February 6, 2007

  • Your Moment of Inspiration

    Looking for something to get your mental juices flowing about new ways of presenting information? Then you owe it to yourself to check out this video by Michael Wesch right now:

    Tip of the hat to Joe MacDonald at Vpop for the tip!


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 6, 2007.

February 5, 2007

  • Why Watch The Super Bowl If The Ads Are Online?

    OK, I’ll admit it, I’m not a big football fan. Not at all. But, I AM a marketer, so I tended to watch the Super Bowl just for the ads. Problem is, in Canada Global has the nasty habit of inserting Canadian ads in place of the US ones. But now we can watch all the Super Bowl ads pretty much as the game is happening, so I ask you… Why watch the game if the ads are online?

    (Bonus Question: Did anyone calculate what percentage of the Super Bowl ads prominently featured a URL to drive traffic to a microsite to support the ad?)


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 5, 2007.

February 1, 2007

  • Hey Weather.com, Get Your Own Blog Name!

     

    Congrats to weather.com for setting up a site and blog about global climate change. But did you have to call it ONE DEGREE of all things? I’m not really angry but I have to say I’m a little nervous. Their site hasn’t been around that long and it jumped to the number two result on Google for the term “One Degree” really quickly.

    I really don’t want to lose my spot at the top of the search for my own marketing blog’s name! How embarrassing would that be! Link love to the (ahem) “real” One Degree is of course always appreciated. 🙂


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 1, 2007.

January 31, 2007

  • Stupidest. Blog Article. Evar.

    I get that not everybody loves blogs. Really. But to say that blogs are isolating and bloggers lonely sorts living in a fantasy world shows that Calgary professor Michael Keren is seriously out of touch with reality himself. Read this Globe And Mail article called Author laments lonely life of bloggers then come back here, scroll down and share your thoughts on whether blogging has made your social life stronger or weaker.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 31, 2007.

January 30, 2007

  • Cornerstone Lands Rogers Publishing Business

    We don’t normally report on business wins here at One Degree but I thought this press release from Cornerstone was interesting as it shows a big company realizing that a) SEO was important and b) that they might benefit from outside help.

    Cornerstone SVP Don Lange remarked that “The Rogers multi-magazine site was beautifully designed and written. What we brought to the table was a series of guidelines and reports that provided both content writers and developers with a series of blueprints and best practices to ensure that when search engines visit, the site clearly identifies the most relevant content. Our ongoing monthly service monitors where the site ranks with the most important keywords, tweaking the site when required.”

    Good to see.

    Update: Cornerstone is a sponsor of One Degree. They didn’t pay or ask for this coverage but in the interest of transparency, we note that they do help support One Degree financially through their sponsorship.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 30, 2007.

January 24, 2007

  • Epicurious Doesn’t Want To Hear From ME

    A regular reader writes:

    I love Epicurious — I go there daily. A few days ago I got an email from them asking me to participate in a survey. I don’t usually do surveys, but since Epicurious is a site I use and the idea of maybe getting money from a credible source like AMEX sounded good so I decided I had a moment to spare (ha) and started the survey. After the third page is was clear to me that this wasn’t about improving their site or my needs to cook — it was about credit cards! I think less of Epicurious now. In my mind and probably that of many others, this diminishes their reputation and my trust in them. If One Degree is looking for examples of what not to do to your regular readers, this is a great one!

    Interesting. Look at the survey message our reader forwarded:

    To: [email protected]
    From:
    Epicurious
    Subject:
    Epicurious.com Wants to Hear from You Epicurious.com sponsored e-mail Dear Epicurious.com member, We need your help! We’re always looking for ways to provide you with content that you care about. Please help us out by answering a few questions in our brief survey. As a thank-you for your participation, you will be automatically entered into a drawing for a chance to win one of three American Express Gift Cheques valued at $3,000, $1,000 or $750! Access the survey at: http://services.inquisiteasp.com/cgi-bin/qwebcorporate.dll

    Thank you, The Epicurious.com Team

    Not too bad, although I can see at least three things that could be immediately improved. Can you spot them? Add your suggestions in the comments below. Still, no matter how well-crafted the email is, the experience of completing the survey clearly left this faithful site visitor discouraged and upset. Upset enough to take those feelings of being tricked public.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 24, 2007.

