With IGTV, Instagram Targets the Mobile Generation

The cool kids don’t hang out on Facebook anymore. So Facebook wants the cool kids to hang out on Instagram.

When Facebook bought Instagram in 2012, Instagram had less than 100 million users. Now the app counts one billion users, most of whom are millennials and digital natives, the demographic Facebook covets. Instagram continues to grow by making it easy and fun for users to tell visual stories, the language of the digital generation. Sometimes, Instagram copies Snapchat features as it did with the creation of Instagram Stories. Now Instagram is taking a page from YouTube’s playbook by offering longer-form video through the recently launched IGTV feature. Instead of having video limited to 30 seconds in length, users can create videos that are as long as 10 minutes (or an hour for larger, verified accounts). And Instagram is adding an important twist: the content is optimized for mobile.

A Mobile-First Experience

If you’re already creating Instagram main-feed videos and Instagram Stories, IGTV should be a snap to use. You simply hold your mobile phone vertically and record a video. Then you tap on the IGTV icon on your Instagram account and follow the prompts to upload and label the video. Note that when you record your video, you don’t hold the phone in horizonal fashion as you are probably accustomed to doing. That’s because IGTV is designed specifically for the way we naturally hold our phones and view content via the vertical format. IGTV videos look naturally rendered, taking up the entire screen rather than being bracketed by ugly, thick black borders that typically appear if you hold your phone vertically and create a video (which looks hopelessly uncool).

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said that the mobile format will set IGTV apart. “We’ve reimagined what video is on mobile,” he said in a livestreamed announcement. In a blog post, Instagram pointed out that by 2021, mobile video will account for 78 percent of total mobile data traffic – so a mobile-first video uploading and sharing experience is long overdue. Continue reading

Content Master: The Morton Arboretum

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As the leaves of autumn give way to the bare branches of winter, the Morton Arboretum is a place of both refuge and inspiration. The preserve west of Chicago has a well-deserved reputation as a destination for hiking and bicycling amid the trees, ponds, and fields that comprise the 1,700-acre grounds. But the arboretum doesn’t assume that its reputation alone will attract visitors. To ensure that the natural playground remains top of mind amid the many digital and offline distractions vying for its patrons’ attention, the Morton Arboretum also happens to be a powerful content machine.

The arboretum’s content strategy is twofold: use digital to attract visitors, and offline content to support the organization’s mission of protecting and appreciating the natural world.

Visual Storytelling the Digital Way

The Morton Arboretum creates awareness and engagement by sharing content across the digital world where its patrons share their own content, on social spaces ranging from Facebook to Instagram, thus demonstrating that if you want to attract an audience, you need to be present where they live and search for things to do.

And the arboretum speaks the language of its audience: imagery. For instance, in October and November, the arboretum’s Instagram account offered an explosion of fall colors enticing the Instagram community to experience the bright red leaves of a sour gum or a golden yellow cork tree. The arboretum’s growing Pinterest community takes advantage of Pinterest’s organizational tools, with images organized under boards ranging from Gardening Ideas to Winter Trees. On YouTube, the arboretum offers more immersive tours that give potential visitors a taste of what they’ll find if they stop by. For instance, the arboretum recently posted a video tour of Illuminations, during which the grounds come alive with a festive light show at night. But YouTube is also a learning destination, offering how-to videos on topics such as tree pruning and watering plants and trees.

On Facebook, the arboretum also includes user-generated images, thus drawing from a broader palette of images and creating more engagement from its Facebook followers. Facebook and Twitter also act as sources of updates on the events that the arboretum offers around the year. In fact, its Facebook page is a textbook example of a how an organization can use a local page to generate awareness where people conduct searches for things to do nearby. The arboretum makes it easy for visitors to learn about events such as its Boo Breakfast for children, and the arboretum cross-promotes content on other social spaces, including TripAdvisor reviews. By being transparent and informative, the arboretum makes Facebook an important digital touch point that complements its website, which serves as its hub for learning more about things to do there. Patrons can also sign up for an email newsletter that curates content as frequently as needed.

