Lawrence Gee | Marketing, Internet, Creativity, Strategy

A Look at Facebook Apps

I’m on Facebook much like many of my peers and former colleagues.  It offers all the benefits of a social network - the ability to post pictures, comment on each other’s profiles, and see who knows who.  It attracts plenty of traffic due to the interactive nature of the content.  As a marketer, I am instantly interested in it due to its captive audience, high level of interaction, frequency of user visits, and ability to potentially target specific segments. 

One element I don’t truly understand is if Facebook Applications or Widgets really hold any value for marketers.  For Fortune 500 companies, I see some obvious benefits including branding, increased touch points, and creating deeper interaction with consumers.  However, the challenge is creating applications that fit with your brand and are interesting enough for people to want to add the application.  A good example of this is TripAdvisor’s “Cities I’ve Visited” Application.  It fits well with the branding of TripAdvisor.com (that being offering travel advice, reviews, and forums) and it is interesting enough that people would add the application (always interesting to see where people have traveled to).  However the application has a bit under 54,000 daily active users as of today, which is only 1% of the Facebook population.

Most popular applications are not done by Fortune 500 companies but rather by small start-ups or individuals.  Some popular ones include SuperWall, Flixster, Slide, Scrabulous to name a few.  I can see a couple of potential revenue streams that many are utilizing today - online advertising (banner and text ads) and affiliate referral commissions.  I’ve also seen merchandise being sold based off application characters like (Fluff)Friends and can see the potential for using an application as a lead generation tool to other games/programs/services a developer might sell outside of Facebook. 

In my opinion, the problem with these applications are the stickiness and loyalty of its user base.  I feel that popular applications one month quickly fizzle out to the next application the next month.  It’s almost like what’s the current flavor of the month?  Amongst my friends alone, I’ve seen mass interest jump from Scrabulous to (Fluff )Friends to Who Has The Biggest Brain? over the past 2-3 months alone.  Looking at applications from the business side, I question how much money should be invested in creating these applications.  There’s definitely alot of buzz surrounding applications and widgets but I’m not totally convinced that the buzz is actionable.

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Is Virtual News Newsworthy?

CNN annouced that they were going to have a presence within the virtual world of Second Life. This begs the question if this really makes sense or not.  The main premise is for Second Life “residents” to submit user generated content to CNN I-Report Hub in the virtual environment.  This content could be from the “real” world or what residents deem newsworthy within Second Life. While CNN aims to be one of the leaders in news and information delivery, I truly question whether anyone really cares about “virtual” news.  I understand that most companies today want to be on the cutting edge of Web 2.0 intiatives but I think that CNN is stretching a bit on their Second Life presence.  For the amount of money and resources they have probably invested, CNN will probably not get much out of this intiative.  In terms of branding, CNN is already highly recognizable in both the television/cable arena as well as on the Internet.  While their “virtual” presence might spur some initial interest and submissions, I think after a few months the novelty will disappear.  Most people gloss over real world news and the happenings around the globe, I doubt that virtual news will be any different.  Do you really think that people will care about a 10 car pile up on the virtual Second Life freeway or that a virtual sports team won last night?  I highly doubt it.

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Integrated Marketing for Our Fall Networking Event

	A couple of weeks ago, the Graduate Marketing Association of USC Marshall held its annual Fall networking event called Wine & Cheese. As VP of Marketing for the club, I was responsible for the look, promotions, and branding of the event. This year, I chose to create an integrated campaign across multiple channels in order to provide a strong and consistent message to the student and corporate communities. Here’s a look at the marketing:
E-Mail - In order to promote the event to our MBA class we sent out emails 2 weeks and 1 weeks before the event. I tried to gain awareness for the event and the companies which were participating in the event.  I tried to use GMA consistent colors and fonts.  The emphasis of the graphics was the solid black wine bottle and the GMA logo.
	Web - New this year was the launch of our new GMA website (http://www.MarshallGMA.com). I created a landing page that was referenced to by the email campaign. The webpage gave interested attendees more details to the networking event.  Again, there was consistent graphics, messaging, and style.
Program - I created the program in Adobe InDesign. The final product was 16 pages b/w interior with a full bleed 4-color glossy cover. I looked to create a simple design which emphasized the colors and style of the new GMA logo.  Again, the wine bottle was used as the theme throughout the program.  Clean, crisp, and simplicity was the goal of the look.
	Signage - The last promotional piece I developed was signage for the actual event. I created two large signs (18×24) that we placed at the entrance of our event. This was a great way to set the tone and welcome our guests to the event.

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50 Cent’s Curtis was Doomed from the Start

The much hyped album battle between 50 Cent’s Curtis and Kanye West’s Stronger is turning out to be not much of a fight. It is estimated that Kanye will win with approximately 800,000 copies sold versus 50’s estimated 600,000. This should not be of much surprise because 50 Cent’s album Curtis was doomed from the start.

From a marketing perspective, let’s look at the famed “4Ps”. Price and Place are identical for both artists. They both were sold in similar big box retailers for about $9.99. For promotion, each artist benefited by the media attention given to the same release date. Each artist was also heavily promoted on radio stations with similar radio spots and advertisements. 50 has recently been quoted as complaining about Kanye’s exposure on the MTV VMAs but I think that the last “P” is the real cause of his likely loss.

In terms of product, one could argue that one album is superior than the other, but for this debate we’ll assume they were of equal quality. Both albums hit up the hip-hop market with some pop crossover appeal. Packaging will roll up into Product and for this aspect, I give the advantage hands down to Kanye. If you look at the covers, Kanye’s is colorful, playful, and unique whereas 50’s looks serious, muted, and understated. If you saw both albums on the shelf, I feel that you would immediately gravitate towards Kanye’s.

Perceived image of the artists also plays a role in sales. Kanye is known as being more playful, lively, and he has more “pop” appeal. 50 drives home the more hardcore, gangsta, and “real” street edge. Unfortunately for 50, the bad boy image has taken a bit hit in the media this summer with the likes of Michael Vick being the poster boy for illicit behavior. I think youth today is also tired of reality and I think Kanye provides a bit more escapism.

All in all, 50 Cent’s album was disadvantaged from the start. Unfortunately, his “brand” of music does seem to be what people want at the moment whereas Kanye’s blend of humor, pop, and beats seems to fit the bill perfectly.

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Dude, Where’s My iCar?

As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s really important for brands to know who they are.  I came across an article today about VW and Apple discussing a possible “iCar”.  This sounds like a win-win for both companies. 

Apple wins because the demographics that VW targets (or should be targeting) is similar to Apple consumers.  They are youthful, technologically savvy, and like to be unique.  Integrating the iPod and iTunes into cars would be a great test case to show the automobile industry that it should be a standard fully integrated feature in all cars. 

VW wins because this is something they could promote that would resonate with its consumers.  Like its previous promotions, it could offer a free new limited edition iPod with each new car purchase.  A great selling point (or interest point) could be limited edition colors for both the iPod and “iCars”.

All in all this looks like a money maker for both companies and something we should look forward to in the future.

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