ml haynes design

Challenging the creative community to create and submit “Ads Worth Spreading,” the TED organization hopes to raise the bar for online ads with its first call for entries. Online campaigns created during 2010, specifically January 2010 to January 2011, are eligible, but organizers have asked for never-before-seen work and are looking for video in particular.

Chris Anderson, TED Conferences curator, expressed the mission this way: “We want to encourage development of ads-with-a-difference. Ads that engage our audience authentically, intelligently, delightfully. Ads that people will want to share because, like the rest of TED, they encapsulate ideas worth spreading.”

TED, an annual four-day conference in Long Beach, CA, originally focused on technology, entertainment and design. Since 1984, the event has evolved into a global initiative with speakers and exhibits playing to exclusive attendee rosters, smaller salon-style video playback and discussion sessions, and a treasure trove of online content that is available for consumption at any time. Now a resource for innovative thinking in all fields, the organization has set its sights on changing the way we think about and create online messages.

“We’re not advertising experts but we know that the relationship between the consumer and online advertising needs to change,” says Ronda Carnegie, TED Global Partnership Director. “Because Ted is so open we think we can put this challenge out there and not have it be about our own self promotion.” She also states that this challenge was created as “a celebration of great creative,” adding that the venture is “not another awards opportunity.”

Like most awards shows and competitions, this one has rules and judging criteria. But unlike most, the TED group is clear on those points and details them quite explicitly:

• Tells a captivating story
• Offers an idea that makes the world a better place
• Humanizes the company/creator
• Uses technology in ways we’ve never seen
• Engages the audience in solving a problem or answering a question
• Hilariously funny, ingeniously clever, highly engaging
• Delights the audience with visual wonder
• Amplifies passion rather than ambushes it
• Speaks authentically
• Elevates the craft to improve online advertising
• Features a moving call to action
• Deserves the passionate attention of the world’s online community
• Serves a fundamental purpose of promoting a company, cause or idea

What I found striking is the implied relationship between engagement and results. True to their online content strategy, TED is encouraging contestants to submit 30-second to 5-minute videos. It’s no surprise that these facilitators see the future of online engagement in compelling and animated storytelling. And while they do require a “moving” call to action, it appears that entertainment will trump enterprise.

Perhaps what I find most striking is the complete lack of connection to measurable results. Time and again we have seen the most engaging (and shared) online campaigns do little or nothing at all to effect the bottom line. 2010’s most viral campaign—a series of video ads for Old Spice—has made no measurable uptick on the accounting ledger, according to those managing the brand.

So, could this competition change the way we think about creating online ads and engaging online consumers? Could we see a paradigm shift in what plays out on our screens, large and small? Or will this call for entries encourage us to examine the user experience in total and sharpen our focus on the measurement as well as the making?

Ad campaigns are not content creation, but could we see the blurring of that line in the winning submissions for TED’s first online ad competition? This could be one very interesting contest. Stay tuned.

Ever tire of the same old holiday gift wrap? Ever wish there was a way to crowdsource your good tidings and cheer? Ever find yourself thinking, “If only I could do all of my shopping in 140 characters or less?”

Tweetwrap to the rescue!

The Barbarian Group launched Tweetwrap this week as part of a three-part campaign for Samsung to promote the “boosted” RF510 laptop. The agency delivered an application that allows users to design their own unique gift wrap using five fun patterns, five tweet threads, or a thread of their choosing. Users can choose to “keep it” by downloading a JPG to their desktop, or “get it” by purchasing a roll of the wrap (free to the first 3000 orders). Then, users can take photos of their wrapped presents, upload them to the Boosted Facebook Page, and enter to win an RF510 Notebook by Samsung.

“This is really exciting for us because this is something that steps beyond the norm of Samsung’s day to day product-focused advertising,” notes James Murphy, Creative Director, on TBG’s blog.

Will gift wrap sell more laptops? What will come next in the series for Samsung and their agency? More importantly, how will you use Twitter, or any other social media, this year and next to activate the brands that you’re working with and engage consumers in unexpected ways?

A new browser — built with social networking at the forefront — has come on the scene, and the folks from the “Netscape Mafia” are banking on the explosion of social media and our insatiable desire to be constantly connected through those networks.

A group of Netscape alumni founded and financed RockMelt, the company, and the release of their new browser comes 16 years after Netscape introduced the first commercial Internet browser.

“We think it is a fantastic time to build a company around a browser,” said Marc Andreessen, Netscape co-founder and principal financial backer through his venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz.

RockMelt, the browser, lets users experience the Web, especially the social Web, without the hassle of the back-and-forth toggling that other browsers require. Sure, tabs are great, and we’ve come quite adept at speeding in, out, and around our top picks, but imagine if you could do the same all more efficiently and with a much higher level of interconnectedness.

CEO Eric Vishria did just that.

“The thing that really led us to this was the observation that the typical Web user only visits five to seven unique websites,” he said. “Like they only visit a handful of websites and they visit them multiple times a day, basically going back polling for updates. And to us, the thing that didn’t make sense about that is it’s 2010 and the browser isn’t, like, intelligent enough to understand that I do the same thing 10 times a day — just to have that content ready and waiting for me. And that’s what we’ve tried to do here.”

