I’m proud to announce that mediahub from Mullen and JetBlue this week won the coveted Adweek Media Plan of the Year Award.  We won it in the “Alternative Media” category for a program called “Celebrity Baggage.”  It ran in the strategically important Los Angeles market and used multiple tools in Mullen’s hyperbundled arsenal – PR/Social, Creative, Media, Mobile, Digital, Experiential.

Background
JetBlue allows passengers’ first bag to fly for free, but research shows the brand was not getting credit for this “differentiation” in LA. Because consumers have high expectations of JetBlue, it raises the bar to deliver an original and less “ad-like” communication plan. Most media campaigns are solved in a :30 spot or a 300 X 250 banner, but we took a contrarian approach and invested our energy in creating something more surprising and more “JetBlue.” Our goal was to develop a “movement” and build support around this experience to fuel conversation and news.

Creative Solution
We created an event in which we asked A-List (Lindsay Lohan, Brittany Snow…) celebrities to donate a piece of luggage that we could auction off for a Los Angeles charity. To promote the auction, we ran full-page print ads in the LA Times, Variety and People magazine. We also ran rich media across entertainment sites/blogs, both online and mobile, that showcased the auction items and time left to bid. The most powerful element was a customized interactive video unit that showcased the celebrity baggage at Santa Monica Place, as well as a QR code that people could capture from their smartphones and be taken instantly to the auction site. Consumers could walk up to the screen, select the celebrity of their choice and then play around with pictures of the baggage.

Results

The campaign gained tremendous press coverage in over 150 media outlets resulting in 68 million bonus impressions. Plus, with celebrity tweets from Brittany Snow and DJ Pauly D, an additional 7 million impressions were garnered via Twitter. Social discussions about the brand increased over 200% while the campaign was running and we raised over $44K for DoSomething.org.

Most importantly, we got “buzz” in LaLaLand and firmly established the JetBlue brand in this important market.

note: Katie Thompson, Marissa Curcuru and Dustin Johnson contributed to this post

mediahub had two other finalists in the competition:

• Zappos -  Performance Media & Marketing
• JetBlue – Media Research/Insights

All of the finalists are posted here. All of the winners are posted here. Congrats to all and to MediaPost for putting together an event recognizing what Mullen’s CCO likes to call the “creative-media sandwich.”

Nexus is divided  into 12 key categories starting with the consumer’s overall technological aptitude and then digging deeper into their mobile, social, video and mainstream media behavior. The study will get at some of the key questions keeping CMO’s up at night:

• Is my target using their console system as their primary entertainment device?

• Does my target listen to more terrestrial radio or has this been displaced with entities like Slacker, Pandora and LastFM?
  

  Slacker Personal Radio

• Is my target moving away from reading magazines on paper to reading them on tablets?

• Does my target look for information on their smartphone via search or apps?

• Where can I reach my target with TV commercials when they are not hitting the fast forward button?

• Does my consumer spend more time on the web via a desktop or a smartphone?

• Is my consumer starting to enact in commerce via social, mobile and/or their TV?

This is just a small sample of the kind of insight we can provide clients that will have a profound effect on the trajectory of their overall campaigns and we truly believe we are the first marketing (media) company to unearth this type of crucial intelligence. In an environment where consumers are galloping and marketers are chasing consumers, we believe this insight will provide our clients with a distinct and unfair advantage. What do you think are the key media questions that should be asked?

So here are five recent dynamics that every marketing professional needs to stay on top of:

• Apple announces big news
  • The launch of the iPhone 4, iOS 4 and the iAd platform are all intertwined and add up to significant news for Apple and the mobile industry. The iPhone 4, available June 24, will not be revolutionary, but is absolutely a significant step in Apple’s evolution, and its key benefit will allow marketers to add rich media and video – at scale– in their mobile marketing communication. The new iOS software allows consumers to interact with brands in a deep and meaningful way without ever leaving an app. As a result, the ad itself will now be as important (if not more important) as a branded application.
  • The new iAd platform also caught marketers by surprise as many scoffed when Steve Jobs said that the starting price to play was $1mm. But after less than two months, Apple tallied $60mm in advertising commitments from intrepid brands like Target, Geico, Nissan, Citibank and Disney to name just a few. The Nissan Leaf communication is particularly compelling and true to Steve Job’s vision, the new ad platform allows brands to tell cohesive and powerful stories. The iAds will start to roll out on 7/1.

