Aspen, CO, BrainstormTech: Brian McAndrews and Wes Nichols declare the concept of online engagement is only an intermediate metric and does not relate to sales data.

Kraft Food has launched a "social media" campaign in the UK to promote their coffee brand, Mellow Bird's. It is part of a larger repositioning of the brand to reach a younger audience, according to Brand Republic.

Sounds like a good idea, right? But don't start patting Kraft on the back just yet, says John Bell in Social Media Today. The campaign is mediocre at best, in both strategy and execution. They want to "target students and give the campaign an anti-corporate feeling" — which he notes is a terrible language to use in a PR announcement — and the game itself on Facebook (where they only had 146 fans) is seeing how many times the user can hit the space bar within 10 seconds. And we wonder why kids brains are turning to mush.

Conclusion? It's nice that large consumer brands are seeing the value of social media and dedicating  budgets towards it, but c'mon Kraft. Don't do things half-assed. A good social media campaign is not cheap. It needs to be thought out correctly, by the right people, and executed correctly, by the right people, or it's going to blow up and turn off CMOs forever. "Well, Bob, that didn't work, now did it. Back to search!"

Says Bell: "Social media
is not a channel. It is a fundamental shift in consumer behavior. It is
time for even 'first-timers' to adopt a true social media strategy."

Web rumor becomes widely reported "truth" – I'm sure it's happened many times before, but VentureBeat did a good job of peeling back the layers on the latest example: the $99 Wal-Mart iPhone.

Here's how it began: a blog called Boy Genius Report got a tip in early December that the iPhone would be sold at Wal-Mart before the end of the year, and that the price might be $99 for a 4GB version, which is less capacity than Apple's current options.

Other blogs picked up the rumor, and some – oops! – forgot to mention that it was just a tip: a rumor, unconfirmed by any sort of trustworthy figure from either Apple or Wal-Mart. Still, blogs will be blogs, and reporting on rumors is just part of the fun. The real gaff came when "mainstream media" (first, the San Jose Mercury News, but then Bloomberg, Reuters, NYT, Yahoo News and other fun pals) started telling people it was true.

How did that happen? Well the Mercury News said that department manager of the cell phone department at a random Walmart told them she heard from an AT&T representative that her store would in fact be getting a 4GB version two days before Christmas. See where it starts getting sketchy? Like a game of telephone…

And Apple analysts jumped in on the rumor, eager to brag about their knowledge of Apple's business model. “A $99, Apple-branded cell phone is inevitable,” said a Kaufman Brothers analyst. Yes, inevitable. Except it's not, apparently. Wal-Mart shoppers will pay a whole $2 less for the same old models. Oh wait, except not really – it's cheaper at Best Buy.

Even on Dec. 9, when blogs started telling people that the rumor was not true, mainstream media was still insisting it was.

The bright side to this whole ordeal? (Besides mainstream media feeling a small blush in its cheeks for being too literal and then falling a step behind news blogs, of course.) There won't be any stampedes at Wal-Mart on the day of the iPhone's big debut.

Which companies made social media work for them this year?

Forrester calls out the corporate projects that it says best used social applications to accomplish business goals.

Below, the winners of the 2008 Groundswell Awards, in the various categories:

• Embracing: MyStarbucksIdea.com by Starbucks
• Energizing: Hershey’s Bliss House Party by House Party
• Listening: Mattel’s “The Playground” Community by Communispace
• Managing: Borderless Workplace by Accenture
• Social Impact: Artshare, Click Exposition, and Posse by
  Brooklyn Museum
• Supporting: Nerd Network by National Instruments
• Talking: Young & Free Alberta by Common Wealth Credit Union

You’re invited to check out any, all, or none of these projects.

Some words of wisdom – from the press release, where they are not often found. [Bold mine.]

“The reality is that consumers are in
control, and companies must be in tune with them in order to constantly
adjust to their needs and behaviors. Aligning with customers is the only
way to maintain loyalty and market advantage, particularly in a down
economy where fighting for every customer counts.”

                                                        – Carrie
Johnson, Forrester VP and Research Director

Seven in 10 ad and media agency execs agree: Viral video marketing is worth the dough.

A report released this week from LA-based Feed Company shows that the majority of the 40 admark execs from major advertising agencies and media-buying
firms such as San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners;
Seattle-based Wieden + Kennedy and New York-based Digitas and McCann
Erickson said they will increase their spending on producing and marketing viral videos.

