The power of presence
Posted on | June 30, 2010 by Kristofer Mencák | No Comments
Have you ever met an old friend, one you haven’t seen for a while, had a little chat, exchanged your new contact details and promised to meet up and catch up on all the latest? Have you also happily forgotten about it all for weeks until you remember that you actually met by accident and promised to catch up? Why didn’t you catch up? You did call your other, newer friends when you said you should, right?
It’s the power of presence, or in this case, the absence of it. The old friend you meet is simply not present in your mind often enough for you to remember that catch up-meeting. While your new friends are present all the time and you sure do remember to call them if you say you shall. They are top of mind.
If in the old golden era of advertising, top of mind meant advertising enough to be remembered when choosing between brands in the aisle of the supermarket, now it also means to be present in social media. Replying to questions, helping out, sorting out complaints and create a positive experience for both current and potential customers. Then your brand might be top of mind during that moment of truth in the aisle in the supermarket. Then you might even become the preferred choice.
That is the power of presence.
Youtube five years old!
Posted on | May 31, 2010 by Kristofer Mencák | No Comments
Congratulations Youtube, you just turned five years old a short time ago! It is quite incredible actually that this destination on the Internet is just five years, considering we have seen countless viral videos, stars being made and political campaigns won.
Youtube celebrates with a channel where users can send in their story.
And here is a short story of Youtube in video (of course) format.
A dis-loyalty card & the world’s best coffee
Posted on | April 18, 2010 by Kristofer Mencák | 2 Comments
I had heard about it and had pretty high expectations. Would Prufrock Coffee in Shoreditch in London deliver? It wasn’t the typical combination; a clothes and accessories store, combined with a coffee shop featuring two world class baristas. The coffee was great - I had a cappuccino. But, it’s hard to judge whether it was the best in the world, even though the 2009 UK and World Champion Barista, Gwilym Davies made it.
However, something that intrigued me was that they had a “dis-loyalty card“. That is not very common. Usually, businesses try to keep customers to themselves, viewing others offering the same product or service as bitter enemies. So, what’s the deal then? Well, this is what the card says: “Complete this tour of East London’s emerging coffee scene to claim a free coffee from the World Barista Champion Gwilym Davies @ Prufrock.”
I have been thinking a bit about the logic with this card, and the obvious is that what Prufrock gains is a return visit. But, they also potentially lose out on eight other visits?! It is not obvious that it is to their advantage. So, what else? Well, they are of course growing the pie instead of trying to get a bigger slice of a smaller pie. Also, it is a sign of greatness to dare refer customers to competitors.
And, it seems this disloyalty card, has gotten quite some attention in around the net. Steve Sack for example, gives us one of the better analyses and I agree completely:
“Great idea and a simple twist on a trusted marketing standard. Actually encourage your customers to experiment, to sample the competitor, to explore the industry landscape – and trust them to form their own educated opinion. Raise the bar for quality, show implicit confidence in your product, and display transparency. ‘My product is so good that I trust you will remain loyal even after having sampled the competition.’ And best of all, the idea is being discussed, blogged, tweeted and debated – which is all good for business.”
Just as Marty Neumeier writes in Zag: “When others zig, zag”. It no doubt creates word of mouth, and the idea has already spread to Seattle and Toronto.
Here are some links to what others have written.
BlendTec doesn’t miss an opportunity
Posted on | April 14, 2010 by Kristofer Mencák | No Comments
BlendTec made a huge success with their “Will it blend?”-series. And, they don’t miss an opportunity when they see one. With all the buzz around the iPad, they got what they wanted.
As always, using current events is a good starting point for a viral clip. So far, the iPad - Will it blend? has gotten more than 5.200.000 views. Good ROI on a reasonably low production budget and the cost of an iPad!
For mor insights, check out ViralBlog.
Confusion about influentials
Posted on | March 29, 2010 by Kristofer Mencák | No Comments
The other day I read a post about “influentials” - these people marketers and PR-professionals so desperately want to reach.
From research by Duncan Watts, we have learnt that influentials aren’t that influential.
Influential or not, Watts believes that whether a trend (or idea or similar) takes off depends on how susceptible the society is to it overall.
