Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Content Kings Look Away Now

TorrentFreak gives us a figure sure to chill the blood of content kings everywhere: "75 percent of all traffic on the Internet is due to file sharing, with 59 percent of that file sharing attributed to people swapping video files. Music tracks account for 33 percent of the file-sharing traffic. E-mail, it turns out, accounts for just 9 percent of the total traffic. The total internet traffic is a brain-twisting 40 petabytes - a 4 followed by 16 zeros."

Hallam Foe Screening

Hugh has kindly invited me along to his latest marketing-venture cum social-experiment spreading the word about the film Hallam Foe.  You can see all about it on the HF blog which covers different aspects of the film from the shoot, to the actors, to the soundtrack, to the marketing.  It's a great example of attracting people's interest by opening up a process and offering a sneaky-peek at something they wouldn't normally get to see.  In this case a bunch of dudes putting a film together.  I've been involved with a few film projects and what has always struck me is that there's great drama involved in the endeavour - even if it just seems like grinding pain to the people involved - and that drama is intriguing to others.  In some ways the end product (ie the film) is just the finale.  To kick things off Hugh has arranged a screening of the film's rough cut and drinks for a few blog-oriented individuals who can then begin the discussion....

We Sell Or Else

Adliterate has a great starter-for-seven and thread going about the problems that occur when marketeers are primarily focused on internal processes and measurement techniques that reflect upon his or her CV-in-progress.  This is a view that is sometimes linked with wooly ideas about brand-building rather than commercial impact.  Modern marketeers know that the world isn't like that anymore.  An eager audience is now willing, ready and able to let a company know...

Object Centered Sociality

I was talking to Simon at Big Picture yesterday about Object Centered Sociality which is a horrible term but a great concept.  I first came across the idea at last year's Reboot in a fantastic presentation made by Jyri Zengestrom.  The basic idea is that lots of people in a room, or online, need something to talk about, otherwise they just mingle around, get bored and shoot off.  But once some simple guidelines have been made people are good at picking up the reins.  Unforgettably, Jyri made the point by blowing up a beach ball and throwing it into the quiet audience and, of course, we all started popping it between ourselves...

Nike's Own Mega Community

Nike are probably the original modern marketeers, always staying just ahead of the curve and then commiting in a big way.  So it's no surprise to hear of plans for Joga, an attempt to kick start a massive, global social network based around soccer - in conjunction with Google.  The timing is great just ahead of the World Cup and judging from the way Trevor Edwards, a Nike marketing dude, talks they have the tone just right: "We have to make sure we stay in their (customers) world, stay connected, stay relevant, and, more importantly, we allow them to do what they want. It's their world, their lives. We give them the tools." Invite only too - super smart.

Second Life Explained

Second Life is an alternate reality game (ARG) that is getting very big, very quickly.  Take a look at this video of a lecture the two founders gave at Google this week.  For modern marketeers the most interesting aspect is the sophistication of the community. The people who play have created their own economy and a few even earn a living.  One German lady is earning $175,000 per year dealing real estate - yes real US dollars.  There's also a 'live' music scene.  One 'real' homeless person busked enough in Second Life to get a flat in his first life.  Headspinning.

Lego's Citizen Developers

Wired has a great write-up about how Lego harnessed the open source ethic and managed the opening up of its new product development processes.  I think this quote says it all: "In Billund Denmark (Lego's HQ) not only is the customer always right, he's also a candidate for the R&D team. And he'll work for small plastic blocks."  It's fair to say that Lego have an advantage due to the nature of its product but as Johnnie and I have found at our Open Sauce sessions, once people understand the thinking, the OS ethic can be applied in the most surprising ways.

New Social Circles

The New York Times has published a great article about how a new generation - The Millenials -  is organising itself around technologies and the implications that has for marketing and advertising.  Many twentysomethings now create vibrant online social circles through which almost every part of their lives is filtered for relevance and credibility.  For marketeers this means that unless a brand can enter that circle it is likely to just be ignored.  So brands have to work hard to present themselves in a way that clicks with The Millenials outlook on the world.  "When someone wants to share it, forward it, record it, take a picture of it, whatever the case may be, that puts it into a form of currency." (Via Three Minds).

Typepad Woes

Here are at Modern Marketing we have been suffering with the Typepad service we use for this blog.  My whole system went down on Friday and TP is still not able to help me get back up and running properly.  I like the TP service alot and recommend it widely but I won't be quite so quick to praise it to others after this incident...

Paxman's Second Life

The world of MMORPG is set to become a greater part of the modern marketing scenario.  I spent the year 2000 planning and designing just such an environment for the James Bond franchise and so have a particular interest in them.  Back then Everquest was about to explode but now Second Life is where it's at.  Even BBC Newsnight's Paxman is in there...