nice campaign & social integration for L'Odyssée de Cartier

I was watching The Good Wife on CBS tonight and saw a mindblowingly long and beautiful ad from Cartier.  @jdoohan and I were transfixed as a snow leopard and golden dragon entertained us in a gem filled fantasy world created by Cartier.  Check out the embedded spot from YouTube below.  The video shows 72,160 views as of me writing this blog post. It's going to get A LOT bigger.

I posted a link to the video on facebook praising Cartier for having the courage and vision to buy such a long spot during primetime and for producing a beautiful piece of content.  In a comment on my post, one of my teammates from Red Bull told me he thinks Cartier roadblocked the spot across broadcast networks.  This is even more impressive... Joan Chow, our CMO (and my boss) when I was at ConAgra Foods, used to talk about "breaking through the fog of familiarity".  This ad "broke through the fog of familiarity" at my house for sure.

I went back to the YouTube homepage to search for the video to get the total views so far and noticed a homepage takeover. Another opportunity to high-five the Cartier team.  They're making sure as many people as possible can discover and see this spot with the YouTube takeover.  I know from experience that the YouTube homepage isn't the most efficient buy ever but it absolutely belongs in a digital media takeover for a piece of content like this.

screencap of YouTube takeover for L'Odyssée de Cartier campaign 

I went back to facebook to add to the comments on my wall and suggest that my teammates check the Cartier campaign website because it also makes a great impression.  

Upon my return to facebook...BOOM - I saw a Sponsored Story (pictured left) including a reference one of my friends who likes Cartier. Sorry for exposing you're my friend Corey... I know it might be embarassing. ;)

The Sponsored Story linked to Cartier's facebook campaign page which has 445,529 likes as of me writing this blog post.   It will be interesting to watch the likes increase as the campaign continues.

I'm impressed. Cartier bought a broadcast television roadblock for a beautiful and innovative 3:30 spot.  They made sure it was available online at their website, on YouTube, and on facebook.  They then invested in a YouTube takeover and facebook Sponsored Stories to make sure consumers can DISCOVER the video and the supplemental content.

The major social media channel missing from the campaign in my view was twitter. I didn't see any Promoted Trends, Promoted Accounts, or Promoted Tweets. This feels like a missed opportunity.  Others were reacting to the spot like I was.  I easily found them via a twitter search.  That's the problem...I had to search.  I wonder if Cartier considered including twitter in the campaign.  In my experience, twitter might have performed the best of any social media choice for driving traffic to the video.  twitter's platform is made to capitalize on real-time experiences like this synchronized takeover and can route traffic quickly to where the action is.  Alternatively, Cartier could have driven views of the YouTube hosted video via inline plays on twitter web.  It just depends on what the brand's activity goals are for the campaign.

I've embedded three tweets below (thanks to twitter's excellent & newish tweet embed capability).  They're great and show that consumers were mostly getting it.  These tweets could have been even more powerful if they were connected to a promoted campaign hashtag or were RTs of something Cartier created in advance with perfect messaging and pinned at the top of the twitter feed.

Love this show, but what's noticeable this time was the long Cartier commercial! Gorgeous! bit.ly/acMgAc @GetGlue @TheGoodWife_CBS

— Darwin Dayan (@darwinsf) March 5, 2012

it's so gorgeous! RT “@Beauty212: @BeautyEditorNYC everyone is talking about the cartier commercial bit.ly/ytS99A”

— Courtney Dunlop (@BeautyEditorNYC) March 5, 2012

OMG this Cartier film on all the major networks is amazing. #outofthebox

— Jason Binn (@JasonBinn) March 5, 2012

I really love this campaign and will watch as it continues. It's nice work from Cartier.  I love to see them raising the bar for creative and standing out on broadcast.  Once they did, they had most of their social media bases covered including paid options.  My only question/comment is why twitter wasn't included.  twitter would have been a must for me.

kicks choices for sxsw and Red Bull LAN

One of the things I dislike about travelling is having to wear the same kicks during the trip. For sxsw & Red Bull LAN, I'll be on the road for a over 10 days...so I'm bringing three pairs.

Some thought went into these choices. There's lots of walking at sxsw so they all have to be comfortable. I'll be inside and outside at clubs where people might step (gasp!) on my kicks or spill drinks so dark colors are better. It looks like rain the first few days so suede should probably be avoided but I added the P-Rod V NIKEiD "Ireland" because I'll be in Florida on St. Patricks Day and I need the Irish spirit. Have I put too much thought into it?  Absolutely. But that's part of the fun.  Check out my choices below. What do you think?

Nike Zoom Kobe VII - 2012 All-Star QS "Galaxy"

Nike SB Paul Rodriguez V - NIKEiD "Ireland"

Nike Air Max 90 VT Medium Grey/Anthracite-Black 

Book Review: The Tanning of America by Steve Stoute

I finished "The Tanning of America: How Hip Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy" over vacation. It's OK. I give it 3/5 stars as a rating.  I recommend it for marketers who are unfamiliar with the influence of Hip Hop and Urban culture on what's cool for everyone.  Hip hop has created a great deal of what's cool and it is fascinating to learn how it started and how the influence continues today.

