Greg Verdino

Coopetwition gives two soda giants bubbly feelings

The story: a member of the Twitterverse suggests that @pepsi and @cocacola put age-old competitive rivalries aside and become Twitter friends.  The brands agree and shake virtual hands.

Sure the person who made the suggestion isn't quite an everyday Joe -- he is the founder of the Aussie arm of Razorfish and has done work with PepsiCo -- and the gesture between the two soft drink giants is as silly as it is symbolic.  But still, it makes for a fun story.

Can Twitter teach the world to sing in perfect harmony?

 

(via Darryl Ohrt; image reposted from my Posterous.)

Book 'em Verdino: announcing microMARKETING

I'm excited to announce that I've inked a deal with McGraw-Hill for the publication of my first business book, microMARKETING: A Breakthrough Approach to Building Brands by Thinking and Acting Small.

If the title alone isn't enough to clue you in, I'd like to give you an idea of the ground I'll cover in the book.  Here's a bit of how I described the book in the proposal itself:

A media revolution is underway, fueled by a micro-content phenomenon that is shifting the balance of power from mass communications to masses of communicators.  This shift plays out daily on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Ustream and other social sites.  It’s in the notion that an otherwise normal individual can use social media and low-end technology to become a micro-celebrity with a significant following.  It’s in the viral effect that takes hold when even one online influencer (in essence a one-person media outlet) sparks a conversation that makes or breaks a brand.  It’s in the shift in behavior that is turning the smart phone into the “first screen” for Gen Y and many increasingly-mobile Gen Xers.  It’s in the shift from watching 60 minute television shows interrupted by 30-second advertisements, to watching 30-second pieces of online video content with no advertisements at all.  It’s even in the changing of our expectations of product design and retail sales, giving rise to dozens of successful small businesses and individuals (think Threadless, think Etsy, think Mimobot, think Lemonade) that can create and sell enough high quality, unique or custom merchandise at a premium to shoppers for whom choice and individuality matter more than convenience and price. 

These are exciting times, but they can also be scary times for marketers who have been trained to think that bigger is better, and for whom the excesses and successes of the past 50 or so years – big budgets for major media ad campaigns designed to sell mountains of product through big-box retailers – seem to be the only way to build a big brand.  For better or worse, the new reality is that the old way doesn’t work so well anymore. Simply put, micro-content and macro-marketing don’t mix – and trying to maintain the status quo while consumer behaviors and expectations change amounts to little more than a recipe for failure.

Enter micromarketing – a new approach to building brands, marketing products and services, and growing meaningful long-term customer (and corporate) value.  Micromarketing emphasizes relationships over reach, interactions over interruption, and the network effect over the broadcast network.  It is built upon the premise that the “next big thing” is really lots and lots of small things, and that to survive and thrive, even the biggest marketers must think and act small (make that “micro”), too. 

microMARKETING is not a "Twitter book."  Puh-leeze... In signature Verdino-style, I will aim to help marketers understand the larger trends that are driving the popularity of tools like Twitter and what the real world implications are for businesses (even if Twitter itself -- or Facebook or YouTube, for that matter -- goes away), but my focus will be aimed squarely at the big picture.  I also don't plan to trot out the same ol' tired social media case studies.  In fact, one key piece of my approach is to help large companies understand how to thrive in the era of micro-content and micro-culture by taking lessons from the people and organizations that are involved in the revolution at the grassroots level.  In other words, I'll be looking at what the biggest of big corporations should learn from "whatever experts." 

Again, from the proposal:

Over the past several years, social media has evolved from a trend to watch to an irrefutable fact of life for marketers of all sizes.  Now – before most companies have even gotten social media right – the mainstreaming of micro-content services, the ubiquity of powerful low-cost handheld technology (from Internet-ready phones to consumer-grade HD cameras) and the rise of DIY culture promise to change the rules of consumer engagement yet again.  It is important to understand how these changes impact our ability to build brands, manage customer relationships and drive sales today, and this will only become more important over the coming years as more and more consumers flock to the technologies that are powering the shift.

On the flipside, it is also important that marketers not get swept up in the hype surrounding a single tool or tactic, losing sight of the bigger implications for their businesses.  As has happened with core social media tools like blogging, podcasting and social networking (and short-lived fads like Second Life), marketers now run the risk of not seeing the forest for the trees – of jumping on the “Twitter bandwagon” with short-lived, ill-advised tactics that do little to impact their businesses.   