Of course, the actual context is also important - people are influential within different areas - or as MediaPost Publications concluded:
“A new study from ICOM — a division of direct marketing agency Epsilon — finds that there is no universal influencer, and that consumers are influencers strictly within product categories, rather than across all categories.”
The actual number of people in a persons network is of course also an important factor in deciding whether this someone is influential or not. It is not the factor, but an important one, and the reason it is important might be that a large network makes it possible to take advantage of the big seed marketing approach that Watts suggests works.
However, research made on Twitter says the number of followers doesn’t really matter much and that the three measures of influence - followers, retweets and mentions - has surprisingly little overlap when looking at the top influentials.
The post on ReadWriteWeb also concludes that:
“…the most influential users hold significant influence over a variety of topics, as opposed to being experts in just one area.”
Hmm.. .. wasn’t that in direct contrast to what ICOM concluded?
My own conclusions are that:
- Context matters
- The size of the network matters
But whether or not someone is “influential” or not must have a lot to do with the ability to get retweets or inbound links for example. So, I think it has a lot to do with the stickyness of the message. What gets links and what gets retweeted has more to do with the actual content then who does the tweeting. And then we are back to what Duncan Watts concluded - it depends on how susceptible the society is to it overall.
Service is (almost) all it takes
Posted on | February 28, 2010 by Kristofer Mencák | No Comments
I recently visited Trinidad & Tobago. I love to travel, for more than one reason. Besides vacation, new experiences and meeting new people I also almost always get business ideas. Things missing in Sweden, or things that are missing in whatever the place I am visiting. It is also very interesting to test service levels. And to be honest, service levels on T&T were probably the lowest I have ever experienced. Slow service, wrong dish served, unwilling to correct orders etc.
The event that most easily comes to mind is the visit at The House of Pancakaes on Tobago. Strangely, it was always packed, and yes, they had nice pancakes and brunch. I was lucky the first time, so I wondered about my friends hesitations to go back. But, I was wrong. After sitting down at three different tables (one move was voluntary, the other wasn’t) and waiting for more than 45 minutes to order, we finally left when the chef came out to complain to the waiters - “Don’t take in any more people, it will take an hour to get food”. So, getting a simple brunch could take approximately two hours if unlucky.
We left and went to a place nearby, where it was also slow service, but at least better. Another example was a restaurant where my ordered dessert (coconut icecream with chocolate sauce) first didn’t arrive. I ordered it again and got a dessert back reasonably quick, but with strawberry sauce on top, instead of chocolate. So, I kindly informed them what I had ordered. The waiter went out and came back with chocolate sauce on top, but it was in addition to the strawberry sauce I didn’t want. I gave up and ate it all.
But, what happens when The Pancake House opens up on the other side of the street to The House of Pancakes, and they provide good and quick service? People are already talking about The House of Pancakes. The Pancake House would easily push The House of Pancakes out of business. What industry do you feel isn’t providing good enough service? There is no need to invent a new product or a new service. Just think about what industry you think lacks good service.
Everybody loves a smile!
Posted on | January 27, 2010 by Kristofer Mencák | No Comments
If there is anything that is contagious to humans it’s a smile. If there is anything a company can do, totally free, to get more satisfied customers, it’s giving them a smile (NOT a faked one). And if there is anything Coca Cola has done right in this movie, it’s getting both the one’s participating in it, and the ones watching it, to smile! They have managed to create something that gets everybody on this american campus to talk about Coca Cola and the amazing machine, as well as giving millions of viewers online something to talk about and to pass on.
In classical “candid camera”-style they make something unexpected happen and record it. About 1.45 into the movie something happens that gives the movie an extra viral twist - you wonder how they managed to pull that off? Exactly how the machine is rigged I won’t say, and what is delivered 1.45 into the movie I won’t tell you either - a classical cliffhanger. Don’t miss it if you want a smile!
The movie has become a true viral success, and have been seen more than 1.172.000 times and has more than 4874 rankings.
A YouTube psychic?
Posted on | October 21, 2009 by Kristofer Mencák | 5 Comments
Oops, I’ve been had again. This is weird, but of course there’s some secret and logic behind it. Try it out yourself! Right now, it spreads virally in a lot of places, like on Facebook and blogs. It’s closing in on 2 million views right now.