• The mobile wars continue to get volatile
  • The Google purchase of AdMob and Apple purchase of Quattro was just the opening salvo in the battle between these two Silicon Valley behemoths in the small but fast growing mobile ad market. Google blasted Apple last Thursday for imposing new rules on developers that bar rivals from selling ads inside the iPhone and iPad. Apple recently amended their rules to prohibit developers from sharing data from  iPhone apps with some companies and thus preventing AdMob from targeting ads giving their iAd platform a huge advantage.

• 4G becomes a reality
  • With the launch of the Sprint HTC Evo the next wave of mobile computing has emerged and make no mistake about it, this is a big deal. 4G mobile will be as important for brands and consumers as the shift from dial up to broadband. 4G will be 10x faster than 3G and there were actual lines at Sprint stores for the Evo as Sprint underestimated demand for the new phone. The Evo represents the most phones sold in one day in Sprint history. More than anything else, 4G will be a catalyst for video consumption on smartphones.

• M-Commerce starting to gain traction
  • As more consumers browse and shop via mobile devices and mobile geo apps like Foursquare and Gowalla continue to increase in scale, M-commerce will accelerate and big marketers like Home Depot, Lilly Pulitzer, Armani and 1-800-Flowers are finally starting to pay attention to its potential. Shoppers will order $2.2B in merchandise from mobile this year up over $1B from last year and as a result about 30% of retailers now have mobile commerce web sites.

• AT&T eliminates unlimited data plan
  • Many marketers and app developers are extremely nervous that just as the mobile market is poised to take off AT&T’s new “pay as you use” model will put a major crimp in consumers’ appetite for rich mobile content. Only time will tell, but if consumers start to think about “how big a file is” and if it’s worth it to download, the nascent but growing medium will be hindered.

In the span of three short weeks mobile has grabbed the headlines in the majority of marketing press and I have a feeling that this is just the beginning. Although the platform garners less than a $1B (estimated $593MM in 2010) in ad spend, the sky is the limit for a platform that combines interaction, emotion and personalization. Any big trends that should be added to the above?

Ariana Huffington at 4A's Conference

Transformation2010. As a self-styled transformative thinker, I was questioning the value or if the 3,000 mile journey would be time well spent. I’m pleased to report that it was beneficial and I wholeheartedly agree with Tom Carroll (CEO TBWA/Chiat/Day) who stated at the podium “nobody knows everything” or, in the words of HTC CEO Cher Wang, “what you have learned is never enough.” The list below represents the key sound bites:

• Consumers are galloping – they are moving faster than marketers and the onus is on marketers to catch up. Some have, but most have not.
• Consumers, not content, at the center – Represent the voice of the consumer. Don’t sell; sell the voice of the consumer. Agencies should be leading consumer driven innovation. Toyota’s fatal mistake; they lost sight of the consumer.
• Metrics are stifling – What data to ignore is every bit as important as what to pay attention to. There is an over reliance on metrics or a “numbing by the numbers.” Use the numbers as a guide to do it better, not to justify.
• Process kills – Process leads to a risk adverse mentality and process doesn’t think.
• Empathy counts – You are what you care. Major brands like Pepsi and Starbucks continue to pour energy and dollars into altruistic efforts.
• Frugal is fashionable – Frugality is not a fad, it’s a trend. A true economic recovery is four years away. Marketers need to learn how to leverage prudent consumer behavior.
• Trust is the new differentiator – Awareness is no longer the true measure of differentiation. We are in the midst of trust deficit. The most important thing a brand can do is maintain brand integrity and trust. A simple question to ask yourself, “if customers knew what I knew, would they trust us?”
• Disintegration is prevalent – Marketing is being spoiled by specialists. They compete, protect their turf and then blame the other organization. Become a person who can speak fluently in multiple disciplines and you will ensure a long and prosperous career.
• Marketing surfing is over – Every brand cannot grow, the pie only adds up to 100% and most categories are mature. The most important marketing question: where are we going to steal share from?
• Marketing renaissance at the beginning – It is a great time to be in marketing as technology doesn’t just allow consumers to avoid our messaging; it conversely helps us understand what kind of communication they want. We need to hire builders and artists and not organizers and processors.

Credit goes to some of the great speakers including Larry Light, Jeff Hayzlett, Rishad Tobaccowala, Chris Anderson and Arianna Huffington to name just a few. Let me know if you agree with the above or if you have any to add.