On the one hand, microMARKETING educates decision makers about larger trends and what they mean for companies who are looking to more effectively engage consumers through new digital channels.  On the other hand, it delivers tangible and practical case studies, stories, tips and tricks from familiar competitors (other large corporations) and unlikely sources of inspiration (micro-businesses and individual creators.)

microMARKETING is slated for a May/June 2010 release.  I need to hand in the final manuscript by mid-October.  Needless to say, I've got my work cut out for me over the next few months.

That may mean less blogging for the next few months, although I'll still try to post here at least once/week.  And you should stay tuned for periodic updates on the book, my progress and the process.  Hell, I may even ask you for some input along the way.

Finally, I'd like to thank the good folks at McGraw-Hill -- especially Donya Dickerson -- and my agent Ethan Friedman at LevelFive Media.

Good times, ahead...

GV Sighting: All that twendy Twitter twalk

Busy week... or maybe I should say twizzy tweek (which is, I suppose, a busy week for a twotal Twitter geek.  Unless Twitter+geek is tweek.  Ugh...)

Anyway, workload and a business trip that lasted one day longer than it was meant to couldn't keep me from spending a few minutes on the phone with a reporter from The Canadian Press, talking about the new vocabulary (#5) that has emerged among the Twitterati.  Crap, I just did it again, didn't I?

If you're on Twitter, you know what I mean.  The alternately endearing and annoying habit of appending a "tw" to the beginning of otherwise normal words, resulting in mash-ups like tweeps, tweetup, twoast, twendy, twetiquette and of course tweethearts.  If you're not on Twitter, you can get some schooling by visiting the Twictionary.

Either way, you may want to see what a rhetoric professor, a social commentator (whatever that is) and I had to say about Twitter twalk.  Pop on over to the CTV site to read the article.

O tidings of comfort and... wait... what?

The holidays are upon us once again.  (How's that for a big ol' honkin' statement of the obvious?) 

Considering that the next couple of weeks will be a blur of holidays, time with my daughter and a bit of travel -- not to mention the fact that I have a crushing amount of work to complete between now and my trip to CES -- I figure my blogging schedule will be a bit sporadic between now and the end of the year.

I hope that everyone has the opportunity to reflect on the year that was, plan for the year ahead and spend a bit of time with the important people in your lives.

For the rest of you, I offer up a smorgasbord of holiday weirdness post-YouTube style.  Please feel free to while away your holiday time off watching a few weird animated shorts.  This ain't your daddy's "A Year Without a Santa Clause."

[Feed and email readers: you know the drill.  Be sure to click through to the blog to watch the embedded clips.]

The first two have been highlighted by a brand spankin' new site called eGuiders that went into public beta yesterday and aims to curate the best-of-the-best web video content so you don't have to slog through millions of pieces of web junk to find the few worth watching.  (Disclosure: I've been serving as an unofficial advisor to eGuiders.  Check 'em out.)

Snowy the Frostman puts a twisted spin on the animated holiday classic.


Happy Tree Friends offers up Japanimation-style holiday shorts that are not for the sensitive or squeamish.

Next up: thanks to the Firehouse agency in Texas we have a new holiday classic based on an old world tradition - the Christmas Pickle. (Tip o' the Santa hat to Chris Wilson.)

And finally -- how can a guy who throws the devil horns every chance he gets resist a mash-up that combines A Charlie Brown Christmas with some killer metal.  Have a head banging Christmas and a rocking New Year.

What happens at CES, happens courtesy of Panasonic

For the first time in a dozen or so years, I'll be making a pilgrimage to the International Consumer Electronics Show, happening in Las Vegas on January 8th - January 11th.  This time around, I'm going courtesy of crayon client Panasonic and I'll be blogging, vlogging, photologging and Tweeting about my experience the whole time.

Exciting for me but that's not the real story.  The real story is that I will be joined by five social media guests (plus my doppelganger Jaffe) that Panasonic has invited to document and share their own CES experiences with their communities. This program is one of several things that we've been working on for Panasonic -- look for more programs to go live in the coming weeks -- and it's a worthy experiment in how large companies can partner with citizen journalists, if I don't say so myself (which I must since I had a hand in putting the program together.)