@SteveStoute clearly knows what he is talking about and is highly credible.  He literally invented some of the tactics for artists and brand partnerships that are commonplace today.  Stoute also has a good eye for what is be both cool and credible.  This is where some marketers get it wrong... attaching your brand to a star or opinion leader can be a wonderful thing but if there isn't an authentic and credible brand connection, the relationship ultimately won't be worth much for either party.  I liked when Stoute talked about stuff he worked on directly or that his firm did.  His observations on his own work or work close to his was the best content in the book.

I did not enjoy when Stoute want far afield from his home territory.  I'm not interested in his assessment of "New Coke" for example.  Every marketer in the universe already knows about that story.  It doesn't need to be retold in a book that is focused on Tanning.  Also, I'm not particularly interested in Stoute's views on New Coke or other stories unrelated to tanning or his work.  He wasn't connected to it and isn't credible when talking about it.  Another pet peeve for me is Stoute's overuse of the word "unapologetically".  Stoute LOVES the word unapolegetic and says it a lot in the book.  I can imagine speaking with him and having him say it 10-20 times during an hour conversation.  The word is overused in this book and thus has less impact than I expect Stoute hoped it would.  I appreciate the conversational tone of much of the book but I'm unapologetic in saying that the word unapologetic was used WAY too much.

I have to give @SteveStoute credit for his marketing innovation and excellent intuition in creating the right partnerships between opinion leaders and brands.  Go ahead and give this book a read if you're into the subject.  The book is not amazing but it is good.  I appreciate the work Stoute put into it and his willingness to share his views on Hip Hop's influence with the world.

Two books I will finish during our vacation

The Tanning of America by Steve Stoute

I'm interested in @SteveStoute's thoughts on how urban culture & hip-hop culture evolved into our mainstream culture as America was "tanned".  I'm not sure Steve Stoute is a "marketing genius" as the description on amazon.com says but I am looking forward to the rest of this book.  

My suspicion is that Steve Stoute is equal parts bionic salesman and pop culture prophet.  Regardless, I am looking forward to finishing this book which I'm about a third of the way through reading right now.

 Content Marketing by Rebecca Lieb

I was turned on to this book through a tweet from @lieblink and I immediately preordered it. I t occurs to me that Red Bull is already doing much of what Rebecca will recommend and that some of the recommendations will be irrelevant as they're geared to marketers who are not producing content to sell something else vs what Red Bull is doing as we create a profitable media business at Red Bull Media House.

Still, I know Rebecca is a really insightful voice in our space and that there will be some fantastic takeaways in this book for me if I take the time to read it.  So I fully expect that by January 11, there will be sand between pages and the cover will be sun faded after some dedicated Hawaiian reading time... I'll let you know how it goes!

Is Gatorade a competitor to Red Bull Energy Drink?

I read "First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat Into a Cultural Phenomenon" earlier this year. It's a quick easy read on the birth and history of Gatorade through 2005.  The book is a valuable read for any marketer and is full of useful information for me as a marketer at Red Bull.  I see many similarities in how Gatorade successfully created the Isotonic category and how Red Bull created the Energy category.

Many passages in the book grabbed me. One of them is was the following description regarding Gatorade considering changes to product formulation:

Although its Performance Series, which is directed at high-intensity athletes, has products that include vitamins A, C, and E, zinc, and protein, the Gatorade the general consumer sees has never included the latest ingredients of the moment - such as creatine, chromium picolinate, ephedra, and taurine.

Gatorade might have been even more popular if its marketers had introduced a special Gatorade with a popular supplement in it, but by not doing that, they avoided risking exposure when that supplement was phased out for the next latest thing. Since Gatorade stands for the ultimate in sweat replenishment, its brand managers have to distinguish the fads from the future."

Gatorade is "the ultimate in sweat replenishment".  Cool.  Gatorade is about hydration.  That's a focused and defensible functional position.  The statement was probably a nice filter to use when determining if/how/when to change the product formula.  If an ingredient helps in sweat replenishment, it is a candidate for adding to Gatorade.  If not, it's not.  This is the way it was at Gatorade for a long time.  But times have changed...

Fast forward to today and it seems that Gatorade is tackling a broader mission of athlete performance while sticking to strict positioning for the core product.  The core product, Gatorade "02 Perform" formulation appears to be the original Gatorade consumers know and love.  However, the Gatorade "01 Prime" formulation seems have learned a thing or two from energy drinks. Gatorade "01 Prime" contains water, sugar, and sodium as well as Niacin, Vitamin B6, and Panthothenic Acid.  The last three ingredients are all B-Group Vitamins.  All six ingredients are found in Red Bull and other energy drinks.  Gatorade left the caffeine out but that's just a detail.

So yes... Gatorade is a competitor to Red Bull Energy Drink.  It's no wonder brands like Gatorade want to join the party.  The energy drink category continues to grow in double digits every year while isotonics are flat (no pun intended).  I think ultimately products from Gatorade that are not hydration focused will fail because Gatorade's whole reason for being is hydration.  Remember Gatorade gum? Gatorade energy bars? Why would "01 Prime" or "03 Recover" beverages be different?  Only time will tell though.  Stay tuned.