The guys at Cerebra have launched an initiative with one of my favourite shoe labels Converse (incidentally, my reading glasses are also Covnerse).

I think that the idea around pulling the fans together is great. It’s a niche community that could fill a nice gap.

What I find interesting is that there’s not one picture of, or link to any catalogue of the product/shoe. There also doesn’t appear to be a South African web presence of the Converse range either. I would think that it would be an ideal opportunity to harness the value of the incoming link from blog posts like this to the benefit of search engine results which in turn could benefit both the user - finding information on a product he/she is looking for, and Converse - a sales lead (directly - ecommerce or indirectly stockist locator)

It looks like Converse SA have thrown all their internet budget behind the social aspect, which, in my opinion, can be a risky move. From what I’ve learned from previous “pilot projects” in this space, only a fraction of the total visitors to the site are actively taking part in the conversation. And whilst the value of these super-fans cannot be understated, there really needs to be something more for the majority of users.

What that is can differ from product to product. But with a brand like Converse, it’s probably something like some kind of catalogue of what’s available in ZA and where. Maybe some kind of “create your own shoe” (probably expensive). Maybe a facility that allows people to upload photos of their own Converse - nice and visual, and adds a dimension that text and “conversation” cannot replicate.

Anyway, it’s late and i’m not that full of ideas. And I’m secretly disappointed that Man United beat Barcelona.
All I’m trying to say is that the “web 2.0″ phenomenon is very much a playground of the few and that you need to be careful of what percentage of your marketing budget you put behind it (and if it’s 100% that’s also ok!).

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Disclaimer: I’ve not seen any other Converse ZA stuff online. Maybe I just missed it.

• Grand Theft Auto IV: The Game Is On
  Interesting story about the game, and the business behind the latest GTA installment.
  (tags: GTA4)

• Announcing MobileActive08: Unlocking the Potential of Mobiles for Social Impact | MobileActive.org
  We are happy to announce MobileActive08, a three-day conference on mobile technology for social impact to take place October 13-15 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
  (tags: mobile conference southafrica)

[In return for a spare ticket to the New Media Marketing conference 2 weeks ago, I was asked to write a post for the Biz-Community blog. I’ve republished it below..]

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The 2nd Annual New Media Marketing conference, which was held in Johannesburg 25 - 28 March 2008, was a showcase of a few of the top thinkers in the South African new media space presenting their thoughts and experiences on digital and marketing.

Here’s my list of the top five conference “take-outs” as seen through the eyes of the interactive manager at BMW South Africa.

In no particular order, here they are:

1. Social media - Manage expectations.

With the hype surrounding “web 2.0″ and all things social (e.g. social networking, social media, consumer generated content etc) it’s vital to make sure that both yours and your community’s expectations are managed.

Mike Stopforth mentioned quite correctly that social media will lure your brand advocates out of the shadows by the promise of giving them a platform to show just how big a fan they are. But, don’t expect everyone to want to interact; rather expect a quality interaction from the few that do. Most people signed up to a campaign or environment where social interaction is encouraged are going to be a rather inactive group.

To get the most out of the community, you need to ensure there’s something to come back to. Keep content fresh, ensure that you are playing an active role in the discussions taking place (keep your tone as human as possible i.e. no corporate speak!). Also, there’s nothing wrong with rewarding your top advocates with something to show your appreciation.

But as Vincent Maher, Mail & Guardian Online strategist points out, the community that you may have spent years building and nurturing has the “loyalty of a rented snake“. So be sure to treat each member as number 1; each member needs to be the one in control, not you.

Examples: BMW Facebook page; Mad About Twenty20 Bank (fan site built by fans, now closed)

2. The importance of through-the-line.

No online campaign effort should stand alone without any above-the-line or direct support. Through-the-line campaigns not only give your branding a more consistent edge, but the momentum moves in the same direction - forward. A print ad talking about X, a radio ad talking about Y, and an online campaign focusing on Z just means that each medium is fighting for consumer attention. On your print or radio advert, be sure to mention that you can learn more online at www.[INSERT BRAND HERE].co.za.

3. One team to drive through the line campaign.

Following on neatly from point 3, Allan Kent (Head of Saatchi’s AtPlay) spoke about the importance of one team to drive the entire campaign from conception to execution. This can be a challenge, especially when more traditional agencies are trying their arm at “new media”, or when the advertising and digital agencies are two different companies, both trying to impress the client.

At BMW we have been lucky to have two agencies that have been able to work very well together. It is much easier to approve work that has been presented from a team of collaborators than work with different teams each trying to maximise their own interests.

4. Time and attention - the new currency.

Forget cash, the hardest things to get from today’s connected individual is her time and attention. Tyler Reed, MD of Younique, pointed out that the connected youth are known to suffer from “partial attention disorder“. I think that this is certainly not limited to just the youth, but anyone with a mobile phone, TV, and access to the Internet. Treat every second that you engage with someone as your last.

