hollywood ending. Each partner winds up feeling that the part he/she brings to the table is undervalued and that what his/her partner brings is inflated out of all proportion. The same thing is true for interactive agencies. Design agencies who contract out for development and development agencies who contract out for design both bring unhealthy relationships to the table—dominance/submission, condescension/resentment, etc. It’s a lot of baggage that you as a marketer shouldn’t have to deal with.

Enter Emerge Digital, stage left. You probably saw that coming, huh? That’s okay. You don’t want any surprises coming from the agency you hire. You want creativity. You want expertise. You want …(drum roll SFX) results.

Emerge Digital is unique among interactive agencies because we place equal value on both the design and the development aspects of your work. We feel they’re really just two sides of the same coin, which becomes particularly important for marketers because it’s your coin.

(Relax, there will be no “Show me the money” references here.)

What we’re talking about is a constant, complete integration of design and development through every step of the process. It’s a vision that includes perceptions associated with both of these creative strands as well as a constant grasp of the ‘Big Picture’.

More than that, though, the close relationship between design and development at Emerge allows us to be more flexible than other agencies. And this allows us to be more innovative in adapting new technologies and design strategies to marketers’ needs. This agility translates into our clients sidestepping the competition and getting their messages out more quickly and to greater effect.

This amounts to a seamless stream of communication, between designers and developers, between Emerge and you, and between you and your audience. Furthermore because our focus is interactive, this communication doesn’t end when your message finds its audience on the other side of the screen. On the contrary, that’s the point at which the conversation between client and customer starts—a more honest and high value conversation than any scripted dialog you’ll find in a summer blockbuster.

Emerge Digital: Now playing on every screen your audience uses.

(Roll credits)

Image Credit: Justin Aram

Hat tip to Adam Stipanuk for this week’s theme.

Any similarity between characters in this blog and any persons living, dead or famous (which has been described as a living death) is purely coincidental.

No animals were harmed in the production of this blog, unless you count the haircut we gave our cat. She now looks like a cross between a lion and a poodle. Looking good, Abby.

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Visit our main site or check out our social & viral marketing services to learn more about Upshot Interactive. Also, feel free to drop us a line anytime.

A Widget By Any Other Name…

Published on

April 17th, 2009

in Uncategorized . 0 Comments

william O Widget, Widget, wherefore art thou Widget?

No, wait, take the gun (or finger) out of your mouth, we’re done with the bad Shakespeare parodies, mostly because the comparison misses the mark. Widgets by any other name would be… better.

It’s a lousy name not only because widget doesn’t tell people what it is or does, the word actually refers to something that ‘cannot be recalled’ (Random House Dictionary). As you can imagine, that’s not a great way to have to describe your product.

To be clear, in the interactive world, a widget is a portable chunk of code that performs a simple (ideally a single) function and can be installed and executed on a web page, a computer desktop or a mobile phone. Typical functions include news readers, games, stock quotes, weather reports, etc. Emerge makes them (among many other things). We’re very proud of our work. Disclosure, disclosure, disclosure, self promotion, yadda-yadda-yadda.

Make no mistake interactive widgets are wonderful things, and they can do an awful lot more than we have room to describe here. Moreover, because they are portable, see above, widgets can be spread around the internet from user to user at no cost to you, the marketer. This gives widgets the capacity to take a promotion into the vaunted viral realm. Great stuff, huh? But that name… talk about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (sorry).

The term is generic, so people don’t know what to make of them, which creates kind of a high barrier of entry. On the other hand, the fact that the name widget is so generic, allows marketers and agencies to be really creative and to develop widgets in whatever way best suits a brand’s message. Widgets are like blank slates or canvasses that you can paint a masterpiece on, if you’re creative. How you use widgets depends on what message you want to send to your audience.

Consider what a widget did for the people of Galveston. The island of Galveston has long been a popular vacation spot. Its miles of beaches, tropical setting, and relaxed atmosphere are just a few of the reasons why. But when Hurricane Ike struck the island in 2008, it flooded much of the city and left it without basic services. In the wake of the disaster, the island received a lot of national attention, just not the kind the Galveston tourism board wanted. To counteract the image left by the storm that Galveston was in jeopardy and not such a safe tourist attraction any more, the Galveston board of tourism and Emerge Digital created a widget. Allowing users to look at live webcams trained on some of the island’s most picturesque spots, this widget not only showed visitors that Galveston was back on its feet and open for business, it also reminded people why the island is so popular in the first place—It’s beautiful.

