I’m going to try and get back to blogging here a bit more regularly.

Anyway. How about that game last night. As a traitor to the Bears who worshiped Favre as a child and harbored split loyalties between two enemies, I am a bit of a conundrum. I’m a football Rhett Butler. The worst kind of traitor. Hell, I switched loyalties to the Jets and then the Minnesota Vikings over the last few years. That said, who wants to see Pittsburgh win again? No one. How boring is that? Plus, Big Ben may share my name, but he doesn’t deserve it. What a disgrace. i find him more repugnant than Michael Vick.

But let’s take a look at the ads for a second and talk favorites and why I think they were great.

• The VW Passat Ad. This ad was fantastic. Utterly unforgettable. For a generation of kids raised on Star Wars who are all at prime Passat buying ages or just nearing that point, this ad perfectly tapped into Star Wars and childhood nostalgia without getting too cheesy. The first time I watched the ad on the web I thought it was simply a cute little ad. But then I found myself trying to use the force on random objects (at least in my imagination) and humming the Imperial March everywhere I walked the last few days. When I saw the ad again during the Super Bowl I realized why I liked it so much: it made me feel good about Star Wars in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time. In fact, in a way that even George Lucas failed to accomplished with his three prequels. That’s saying something. I have enormous good will towards Star Wars and the halo effect from the emotions stirred up is definitely giving me a sense that VW gets me. Will I remember that it was a Passat ad? I think I will. At least, I feel like VW gets the idea of childhood and the importance of the family car in that important time. The family car is so much more than a vehicle to kids. Its a playground, its a aspiration, its a prison, etc. Fantastic ad.

• Perfectly dissonant, this ad confused me at first. What the hell was this prison? Kenny G? What a perfect way to set up the official differentiation between the “new” luxury and “old” luxury. The ad is especially damning to Mercedes Benz who followed up with a silly ad with P. Diddy. Does anyone care about P. Diddy? That ad following this brilliant Audi ad only reinforced how out of touch Mercedes Benz happens to be at the moment. “My dad drove one.” Ouch. I love the Jason Statham ad Audi ran last year, but this was even more on point and did a better job of differentiating Audi from its competition.

• I’ve heard that there is controversy over this ad. Whatever. As a young guy who is in that prime flower buying period of his life and obviously the target of this ad with Valentine’s day looming, I found it entirely hysterical. The women I was watching the game with were laughing as well. The laughter was pretty explosive in a way that no other commercial except the Doritos “Finger Licker” ad managed to elicit. I loved that Teleflora had the stones to run an ad like this and will think favorably about this online florist for awhile.

• Disclaimer: I really, really, really want a new Camaro. This car is a fantastic surprise from Chevy. My love for the car aside, what a funny ad. Three car ads are in my top favorites. This one took the kind of stupid footage you see in many car commercials of cars driving pointlessly through the desert or jumping off buildings (things you would never do) and added a very funny commentary track. The twist at the end that shows the “hot” girl is really a teacher serves to nicely illustrate that these rough, muscle-y cars aren’t just for juiced up Italian guys auditioning for the Jersey Shore. They’re for anyone. Also, I really like Tim Allen’s voice overs.

• I want to love this ad. I want to hate it. Is is possible for an ad to be one of the best and worst? I think it’s a pretty powerful look at Detroit and a strong narrative is presented as to why American car makers understand luxury despite being headquartered in the ugliest and least luxurious  city in America. Then “Lose Yourself” starts playing. Ok, cool. Eminem is from Detroit. Then the Chrysler 200 appears and looks like a less luxurious version of the Chrysler 300. That’s one ugly looking “luxury” car. Ok, personal preference aside, I think the air really went out of the ad when Eminem appeared. Eminem is going to drive this thing? Really? I’m supposed to believe that? Eminem did a great job and if the car was, say, a tricked out Challenger or an Audi A8 then I would have no trouble believing this. I think the authenticity of the ad is a bit suspect. Emienm’s credibility is surely destroyed. There’s no way if asked to pick the car he would endorse he’d pick the Chrysler 200. Kid Rock would. I honestly believe that guy would drive around in the crap that Detroit builds, but Eminem, no way. Still, its resonating with me a few days later and I like what they went for, but I don’t think I’d ever walk into a Chrysler dealer again (and my family has owned nothing but Chrysler cars for 15 years) and it feels a bit disingenuous.