A Learning Experience

The arboretum’s not-so-secret weapon for engaging its audience is educational content. Its website modestly claims that we engage students, families, teachers, and life-long learners to dig a little deeper into the science of trees,” which is putting things mildly. The arboretum is practically a year-round school, offering lectures, classes on topics such as nature art and photography, and opportunities to get involved in conservation. The arboretum does a masterful job segmenting educational content for different audiences. Here are just a few examples:

  • School groups: for grades PreK-5, the arboretum hosts classroom visits in which educational leaders provide courses such as plant investigation and the basics of trees. Its half- and full-day field trips offer deeper dives into nature for ages ranging from kindergarten to high school. Kindergarteners might learn about using the five senses to explore nature, whereas high schoolers can get involved into the maintenance of the park by acting as restoration stewards during their field trips.
  • Adult programs: the arboretum empowers adult visitors to enrich their understanding of nature and discover their inner artists. During chilly winter Saturday mornings, visitors can take winter bird walks, in which small groups discover the habits of the birds who winter at the arboretum. The Nature Artists’ Guild encourages patrons to express their artistic sides through paintings, drawings, and other creative endeavors — really a form of user generated content.

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Image source: The Morton Arboretum

One of my favorite arboretum activities is to immerse myself in learning at the Sterling Morton Library. The curved shelves full of neatly arranged books, comfortable chairs, and high ceiling create a welcoming environment to learn the old-school way: by burying your nose in books about the natural world the arboretum has vowed to protect. The library reminds me that a location need not provide blinking lights, video, and pulsating music to be immersive. The silence that invites quiet exploration of the mind is as immersive as sound.

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All the content has a purpose: to support the arboretum’s self-proclaimed role as “the champion of trees.” The exhibits, the classes, and the tours all ladder up to a mission to get everyday people involved in protecting the natural world. And the arboretum supports its mission in obvious ways, such as the Vanishing Acts traveling exhibit. Vanishing Acts: Trees Under Threat was developed with the Global Trees Campaign to raise awareness for threatened and endangered trees. What makes Vanishing Acts special is that you can take the exhibition with you. The exhibition is designed to be set up in public spaces appropriate for learning about tree conservation. As such, the arboretum offers a program to help others set up the exhibition, including a how-to guide for constructing the exhibit. Consider Vanishing Acts an old-school way of creating sharable content.

 Questions for Brands

  • Are you creating content that will engage your audience at a location level?
  • How well do you employ visual storytelling to share your brand?
  • Are you distributing that content where your customers are going to find it?
  • How well does your content support your mission?
  • How well do you involve your audience in the branded content you create?

Other Brands to Examine

  • Nordstrom, for its mastery of content on platforms such as Pinterest.
  • Starbucks, for capitalizing on social spaces to generate awareness for its stores.
  • Bass Pro Shops for providing activities such as 3D Archery
  • Weber Grill Restaurants for offering grilling classes and special events

For brick-and-mortar businesses, sharing meaningful content is increasingly essential to combat the ever-present threat of such as video games, Netflix, and apps that make it all too easy to remain planted on our sofas in the comfort of our homes. The Morton Arboretum can teach any brick-and-mortar business the power of immersive content.

Portions of this blog were adapted from a post I wrote for SIM Partners.

 

When Brands Mess with Our Emotions

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Jess Goulart of BTRtoday recently asked me how I think branding has changed over the years. I told her that although businesses are sharing their brand stories in more inventive ways than ever before, some of the traditional elements of a successful brand remain unchanged. For instance, a company’s name and logo are powerful elements of a brand. Case in point: the Internet firestorm caused by Instagram’s new logo and Budweiser’s temporary name change.

On May 10, Budweiser went to “potentially ingenious, potentially absurd branding extremes” in the words of Fast Company‘s Mark Wilson by announcing that the King of Beers was changing the name on its cans and bottles from Budweiser to . . . America. In a press release, Budweiser noted that the renaming coincides with “what should be the most patriotic summer that this generation has ever seen, with Copa America Centenario being held on U.S. soil for the first time, Team USA competing at the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.” The voice of Bud noted that “that these cans and bottles aim to inspire drinkers to celebrate America and Budweiser’s shared values of freedom and authenticity.

The cans not only say America, but they contain text referring to the Pledge of Allegiance, the Star Spangled Banner, and America the Beautiful. The rollout for the special-edition cans and bottles features the tagline “America Is in Your Hands.”

Why the name change? Because nothing says America like swigging beer in the summer, right? And Budweiser has a history of appealing to patriotism with its branding. The renaming amps up something Budweiser has been doing already.