Let’s start with Microsoft, already under siege from cloud computing, they are also in imminent danger of becoming irrelevant in the mobile space and have seen their smartphone share slip from 13.1% to 10.7%. Concurrently, Apple has surged to a 25% U.S. share and Android has surged to above 5%. Yes, this was an important venue and announcement for Microsoft as they unveiled their new Windows 7 operating system.  Let’s start with the good news – Microsoft threw out everything they had done in the past and started from scratch. A hard thing to do, but it showed the kind of intrepidness and humility they had historically lacked and was sorely needed. The overall design starts with tiles instead of just offering a plethora of apps; they have variety hubs that are organized in themes like “people hubs” and “game hubs.” The former will organize your pictures and email from friends and the latter will organize your games and connect to Xbox live. The other element that was really smart is that they have finally recognized that Zune is a much more valuable asset as part of their smartphone software vs. a standalone unit. So yes, I am giving Microsoft a big thumbs up on Windows 7 and I believe they have finally gotten it right. The question everybody is pondering is if it’s too late? More good news for Microsoft, most mobile pundits believe the smartphone market is still sorting itself out and they still have a chance to be a player. The software will be on a surfeit of phones including HP, Dell and HTC, and the software should roll out around holiday 2010.

The other big news was made by Nokia, still the world leader in phones, but which has slipped badly over the past 24 months amid steadily negative PR. Nokia and Intel teamed up to announce “MeeGo.” The goal of MeeGo is to create an entity that will go beyond smartphones and expand to cars, home phones and computers. Intel also has a lot riding on this new partnership as, although they dominate PCs along with Microsoft (sometimes referred to as Wintel), they have not made a dent in smartphones. Both companies hope this new entity will attract the developer community.

So there you have it – for once Apple and Google’s Android (or RIM) did not suck up all the oxygen from a mobile event. No this time it was two well known companies fighting for survival in the growing and all important smartphone wars.

Social is everywhere

• Social networking users have doubled since 2007, representing 60% of the online population and users go to their favorite sites five days per week, four times per day for about an hour per day.
• Facebook and MySpace represent two of the top ten sites and provide similar scale to the big portals.
• Social is bigger than facebook, MySpace, twitter and LinkedIn. It has become so pervasive that it has seeped into all parts of our lives: Music (imeem), movies (flixster), parenting (cafemom) and even ethnic communities (BlackPlanet and AsianTown).
• Smart marketers are starting to replace click thrus to their own site with click thrus to facebook where they encourage you to fan their brand. They understand that if I click thru to their site, they have reached one person, but if I click thru and fan their brand, they have reached me and all of my friends via facebook’s News Feed. Absolut Vodka has started to use this execution.
• Facebook and twitter are starting to infiltrate TV as there will be a twitter and facebook app in the Verizon Fios Widget Bazaar. In the first iteration of the twitter app, Fios subscribers will see a spilt screen with the programming on the left and the tweets on the right based on the programming or genre they are currently watching.

Social is nowhere

Ad land tends to look at the world through a myopic lens vs. understanding what is happening in real America. And although social is huge and is growing, we are sometimes startled and receive a much needed dose of reality when we hear contrarian numbers:

• 69% of all adults 18+ have little knowledge of what twitter actually does.
• Social networks receive less than 7% of the overall digital investment.
• TNS recently polled 60 big brands and the consensus was that agencies don’t get it and one went as far to say that traditional agencies have very little contribution to make.
• Ask any major marketer if they feel they have search or OLA figured out and most of them will say yes, but ask them if they have social figured out and the majority will say no.

So there you have it. The next time a client asks you to opine about social, tell them social is everywhere but nowhere. And FYI, you don’t have to credit yours truly.

So how do you get started? There are several things marketers need to think about when they enter this space. The first is to decide whether you are going to go the core gaming route or the casual gaming route. Both are huge, but reach entirely different audiences. Core games are predominantly men 12-35 and casual gamers – most played on a PC or Mac vs. console – are women over 40. For this piece, I am going to focus on core gaming and there are three main console platforms and three main advertising opportunities.

Platforms

• Xbox 360: Microsoft’s gaming platform, 11.6 mm units sold in the US, 17 mm Xbox live accounts, ads sold through Massive gaming, Project Natal coming out later this year to take on Wii
• Playstation 3: Sony’s gaming platform, 5.7 mm sold in US, Blu-Ray is a key feature, ads sold through IGA and Double Fusion
• Wii: Nintendo’s gaming platform, 19 mm units sold, more casual game play, only static in-game opportunities
• Other platforms include hand-helds and the two major devices are Nintendo DS and PSP