Currently, users can “reserve a spot” on the beta list via their Facebook account. In the future, all users will be required to log in to Facebook as a gateway to the browser — the social’s baked right in. RockMelt joins a roster of also-rans in the browser game. Flock, released in 2003, has many of the same features but came out before social media hit big. Chrome, backed by Google and promoted to millions daily, has only eight percent market share.

I’ve got my beta and will be test-driving this browser, putting it through the paces to determine if I’m ready to change. What do you think? Would you make the change to a new and different browser if it made your social (media) life easier?

MySpace recently began a complete overhaul not only to its visual identity and interface, but also to its positioning and focus. The transformation is expected to finish at the end of November, but site visitors now can see what’s in store through promotional copy content, screen shots, and videos spread across the home page and site like early holiday gifts.

Mashable posted a quick introduction and overview and promises to do more in-depth review and reporting over the next few days. Check out the screen shots at the end of the post.

I’ll be watching this closely as well, but not for the obvious reasons. Sure, I can appreciate how far they’ve moved the needle on identity — the new logo (see video below) is a breath of fresh air and sets an enthusiastic and aspirational tone. After five minutes, I already forgot what the old logo looked like. The modular, box-grid layout is current and percolates with possibility, but it’s the bold redirect from all things to all people to entertainment for Generation Y that intrigues me most.

MySpace once defined social networks, and in not-too short a time, they epitomized the past. The old, out-of-touch, and irrelevant past. In search of the shiny and new, legions of young adults, teens, and tweens ditched the tiled wallpaper, audio clips, favorite band stickers, and funky profile pictures to set up camp with Facebook. It wasn’t long before MySpace became shorthand for out of touch, kicked to the curb. You might expect a brand so forgotten simply to fade away.

Instead, we’ll witness the realignment and return of a leader in the category. Focusing exclusively on the 13- to 35-year-old demographic, MySpace will prove if they still have (or found in the interim) what it takes to be the “social entertainment destination.” Will new users believe? Will loyal users stay? Things could get very interesting come November. Stay tuned.

The New MySpace: An Introduction

The New MySpace Logo

This post also appears at TalentZoo’s blog, Digital Pivot, as “Will Users Embrace the New Face of MySpace?”

This one goes out to Mr. T and all the storytellers that inspire.

The new integrated campaign for Dickies launched via online video “tough tests” last week. This initial offering — the first round of work from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners — shows 874 Work Pants taking a beating, literally, as they’re ripped apart by squealing choppers, torn and shredded by massive wrecking balls, and rolled down a meticulously groomed hillside.

Each black-and-white clip is a combination of the old “don’t try this at home” instructional film and “don’t try this with stuff you’ve paid decent money for” product demonstration. Taking what has been a staple of skaters, surfers, hirsute tradesmen, and wannabe rockers, the GSP team brings this brand to the hard core. You know those guys and gals: the ones with the biker chain clipped to their belt loop, the steel-toe boots, and the compostable lunch bag in their recycled rubber messenger bag.

Watching the series, I couldn’t help but think brand loyalists aren’t the type to be sold with old-school show-and-tell demos like these. They’ve been trained over a lifetime to be skeptical of these well-choreographed tests and product performances. Folks new to the brand are probably in the same place in regard to what influences their purchasing decisions. The rough characters who star in these films aren’t buying it either, and they certainly are not watching videos online. Hell, they’re still rocking classic rock radio in their pickup trucks for a good time.

What’s going on here? Choppers pulling a pair of pants apart. Levi’s denim tags sport a mule team doing the same and have been for decades. Product is attached to a swinging steel ball and aimed at a thick concrete wall. Check out classic commercials of the ’60s and ’70s, and you’ll see this has been a staple for more than half a century. It didn’t get more tough than a Timex watch attached to an arrowhead, shot through a pane of glass by a gentleman wearing a plaid flannel shirt.

What was that last “test” again?

That’s right. Those tough twill pants are worn by a gravity-loving, bearded hipster who simply cannot resist the urge to rock, roll, and bounce down a beautiful hillside obviously landscaped by a professional film crew and production team. Parkour, I think not. This guy likes a good tumble it would appear, and, well, it just isn’t that easy to get yourself a chopper at the last minute, let alone a wrecking ball without calling ahead. What better way to show the world that you — and your new pants — have earned the badass Dickies label?

I recently attended a one-day working session at HP headquarters in Palo Alto. With nine presenters scheduled in just as many hours I came prepared to gain actionable insights on technology, strategy and the future of interactive advertising. Presenters showcased the agency, advertiser, supplier, VC and developer challenges each face today and hinted at how they planned to meet new challenges in the future. Here are some of the more interesting take-aways:

Gary Elliot of HP
Everything is a service.