Not surprisingly, the rebrand evoked a response, and not all of it positive, as the predictable flood of tweets illustrates:

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On the other hand, the rebrand attracted a lot of coverage from A-list news media, such as Fast Company, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal — the kind of coverage, as they say, that you cannot buy with advertising.

For my part, on Facebook, I couldn’t help but consider the ironies of the rebrand in this most bitterly fought and surreal of election years. Would the special-edition American carry a corrosive taste resulting from bitter political squabbling and screaming into the social media void?

Meanwhile, as social media was going crazy over Budweiser, Instagram was changing its logo. And boy, did Instagram ruffle some feathers. By shedding its well-known image of a retro camera to a more conceptual, colorful image, Instagram annoyed the many members of the digerati who loved the old look.

Instagram unveiled a new logo Wednesday, and it may well go down as one of the biggest design fails of the year,” wrote Adweek‘s Tim Nudd in an article with the strident headline, “Instagram’s New Logo Is a Travesty. Can We Change It Back? Please?” Meanwhile, Chris Gayomali of GQ pouted, “Instagram spent YEARS building up visual brand equity with its existing logo, training users where to tap, and now instead of iterating on that, it’s flushing it all down the toilet for the homescreen equivalent of a Starburst. Sad!”

And, the Internet griped, as it did with Budeiser/’Murica. Liam Stack of The New York Times summarized much of the backlash in his article, “The Great Instagram Logo Freakout of 2016,” in which he pointed out some of the sarcastic Internet memes and otherwise widespread cringing that occurred.

Budweiser might have faced some backlash with a name change. But Instagram got crapped on.

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On Medium, Ian Spalter, Instagram’s head of design, analyzed the reasons for the logo change, which is a fine read if you want to dig into the rationale, but 99 percent of Instagram’s 400 million users don’t care for the backstory. They’re either going to like what they see or barf, and context be damned.

Why? Because names and logos create emotional connections, which is what branding is all about: the power of emotion. You can do all the left-brain analysis you want to measure the power of branding, using yardsticks such as brand lift, and you can analyze your reasons for the choices you make. But numbers and explanation don’t capture the emotional appeal of a brand.

People don’t like to have their emotions messed with, and when a business changes its name or its logo, that’s exactly what happens. But just as we get over romantic break-ups, the passage of time eventually heals the emotional break caused by a change in a name or a logo. Remember the uproar when Andersen Consulting changed its name to Accenture? The critics mocked the “accent on the future” meaning. Nobody’s laughing anymore, are they? On a less dramatic scale, Google raised eyebrows in 2015 when the company tinkered with its word mark. But now we are comfortable with the san-serif Google.

Yeah, we get over the hurt that comes when a brand crumples up our loyalty into a paper ball and tosses it in our faces. We scream and pout, but we move on. For that reason, I think the Gap made a mistake in 2010 when the company ditched its new logo amid howls of protest. Had the company remained patient, I can assure you no one would care about the old logo today except for fans of nostalgia.

At a time when consumers are supposedly more empowered than ever before, ironically the uproar caused by Budweiser and Instagram remind us of an essential truth: being empowered doesn’t mean we want to call the shots completely. We want a relationship with brands. And brands wield power in that relationship. Otherwise, why would we care so much about someone changing their name or logo?

Buy Buttons Try to Make Holiday Shopping Convenient

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The holiday shopping season has become anything but seasonal. Brands ranging from Amazon to Target are offering Black Friday sales well in advance of Black Friday. And the development of buy buttons on platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest has made holiday shopping as convenient as ordering gifts from your sofa: no more running around in the slush and snow taking in ornaments, carolers, and visits to Santa as part of the holiday rush. My new blog post for SIM Partners, “Will Buy Buttons Appeal to Holiday Shoppers?” examines the impact of buy buttons on holiday shopping and discusses how brick-and-mortar retailers might offer alternatives to them. Check out my post and let me know if the convenience of buy buttons is affecting how you shop.

How Musician Alison Goldfrapp Creates Social Media Mystique

BannerRecently, I was talking with a director about how artists use social media. He vowed never to use it. “Lifting the veil to your private life ruins the artist’s mystique,” he said. And he has a point. Sharing on social can connect artists with their fans, but social media can be problematic for musicians such as Beck, Jimmy Page, and Prince whose personal brands are built on the power of mystique. Their appeal comes from the walls that surround them, which makes them unattainable. But as musician Alison Goldfrapp demonstrates, artists can actually use social media to create mystique.

