BANG BANG!
I used to collect Absolut ads growing up. No, I didn’t have a binge drinking problem at age 10. I simply loved and admired the aesthetics of Absolut’s advertising campaign. You know these ads, the ones found in magazines where the bottle shape would take the form of different objects to convey themes, followed by the tagline “Absolut _________.”
Hundreds of these ads hung from my bedroom wall. It was an amazingly artistic campaign that hit me with despite the fact that I had not had one sip of the vodka itself.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I have not seen one of those Absolut print ads in years. Last night however, I did see this commercial on TV. (The commercial is actually part of a full-length music video entitled “Absolut Greyhound” and dubbed as “a multi-dimensional cocktail experiences from ABSOLUT, featuring new music by Swedish House Mafia”.)
Certainly a far departure from those print ads, huh? While the television ad maintains an abstract style familair to the Absolut brand, among the robotic greyhounds, desert landscape, and futuristic high-fashion audience is something very cool: integration of “Shazam Now” button.
I think the incorporation of Shazam, an app I started using two years ago on a personal level because it was “cool and neat”, is pretty revolutionary. No longer are you only flipping pages in a magazine and stopping on startling imagery. Today, the level of interactivity within an ad and call for action is so much more. Now, an app on my iPhone is part of the consumption experience and changing the way viewers interact with television ads. My television and my iPhone are tied together to in order for me to get the most out of this commercial. I’m not just viewing a new vodka ad, I am discovering new music and being able to track the artist instantly. Pretty damn cool, regardless of whether you are a Swedish House Mafia fan or not.
We’ve come a long way from cutting out ads and hanging them on bedroom walls.
Surf.
But I hate shopping in stores. In NYC, I find shopping for clothes to be a waste of time. I’d rather spend the free time I have in NYC trying out new restaurants, going to Yankees games, playing basketball or enjoying an iced coffee at Saturdays Surf.
Thankfully, companies such as Bonobos and Warby Parker exist to allow me take in all of the sports action and caffeine I want without losing time shopping in small, cramped NYC boutiques.
Bonobos and Warby Parker (in no order!) are at the top of my list of “awesome companies making my fashion life easier”. There are indeed new companies popping up each day which are making my shopping for clothes needs a pretty pain-free experience. Aside from great branding, Bonobos and Warby Parker do four things particularly well throughout the actual shopping experience that any company in this space should emulate:
#Likeaboss
Nike didn’t join Twitter or Instagram until December 30, 2011. As of this post, the Nike Twitter account has 392,746 followers, while its Instagram account clocks in at 107,900 followers. While at first these numbers may seem small in comparison to celebrities on Twitter with millions of followers, big brands have yet to find a true home on either social media channel. (In comparison, @adidas has a mere 15,109 followers Twitter followers, with @Reebok doing slightly better at 59,396 followers.)
While Nike sure took its sweet time to embrace social media, with the three word hashtag “#MakeItCount” (and the amended version, “#counts”), it has managed to create a compelling campaign that beautifully promotes what I call the “technological athlete” (anyone who adopts technology and social media as part of his everyday fitness routine). Nike has embraced both brand loyalists and the technologically-savvy to create a new wave of social advertising anchored around new products such as the Nike+ FuelBand, which tracks and measures one’s every movement and converts it into NikeFuel.
Nike has always had powerful advertising campaigns. From Michael Jordan to LeBron James, on the whole, such campaigns have been centered around the world’s greatest athletes, guiding viewers to identify with and emulate such heroes, and in return, buy Nike products to be closer to these “role models”. The Nike #MakeItCount social media campaign is a great departure from such advertising, calling on everyday people such as you and me to make every move count. Through the power of a hashtag, we become the stars in Nike’s giant advertisement - and that is the true genius behind Nike’s marketing efforts.
While many brands continue to struggle with social media, the Nike #MakeItCount campaign provides lessons for not only other big brands, but any startup looking to leverage social media campaigns to increase brand awareness and user adoption:
“Drive”
My jaw nearly dropped this morning as my Twitter stream presented the following news to me:
Color Partners With Verizon To Bring Livestreaming Audio and Video to iPhone, Android
Color?? Color?! Is this the same Color that became the laughing stock of the tech startup community after announcing a whopping 41 million round of funding prior to launch? The Color which failed to amass more than 30,000 daily active users one year later after a relaunch as a video status messaging platform? The Color which.. well, you get it.
The answer is yes, and a strategic partnership deal with Verizon that will bring video and audio livestreaming to all 4G LTE smartphones on its networks may have just saved Bill Nguyen’s 41 million dollar app from being the butt of many jokes within the tech community. And it may have just been a giant wake-up call to all startups looking for ways to inject corporate steroids in their user acquisition strategy.
I’ve always felt that strategic partnerships are a vital part of any startup’s user acquisition strategy. Leveraging existing user bases of partners with value adds to your own network is a great way to not only acquire new users, but extend one’s brand value. As with product placement, growing one’s brand and network through alliances with outside partners will get you to where you want to be faster than doing it on your own.
Time will tell whether this Verizon deal validates Color’s 41 million in funding. But it does send up a flare into the night - every startup should be thinking about these types of “mega-deals” for their startup early on.
Many startups often shy away from hiring non-technical, “business” people to join on prior to any major funding. Perhaps it is time to rethink that strategy, and bring these type of strategic thinkers on board in the very beginning.
I want to be a point guard, not a CEO.
Professional titles can mean a lot to certain individuals. With that label of “co-founder” and “CEO” comes that feeling that you control your world. I thought that was what I wanted. And every time I read something from the tech press talking about the next 19 year old CEO, I panicked a bit. Oh, no. I am 26 and over-the-hill already. I was wrong - everyone makes mistakes. Being a CEO is much harder than I could have ever imagined. I have more respect for founders now than ever before.
I spent the past 3 and half years working in public relations for tech startups and mainstream consumer brands. Within my last organization, my best experiences were the following:
I learned so much from that experience, and in particular, what excited me and motivated me the most. Thankfully, early on in my career, I had people who had trained me in the ways of Peter Drucker. When you combine Drucker with the words of Jay-Z and Kanye, you get a pretty mean management philosophy that I think will apply well to my next gig.
After a great run with my last team, ultimately, that profession just didn’t fit my own career goals.
Throughout that experience, I did find out that I loved working with smaller startups, becoming pretty friendly with founders. Their conviction, attitudes and goals to make a product that would impact the world inspired me. Once I caught the startup bug, there was no looking back.
Business development, marketing and strategic partnerships look like the next landing spots for me. And it’s what excites me the most as a creative thinker. But I don’t want any label on my next postion other than point guard. (I’m being dramatic here, I’ll take whatever label, but roll with me on this one for a second.) For a thorough explanation of why point guard, see here.
I want to get what needs to be done accomplished, without a label attached to the position itself. Be that scrappy guy who puts it all on the court. Most importantly, I want to learn from others, and would love the opportunity to work under a great mentor.
When you are a non-technical person who wants to insert himself into an early stage tech startup (actually really any stage startup), in my opinion, you need to accomplish the following:
“Everyday I wake up wanting to make the perfect song. Im obsessed with the idea.” — (via cudlife)