Interesting to see how it has spread in the english speaking world (especially UK, where Richard Wiseman if from) and is relatively unseen in other parts of the world, except Scandinavia, where pretty much everybody is fluent in English too. To spread even more to a broad public, it has to be very easy to understand visually, or accessible in more languages.
And yes, I have started reading Richard Wisemans book, Quirkology, though I haven’t finished it yet. Too much to read! =)
Thanks Judith for the tip on Facebook!
The Funnyness Theory - an initiative to create change
Posted on | October 5, 2009 by Kristofer Mencák | No Comments
Here’s a funny campaign integrating guerilla marketing stunts with “how did we do it”-videos and even a “coming soon” video, that will be followed up by the shooting from the third guerrilla stunt. I can imagine quite a buzz was generated by the people actually trying the piano stairs in the first video.
Publishing these how did we do it-videos and the audience reactions is a smart way to get more bang for the buck.
The clips promote the site Rolighetsteorin (The Funnyness Theory), an initiative by Volkswagen that aims to make things funnier to create change.
The Piano Stairs - making it funnier to use the stairs
The Worlds Deepest Trash Can - making it more fun to throw trash where it should be thrown
The Empty Bottle Game - making it more fun to recycle - coming soon
My previous employer GoViral is behind the seeding of these campaign clips.
Viral amplification loops - the secret for virals?
Posted on | October 5, 2009 by Kristofer Mencák | No Comments
A viral campaign - everybody wants one. Few ever gets one.
I am the first to admit that it isn’t easy, but there are things you could to to better the odds of ever creating a campaign that goes viral. I prefer calling it “a campaign that goes viral” rather than “a viral campaign”, because, by definition, it can’t be a viral campaign until it has proven itself to actually go viral.
Then there is of course the distinction between campaigns that go viral on a larger scale and the ones that only go viral on a small scale, in very contextual environments. But, I am drifting away here, to topics that I didn’t intend to write about this time. The intention was to write about using an amplification loop as a way to increase potential for viral spread.
Viral expansion loops were discussed throroughly in a Fast Company article about a year and a half ago, in April 2008 - Ning’s Infinite Ambition.
The article tells us about Ning, a startup in Palo Alto, designed specifically to exploit viral loops. In the article, viral loops are said to have emerged as perhaps the most significant business accelerant to hit Silicon Valley since the search engine. But, we also learn that while viral advertising can’t be replicated; by definition, a viral loop must be.
About viral expansion loops from wikipedia:
“A viral expansion loop is similar to viral marketing with one notable difference: viral marketing can’t be replicated indefinitely, while a viral expansion loop must be in order for it to exist. When properly conceived and implemented, a viral loop almost guarantees self-replicating growth…
And a short quote from the article:
…Ning grows because each new user begets more users. Every time someone sets up a social network, he has no choice but to invite friends, family, colleagues, and like-minded strangers to sign on as well.”
Ning benefits from a “double viral loop,” which spreads two ways, because every network creator is a user, drawing in more users, and any new user can become a network creator.
Campaigns that go viral are usually not created in a way to permit something similar. But, there is something equally interesting - the viral retention loop - incentivizing users to come back to a service. This is very often used by Internet start-ups. One way of doing it is to send updates on what has happened on their account while not there.
I think we can expand this thinking and try to build campaigns that makes interaction with campaign material more than a one-off. For this, we have to build in incentives for users who have already been touched by the campaign to come back to the campaign material, interact again, and spread the material further. This should increase the basic reproductive number. If we can double the basic reproductive number of a campaign from for example 0.8 (by definition not a viral campaign, since it’s below 1) to 1.6, we have managed to set an avalanche in motion. This by simply adding an amplification loop into the campaign. Of course, numbers might differ a lot - these are just examples.
The difference between a retention loop and an amplification loop would be that the latter also incentivizes spread of the material, while the former just incentivizes the user to return to the service.
Through this (these - there can of course be more than one) extra loop we amplify the potential virality of the campaign. The trick is, as always, to come up with something interesting, something worth returning to, and something that makes the user want to pass the material on again, maybe with a new twist.
Here are some reading tips about viral loops:
5 crucial stages in designing your viral loop
What’s your viral loop? Understanding the engine of adoption
And some for the swedish readers:
Har din produkt en viral loop?
Tags: amplification > expansion > loop > retention > viral