So they’re gonna spend more money on it in 2009 than 2008 – big whup. But wait, look again. Citing benefits such as "brand engagement," (87%) and "exponential views" (92% said so), making us remember that viral video really does pull consumers – and hella lot of ‘em – in to the message.

But how to do you know, really, how many? There reporting tools like Tube Mogul, but considering that About 95% want greater accountability from
vendors, that just ain’t enough. Moreover, the desire for "better metrics" goes  beyond the
clicks and into knowing where the viral video falls on the page
alongside other text and graphics, Mediapost reports.

And here’s something else: No one seems to really know how many views make a video a success. 250,000? A million or more? See the perplexing chart and ponder the missing benchmark.

Seeking diplomatic immunity from advertising? Maybe brand ambassadorship is the way to go.

AdWeek reports on how citizen journalism and user-generated content, all the rage of 2007, is evolving into something called "citizen marketing", where branding and buzz is put in the hands of Joe Consumer.

Overall spending on citizen marketing is growing and
is expected to top $1 billion in 2007, up from $980 million in 2006,
according to PQ Media’s word-of-mouth marketing forecast. That number
is expected to swell to almost $4 billion by 2011.

These programs "hire" consumers, via incentives and
rewards, to act as part PR agents, part sales reps and part
evangelists. They mix the spontaneity of buzz building with technology
to instigate, guide and measure what repeat customers are saying to
each other about their brands.

Be careful, though. There’s a fine line between instigating and guiding  – and downright manipulation. See WOMMA’s Unethical Word of Mouth Marketing Strategies and be careful not to tread too close to that line. And also know how to keep it separate from
straight-up advertising and public relations and that it "requires a different mindset,
strategies and toolkit", according to Small Planet Partners. Hop onto the trend, but go about it with as much care as you’d use for any other aspect of your campaign.

Matt Rosenberg over at Organic had a good post on Internet-politik in his post entitled, DNC Looks to UGC to Nail GOP. (Although it looks like some candidates don’t need users to get them in trouble.)

See, the Democratic National Committee has little nice little site called FlipperTV. Playing on the fact that each side has "trackers" who shoot hours of video of each other, looking for that key moment to exploit and turn into campaign propaganda, they turn footage over to the user – so that they might become an abuser, I guess. Rosenberg labels it a rather "non-partisan effort" considering that GOP supporters can also use the footage to "put halos over their candidates’ heads
just as easily as Dems can demonize them." You know, just like Lindsey Lohan in Cannes. Photoshop is not just for 17-year-old boys anymore. Publicists and agents seeking damage control know how to to use it too – or at least how to hire a 17-year-old boy to do it for them.

MR gives the campaign paparazzi a shout-out, wondering if the "Macaca-moment" makers will share any of the spotlight. No?

It’s too much to think that the trackers themselves will again become
the story, and equally easy to think that knowing of this effort will
inspire rival camps and freelance haters to try and create gaffes, but
what really bears watching is whether any of the videos that users
create out of these raw materials has an effect on an election.

So ultimately, we can’t yet predict the true impact of user-generated content is going to have on the 2008 presidential campaign. The political world will have to wait and see.

In the meantime, the Internet has already gotten it’s number written in the financial books. NASDAQ rocks!

I may have mentioned yesterday that TV was going down. "It’s dying," declares the NYT’s Damon Lindelof. Because of the writers’ strike? Writers, schmiters.

TV advertising had already hit its peak.

Making room for online video ads. Erik Sass was on a (pre?) roll with 2, count ‘em TWO articles on the same day about online video advertising. Granted, this Pre-Roll was not nearly as delicious as the ones featuring Lotus at Brightroll‘s Billionth Served Ad party at Slide last week, but I don’t think he drinks Cointreau – in the morning, anyway.

The first, entitled Online Video Threatens Traditional TV Spots is just as it sounds. Online video is threatening traditional TV spots. Cheaper, faster, better: you know the drill. The second is a little more adventurous: Online Video Ads Score Well With Users. "Online video ads are doing better than pop-ups and pop-unders, with
only 31% of those surveyed taking a strongly negative view of video
versus 55% for the latter," he reports from OMMA Video. But they do admit that is sort of an imperfect comparison. Like, what would you rather I do, kick you in the shin? Or hit you over the head with a chair? Shin, please. Furthermore, "the number of consumers taking a strongly
negative view of online video ads has been increasing over the last few
years, indicating that the novelty is wearing off."