• Let’s talk worst ad for a second. Everyone seems unanimous that the Groupon ad is the loser, but really? Are people really this intensely stupid? Groupon does lose major points for failing to mention that you can donate to the charities and causes being teased on the Groupon website, but these ads were funny. I’m more offended that everyone seems to think Timothy Hutton is some kind of celebrity that everyone should know. Who the heck is Timothy Hutton? Also, did this run during the game? The Groupon ad I saw during the game ran for 5 seconds and didn’t seem to have any content at all. Did my local broadcaster screw it up?

Nike has released their new Tiger Woods commercial. Obviously coinciding with Woods’ return to golf, it features audio from his deceased father rambling about his desire for “the deets” and leaves us with the question “did you learn anything”?

Here’s the video:

The Ad Man in me thinks that Nike knew this steaming pile of garbage was going to divide people and give them a ton of free press on top of the simple airing of the ad. Heck, they probably profit share on YouTube and make a little cash off of people watching the video on their official channel. Still, I think it’s a horrible ad and I’m going to approach it as if I didn’t think that Nike just wanted to throw a bomb and watch people go nuts over it.

“Did you learn anything”?!?!?! That’s what a sports apparel company wants its spokesman’s position to be after he basically slept with every porn star and porn star wannabe he could find?

Why not show the guy walking to the green amid a flurry of reporters questions and have him emerge on an empty, quiet green and sink an impossible put? No crowd there, so no ego inflation. Just a man and his sport. Say something like “getting back to basics” or “Sport.” Or just the Swoosh.

There’s pretty broad agreement that if he comes back and plays well, his shilling abilities will return (at least to a certain extent). So why not put the focus on golf. Especially if Tiger’s not going to talk candidly, let him “talk” with a golf club.

What person is going to watch that and think anything other than “get me some non-Nike gold gear”? It’s just a big awkward, weird, mess. His father wouldn’t calmly be staring at Tiger…no way. He’d have been right behind Elin with a 3 Wood chasing after his SUV. I have no doubt about that. This is phony, and it doesn’t matter.

I maintain that there is a big difference between Woods as the pitchman for lifestyle type products like Tag Huer or for more abstract corporate entities like Accenture and sports related companies like Gatorade and Nike.  Woods needs his whole phony baloney Michael Jordan-esque image intact to pitch for the former, but for the later he need only excel at golf. If he continues to be the best golfer in the world he will have no trouble putting his name on golf apparel and selling it. If he stinks…well, he’s sunk.

I think Nike was right on for addressing this in some way, but this just feels hollow. It feels totally false and, quite frankly, I really don’t think Tiger is sorry and I really don’t care. I just care that he’s awesome at golf. I’ve bought Nike golf apparel. I first got into it when Tiger started shilling for them. My perception of their golf wear is not at all affected by how many women Tiger has cheated on his wife with.

Haven’t been to the dentist in a few years. Post college it was rough to find one that took my insurance and wasn’t a hack. I also changed jobs and had companies move on me multiple times so things were disastrous. The last straw was trying a new dentist, Dr. Duda in Kennilworth, IL. He was highly recommended, and though I asked for him specifically, they tried to pass me off with the other dentist at his firm. The two cavities I had filled from this freshly graduated (Michigan – boo!) dental student were garbage. There were jagged edges, one had to be redone, etc. It was just a disaster. I never went back after they were fixed.