  • Internet Marketer Tamara Bonar Dead at 39

    Yesterday Marketing Magazine reported that one of the industry’s most active members took her own life earlier this month:

    Tamara Bonar, the finance director at the Advertising Club of Toronto and longtime ad industry denizen, died Jan. 10. She was 39. The cause of death was suicide, said her sister, Lyn Bonar. She was discovered at her home in Toronto by her boyfriend, Thomas Hepditch. In a career that spanned two decades, Bonar’s experience included work for marketers big and small. She broke into the business as a research assistant at Chatelaine magazine in 1987, moving on to work at places like Young and Rubicam as an account executive in 1991. In 1994, she became a marketing manager at Avis Canada, before moving on to jobs at Sony Music Canada and CanWest Interactive. Most recently, she was president of Torq Brand Fuel, a marketing services consultancy in Toronto she helped start last November.

    I knew Tamara from her time at Sony Music and CanWest but mainly from my course for the CMA where she was at the top of the class and a wonderful contributor. AIMS’ Kathryn Lagden posted a tribute today on the AIMS blog that highlighted some of her volunteer work:

    Tamara Bonar brought much energy and passion to her volunteer role on our event and registration committee. Considering how full of life her outward persona was, it saddened and sobered me to realize the inner conflicts and despondency Tamara must have suffered, when hearing that she chose to take her own life. Information received yesterday from the Advertising Club of Toronto (where she also volunteered as its director of finance) and from Marketing Daily, spoke of her vast experience and acumen as a marketer, and her commitment and passion to her colleagues and workplaces, most recently as president of Torq Brand Fuel, a marketing services consultancy in Toronto she helped start last November. That sounds like the Tamara we knew here at AIMS; that is the Tamara we will very much miss. Our thoughts and condolences are extended to her family and friends, and work and volunteer colleagues.

    I would like to second Kathryn’s sentiment. We’ll miss you Tamara.

    The photo was originally posted by The Advertising Club of Toronto a few days ago.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 24, 2007.

January 22, 2007

  • Marketer’s Toolkit — SearchStatus

    One tool I use every day that most marketers I talk to have no clue about is SearchStatus a simple but powerful Firefox extension that you should install right now if you aren’t already using it.

    In a nutshell, SearchStatus adds useful information about the page you are on to the status bar at the bottom of Firefox. Here’s what the bottom of my browser looks like when I’m on the One Degree homepage:

    How cool is that? A quick visual representation of PageRank and Alexa Rank for every page you go to. Mouse over the bar graph and you’ll see the exact numbers. Better yet, right-click on the “Q” and you get a contextual menu with a ton of juicy details:

    How useful is that? So if you haven’t already stopped reading and done so, head over the quirk.biz and download SearchStatus


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 22, 2007.

January 12, 2007

  • Fertility, Fellatio, and an Amazon Database Foul-up

    Amazon does tons of stuff right — they’re one of the best sources of best practices you can find on the web. But that doesn’t mean they’re perfect. For example, this page has some rather odd information on it:

    So next time you find a typo or a missing link on your site, just be thankful you weren’t responsible for that page!

    BTW, the promiscuous text “MY MOTHER IS STANDING IN FRONT OF THE BATHROOM MIRror smelling polished and ready; like Jean Nate, Dippity Do and the waxy sweetness of lipstick…” is the opening chapter of Running With Scissors the first book on the page in question. Seems like a useful insight for debugging this…


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 12, 2007.

January 11, 2007

  • Introducing “Ask A Marketer”

    Most Wednesday nights I teach the Email Marketing Certificate Course for the Canadian Marketing Association here in Toronto. As always I’ve got a great group of marketers and would-be marketers taking the course this semester. We’re a bit behind on the curriculum right now because they just can’t stop asking me questions! This got me to thinking, “I bet there are loads of One Degree readers that are dying to ask another Internet marketer a question or two”.

    We do of course have a feature here where we ask you a question — QotD — but it occurs to me that we’ve never really let you folks ask your questions of us — the One Degree Contributors. So, starting next week we’ll have a new feature here at One Degree called, cleverly enough, “Ask A Marketer”.

    I’ll take a crack at answering any question you might have about Internet Marketing. If I can’t answer it I’ll open it to the other One Degree Contributors. If none of us can answer it we’ll put it to the readership as a QotD. And of course the comments will be open on our answers so if you disagree or have a different approach, you’ll be able to add your two cents worth.

    If you’d like to help kick us off, take a moment and think of a pressing question you’ve been working on, or something you’re a bit embarrassed to admit you don’t know (last night it was “how the heck to cookies work anyway?”) and send it off to . And yes, “Ask A Marketer” is an homage to Ask A Ninja — not that we’ll ever come up with as good an answer as the Ninja’s answer to What is Podcasting?