Another example of what a widget can do for an organization is the University Challenge Widget Emerge built to promote Knovel’s interactive resource library to college students. The Challenge was set up as a contest in which engineering and science students answered difficult technical questions in order to win prizes (e.g. a Nintendo Wii, iPods, etc.). To meet the challenge, students were given access to Knovel’s searchable online resource library. In the process of completing the nontrivial quiz, these future engineers and scientists discovered how valuable a resource Knovel.com was. The students not only succeeded by winning prizes, they also learned how important Knovel could be for their future successes, at university and beyond. Not a bad message for a widget to pass along.

In other words, a widget is just a tool, a piece of code marketers can use to spread their message throughout the online community. Sure, it’s a poorly named tool, but let’s face it, the name is here to stay. What you get out of a widget, depends on the creativity and innovation you put into your messaging.

Think of it like a sonnet—Shakespeare’s famous fourteen-lined poem. It’s not a very big box in which to fit a whole story. You can make it be a cage, or you can make it sing.

Image credit: Adam Stipanuk

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Visit our main site or check out our social & viral marketing services to learn more about Upshot Interactive. Also, feel free to drop us a line anytime.

25 Random Things About Us (Emerge Digital)

Published on

February 25th, 2009

in Uncategorized . 1 Comment

monkey 1. We are based in Chicago, but most of our shoulders are average-sized. As for windiness: No comment.

2. We promote cause marketing campaigns because they go beyond the whole “Don’t Be Evil” ethos to the point of actually doing some good.

3. Everyone in the office has a caped monkey from Woot. Not only do they fly, they howl! And howl and howl and howl…

4. 23.5% of us are female, 76.5% are male, and at least 6% wrote a paper about androgyny in college (but not in a Michael Jackson sort of way).

5. We create platforms wherein your audience can interact with your brand in an immersive and memorable way. Oh, yeah, and we also drive measurable returns on your investment. Check out our customizable analytics!

(Some might call this a shameless plug. Can you find others? Answers below. No peeking!)

6. We laugh at economics teachers who still think widgets are hypothetical.

7. Emerge has been working in the interactive arena for nearly a decade, but we’re really looking forward to our teenage years.

8. We’re on twitter, IM, MySpace, twibs, Facebook, and LinkedIn. We also have an old-fashioned office water cooler (There’s no school like the old school.)

9. A lot of people will tell you that viral marketing is like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. We’ll tell you there are a lot of things you can do to make that lightning strike again and again. (Check out our five-part series— Viral Marketing on a Budget)

10. Abby is our cat. We don’t have a dog, or, for that matter, any birds, mice or fish.

11. We believe that the blogosphere reflects UV rays even better than the ozone layer. (Note: This is why bloggers are so pasty.)

12. We have won several advertising awards including two International Daveys this past November in the Interactive Multimedia categories of Entertainment and Direct Marketing. (It’s worth repeating.)

13. Dad’s a PC, Mom’s a Mac, we’re web-based.

14. We think webinars are kind of cool ways to learn about current trends and have decided to do a few of them. Come if you can.

15. During our 3rd Annual Chili Cookoff, animal protein totally dominated (we’re talking about you, pork and beef), but like the great melting pot that is our country, all were represented. USA, USA, USA…

16. We not only see the big picture, we can put it on a thumbnail for you.

17. Some of us have iPhones, some have Blackberries, some don’t have “Smart” phones at all. Yet somehow, we all get along.

18. We design and build branded games because it’s a great way to get consumers to interact with client brands and messages. Plus they’re really fun.

19. Emerge has a floating company holiday that employees can take either on Arbor Day or Good Friday. Negotiations are underway to expand the choice to include the Polish Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski’s Birthday. (It’s March 4th. Mark your calendars. )

20. We’re sick of this economy and wish it would start to turn itself around. Too many people we know have suffered because of it.

21. Emerge also has offices in Philadelphia and Phoenix and hopes to expand to every US city that starts with Ph. (Send your Ph-ing city suggestions in now.)

22. Many of us sacrificed Facebook friends for Whoppers, but because we were upfront about it, no feelings were hurt. That’s what social media’s all about, people: Communication! (in marketing terms that means Customer Service)

23. There is a plaster statue of a Griffin in our office foyer. A griffin is half eagle and half lion, for you non-nerds out there. And no, it doesn’t come to life on Halloween or during Harry Potter premieres.

24. We are proud of the way our design team meshes with our phenomenal group of developers. The work is typically amazing and frequently breath-taking. (Yeah, yeah, we know, this is a corporate blog, of course we’re going to say that. See for yourself.)

25. The state of Virginia published its 25 random things before we did. (Okay, it was a real estate site, but still.)

You’ve been tagged. Now you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If they tagged you, it’s because they want to know more about you. Thanks for your time.

(Answers: There are no shameless plugs. We’re just proud of our work. Is that so wrong?)

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Visit our main site or check out our social & viral marketing services to learn more about Upshot Interactive. Also, feel free to drop us a line anytime.

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