Here's the low down:

What We're Doing
Panasonic has invited a handful of guest content creators, culled from the social media rank and file, to join them at CES 2009.  They're flying them out and giving them front row seats at press conferences, new product announcements, exhibit hall presentations and more.  They're putting some of the latest and greatest Panasonic gear -- digital cameras, standard- and high definition camcorders, and more -- in their hands.  They're setting them loose to document their CES experiences.

In marketing speak, this no doubt sounds something like influencer outreach meets product sampling meets branded infotainment.  But it's really more than that.   It's just one of several things crayon is doing with Panasonic to put real people at the center of the company's "Ideas From Life.  Ideas For Life." positioning.  In other words, Panasonic is a consumer electronics company with a decidedly human focus -- to not just make great products but to make products that help people live better.  So who better to tell that story than - you know -- actual people.  And what are so-called influencers but people who like to tell stories to their own loyal communities.

OK. OK. So Who's Going?

We've assembled a veritable content creation dream team that includes a top blogger, a well known vlogger, a professional podcaster, an author and social media CEO, and a documentary film maker.  I think we can look forward to diverse perspectives and content to suit just about any appetite.  You may recognize some familiar faces in a montage below-- but even if you don't, I've laid out their details below.

Stacy DeBroff
Stacy is CEO of MomCentral, and a nationally recognized parenting expert, author and television personality.
Web: http://www/momcentral.com
Twitter: @momcentral

Cliff Ravenscraft
Cliff is a full-time podcaster, whose GSPN network produces nearly two dozen podcasts including series devoted to Hanna Montana, LOST, Heroes and other popular television shows.
Web: http://www.gspn.tv
Twitter: @gspn

Steve Garfield
Steve is a video blogging pioneer and citizen journalist who produces several personal vlogs and contributes to media outlets such as CNN iReport and Rocketboom.
Web: http://stevegarfield.com
Twitter: @stevegarfield

Chris Brogan
Chris is a well known social media veteran whose blog ranks in Technorati’s Top 100, a co-founder of the PodCamp “unconference” movement and a frequent conference speaker.
Web: http://www.chrisbrogan.com
Twitter: @chrisbrogan

Melissa Pierce
Melissa is a creative coach and documentary filmmaker, currently working on her own independent film Life In Perpetual Beta. Web (Life In Perpetual Beta): http://lifeinperpetualbeta.com
Web (personal blog): http://www.melissapierce.com
Twitter: @melissapierce

Fellow crayonista Joseph Jaffe (@jaffejuice) and I will join Stacy, Cliff, Steve, Chris and Melissa. 

And What Do You Get?
Well, what happens in Vegas certainly won't stay there this time. We've asked our guests to create lots of content and share it with their communities -- so if you can't be at CES in January, you'll still get to witness the sights and sounds of the show through the eyes of our guests. Be sure to follow the gang on Twitter and subscribe to their feeds, because I'm sure they'll be blogging, vlogging, podcasting and Tweeting like nobody's business.

If you do plan to be at CES, we're also organizing a Thursday night Tweet Up on Panasonic's behalf (January 8) where you can hang with our guests, each other and all your newfound CES buddies.  Stay tuned to this blog and my tweets for the details, as we make them available.

For my part, I'll be sharing my thoughts on this blog of course, but also plan to set up a dedicated lifestream-like object so that you can see everything as I upload it throughout the show.  I hope to share lotsa cool stuff in January and hope I'll have the chance to meet some of you at CES.  Let me know if you plan to be there.

Stay tuned for more details as they become available. 

Want '09 predictions? How about 50 of them?

Yep, it's that time of year again -- time for the marketing bloggerati to polish up their crystal balls and make some bold statements about what you can expect in the coming year.  And you, faithful readers, scour the web looking for even just a few useful nuggets from your favorite bloggers and industry pundits.

Well, this year Peter Kim has done everyone the favor of gathering 2009 predictions from some of the sharpest minds in marketing and social media, and pulling them together in a single eBook that contains 50 or so clear-eyed, thought provoking ideas about what the next 12 months hold for media, marketing and the web.

As one of the contributors, I've had the opportunity to read everyone's predictions and can say for sure that you'll want to download a copy right away.  Lots and lots of good stuff -- from a great cross-section of the blogging community, representing a variety of different points of view.