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 11, 2007.

January 9, 2007

January 5, 2007

January 4, 2007

  • Rewind ’06, Fast Forward ’07 — Ken Schafer

    In our final contribution for our pre-holiday rewind of 2006 and fast forward to 2007, One Degree’s creator Ken Schafer shares his thoughts on the year past, and the year to come..

    1. Rewind — What trends in Internet marketing surprised you in 2006? The incredibly rapid growth of video really caught me off guard. I’ve always been a believer in Internet Video but never saw the tipping point that was YouTube coming.

    2. Rewind — Did you add any new tools to your online marketing toolkit in 2006? Not really. I’d say that I moved from thinking of “Social Media” as an interesting concept to being core part of the online marketing toolkit, but I’m not sure I’ve done that much to really integrate it into the work I’m doing. The closest I’ve come is the Tucows Squishies on Flickr that I wrote about earlier and the Tucows Blog but I’m not sure I can claim those to be truly social.

    3. Fast Forward — What do you see as the biggest trends in Internet Marketing in 2007? At this point I’d say that Email, Paid Search, Organic Search, and Display Advertising are “Traditional Internet Marketing”, while Blogs, Feeds, and Video are the trends to leverage — if you’re not getting serious about these in 2007 you’re missing the boat. Trendsetters wanting to get ahead of the the curve or with early adopters as their target markets will be exploring Social Media and Branded Entertainment in 2007.

    4. Fast Forward — At the end of 2007, what do you expect we’ll be looking back at as overhyped? My guess is that most marketers can safely ignore mobile marketing, virtual worlds, and any location-aware marketing for another year without any career damage at all.

    5. Fast Forward — Any SPECIFIC predictions for 2007? Buy-outs, bubbles bursting, records broken, reputations toppled, break-out companies? I think we’ll see a new type of agency establish itself this year — “Branded Entertainment Agencies”. More companies are understanding that entertaining advertising can be more powerful than advertising around what entertains. Traditionally we’ve left it to the marketers to sponsor (through ad dollars) the entertainment “producers” create. Virals, video, flash-apps, innovative micro-sites — all of these require a level of story-telling and creativity that goes beyond what we expect of typical ad agencies. Some smart agencies will realize that self-identifying as “a leading branded interactive entertainment agency” will get them the mindshare and differentiation they crave.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on January 4, 2007.

December 3, 2006

  • Never Overestimate Your Visitors

    It’s easy for us to get very focused on what we do and to assume that everyone thinks like we do. But they don’t. We’re all “web 2.0” and “folksonomies” and “viral marketing” and they’re all “click what?” and “but the guy said he was related to Nigerian royalty”. Let me very simply illustrate the incredible chasm that we have to deal with.

    Back in September, I wrote a post called Kraft.ca — The 20 Character Home Page that just this weekend generated this email from a One Degree reader:

    In the last year your 600 gram packages of cheese has gone from 600 grams to 560 and now to 540 grams. Do you think that no one has picked up on this. What’s going on. I purchase your brand exclusively, but maybe not any-more.

    Bob

    Clearly Bob is confused. He thinks our post about kraft.ca means that he is ON kraft.ca and he’s decided to complain about the vast cheese conspiracy he’s uncovered. Please remember this next time you hear someone say “don’t worry, our users are pretty with it — they’ll figure it out”. BTW Bob, I think this is the page you were looking for. Oh and “BTW” means “by the way” — sorry about that.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on December 3, 2006.

  • Just For Laughs Goes YouTubey

    I was going to do a big write-up about the new Just For Laughs website which as gone all YouTubey and MySpacey, but it turns out the site did it for me:

    One thing the site does need to fix up is how they deal with French and English. The site tries to incorporate both into one interface which kind of works but when you embed a video (like I’ve done above) you sometimes get French text rather than English. Oh yeah, and kill the audio mouseovers on the main nav bar for the site — very irritating.

    I’d be interested in thoughts on the site both from the IA (Information Architecture) and Social Media geeks out there. A bold attempt by a Canadian company to stake a claim on the emerging video sharing & social media space.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on December 3, 2006.

  • QotD: Make This Viral More Viral

    Here’s an interesting situation. Ideazon, who makes “gaming keyboards” (something I must plead ignorant to even knowing existed) has created a very sophisticated viral campaign called “Dominate” that, as I understand it, is not actually “going viral”. Or at least not to the level they’d like (or that the budget would require I’m guessing).