Well one of his fillings just chipped out completely so…I had to find a dentist. I got a recommendation and went back….and had a sort of similar thing happen again. It’s not that important. All the details are on Yelp if you’d like to read my review (it’s under Benjamin G.).

Here’s the cool thing. This weekend the dentist that tried to fix the tooth up (it’s his father’s practice, though I’m assuming he is being groomed to take it over) called me and was concerned about the teeth. He said he monitors Yelp and went out of his way to make it clear that he wants every patient satisfied and wants to make the situation right. At first I was a bit taken aback, but if that isn’t great customer service and a great use of social media… I am headed back to the office on Monday and he’s going to try and fix things. I’m pretty excited to go in and I’m planning to revise my Yelp review. I actually really want it to go well and I want to be an ambassador for his practice now. I feel good.

This is, in a nutshell, a perfect example of the beauty social media affords companies today. Big ups to Alan Kushman, Jr. and his bedside manner (so to speak) and his marketing savvy. Any company should take notes.

I’ve always hated the term Millennials. Mostly because I didn’t create it and I have my own term for this generation: The Eat Cake Generation. I’ve heard that we’re babied (true-ish), but I think the defining characteristic is that  we’ve been lead to believe that we can have our cake and eat it too. Things that used to be mutually exclusive, we now believe overlap on the giant Venn diagram of life.

It sounds negative, but it isn’t always so. We have young women who believe they can easily have the career and the children. Accenture’s recent, wildly popular (at least as far as retweets go) research Millennial Women in the Workplace Success Index: Striving for Balance puts it nicely:

The vast majority (94 percent) of young professional women believe they will have rewarding careers balanced with fulfilling personal lives. They identified two primary qualities as keys to workplace success –the ability to balance personal and professional lives and a job where they can make a difference.  At the same time, 59 percent report being at least somewhat negatively affected by the current economic downturn, and 33 percent are more concerned with keeping their jobs than achieving work/life balance.

That’s positive and will hopefully force a change in some of the way we’ve come to expect to be worked to death by our jobs without time for family. For women, it will hopefully mean more flexibility as they juggle motherhood with a career path that doesn’t have to stop when she has kids.

It also explains some of our political leanings. There’s a belief that we can enjoy economic wealth and a return to healthy employment while simultaneously growing government and embracing large scale government programs and expenditures. I think we’re the first generation to believe in that notion this strongly in quite awhile (at least here in the US). I will leave it at that so as not to derail my post, but I think our political leanings (macro-wise) as a generation tend to support my Eat Cake Generation moniker.

Which brings me to the literal. All the Millennial Twitter “gurus” were abuzz with US Millennials Believe They Are Healthy Despite Bad Habits a press release touting some survey findings that showed that Millennials – surprise – believe they’re healthier than their parents and previous generations AND that they will be healthier in the future than previous generations. Sounds great. Optimism. However, apparently we also admit to eating, drinking, smoking, and sexing pretty dangerously. We have our cake and eat it too.

On a scale of 1-10, a vast majority (84%) rate their own health higher than a seven and more than a third (38%) rate their health as high as a nine or ten. Millennials also believe that they are healthier than other generations – one in four say they are healthier than their parents now and 61 percent think they will be healthier when they are their parents’ age than their parents are today.

However, even though Millennials think they are healthy, their actual habits predict otherwise. More than half (58%) say they eat junk food several times a week, 50 percent drink soda regularly, 50 percent do not get enough sleep, 44 percent do not exercise on a regular basis, 17 percent smoke cigarettes frequently, 13 percent have unhealthy relationships and six percent drink too much alcohol several times a week.

We’re the Eat Cake Generation. Give us mutual exclusion and we’ll perceive it to overlap until it actually does.

I never much cared for Apple Computers. I don’t want to pretend to be super objective here. I’ve always found the c0mputing experience to be sub-par and the user base to be annoyingly smug.

