Incito MentisA blog by Syed Abdul Karim

What better day to write this post than a Friday! You know Friday? The day before Saturday and the day after Thursday! Well in case you have not heard Rebecca Black has taken the web by a storm through her lesson on the days of the week, among other things. For a 13-year old she has gone from unknown to infamous in a matter of days. Her music video for the song “Friday” has raked up more than 80 million views at the time of this writing and a record 1.6 million “Dislikes” beating the old record holder Justin Beiber. Besides YouTube Rebecca Black kept trending on Twitter for a full week like there was nothing else going on in the world!

Among the many ways to get famous this is certainly not one of them. Besides the anger and disgust this video has arisen it has also created a lot of ridicule and humor that was simply too good not to share and that is probably the only reason I decided to write about this. Now the question that perplexes me is whether to show you the fun stuff first or the original video. Should I even bother to embed the original video or leave it as a link? The song Friday can have this effect on people I guess. Oh my friends are here and I have not even finished my cereal! Anyways I think I have figured it out. Watch the original video first (I hope you can watch it to the end) before watching the parodies to truly appreciate them

Rebecca Black – Friday (Official Video)

Unofficial Sequel to Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” – Saturday

And my most favorite – Thursday by the Great Conan O’Brien

Planned Spontaneity - a term coined by trendwatching.com in their report from December 2003. When I first came across it I truly believed that it was an idea based on a powerful human truth that had the potential to deliver a compelling brand experience. In fact it was only last month I was thinking along those lines for an airline new business pitch. Coincidentally when I saw KLM deliver surprise the way they did I was…pleasantly surprised.

So what is ‘Planned Spontaneity’ anyway? If we look back at our lives I think all of us would recall some happy moment that occurred rather unexpectedly. It was either one that was completely unplanned, a random act of spontaneity or the product of a dear ones labor of love to give us a surprise and carve out an unforgettable memory. In other words – ‘Planned Spontaneity’. Applied to branding and marketing a surprise is a great way to create an emotional and an engaging brand experience.

Why the KLM Surprise inspires me is the “real time” factor. With the kind of technology and tools available today the time between research and execution has sharply narrowed down to real time events. Not so long ago research would take months to execute and analyze. The translation of an insight to ideas would be a long tedious process. After many rounds of presentations the idea would be approved and sent for execution in the form of some mass media. In the real-time era things are happening at lightning speed and on the go! The KLM team was tracking Twitter feeds and Foursquare check-ins in real time to see who was travelling KLM and is around at the airport waiting to board. Using the tweets or a check-in as a starting point the team would quickly scan the users social profile and come up with a surprise gift idea which would then be bought and delivered instantly to the passenger at their likely gate of departure! Amazing stuff. Check out the video below.

This is another great example of how to use social media. I think the key lesson for marketers is to to track social media conversations in real time and create a system to deliver an instantaneous response. We saw this happen with Old Spice and we are seeing it here again! Have you come across other acts of ‘Planned Spontaneity’ using social media from other brands? Feel free to share you thoughts in the comments below.

The Internet has done it again! Ted Williams a 54 year old from Columbus, Ohio – a homeless, jobless nobody just 3 days ago has not only got a home and a job! He has been a guest star on the “Today” Show, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” and is now probably on his way to becoming a celebrity. The Internet has just created a radio star and all this happened in a matter of days. This is the world we live in. The world of Justin Bieber, the world of the iPhone playing Korean applegirl, Kim Yeo Hee who also got discovered on YouTube sometime last year and has signed a record deal since then. This is the world of “The Lonely Island” a trio from Berkley, California that posted some comedy skits that went viral eventually landing them on Saturday Night Live and now they are a famous Hollywood trio. Ted Williams is the latest entrant among the internet famous. This is the video which made it all happen!