    I think the campaign has many of the components needed to go viral with their hard-core gamer target market (95% of customers are male and 82% are over 25) but something seems to be missing in the strategy, execution or media. My guess is that there are a bunch of little things that all dampen the viral impact — probably enough to prevent it from becoming a true hit.

    Rather than offer my $0.02 worth I thought I’d leave it as an exercise for you humble One Degree reader. Consider this a group assignment for this, the first full week of December.

    1. Go to Dominate and review the site. Warning: Some people will be offended by this. Guaranteed. If so, hit the back button quickly and accept this little unicorn chaser to cleanse your mind.
    2. Think about what great viral marketing campaigns have in common and see if anything is missing from Ideazon’s.
    3. Consider new ideas they might try to jumpstart things that you haven’t seen elsewhere.
    4. Report back to us in the comment area below. I look forward to grading your work. 🙂

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on December 3, 2006.

November 28, 2006

  • QotD: Can A Video Card Have Friends?

    A while ago Matt Williams sent me this…

    I was just downloading the latest nVidia drivers for my new GFX card and guess what? nVidia has their own MySpace page. Is this a new, serious marketing medium? I always thought of MySpace to be a social networking site, but how do you socialize with a corporation that manufactures graphics cards? Are they just out there to get people who use their cards to be “friends” to advertise the strength of their product? Are they hoping that the friends of these people will see their buddies using the nVidia cards and follow suit?

    So, let’s help Matt out here folks. What do you think of the nVidia Myspace page and the concept of companies engaging in social networks this way. Comment below and share your wisdom…


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on November 28, 2006.

November 15, 2006

  • 6 Tips For Better Blogger Outreach

    With the rise of bloggers as key influencers, a growing number of smart marketers are looking at blogs as a way to seed products and develop word-of-mouth while building web traffic and inbound links. Most marketers approach seeding products to influential bloggers in an ad hoc manner — they’ll pick a few blogs, send them a sample and see what happens.

    Interestingly, there have been some very controversial attempts to formalize this concept be companies like PayPerPost and ReviewMe. All this had been a rather abstract concept for me until very recently when I got an email from Andrew Milligan, owner of Sumo Urban Lounge Gear, based here in Toronto.

    To: Ken Schafer

    From: Andrew Milligan Subject: Contact Form from onedegree.ca

    Hi Ken, My name is Andrew and I have a company named Sumo which makes modern, funky and high-quality bean bag chairs. I could simply say, our Omni chair is the most comfortable chair in the world and truly enhances one’s life! I am a fan of your site and was wondering if you would be interested in taking a sample of our Omni chair and posting a review on it.

    After taking a look at the Sumo Lounge site and checking out the Omni chair he was offering, I sent back a hearty “you’re on — as long as I can blog about you asking me to blog about it”.

    Luckily Andrew accepted my challenge and sent the chair a few days later.

    Based on my experience on the receiving end of a blogger outreach campaign, here are my recommendations should you want to do something similar (Sumo scored high on every one of these):

    • Pick Your Target — Not all sites have the right audience and the right content to fit with all products. Make sure that your product is something that fits not only with the blogger’s interests but with their readership.
    • Personalize You Message — You’ll turn off bloggers pretty quickly if you send a generic form letter. Personalize your message to show that you’ve actually read the person’s blog.
    • Don’t Make Demands — Note that while Andrew did suggest a review, he didn’t demand it and he didn’t imply in any way that it should be a positive review. Saying “I’ll give you this in exchange for a good review” will likely get you more bad PR than good reviews. Be warned.
    • Follow Through — Andrew got back to me in a few hours asking for my color preference and shipping address. The beanbag (which is huge) arrived a few days later as promised. If he’d blown the follow through many bloggers would end up blogging about that instead of the product.
    • Have a Product Worth Talking About — Whatever you do — do not seed product into the market if the product is a piece of crap. Even if it’s just run-of-the-mill, don’t do it. Only remarkable, mentionable products need apply. Sumo’s stuff is comment-worthy, quirky, a “little guy” story and a ton of other things that make it a good candidate for outreach.
    • Follow Up — I’ll be honest, we started using the chair and the original version of my review sat in draft mode for _weeks_. Andrew gave a few friendly follow-ups, first asking if we got it, then asking if we liked it, and finally wondering if I’d be posting a review at some point. He never demanded anything but did gently guilt me into posting something. (Hope you like the end result Andrew!)

    Did the strategy pay off for Sumo? Not sure yet, but the rave reviews and links from a wide range of sites are a great indicator of how this kind of campaign should unfold.

