What Cool Geeks Wear

A lot of these posts have centered on rich media marketing and the value of quality content and how to drive to web and retain viewers, yadda...yadda...yadda. What we sometimes forget is how broadband is driving other segments.

I found this on Digg.com (a very cool site, btw) and couldn't resist. Check this out from imation - a Flash wristband (256MB). They're apparently available at Target - or so the site says.


This I'm sure is just the first in many variations upon this theme. Creating products that enable rich media content to be easily stored and shared. The days of the floppy disk are over. It's all about size and speed (it always has been, now it's just bigger and faster).

Lance Armstrong would be proud. And maybe now I won't lose my USB drive as easily.

Singing Frogs? What Will They Think of Next?

The NY Times (free subs. required) had a great story today about the resurgence of e-cards. Think, the next generation of Blue Mountain. And wouldn't you know...it's being driven by the growth in broadband and rich media marketing.

These are great Flash executions and can really save your butt if - you're like me - and forget a family member's birthday, and need a quick fix until you can run to the store. Again, this is a great example of content driving the execution. No more pre-1980 Atari looking graphics. And some of these are hilarious.

But as the article discusses, Hallmark.com and its chief competitor AmericanGreetings.com, are not the market leaders. And it's not Wal-Mart either. Look out for the upstart - JacquieLawson.com. JL is a great business case study in its own right.

The next phase will of course be the gradual integration of interactive video and 3D animations. The cooler the card, the more popular it is, the more it's sent, the more you can charge for ads. It's a simple business model. The rich media web just makes the engine work.

Effective doesn't have to be all flashy

Here's a quick example - so take note all you guys - of a cool interactive site that proves that you don't have to be all flashy to be effective.

Granted, Ferry Halim is probably the best online creative I've seen, but the coolness is in the simplicity. Check out his Flash games too. Hire this guy. He's awesome.

Weather Channel Makes a Bold Forecast

TWC launched a new show a few weeks ago called, "It Could Happen Tomorrow" which talks about what could happen if bad weather strikes major cities across the country. Production for the show began back in March 2005. Pre-Katrina and Rita.

ICHT microsite, click here www.whatifweather.com

The pilot episode ironically enough was a look at what would happen if a Category 5 hurricane hit New Orleans. The show predicted in great detail what actually happened from the levies, to the flooding, the Superdome being ripped apart, etc. Eerie.

TWC has since chosen not to air the episode, but you can see a clip of the show with a brief intro from TWC stud, Jim Cantore. The show also has a cool rich media promotional site too at weather.com.

I still think TWC missed a big opp here. Think if this episode was available on the blogosphere, or better yet, iTunes. At $1 a pop, think of all the extra revenue that the affected Southern Coast residents could use to help rebuild the area.

Understandly, TWC wants to avoid even a hint of profiteering from this disaster, but a controlled marketing spin could have mitigated that perception. Am I wrong? Wouldn't this have been an awesome use of rich media marketing? Or am I just a capitalistic pig who won't let time heal wounds?


Technorati Tags: rich media, rich media marketing, broadband marketing, The Weather Channel

Kodak's Foray into Rich Media

Online Media Daily had a story about Kodak's venture into rich media marketing. It's a thinly-veiled advertisement for Kodak EasyShare, but the microsite is at least using some of the wonderfully rich aspects of the broadband web.

The basic premise is that Kodak can used anywhere , anytime. A housewife (decidedly not Desperate - much more Mary Ann than Ginger, or the ABC variety) welcomes us in and sets the stage, but that's the last we see of her.

Oh the incredibly huge missed opportunity!!! Why not have her in each scene? How much more filming and editing could that possibly have taken? Now we're left with a relatively boring room. Sure the background sounds are nice, but it feels empty.

Plus - imho - it looks eerily similar to the Digital Max microsite created for Cox Communications. Look at the Kodak Craft Room and then check out Max's "Max to Go". Any questions?



Technorati Tags: rich media, rich media marketing, broadband marketing

Yahoo! Runs with a Good Idea

The Wall Street Journal headline says it all, "Yahoo Hopes to Make Network Flop a Net Hit."

If you've been following this blog at all, you'll know that I've been evangelizing my aversion to companies and networks simply using the rich media web as just another distribution channel.

But what about using the web to revive a TV show? Maybe one that didn't work on traditional TV? Yahoo! is trying to do just this with ABC's cancelled interactive TV attempt called, "The Runner." Produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck - now this is a concept that I can get behind.

It's already got cache because of these guys, so why not use the broadband web to provide the engaging and entertaining content, and then you've got the added dimension of interactivity.