Alison Goldfrapp is one half of the duo Goldfrapp, which melds pop, dance, and electronica to create a sound that shimmers. The group is all about atmosphere. Its songs can sound lush and dreamy on an album such as Seventh Tree, and provocative on Black Cherry. The duo has carefully constructed a chic, ethereal vibe, grounded in Alison Goldfrapp’s mystique. Whereas Nicki Minaj is loud and sexual, Alison Goldfrapp is cool, sensual, and beyond our reach. She is like Ingrid Bergman reincarnated as a singer.

And Alison Goldfrapp treats Facebook and Instagram as an extension of her mystique. Many artists, such as Tame Impala, use Facebook to share tour dates, new singles, and contests. Other artists, such as Miley Cyrus, seemingly report every detail about their backstage lives, including posting photos of their friends and their fans. Goldfrapp takes neither approach. Instead, she shares photos that are every bit as evocative and mysterious as Goldfrapp’s image, often accompanied by cryptic captions that explain nothing. One day, Goldfrapp might share a ghostly image of a woman walking in the dark, like so:

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Another day brings a striking close-up of a bee:

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Seldom does Alison Goldfrapp provide context for the photos aside from cryptic captions. She leaves it up to her fans to fill in the blanks. In the fan comments section, she responds to no one, thus keeping everyone guessing as to how closely she pays attention to the content people post on her page.

For Alison Goldfrapp, Facebook and Instagram are canvasses, not social media tools. She lets her fans socialize with each other through their speculation and critiques. She is faithful to her fans, providing a steady stream of visual content. But always, she is behind a veil. Rather than make you feel like you know Alison Goldfrapp better, Facebook and Instagram add color and texture to the veil of her creation. (And, of course, the idea that you can actually get to know artists through their gushy social posts is, in itself, an illusion, but a more conventionally acceptable one.)

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Alison Goldfrapp offers three lessons through her use of social:

  • Powerful visuals can say more than words if your goal is to make an impression instead of explaining yourself to your audience.

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  • You create a mystique by sparking a conversation. When no one pays attention, there is no mystique. Judging by the comments on Alison Goldfrapp’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, she creates a conversation.
  • But sharing does not have to mean joining the conversation. Allowing others to form their impressions of your art builds mystique.

Being social does not have to mean being chatty. You can create a conversation and build a community though actions, not words. Who creates mystique on social media in your opinion?

 

Welcome to a New Era of Convenience Shopping

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Buy buttons are taking convenience shopping to a whole new level. In recent weeks, Instagram and Pinterest announced new buy button features that make it easy for consumers to purchase goods and services directly from their apps. Facebook, which began testing shoppable ads in 2014, announced an expansion of its program. Google confirmed that the search giant is developing a buy button so that shoppers can make purchases directly from Google ads. Why the interest? In a word: mobile.

It’s easy to see why these digital brands are instituting buy buttons. In the United States, online commerce accounts for but 7 percent of all retail sales. According to Forrester Research, by 2017 the Web will generate $370 billion in U.S. sales, or 10 percent of the total. By making it easier to conduct transactions online, the likes of Google, Instagram, and Pinterest hope to stake a claim to the $3.3 trillion in sales that will occur offline.

But why are we seeing a proliferation of buy buttons now? There’s something else going on: since 2013, consumers have preferred using their mobile devices over laptops and desktops to interact with retailers online. The shift to mobile has profound implications:

  • Mobile consumers have an immediate intent to purchase: according to a recently released report by Google, I Want-to-Go Moments: From Search to Store, half of consumers who conduct a local search on their smartphones visit a store within 24 hours. Nearly half of consumers trying to decide on a restaurant do their local search within an hour of actually going.

In I-Want-to-Go Moments: From Search to Store, Google noted that the number of “near me” searches (searches conducted for goods and services nearby) conducted by consumers have grown by 34 times since 2011; and 80 percent of those searches are conducted on mobile devices.

“With a world of information at their fingertips, consumers have heightened expectations for immediacy and relevance,” wrote the report’s author, Matt Lawson. “They want what they want when they want it. They’re confident they can make well-informed choices whenever needs arise. It’s essential that brands be there in these moments that matter — when people are actively looking to learn, discover, and, or buy.”