The guy is talented alright! But is he the most talented voice known to man or are the forces of ‘The Long Tail’ at play? What just happened! It seems the Long Tail has bubbled up yet another niche and turned it into a hit! Chris Anderson is going to be proud. This is a great example of technology discovering something in the Long Tail of talent and bringing it out to the world. A reporter from Columbia Dispatch takes a video of the “Homeless Man with the Golden Voice” and posts it on their website, which gets reposted on YouTube, gets over 13 million views in about 48 hours, Twitter goes crazy with it and here I am in Saudi Arabia reading and blogging about this guy from nowhere! Amazing. This could not have happened just 5 years ago!

Remember the game, “Passing the Pillow” an object that holds a very near and dear utility becomes an object of fun and play. That is what’s happening to the world of advertising. From something that conveys a message (mostly unsolicited I dare say!) to something that is all about play, participation and like the game “Passing the Pillow”.

As Chuck Brymer, our global CEO puts it, we are now entering the post-consumer world. A world which is changing and transforming at a pace unlike anything we have experienced before. Advertising as we know it is DEAD. Perhaps not so in the cradle of civilization where I happen to be at the moment, but it is only a matter of time!

So what’s the big deal? Nothing much, besides the fact that Facebook has set it’s sight on 1 billion users, Apple is selling one iPad every 26 seconds and the world is going crazy on Twitter with a new tweet per second record of 3085 during the NBA Finals, and this should change as the FIFA 2010 World Cup enters the Round of 16. Oh did somebody say people don’t watch ads any more, they don’t! But Nike hijacked the World Cup with a 3-minute video “Write the Future“ which by the way never aired but broke the record for the biggest audience in the first week of a campaign with 7.8 million views. Are you sure people don’t watch ads any more? Thanks to Nike’s Facebook fans who happen to have participated, played and passed it on to millions of their friends. The era of messages is long gone. It is all about content where everyone is connected to everyone else within six degrees, which means you, my dear reader, are connected to me in no more than six steps!

What’s my point! Our business has been redefined. I would be getting a little carried away if I were to say that we are now in the movie business. But we are definitely a lot closer to that now. Why? If we are to mean anything to the digitally connected swarms then we have to create “ShareValue”, which means the content has to be worthy of generating word of mouse, not just word of mouth!

How do we go about doing so? Well we have to move from traditional definitions of creativity to what is known as “Social Creativity” (as we say at DDB).  If  the work that we do is not something that our audience would like to play with, participate in and pass on to their friends then we have failed at Social Creativity.

There is a lot to more this. A brief explanation does not do justice to the concept. For now I guess a simple illustration shall suffice. One brand which seems to get it and repeatedly so is Toyota. From the way they managed the crisis by participating in a continuous dialogue with their customers using all forms of social media to the way they are creating entertaining content with definite “ShareValue”. I believe they are doing a splendid job. Check this video out and you will see what I mean! Feel free to play and pass on

Volkswagen has done it again! This is simply a brilliant example of how to create influence using social media. As a DDB’er I can safely say that the VW Fun Theory does everything right when it comes to applying the DDB Influence Springboard (a proprietary set of tools to create influence in this new world of media). As a strategic planner I must add VW is one of my favorite brands. The VW Philosophy, their unique tone of voice is sheer genius. The strategy is so straightforward and yet so powerful. It is translated into three simple words – VW is going to be honest, human and intelligently humorous in everything it is going to do. Over the years, VW has delivered on this promise in all it’s advertising and won innumerable accolades for it. Now it’s taking it to a whole new level. This idea brings the element of collaboration to the mix by making audiences interact and live the brand promise (or Brand Conviction as we say at DDB). At the same time it is engaging the advocates to participate and contribute to the concept. The concept itself is fairly simple. You can change people’s behavior for the better if you can make it fun for them. The video below is one example of how people were made to use the staircase instead of the escalator by adding that element of fun! Just so you know this video has had more than 8 million views on YouTube to date. Need I say more! See for yourself!

Now that’s what I call a Big Idea!