The trick is finding the content that organically grows over time. That's been elusive for Yahoo! to date. The WSJ article says that Yahoo! needs to find its Sopranos (the show really launched cable to prominence). Same holds for the web. Content is still king, but once you've got the audience, you need to give them more than a sit-back-in-your-couch experience.


Technorati Tags: rich media, rich media marketing, broadband marketing

Brand Atlanta -- Does it Really Suck?

At a recent AMA Atlanta luncheon, this was the question posed by a local radio station "plant" in the audience. After a compelling presentation by two of the top Brand Atlanta architects, Vicki Escarra and Hala Moddelmog, a 99X field reporter thought it'd be a funny bit to heckle the panelists and rib them about the Brand Atlanta campaign. We caught part of his tirade and badgering on mp3 as part of the AMA's Podcast series.

That joker aside, does the Brand Atlanta campaign really hold water? And what about from a rich media marketing angle? According to Escarra, the development team treated this effort like a political campaign and felt that 51% approval should be considered a victory. Here's how ATL's top politico (Mayor Shirley Franklin) sees the campaign.

Some media have been very hard on the campaign - and it's hard not to see there point when compared to other city's marketing efforts like Las Vegas or New York.

It certainly wasn't for a lack of effort. The Brand Atlanta team brought together some of the brightest marketing minds in the country to help get this off the ground.

The Brand Atlanta site was developed by Spunlogic, an Atlanta web design company. They likely had to get massive buy-in from creative by committee (a nightmare any way you paint it). My feeling is that the online component could have been so much stronger with the right touch of rich media marketing know-how. Where's the interactivity, the playfulness, the culture? These elements are tough to impossible to convey in a billboard or print ad. And it takes a ton of money to get the distribution of a TV spot (the campaign only had $8 million). That's why online should have played a bigger role.

In the end it was a good presentation and made me see their point of view. The shock jock was just there to be disruptive. He didn't give his name, but his did describe himself fairly accurately. This is the type of people that work at 99X.

My Parking Spot...From 10,000 Miles Up

Here is my parking spot from Neil Armstrong's point of view. Just click and zoom all the way in.

Google Local or Earth or Maps - or whatever they're calling these days - has proven invaluable for me. Anytime my wife needs directions to her next appointment, I can walk her through every step of the way and even point out landmarks. I saw this technology when it was still called Keyhole (Google bought them in '04), but it's still pretty cool. Amazing what Flash technology can do these days. And as was discussed in a previous post on Google, it's amazing what this company has been able to do so far.

I think that 2006 is going to be one of those watershed years. We've had almost five years to pick ourselves off the ground after the dot bomb went off in 2000 (no disrespect or relation to the horrible events of 9/11 intended). Now it's time to figure out ways to use rich media marketing to add value, build engaging user experiences and make some money along the way.

This is a very exciting time, especially as CES kicks off the new year. It just gets those collective creative juices flowing.

I love the rich media space - its challenges, its opportunities and its promise. In fact, I think this picture is a great one as we look into the future of possibility.

Technorati Tags: rich media, rich media marketing, broadband marketing

Laughing and Linking on the Web

The L.A. Times is reporting that the Comedy Central (free subscription) is going to put a whole bunch of new content online. Now normally I'd yawn at this news, but the content they're hosting is web exclusive. Yeah, someone who finally gets it.

Use the rich media web to drive traffic, garner new viewers and enhance your TV ratings. It's like my head finally bust through the wall. Bad thing is that I can't watch it with a Firefox browser. Bad Comedy Central!

Remember, the web is not TV - it's much, much more. People like online comedy. As the L.A. Times article reported, "People seem to be desperate for content, because they're terribly sad at work."

A New View on Visa

Did I miss something? According to a Brandweek article, the stalwart credit company unveiled a new logo yesterday (it was released overseas back in September 2005). What was Visa thinking? Here's the old Visa logo:


Now here's the new logo. Get ready. Notice the massive sea change in meaning, style and overall impact. According to Visa, the new logo was created to "better reflect the choice of payments Visa offers to Member financial institutions, merchants and cardholders":


Are you kidding me? This is supposed to better communicate the company's capabilities. Please. Let's call a spade a spade - this is clearly just a PR ploy to drum up more interest in its Torino sponsorship.

And why does the USA Visa homepage have yet a different logo? Stop the insanity!

If Visa really wanted to enhance its image and clarify its capabilities, then why not leverage its promotional involvement in the Olympics and create engaging experiences that demonstrate its value. If ever a site screamed for rich media marketing, then this is it. A complex value proposition, millions of prospects and a high involvement purchase decision.

Hopefully the company's upcoming "Visa Championships - Torino 2006" will be a jump in the right direction. We'll see.

Technorati Tags: rich media, rich media marketing, broadband marketing