Bill Geist's Zeitgeist

The Parodies Begin

As the Old Spice campaign goes thermonuclear...it was just a matter of time before the parodies began.

Our favorite? This one from @OhDoctah...as channeled by AdRants.

"Who wants to smell like semen...uhhh...sailors anyway?"

More Old Spice

This has been pretty freaking amazing.

I'm a boomer...and Old Spice was never, ever, a consideration. My dad didn't wear it. My grandfather did.

Then, a Super Bowl commercial made us all both laugh and wonder...how did they do that?

And then we all went back to what we were doing.

Until, all of a sudden, months later...it's gone ubber viral.

Because now, the Old Spice Guy is all over Twitter, YouTube and Facebook...and responding via videos to various tweets.

You can see many of the simply incredibly funny videos here.

But, as one marketing executive said, "if it's this easy to do a 30 second commercial, we're all toast."

Welcome to the future of marketing.

SoMe: A DIY Tourism Conference

For the past five or six years, my friend Dave Serino (@GammetGuy) has hosted one of the best conferences on electronic tourism marketing in the country. For the past two years, it was held in conjunction with Destination Marketing Association International's fall Destination Management & Marketing Institute (DMMI).

With the recent decision by DMAI to drop DMMI from its calendar, Dave had a fascinating opportunity to redesign his conference from the ground up...and he has, big time. And, the concept is way cool.

Let the industry design the conference. Voting is going on through this Friday for Destination Marketing pros to help select where the Social Media Tourism Symposium (SoMeT) will be staged. You can review the destinations that bid on the RFP here and stay connected to the conference by liking their Facebook Page.

Once the destination is set, there will be a survey posted for DMO pros to design the educational content and then vote on presenters. Truly, a conference designed by the attendees...for the attendees. Even the conference logo was designed by a member of Dave's Twitter posse.

In just 10 days, over 1000 votes have already been cast (and there hasn't been very much Chicago-style ballot box stuffing...he's checking). The Facebook page has been liked by over 800 people. And Dave says the creativity of the bids has been simply amazing. One even emblazoned St. Joseph MO CVB's  Beth Conway's SoMeT logo on a wine bottle and glass.

This is gonna be so cool. Check it out...and vote!

The Media: FAIL

I know I should be waxing eloquent about the Stuper Bowl spots...but everyone else is.

Although, there was a spot that was interesting for how uninteresting it was. At least to the Twittersphere.

It was the send-up remake of the Chicago Bears' Super Bowl Shuffle. Having played on the Bear's Charity Softball Team (they could never get 10 guys to show up for the games...so I was usually announced as the walk-on from Clemson), I knew these guys and couldn't wait to see the spot. Which was cute and fun in its own way...and Steve Fuller still can't dance.

But it didn't crack the cloud. At all. Not close. Because the majority of the people on Twitter never saw the Superbowl Shuffle...and didn't understand the spot. Which, of course, brings into question who Boost Mobile was targeting with this spot. Because if it wasn't 50 and 60 years olds or Chicago Bear fans, ummm, this was stupid.

Which reminded me of a series of local TV News gaffes my friend (and fellow blogger) Tim Morrissey and I have been discussing. There are just some things that a Madisonian knows that today's news anchors and reporters don't. Like that Tommy Thompson used to be Governor (duh). That Green Day's Grammy shout out to Butch Vig was huge for this town (totally ignored). And that the scoreboard announcement that it was "a great day for hockey" wasn't referring to the temperature at this weekend's outdoor game between the UW and Michigan...but a quote from hockey coaching legend Bob Johnson. Who, of course, the reporter had clearly never heard of.

Hey, I was young and stupid when I broke into broadcasting. But, there was a difference. If I didn't know what the hell something meant, I moved on to talking about what I did know. Today's broadcasters...they're just making it up as they go, thinking their reality is the only reality.

Which is why I don't know why we expect to be informed by today's media. They don't have the benefit of the background to any story...and they apparently aren't too interested in digging into anything other than TMZ stories. How else to explain the complete and total miss (prior to the election) that the recent winner of the Democratic nomination for Illinois Lt. Governor used steroids, abused his ex-wife and held a knife to his ex-prostitute girlfriend's throat.

And don't say it's just Illinois. It's a news industry that buys cheap, eager young talent at the expense of knowledge. I don't begrudge young reporters...because I used to be one. I begrudge media conglomerates firing all of the institutional knowledge in the newsroom so that the kids will never learn.

And, thus, we will never know the truth.

The Next Gen for Twitter

When it's all about location, Destination Marketers need to pay attention to Twitter. In the very near future, the micro-blogging juggernaut will be debuting location based code in every Tweet.