You can sense the wheels spinning at Facebook, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter, where consumers and brands share the same space: if consumers are collapsing the journey from awareness to purchase on their mobile devices, why not remove the friction of sending them offline to buy something? Why not use buy buttons seal the deal the moment when initial research and consideration occur on mobile devices?

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Jermaine Dupri Wants to Save R&B with New Jagged Edge Album

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If you want to get a rise out of music legend Jermaine Dupri, ask him about the new Jagged Edge album, J.E. Heartbreak II. Dropping October 27, J.E. Heartbreak II reunites Dupri with the group he signed to his So So Def record label in 1997. And Dupri promises that J.E. Heartbreak II will deliver the kind of lush, harmony-rich ballads that helped Jagged Edge become an R&B and pop success 14 years ago.

“The new album is straight Jagged Edge,” he says in the following exclusive interview. “It’s what Jagged Edge does and what it has always done.”

What Jagged Edge has always done is create music that defines the sound of R&B and also succeeds commercially. When Jagged Edge emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s,  Jagged Edge songs such as “He Can’t Love U” and “Let’s Get Married” captured the groove-heavy romance of R&B and also ranked high on both the R&B and pop charts. Jagged Edge’s breakthrough album, J.E. Heartbreak, released in 2000, topped the R&B charts, made the pop Top 10, and sold more than 2 million copies. Throughout the 2000s, Jagged Edge remained an R&B mainstay, recording six albums (its last album was recorded in 2011) even as R&B began to lose its mainstream appeal.

Dupri also believes J.E. Heartbreak II may also serve a larger purpose: to rekindle music fans’ love of R&B, which Dupri believes has been kicked to the gutter.

“R&B used to be the most popular of all music,” he says. “Now you have to go seek out R&B artists on the right radio stations.”

Fourteen years have gone by since the massive success of J.E. Heartbreak. As Dupri discusses in our interview, J.E. Heartbreak II captures the Jagged Edge sound, which is to say the sound of pure R&B. All the hallmarks of Jagged Edge are evident in the recently released single off J.E. Heartbreak II, “Getting over You.” With J.E. Heartbreak II, Dupri seeks to draw attention to the R&B genre just as Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash reignited interest in country music through their collaboration in the 1990s.

Read on for more insight into a new collaboration forged in R&B.

How would you describe the new Jagged Edge album, J.E. Heartbreak II?

The new album is straight Jagged Edge. It’s what Jagged Edge does and what it has always done. Jagged Edge creates love songs. Jagged Edge sings songs like “Let’s Get Married,” or the new single, “Getting Over You,” which is not the kind of thing you hear in rap or hip-hop. This is a group that has a fan base already. This album will appeal to that fan base. J.E. Heartbreak II is for people who are wondering where are you guys been?

How did you guys get back into the studio together?

I was just doing what Jermaine Dupri does what he’s supposed to do: always moving. Always looking for opportunities to make great music. Jagged Edge was ready to make new music. Jagged Edge is part of my legacy. So working together was a natural and easy decision.

J.E. Heartbreak II captures the sound of R&B. How would you describe the state of R&B?

R&B is headed in the direction that country is in already: it’s a marginalized specialty music that you have to look to find it as opposed to a form of music that you listen to everywhere. R&B used to be the most popular of all music. Now you have to go seek out R&B artists on the right radio stations just like you have to find real country on specialty stations.

Why has R&B become marginalized?

Music has become so fragmented, and R&B is a victim of that fragmentation. R&B has become typecast as the kind of music your mother and father listen to. But, in fact, younger generations will listen to it and love it when they hear it. On my Twitter feed, which represents pop America, people are telling me how much they like what they’re hearing from the new R&B album coming from Jagged Edge.

Generations coming into the industry in the digital age are not learning about R&B, and artists with distinctive R&B sounds are being overlooked in the generic American Idol era. If Al Green were starting out today, he would not become a star because the record industry would keep his music in an R&B box. Here’s the problem: Al Green has a distinctive voice that helped him break through in the 1970s. But that distinctive voice would hold him back today. Why? Because he doesn’t sound like the kind of generic artist who American Idol has conditioned the public to hear. But the greats don’t sound like everyone else. Al Green does not sound like Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson does not sound like Prince. Prince does not sound like Luther Vandross.

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Today it’s hard to find the separation of styles necessary to make R&B its own style.