If you want a flavor for what the eBook has to offer, check out these thought starters from Pete's 14 Nostadami (Pete himself contributes an intro and some takeaways rather than his own predictions.)

• "Although it is now cheaper to launch an initiative leveraging Web 2.0 technology - it requires qualified and passionate people to make them successful." - David Armano
• "You may not always start the year as a leader, but you can certainly finish it that way." - Rohit Bhargava
• "Intimacy touches emotion; emotion powers conversation." - Pete Blackshaw
• "Doors are going to close all over the social web. Why? Because the money didn't come the way people thought it would." - Chris Brogan
• "The tipping point has not only *not* been reached, but could still tilt *away* from Social Media." - Todd Defren
• "There's a lot of fixing that needs to be done." - Jason Falls
• "Dwindling budgets suddenly make low-cost social media look like the pretty girl at the ball." - Ann Handley
• "We're going to develop a set of better metrics to help guide, direct and validate 'commitment'." - Joseph Jaffe
• "The movement is rooted in a desire to have quality, not quantity, as people cocoon in the face of the economic crisis." - Charlene Li
• "After a pre-qualifying wrestling match..." - Ben McConnell
• "These will be cumulative events and interactions that will build brand loyalty for the companies that pay attention to them." - Scott Monty
• "The recession will force revenue results out of social technologies." - Jeremiah Owyang
• "Companies that focus on earning love will thrive during hard times, and kick ass when good times return." - Andy Sernovitz
• "Suddenly, being Facebook friends with your mom will seem less ridiculous than following 4,000 strangers on Twitter." - Greg Verdino

But these 14 soundbites only hint at the smart ideas contained in the full eBook -- so be sure to download the complete thang.

As for me, I'll most likely expand on some of my own predictions right here on my blog over the coming few weeks.  In the meantime, I'm sure Pete and the other authors would love to hear your feedback.  Feel free to drop a comment here or any any of the contributors' own blogs.

T-shirt start-up i/denti/fies a new fashion model

Music and fashion have long provided people with important means of self-expression.  A new company called i/denti/tee, conceived and launched by non-traditional-agency-like-object Anomaly, knows this and now aims to pioneer a new way of monetizing the space where music and fashion meet.  I like their model, which sits at the intersection of three key trends -- mass customization, crowdsourcing and eco/social consciousness -- to produce a unique line of music t-shirts that are ready-made for the net generation.  I know some of the peeps involved with this project and am really interested to see where it goes.

Read on for the deets...

The basic idea is pretty simple: license self-expressive song lyrics beginning with "i" (i used to rule the world / i love rock and roll / i wanna dance with somebody / etc), print them on made-to-order tee shirts, and sell them online.

i/denti/tee garners some extra cred by using organic tees from Bono's environmentally and socially conscious apparel company EDUN LIVE, throwing in an iTunes gift card good for 10 free songs and packaging the whole thang in a vintage vinyl record jacket.

They prove their Web 2.0 mettle by tapping into the wisdom of crowds to determine which lyrics will make it into production.  The i/denti/tee line launches with t-shirts featuring nine lyrics from major artists (U2, Coldplay, Joan Jett, Jay-Z, Kenny Chesney and a few others.)  Future releases will be steered by the community as site visitors nominate their own favorite lyrics that begin with "I" and garner support from their friends and other music fans. i/denti/tee will negotiate the licenses and produce shirts featuring the lyrics that have the most popular support. Think of this as threadless.com with a rock-n-roll attitude.

You can add your favorite lyrics to the mix, vote for the lyrics already nominated and, of course, buy shirts at the i/denti/tee site.

Hey honey, waddaya think of the new shed?

Remember "QVC meets MTV" hipster shopping site Honeyshed?  I don't blame you if you don't.  They beta launched a while back to much fanfare and some not-so-hot reviews, only to go into hibernation before getting out of beta or attracting much of an audience. 

Well, they're back -- totally revamped and raring to go. 

Bankrolled by Publicis and billed as "Home Shopping for the Digital Generation," Honeyshed rolls on-demand videos of cool(ish), (at least somewhat) attractive young people pitching everything from t-shirts and panties to gadgets and DVDs.  The site comes with all the usual social media trappings -- viewers can review products, share them on social sites and even submit videos of themselves hawking their own stuff.  And has a clear, well executed e-commerce tie-in -- you can click through to the sponsors' own commerce engines to buy whatever you like or "stash" products you might be interested in buying later.  The content doesn't seem to be as weird and off-putting as I remember from the first launch, but it still has a clear post-YouTube sensibility (but thankfully, old school post-MTV production values.)