The best way to make each second count is to ensure that your engagement is meaningful. The days of the one-way, top-down communication style are numbered. In order to be meaningful, brands need to do more listening and less jibber jabbering.. simple!

5. Take only what you need.

Paul Jacobson, new media lawyer, discussed various legal aspects that need to be considered when doing things online. I believe that this is an area that will gain more attention as the social web becomes more entrenched into everyone’s lives.

One of the topics discussed that was relevant to one of BMW’s more recent campaigns is that of content licensing. “There’s more than one way to license content”. Creative Commons is a collection of licences that work within the framework of copyright. The traditional copyright is often too restrictive and prohibits any kind of sharing, copying, or changing of the content. If you place your content under one of the Creative Commons licenses you are able to set the “Attribution, share alike, and non-commercial” aspects of the content. This encourages sharing, copying, and mashing (taking the content and mixing / changing) without fear of any kind of legal wrath.

An example would be to place your latest television advert under an attribution, share alike, and non-commercial license. This means that anyone can take your advert and do what they want with it, provided they attribute the work to the original author, and don’t make any commercial gains from the “edited” work. Imagine brand advocates wanting to immerse themselves with your brand to that level… the possibilities are quite exciting!

All in all, I believe that these sorts of conferences are extremely worthwhile. I would, however, suggest to conference organisers that they look at including fewer “preachers” and more “converted” to speak. The impact of an actual case study such as the one presented by Lize Esterhuizen from Stellenbosch University cannot be understated, as it gives conference goers something a bit more tangible and puts all the “preaching” into context.

Scott Gray is the interactive marketing manager at BMW South Africa.

• dafont.com
  Lots of great free fonts.
  (tags: font design typography free resources)

• Ad Age Agrees: 2008 Not the Year of Mobile
  Lack of reach. Poor measurement. Complexity. Isolation/lack of integration of mobile. No “hallelujah moment” (a mobile campaign so wildly successful that everyone will want to emulate its success in the medium)
  (tags: mobile web online marketing)

Springleap, a locally based, recently launched site focussed on the design and selling of t-shirts, is running a competition where contestants have been challenged to get themselves to the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs) on a search for “Springleap“.

Not a bad idea from a springleap side of things. I do have an issue though with the “black hat” techniques being used by various participants. And no, not because i think they’re cheating. I think that the prize money has brought out the worst in SEO “trickery”. These guys are just creating more mess, putting up fake blogs that are exactly the types of sites that we all hate. In my opinion spam blogs (splogs) are almost as bad as email spam. So if you hate spam and you’re creating a spam blog, are you not being a little bit of a hypocrite?

I must say that I take a lot of pleasure in flagging springleap splogs as spam.

I’m the proud, long-time owner of 2 of the “Work of Director” series. The first dvd set i got was the work of Michel Gondry, then a bit later, the work of spike jonze. Both pretty great directors. I took the Spike Jonze off the shelf and popped it in the dvd player tonight… which has now resulted in this post:

My favourite Spike Jonze music videos.

In no particular order, here they are:

California - Wax

Chemical brothers - Elektrobank

Drop - The Pharcyde

Weapon of Choice - Fatboy Slim

Sky’s the limit - The Notorious B.I.G (note - this one needs some bass!)

Here’s the trailer of the Spike Jonze dvd

Next i’ll do michel gondry. his stuff is the best i’ve ever seen..

The lovely Simone Puterman from BizCommunity couldn’t make it today so I managed to get the call up and be the “honourary-substitute-guest-blogger”.

I’ve been supplied with a wifi access voucher, and will be putting down my thoughts on the biz-community blog.

I’ve never really live-blogged anything. I twittered a few events at last week’s Interactive marketing summit though.

Twitter, if you haven’t heard of it already, is what i’d describe as some sort of social-micro-blogging platform where you only get 140 characters to say whatever you want. Think of it as your facebook status message on steroids, where you can follow whoever you want, and track any mention of any keywords. It has turned into a bit of an public chat room, but i think that’s just the natural evolution of these sorts of platforms (especially when it comes to having a voice, and building personal brands).

The tracking aspect is something that I find one of the more important, but lesser known aspects of Twitter. As it’s public facing publishing, it’s pretty important to ensure that you’re tracking mentions of keywords such as your brand name so that you’re able to respond to the “tweeter” (?) as soon as possible. Justin Hartman set up an experiment using Hashtags to track this conference, take a look here.

As Twitter grows (it’s expanded rapidly lately) more an more uses will become apparent, just take a look at Fred Wilson’s post about the “Audience Prompter” to see what I mean.

Right Vincent Maher is up, I’m going to put my BizComm hat on.

Feel free to see what i’m thinking here.

• GI Food List
  A GI and GL index of South African foods.
  (tags: food health diet gi)