What about Beyoncé or Justin Timberlake? They are not only considered R&B by Billboard, but they obviously have enjoyed breakthrough success

Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake are making more of a strand of R&B. They are not making traditional R&B. Beyoncé is kind of like Usher. She has defined a different wave of music that draws upon R&B. Beyoncé, Chris Brown, and Trey Songz are making more of a hybrid of R&B, rap, and hip-hop. Chris Brown is a pure singer. If he could clean up his act and present himself as an artist who wants to sing as opposed to a singer who wants to rap, he could become the biggest singer in the world.

What I’m talking about is traditional R&B. Go try to find it. You’ll have to look very hard. What’s going on is that artists who would have been R&B are instead rappers and hip-hop stars.

Did rap and hip-hop steal the audience for R&B?

A generation of kids that wanted to be in radio and wanted to run the record business all grew up in an era when rap became the most prominent music genre. The kids that are now growing up in the ranks, the A&R guys who find new music, first look for rap and hip-hop. They have no love for R&B. They don’t have a reason to love it because they don’t know about it.

But I know there is an audience for R&B. Young people who know about R&B are telling me, “JD, please bring back R&B because the music today sucks.” Fans want something different than what they are hearing today.

How are you promoting J.E. Heartbreak II? Continue reading

Selling Elvis in the Age of Instagram

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Image source: Vegas.com

Elvis never left the building after all. Seventeen years after his death, Elvis Presley remains one of the most lucrative names in show business. According to Forbes, he is the second wealthiest deceased celebrity, earning $55 million in 2013 through merchandising, licensing of his image, and his Graceland estate. And now, thanks to hologram technology, he will come to life in the digital age. Welcome to 21st Century branding, where yesterday’s artists can endure as immersive brands for a visual generation that speaks the language of Instagram and Vine.

According to Adweek‘s Michelle Castillo, Authentic Brands Group (which manages his estate) and Pulse Evolution are creating an Elvis hologram that will appear in commercials and movies — and host a residency in Macau and Las Vegas, the latter location being especially fitting given the legacy Elvis created in the 1970s through his extravagant shows at the Las Vegas Hilton. The residencies may even involve holograms of Elvis and Michael Jackson performing together (the King of Pop has already appeared at the Billboard Music Awards thanks to Pulse Evolution’s technology).

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Michael Jackson hologram appears onstage. Image source: Rollingstone.com

Jamie Salter, CEO of Authentic Brands Group, told Adweek, “We want you to go to the show and say, ‘Wow, oh my God! I saw Elvis 50, 60 years ago, and this is exactly the same thing.” But will the Elvis hologram appeal to a Millennial generation that never saw Elvis perform? I believe the virtual Elvis will resonate with both the Baby Boomer generation and Millennials for these reasons:

  • Elvis is a massive brand. Elvis lived large, died before his time, and captured the public’s imagination. As his standing in the annual Forbes list attests, his name is as big as ever. Everyone knows who Elvis is even if not everyone cares too much for his music, and name awareness is a strong foundation upon which to strengthen a brand.

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Image source: arts-stew.com

  • An Elvis hologram is tailor made for the concert experience, and concerts are one of the few reliable ways that the music industry can generate reliable revenue streams  across all generations (as I mentioned to Michelle Castillo in the Adweek article). Elvis was a charismatic performer onstage who engaged an audience. It makes perfect sense to bring him back for a residency, where all audiences, including Millennials, will see him in a new context.
  • A hologram is the perfect way to make a brand relevant to the Vine generation. Holograms are visual. Holograms are sexy. Holograms bring music to life visually. Elvis was a visually savvy musician who famously used both his body and his stage costumes to complement his singing.

Holograms will not work for every famous musician who has passed away. You need a musician with a strong brand, visual appeal, and a reputation for delivering memorable stage performances. We’ve already seen holograms create tremendous buzz for Tupac Shakur and Michael Jackson. I can easily see Jim Morrison, Freddie Mercury, and Whitney Houston some day returning as holograms. Elvis is a classic, cool brand launched in 1954 when he began recording at Sun Records, just as the Ford Mustang was launched in 1964. And now we can conceivably enjoy several “Elvis models”: the swaggering country boy in a gold lamé suit, the confident man in black leather, and the larger-than-life spectacle who changed the nature of live shows in Las Vegas.

Who do you think will get the hologram treatment next?