So will Honeyshed work this time?  That depends on whether or not the team can lure in enough paying sponsors interested in having their products showcased on segments.  No sponsors; no revenue; no content...  And if Honeyshed is gonna pull this off, they'll need to attract a sizable audience in the right demographic.

So the real question is: will the new Honeyshed appeal to the digital generation? 

Did the gang at Honeyshed get the tone right this time?  Will twenty-somethings log on for their daily dose of a hipper Home Shopping Network?  Will Gen Y and Millenials find the paid-for pitches credible, and does this even matter so long as it's clear that that's exactly what they're tuning in for?  Is this even how people shop anymore? 

Let's ask some of them.  I'm hoping that my favorite honeybee, a real live digital girl, a social media guy and the smartest USC marketing grad student I know will be willing to give it a whirl and chime in.  While we're at it, I wonder whether Aronado thinks Honeyshed is lucky or sucky.

And of course I'd love to hear from the rest of you too -- what do you think?

Check out the site -- it's live now -- or if you're really lazy, I've embedded a slideshow of screengrabs below [feed and email readers will need to click to the blog to see the embed.]

Honeyshed Sneak Peek

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: gregverdino verdino)

Disclosure: I used to work at Publicis-owned Digitas and personally know some of the current Honeyshed management team.  I left before Honeyshed launched and I don't owe them nothin'. :-)

Pepsi gets a 2.0 makeover

You may have heard some buzz about Pepsi's recent influencer outreach program, promoting the brand's new look and packaging.  I was one of 25 bloggers who received a package of new cans and other goodies, along with a pointer to the Pepsi Cooler Friendfeed room where reps from the brand are hosting a discussion about the brand, its redesign and the outreach program. 

Although I'm taking the week off from 'serious' blogging, I figured I'd give you a peek at both the new design and the package I received as part of the outreach effort.

 

More of my pics on Flickr.

You're ahead of the curve. Deal with it...

A new graph of the Gartner hype cycle for emerging technologies has been popping up on a variety of blogs.  If you haven't seen it yet, the graph charts the path that many nascent technologies take from launch, through irrational exuberance, through disillusionment and ultimately to that 'a-ha moment' that leads to measured and rational mainstream adoption.  It's classic 'Crossing the Chasm' stuff... 

What's most interesting to me is that Gartner forecasts that many of the technologies that we so-called social media insiders put so much time, energy and brainpower towards -- in other words, the technologies we seem to take for granted -- are 2-5 years away from mainstream adoption, regardless of where they sit relative to the hype cycle. 

Microblogging and cloud computing?  Nearing the "Peak of Inflated Expectations;" 2-5 years from mainstream adoption.  Social computing, video telepresence and virtual worlds?  Heading into (or already in) the "Trough of Disillusionment;" likely to see mainstream adoption in 2-5 years.  Simple social tools like wikis, social network analysis and location-aware applications (which presumably includes mobile social software) are all trending toward enlightenment (that a-ha moment I mentioned) and productivity or usefulness, yet even these are all 2-5 years from mainstream adoption.

So what's the lesson? There are three, actually:

1) The next time you're chatting with your aunt in Peoria -- or that CMO in Cleveland -- you shouldn't be shocked that they haven't heard of (much less used) some new technology or service that has you and your ambient friends all a-Twitter (pun intended.)  This is probably true even if Advertising Age or BusinessWeek or the New York Times has written a puffy trend piece about it.

2) The next time you feel inclined to write off some new, over-hyped thing as a passing fad that has passed away you may want to stop and consider that outside of our little, well-insulated clique of early adopters, it actually hasn't even started to happen yet.  Sure, some technologies will never cross the chasm (remember the way DAT was going to revolutionize the music industry?) but just because we're tired of it we shouldn't assume that it has outlived its usefulness.

3) Let's be sure not to confuse the early poster children of any technology revolution with the longer term potential and more reasonable expectations that we might have for the category those poster children represent.  For example, don't confuse cyber-flare-out Second Life with the larger opportunity inherent in public virtual worlds.

What else do you take away from the Gartner hype cycle for emerging technologies?