While the new service will be defaulted to "off" for personal security reasons, imagine the opportunity to target messaging to Tweeps in your destination, offering deals and packages to a finite target audience.

Still think Twitter is stoopid? Think again.

The Hubris of Claiming First

It's a fairly common trait of humans to want to be biggest, best, fastest...first. It's that whole Hierarchy of Needs thing, I guess.

But, when your claim is so out in left field that you're in a completely other ballpark?

In a recent news release, the Maastricht Convention Bureau announced they are now utilizing Twitter and Facebook. They also claim that, "worldwide this is the first site of a convention bureau effectively making use of web 2.0 and social media marketing techniques."

Errr...not quite.

In my friend Martin Stoll's latest ranking of DMOs utilizing Twitter, he's tracking over 350 DMOs maintaining accounts. DMAI recently announced that roughly 150 of their DMO members have Facebook accounts. I'm fairly certain at least a few maintain both...and have for months.

Or maybe I'm reading the quote wrong. Maybe the MCB is claiming that they are the first DMO in the world to do it right.

Don't know if they're playing on attending the DMAI Annual Convention...but, if they do, I'm thinking there''ll be a throwdown.

Thanks to my friend Sharon Linton of the Meydenbauer Center for the catch.

The Power of Viral

When I picked up on this music video rant about United Airlines Tuesday morning from Chris Elliott on Twitter, it had been viewed on YouTube 320 times. Last night it was at 218,000.

The backstory: Last spring, the Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and Dave Carroll's Taylor $3500 guitar was severely damaged. United didn't deny the experience occurred but, for nine months, the airline refused to accept responsibility and finally said they would do nothing to compensate him for his loss. So he promised the last person to finally say "no" that he would write and produce three songs about his experience and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world.

This is the first song. Word on the street is that United is, all of a sudden, interested in talking with Dave.

But, for over 200,000 of their potential customers...it's too late. United Breaks Guitars.

UPDATE (9 July): 10 hours after this post, the video was at 470,000 views :)

UPDATE (10 July): 24 hours later, the video is approaching 1.4 million views. And Dave Carroll speaks out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7hFIYQFnw  What a class act.

UPDATE (17 July): 10 days after being at 320 views, the video has surpassed 3 MILLION views.

Linking Illegal?

It could be if an Illinois judge has his way, according to an article in the Guardian (and thanks to our buddy Meilee Anderson from Seattle Southside for the catch).

Influential Chicago Appeals Judge Richard Posner is concerned that newspapers are a dying breed. So are we. We think they are because they haven't embraced the internet correctly and report nothing but terrifying economic news, in the attempt to snare readers. Except, when they scare the shit out of their readers, their readers stop buying products. When readers stop buying, businesses don't have revenue with which to buy newspaper advertising.

Is it any wonder that newspapers have been complicit in their own demise?

But Posner thinks that it is the bloggers and twitterers linking to newspapers' online content are the culprits. But don't they deliver even more eyes to the online editions of these newspapers through their links? Eyes that wouldn't have, any other way, been there? Shouldn't bloggers and twitterers be thanked (even compensated) for their referrals?

Instead Posner suggests that copywrite laws be expanded to prohibit linking without permission (permission that would ostensibly carry a modest cost). In her e to me, Meilee brought up a very salient point. What happens to DMOs that rely on the ability to link to our partners to promote our destinations? While I doubt that permission wouldn't be granted by most...the time and paperwork that would be required would be astounding.

As is the case in so many areas these days, the attempt to save something seems to screw up the world for everyone else. Here's hoping the web stays free.

The e-mail vs. Social Media Smackdown

There really isn't one. While video may have killed the radio star, Twitter and Facebook have not killed e-mail as an effective communication tool.

Great post from Jason Baer in which he reveals the highly unscientific (but insanely interesting) finds of a recent Twitter-based survey: “Which do you check first in the morning: Twitter, email, voicemail?”

76% check e-mail first. A stat even more interesting because the question was only posed to Twitter afficionadoes.

And more interesting still...less than 5% checked Voicemail first.

While it's not as immediate, e still rocks...and it's not a question of one or the other. It's how to manage them all.

300+

Our friend Martin Stoll has released his May analysis of Destination Marketing Organizations that maintain (in varying states of effectiveness) Twitter accounts. Over 300 North American DMOs are using the service with over 70 boasting over 1000 followers.

Martin is quick to note something that we've feared from the start...that those without a clear strategy and an understanding of what social media means to the target consumer may well be screwing it up for all of us.

Just as spammers screwed up e-mail. As business is screwing up MySpace and Facebook. And will probably do the same to Twitter.

Unless we all get much smarter about how we are using them all.