Email and Referral Marketing: The Workhorse and Dark Horse for Customer Acquisition

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Digital long ago established itself as a channel for brand building and direct marketing. But what are the most popular digital tools for acquiring customers? According to my newly published report for Gigaom Research, the unsexy tactic of email marketing is a digital workhorse, popular for awareness building, and customer acquisition, conversion, and retention. And referral marketing, not used as widely as other tactics, provides an especially strong payoff for its practitioners. My report suggests to marketers that acquiring customers in the digital era is like creating a mosaic: to achieve a beautiful outcome, companies need to apply the right blend of tactics. For instance, brands should consider using social media and referral marketing to complement lists created for email campaigns.

The report, Workhorses and Dark Horses: Digital Tactics for Customer Acquisition, is based on a Gigaom survey of 300 U.S. digital marketers. We wanted to understand how they are using digital marketing tactics across the marketing funnel, spanning awareness, customer acquisition, conversion, and retention. Our survey affirms that digital marketing is being used consistently across the entire customer experience.

Marketers told us that social media, already well known as an awareness-building tool, is also particularly useful for customer retention. Content marketing is especially useful for awareness and retention. And email is consistently used across the entire marketing funnel.

Digital Marketing Spend Set to Increase

Here are the key findings of our survey:

  • Nearly 60 percent of companies plan to increase their digital marketing spend in 2014.
  • Email marketing is the digital workhorse, deemed the most effective (relative to other digital tactics) for building awareness, acquisition, retention, and conversion. In fact, 56 percent of respondents identified email as being the most effective at retention, several points ahead of the second-most-effective tactic.
  • Social spending is set to increase, but we discern some buying on faith with social. More marketers plan to spend more on social media marketing than any other digital tactic. But when we asked marketers to describe their perceptions of social media marketing, more marketers agreed with the statement “It is difficult to prove ROI for social media marketing” than with any other statement.
  • Referral marketing is a digital marketing dark horse. Only 39 percent of marketers use it regularly, but 43 percent of those who do use it acquire more than 35 percent of their new customers with it. These numbers are double the percentage of marketers who report such acquisition rates using email. Brands that invest in referral can gain a competitive advantage over those investing elsewhere.

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Lady Gaga Gives Her Fans a Visual Hashtag with “Applause”

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With the release of her new single, “Applause,” Lady Gaga has served a visual feast to the news media. On August 12 she conspicuously wore Kabuki-inspired face paint while making the rounds in Los Angeles to promote the first single off her forthcoming album ARTPOP. Publications ranging from Buzzfeed to The Huffington Post responded predictably by plastering her image across the media landscape. But by appearing in face paint, Lady Gaga has done more than promote “Applause” and ARTPOP to the news media: she has created a brilliant visual hashtag for her fans.

Literally all over the world, Little Monsters are creating ARTPOP-inspired fan art and selfies seemingly every few minutes on sites such as Instagram and her own LittleMonsters community. And I’m not exaggerating. My LittleMonsters feed is flooded with a nonstop river of orange, blue, green, and red hues as fans show their support for Lady Gaga — and for each other — with their Gaga-style self-portraits and art. Here are just a few examples from Chile, France, and Wales:

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There is something touching about seeing fans just putting themselves out there, braving their fear of creating amateur art because they simply want to share. For example, Little Monster nicolaHMW from Paris says that his fan art is “not amazing, but im proud of it [sic]”:

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And the self-expression is not limited to her own website, as a few of these Instagram photos show:

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hanz0monster

The ARTPOP face paint is like a totem: a visual symbol of something that inspires and moves people. But it’s also a way for Little Monsters to spot each other instantly and bond, like fans of sports teams who wear the same logos or people on Twitter following a trending topic through hashtags. Therein lies the brilliance of her latest promotion: she’s given her fans a way to celebrate her music but also to create a reflection of each other.

Lady Gaga carries the mantel for many rock artists who long ago mastered the art of iconography. In the 1970s, for instance, Kiss inspired the Kiss army with the band’s colorful costumes, make-up, and onstage theatrics, as did David Bowie. (In fact, one of those Bowie fans was Lady Gaga, and the cover of ARTPOP has been compared to the cover of Bowie’s 1980 album Scary Monsters.)

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What Lady Gaga does (as Madonna once did) is express herself visually onstage and offstage (whereas Kiss remained a mystery offstage during the band’s heyday). In doing so, she creates and sustains a whirlwind of conversation.

ARTPOP itself lands November 11. Looks like it’s going to be a colorful fall.