I’m sorry, but the novelty of this will never wear off. User-generated content was another hot topic at the show. Human kitsch or not, as the WSJ notes, "pseudo-faux celebrity" status is "pretty sweet" and the sheer volume of viewers is something TV should be jealous about — and something that advertisers should start drooling about. On the flip side, you’ve got average Joes entering ad-creation contests for big brands, and winning. "…giving rise to an entirely new class of ‘semi-professional’ content producters."

So what’s next? Ad Booster, for ads on mobile video. And after that, come the aliens.

I take it back.
Maka-Maka is not the worst Web name to date. It’s Android.

If you don’t
know what that is, well, as Roudy the last living American cowboy would say,
“god bless ya’.”

Google’s big
announcement about their open mobile service platform that will be implemented
in the second half of 2008 was definitely the big news of yesterday, and it was
splashed all over the news. And I’m not going to honor it much by talking about
it here. Not even a link, mind you! You can find it yourself.

The only thing I
have to say about it is I’m not surprised. Let’s recap, shall we?
Apple =
products.
Google = services.
Why would they make a G-phone when real telephone
companies, like Motorola and Samsung, have already jumped onboard and started
creating competition for the iPhone?

So, instead of
creating more print about a platform with such a displeasing name and quest for
world domination global presence,
I’m going instead to talk about something completely different.

Duck, duck,
duck, goose. Macro, macro, macro, micro.

Maybe you
thought microsites were just a fad. A product of an overactive imagination that
would fade. Well, think again. Used in the right way, they can be extremely
beneficial. Paul Smith wrote a brief
article that outlined some of the ways you can use them “for fun and
profit.”

1. Explore new technologies. In other words, play around without screwing up your whole website.
2. Smaller, but better, faster. Quickly put in place, so you can be on top of trends. Also, room to experiment with creative that you might not want to use on your website itself.
3. Targeting. Take, for example, MTV’s 300 microsites for specific shows. Imagine the measurement you can get from that. “A focused message can mean a focused audience,” says Paul. Video-ad microsites, I think, will also emerge as a trend this year.

And with the
holiday season looming, many marketers are going to be throwing microsites on
the table as possibilities for offline campaigns, as a way of bringing people
to the Web. The New York Times article Movies,
TV, and Magazines Work Together in Web Campaign details some of these
methods, noting that “the taste in the marketplace is strong” for campaigns with
significant online presences. Being careful, of course, not to “litter the
world” with too many of them.

J. Walker Smith was so bold as to say in this week’s Media:
"The medium isn’t the message anymore, and
hasn’t been for quite a while: It’s the product that’s the message, and
the better that product is, the more people will talk about it."
Ouch! Look out, Marshall, you’ve got competition.

So, the product is your message, eh? But lemme put this one to ya, J. Walker: if something is so amazing that it can sell itself, then why do we have infomercials? Snap! Okay, kidding, you have a point. Listing the characteristics of a "product worth talking about" as:
truly innovative and original
memorable in some authentic and genuine way
intrinsic ties to experiences, non-verbal cues and multi-sensory engagement
gives people the opportunity to express themselves or to signal some aspect of status and position 
 …In other words, What Would Jesus Buy?

Though you’d have to ideally start with a product that has one or more of these qualities in order to succeed, we do not live in an ideal world, as proved by the relative extinction of the Brown Bear in Pakistan and Lebanon and the sleep quality of American children. So where do you go from there?

Answer: take advantage of the power of the conversation. Through peer-to-peer interaction, marketing messages can be processed first by one person (lame!) but then by a community of people (awesome!) Better yet, target the "influencers" offline, all 28 million of them – as discussed in this article on the eMarketer WOM Marketing report. Then expect that they’ll bring their interest back onto online conversations, through blogs, user reviews, chat rooms, video sites, Wikis, and the like.

Don’t forget the middle ground, though, says author Debra Aho Williamson. "…there is this vast middle ground of people
who are moderately influential, the ones who pass a video on to their
friends, or find a cool site and tell their husband." Or, ideally, find that cool product and spread the word, even if it’s just to their book club, golf partner, or dentist. It’s not easy to talk through those mouthguards, but they will find a way.