    And you may ask, how great is the Sumo bean bag chair?

    Everyone in the Schafer household was WAY impressed. My tweens immediately adopted this monster as their own and gave it a rating of “seven stars”. It was used as a couch for movie night, a bed for sleepover guests later that night, and is now the official chair for all Nintendo gaming sessions.

    My wife, parenting expert Alyson Schafer didn’t understand what the fuss was about saying, “I grew up with bean bag chairs the first time around, I don’t need to try them again.” Once repeated pleas from the kids got her in the chair she spent the rest of the evening sunk into it, admitting it was nothing like what she remembered.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on November 15, 2006.

November 13, 2006

November 8, 2006

November 6, 2006

November 1, 2006

  • Podcasting’s Perfect Storm

    Sebastien Chorney is head of operations at Podzapper, a producer of branded digital media for the online and mobile space. Sebastien has a long background in audio and music production and is a consummate storyteller.

    One Degree: Sebastien, my guess is that humans can only absorb so many podcasts into their lives. I’ve been listening to podcasts pretty much since “Doc” and “Dave” got the ball rolling but it’s rare that a new podcast unseats the 20 or so I subscribe to in iTunes and already have trouble keeping up with. Does this give an advantage to early adopters that “latecomers” (in a two-year-old industry?!) will have a hard time overcoming or is there a way for future podcasters to unseat my current favorites?

    Sebastien: I think there’s a bit of a perfect storm going on in the podcasting or “media on demand” world right now that strongly favors the so-called latecomers. There are probably three main reasons: one having to do with content, one with distribution and the other with demand on the consumer side.

    You’re right that there’s an inherent advantage to being first to market with any new product or service, but 2006 may well be remembered as the year during which many of the poster children of podcasting faded into obscurity. It’s been nothing short of astounding to watch established media companies and other brands muscle their way into this space, particularly over the last 12 months or so.
    Up-and-comers looking to unseat your favorites would do well to align themselves with an established brand and create content that is highly differentiated, useful, relevant and/or entertaining with good production values. It seems obvious, but bears repeating!

    On the distribution end, there are so many syndication options, which makes it easier than ever for users to discover and subscribe to new “casts”. Depending on the audience, iTunes and/or RSS may not be the front door that people walk in through, so it makes sense for new podcasters to offer a variety of file formats, have an embedded Flash player and/or syndicate through email, an interface that everyone can understand. For those who publish ads, it also makes sense to drive subscriber traffic directly to your site rather than to an aggregator. YouTube, Revver and now Brightcove (current website is down) have different revenue sharing models that up-and-comers should explore.

    Finally, on the demand side, this explosion of content plays to our insatiable curiosity as consumers, and for the moment at least, the economics of producing niche content really do favor the so-called “late comers”. Aspiring podcasters looking to produce more mainstream, broadly targeted content will be held to a higher standard (both in terms of content and production values) and have a tougher road ahead of them.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on November 1, 2006.

October 31, 2006

  • Why Blogging Matters

    Over at Bernaisesource Dan Greenfield has pulled together six senior marketing executives to talk about why they think blogging matters. Here’s his introduction to the six mini-editorials:

    Technology has enabled customers to dramatically change their attitude towards marketing. As a result, they are tuning out in increasing numbers and talking back. Customers are shifting massively their entertainment and information consumption away from traditional media to the new web space. Marketers are responding by shifting their advertising to web properties, but online advertising is struggling to gain trust. According to a recent Forrester survey of US households, only 6% trust search engine ads and 2% online banner ads. Customers trust themselves and each other in influencing their perception of a brand. Yet few marketers have embraced blogging, although it supposedly enables a more personal and two-way interaction with the brand. So does blogging matter? All of us are senior marketing executives in established corporations but we also share a common passion for blogging. At the initiation of Eric Kintz at Hewlett-Packard, we decided to all get together to share our thoughts about the opportunities and challenges of this new marketing frontier.

    The entire article is well worth a read. Thanks to Judy Gombita for the link.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on October 31, 2006.

  • A Travel Guide For Second Life

    Wired Magazine is looking at Second Life just like One Degree is.

    Included in the feature are:

    I’m still not convinced that any of this is really relevant to marketers — at least in the short-run. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to talk about it. If you think that Second Life is for you and your brand, let us know. And if you’re from Telus, how about the inside scoop on how your SL(Second Life) store is doing.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on October 31, 2006.