Advertising opportunities

• Static in-game advertising: The strength of in-game ads are that they are hard coded into the game which allows for deeper integration and your brand lives in perpetuity. The con is that there is a fairly long lead time (8-12 months) and the cost will most likely be north of $200K as an entry point.
• Dynamic in-game advertising: The greatest strengths are flexibility, cost, speed to market and the most advanced ad platform is Massive which is aligned with Microsoft. As soon as an Xbox owner connects his console to the web, Massive dynamically serves ads that cover up generic brands and ads will appear on billboards, vending machines and at sports venues. Massive offers over 60 titles and marketers can target by creative, time & day and geography. Dynamic in-game advertising is a great way to jump into the gaming market.
• Advergaming: The benefit is simple, imagine someone paying to get your ads. This is exactly what Burger King did when they launched three Xbox games for $3.99. BK created Big Bumpin, PocketBike Racer and Sneak King and sold millions of copies.  However, this strategy is not for the faint of heart as the lead time is somewhere around 18 months and the price tag is in the seven figures.

In conclusion, gaming may or not may be right for your brand, but it is a great opportunity to stand out, connect with your audience and most importantly, become part of their everyday life – because gaming isn’t just a medium, it’s a lifestyle.

Augmented Reality
AR is a new technology that creates an immersive 3D relationship with a consumer via a PC and a webcam. We can take a static piece of advertising and make it come to life in a powerful and provocative way.  Several marketers are already using the technology, including Papa John’s which is affixing AR images to the back of 30 million pizza boxes. Consumers are instructed to hold the box up to a webcam in order to drive an animated 3D 1972 Camaro on their computer screen. Legend has it that Papa John’s CEO, John Schnatter, sold his beloved ‘72 Camaro in 1984 to open his first store. The virtual trip takes you on a cross county tour where you’re also exposed to billboards offering Papa John’s coupons.

But the gold prize in using AR technology goes to Popular Science and General Electric. I called Popular Science last week as I wanted to get the inside skinny on how this evolved and how we could think of AR technology for some of the clients we represent. The entire platform was truly serendipitous but genius nonetheless. Popular Science knew that their July front cover was going to prominently feature a windmill and past GE advertising had featured windmills. They approached GE and proposed a partnership in which consumers would go the pop sci site and hold the front cover in front of a webcam to launch the experience.  General Electric also purchased the cover two spread in the July issue to tie the promotion and platform together.

2D Bar Codes

2D bar codes have been around for a while but it’s a new application that caught my eye with something called the twitter code. As an example, a person downloads the ScanLife app on his iPhone and then takes a picture of a print ad, bus shelter or in-store POP and it automatically sends a predetermined brand tweet to the person’s twitter feed. The person can then add his personal message augmenting the brand tweet and send it out to his followers. This is potentially a powerful way brands can use technology to amplify their reach and create a personal endorsement.

Winning in the new environment is about evolving your content distribution strategy and taking advantage of opportunities that take a static message and turn them into something that is interactive and viral. What do you think of these two new technologies and are there any others that we should be following?

Three Key Steps:

1.     Determine how much of your audience is using mobile beyond voice

• If your audience is using their phone to primarily dial a seven digit number, you don’t need to me to tell you mobile advertising is not right for your brand. A good guide is to adhere to a recent Insight Express study where they divided the mobile population into three groups:
  • Mobile Pioneers (15%): the smart phone power users have three core characteristics: the first sub segment is they tend to be young (18-34) and skew male and the second sub segment is they have high household incomes. As an example, the iPhone has a 200 index with those making more than $100K+. Lastly, they tend to live in major metropolitan markets.
  • Mobile Wannabes (25%): starting to buy smart phones and if the Pioneers provide traction, the Wannabes provide scale.
  • Mobile Traditionalists (65%): 2/3 are over 35

If your brand has confirmed that your target is using mobile beyond voice, now you’re ready to advance to steps two and three…

2.       Determine which device/carrier your audience is using

• The executive is on the Blackberry, moms may be using the Palm Treo and if your target has a high ethnic concentration, look at T-Mobile’s Android. And always consider the iPhone platform as their users have the most voracious appetite of data vis-a-vis all other smart phones.

3.  Interpret the role of your brand in the medium

• The key to mobile is creating a wonderful and delightful experience. Take advantage of the channels inherent strengths and tailor the experience around the mobility of the phone. Starbucks is doing a great job helping their ardent fans find the nearest Starbucks with their own app (Bucksme) and marketing on the Where mobile app. We have recently launched an app for Stanley and are building several others for some of our major clients.

So there you are, if your target are young men or white collar & affluent, get started. The last thing you want to do is let your competitive set beat you to the punch in this emerging and powerful medium.

What do you think? Are there any other important rules to think about before the process begins?