Michael Theodore of IAB
Online brand building is ineffective. Sponsorships, search and digital video are most effective.
As the “most accountable medium” we are still tweaking and arguing over measurement models and methodolgy; we need cross-industry consensus on this.
To avoid FTC regulation, there is an immediate need to create a self-regulating framework and process for working within that framework.

Curt Hecht of VivaKi
After a spending a year and observing 25 million users, the efficacy of user-selected pre-roll ads on Hulu.com is confirmed. Users will choose which ads they watch in exchange for the video content they crave.

Chris Curtin of HP
“Searchandising” — make it easy for users to find the product that interests them.
Technology + behavior = Mobile at retail
Ideas don’t count until you do them.

John Coyne of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Bring your discipline, leave your department.
The fear of irrelevance should drive us all to change.
Change + Convergence + Collaboration

Emma Cookson of BBH USA
When looking for creative talent consider two key attributes: Diplomacy and Generosity.
“Getting it done” is the new heroism.
Moving beyond networking, working harmoniously and to each person’s mutual benefit, sharing expertise and disseminating information through the agency is key to an agency’s evolution.

George Gallate of Euro RSCG 4D
Put digital at the core of everything.
Technology does not equal ROI. But technology to the power of creativity does.

Erin Clift of AOL
Build platforms to scale, allowing for smart growth.
Even with perishable content, the portal can flex to deliver relevant content to a built-up “fan base” user group.

Nancy Hill of AAAA
Work to extinguish outdated compensation models and tensions between agency and client

Calvin Lui of Tumri
Chic versus Geek — we need to marry art and science, knowing how to inspire consumers.
Consider “interest-based advertising” versus behavioral targeting

“I’m a Mechanic.” A simple statement of fact, a powerful declaration of affinity and a message of belonging in a time of insecurity. It also happens to be a small, but hard-working microsite developed by my team at the nine-to-five.

We are about to develop and deploy the next phase of content and interactivity —with a side of social — for this brand portal. And as we kick-off this next round I’m thinking a lot about the creation/celebration of culture — the culture we identify with, the culture we gravitate toward, the culture we establish and define against previously mandated boundaries and borders. Experiencing the power of this brand in people’s professional and personal lives, it is no inconsequential task to steward the culture of both consumers and clients, people who have built this brand over generations. To authentically represent the brand and the people who have created culture around it continues to be our challenge.

Makes me think about the brands in my life. The brands that I would stand up for, declare an unwavering believe in, that encourage a feeling of “insider” for having stayed true and loyal. Not too many these days; how about you?

Much has been written about AOL’s new logo, debuting December 10th. Just weeks away, this Internet dinosaur will attempt its third re-branding.

Common wisdom has it that the first logo was an inside job; no one has come forward to claim that iconic pyramid with mirrored swooshes and Mistral-like typography. The first logo re-design was done by Desgrippes Gobé, a 3D pyramid-to-pointer-effect and script-to-rounded-sans-serif and the identity went boldly, if not generically, into the future. Next month, as the brand spins off from the Time Warner mothership, the logo will see another reinvention.

The first, and most obvious, change is in the typography. Enough of a household name to go by three letters alone, AOL will now be represented by title case, sans serif letterforms followed by a period. And much has been made of this period, for sure. Sam Wilson, managing director at the Wolff Olins New York office — AOL’s go-to branding agency — claims the period in the logo was added to suggest “confidence, completeness… AOL is the place to go for the best content online, period.” Completeness, yes, when used at the end of a sentence or within an abbreviation. I’ll even go for the end of a phrase, heck, it’s advertising. But at the end of three letters? I would’ve loved to have been in that pitch and heard that rationale hit the fan.

The second change is in the visual representation of the brand, the changing images and backdrop to the letterforms. Counter to the plain and accessible typography, these images represent everything from finger-paint swirls to vignettes of fish. The type knocks out of each of these images in varying degrees of legibility and logic. I get the metal fist (AOL does music) and the scribble (AOL does self-expression) but I’m still wondering what AOL’s going to do with that fuscia blob of brain matter. Or is it bubblebum? Jordan Crane, Wolff Olins New York CD, describes it as “a mix of do-it-yourself and high production values, crazy stuff and elegant stuff… simple and engaging and bizarre — all the things the Internet is.” Again: rationale meet fan.

Tim Armstrong, AOL CEO, in an interview with paidContent.org, supports the decision to launch this unorthodox identity program as an expression of corporate creativity. “The hardest part about brands is everybody’s got an opinion. What really matters is how well you like our products and services… We looked at a lot of different brand treatments. We felt this was the one that captured what was happening at the company underneath the surface. People see AOL as a big turnaround, but there is so much creativity at the company now.”

A campaign rollout is still under consideration. You’ll need to go to the AOL web site to see the changes as the transformation takes place the evening of December 9th and into the 10th. This revolution will not be televised. Instead it will go out to the already converted who will be looking, as Armstrong suggests, for improvements in service and product offerings. If that means that they’re greeted by fish and rockers, and their email is announced in some auto-tune robotic tone, so be it. For the rest of us — and clearly those of us interested in the process and politics of corporate identity — this could be an interesting way to ring out 2009.