  • Squishy Cows As Viral Marketing

    A few weeks ago the lovely AC Riley interviewed me for an article for Canadian Business but I ended up on the cutting room floor. AC was nice enough to post my part of the article to her blog and to let me reprint it here:

    Over the summer I had the absolute pleasure of speaking to Ken Schafer, VP-marketing at Tucows, as well as Mitch Joel, president of Twist Image for an article on viral marketing, Are Clients Catching Your Message? Both Ken and Mitch were informative, highly knowledgeable and a lot of fun to interview!

    Unfortunately, due to space restrictions, Ken Schafer’s contribution and the Tucows case study didn’t make it to the final version. So, I’d like to post some of the text that did not get printed:

    One of the things that often hold back SMEs from adding a viral component to their marketing arsenal is finding the right hook. It needs to connect with the consumer in such a way that it gets people talking and, more importantly, forwarding the campaign to friends and colleagues. Ken Schafer, VP-marketing at Toronto-based Tucows Inc., looked to the popularity of a particular company giveaway — a foam squishy cow — for inspiration.

    Well known as a provider of freeware and shareware downloads, Tucows was looking to promote its B2B offerings: wholesale Internet services and back office solutions. Schafer used the company’s technical blog, Tucows Farm which is read by software developers, programmers, and resellers of Tucows’ services, to execute its viral campaign.

    On July 10, 2006, there was an unannounced, one-day offer to give away the coveted squishy cows, with one provision: the recipient photograph the cow in an interesting place and post the picture online.

    The response was unexpected, with over 100 requests. Tucows ran out of the spongy bovines and is in the process of obtaining 5000 more for future campaigns. Schafer explained that campaign created more than the initial viral buzz — it also entices blog readers to keep checking back for other spontaneous campaigns. Ongoing benefits include word-of-mouth as more and more Tucows brand ambassadors pop up on desks and squishy cow photo shoots turn into water-cooler conversations. As the campaign continues, inbound links from the photos will continue to grow, driving traffic to the company.

    Tucows’ example is a sign of the times. Based on a survey of U.S. executives Blackfriars Communications’ report, Marketing 2006: 2006’s Timid Start, predicts a 10 percent drop in budgets allocated to traditional marketing with most of the shift going toward developing new media and alternative marketing — including viral.

    It’s hard to over-estimate how much people love those little squishy cows. We’re taking tubs of them to ISPCON next week to satisfy demand and hopefully drum up more pics of our little friends in exotic locales.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on October 31, 2006.

October 26, 2006

  • Organizing the CMA’s DMC — Louise Clements’ Thoughts

    This 1:01 video features event organizer Louise Clements sharing her thoughts on the conference’s length, and her opinions on the conference’s vibe. I apologize that the video cuts off, but my memory card ran out of space.

    <video lost due to link decay>

    Recorded at the Canadian Marketing Association’s Digital Marketing Conference in Toronto, October 20th, 2006.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on October 26, 2006.

  • Steve Levy On Market Education

    This 0:37 video features Steve Levy, of Ipsos-Reid, answering a quick question regarding the gap of knowledge between marketers and agencies.

    <video lost to link decay>

    Recorded at the Canadian Marketing Association’s Digital Marketing Conference in Toronto, October 19th, 2006.


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on October 26, 2006.

  • Thought

    I’m showing my class how to blog. Once I post this they will TOTALLY get it.

October 18, 2006

  • Thinking About Second Life

    We haven’t spoken much (okay at all) about Second Life, the virtual online space that is getting lots of attention.

    While Second Life may look like a game, it is much more than that. You can chat with others in the virtual space, create your own space and objects, buy stuff, and bring parts of the “outside world” (such as sound, video, feeds, etc.) into SL Second Life). In fact, “American Apparel has a store” (that’s me buying a track jacket up there) and “Starwood has a hotel” in SL.

    Others are following. This is, of course, all very experimental but I’m finding it very interesting. When I bought my American Apparel gear I was helped by a real American Apparel staffer who ran around the store looking for something for me and complimented me on how it looked once I’d tried it on. Note that I really paid for my virtual jacket using Linden Dollars that I bought with really Loonies. Yes, American Apparel made real money selling me virtual clothes.

    I’ll be keeping an eye on Second Life because the gang at “Tucows” is thinking about if and how it might prove to be a good communication and community building tool for us. I’d be interested in hearing from others that have experimented with Second Life as a marketing tool as well as those who’ve taken a look and rejected the idea. Feel free to add your thoughts (and questions — I know this is a bit weird) below…


    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on October 18, 2006.