I purchased several iPods back in the day. I watched several hard drive iPods fail repeatedly (thank God for Apple Care) and then switched to the iPod Nano. The iPod was a paradigm shift. It was a game changer in every way and it combined usability with portability. Apple was back. Oh…it used iTunes as well.

iTunes is the single worst piece of software I have used since Windows Me. It makes all Microsoft Software look like sleek, resource un-intensive joys to use. Oh wait, that’s what most MS software is these days: sleek. iTunes is Apple’s Windows Vista and it needs to pull a Windows 7 with it (though I’d argue that Vista was far more usable than iTunes).  iTunes is bloated, ugly, seriously lacking in functionality, and utterly inflexible. At it’s core it trusts that I am an absolute idiot when it comes to organization and file management and helpfully offers to manage my life by obscuring what it is that I am doing with my files. It locks my media into a ridiculous database and renames my files after putting them on my device. Rather than backup my files to switch computers I’m forced to back up databases and XML files, etc. iTunes is a prison.

The iPhone was also a game changer. It was a tour de force in brilliance both in mobile operating systems and industrial design. It was a trailblazer in features as well. Yet, here we are in 2010 and the iPhone won’t use Google voice (except through a web app…good luck without 3G near you), won’t run multiple apps at the same time, just recently got video recording capabilities. Each year Steve Jobs gets up in front of the generic Keynote presentation and walks everyone through the game changing new features in Apple products. (Last year the iPods got an FM radio.) When the iPhone first came out all of this was ok. The crappy AT&T network didn’t matter all that much. The closed nature of the iPhone didn’t matter all that much. With the advent of the app store the iPhone became an even better experience…as long as Apple would approve the app you wanted to use.

Apple prides itself on coming off as your cool best friend you meet at the coffee shop. It’s not the corporate Microsoft type who is either a nerdy baffoon (a la the I’m A Mac ads) or an asshole suit. Apple is the average Joe in his mid-twenties who is successful, confident. The fun guy you meet for a coffee and he’s always on that path to success and you wonder how everything just works for him. You love him. He plays nice with everyone. Except that Apple isn’t. Their behavior and control in many cases is much worse than any anti-competitive practices that Microsoft was ever accused of using. Their phone, like their early computers, is an attempt to lock everyone else out and use that to drive revenue streams for all of their Apple only products.  God forbid you’d like to play an Xvid file on your iPhone. Not going to happen.

That brings us to the iPad. The iPad arrives at a time when the iPhone OS is cool, but Android has established itself as a pretty great, open alternative with phone hardware that exceeds that of the iPhone. Great cameras, faster processors, multi-tasking are available on Androids, WiMo, and Blackberry smart-phones. I remember when Verizon decided that all their phones would have the same proprietary operating system and that they’d lock certain features out of their phones arbitrarily to protect their revenue streams. At first people went along like sheeple, but then there was a revolt and now Verizon (in large part because of the iPhone) is trying to become the open carrier.  Imagine my surprise when I plugged in my Blackberry and dragged some music files into the “Music” folder on my phone. They all played just fine and I didn’t have to install any gigantic media management software. I download lots of apps, play games while I listen to Pandora pausing every once in awhile to reply to an email. I can add Blackberry apps from anyone who wants to code one.

The iPad, for a teen, is going to be a hard sell. They’re going to want them. Apple’s marketing is top-notch and kids want them like they used to want clothes. Holding the right Apple product (even as an adult) is akin to holding a big glowing stack of money. You just look cool. The iPad is priced high enough that it’s likely that mom and dad must be brought into the purchasing decision. This isn’t something that saving gift cards will buy. It’s also another ongoing subscription fee to a cell provider and I doubt many parents are going to be gung-ho to sign their kids up another internet access plan. If teens already have an iPhone (and most don’t, it’s still pretty aspirational) that’s going to continue to suffice.  This tablet is cool, but I have a feeling that kids will either request the MacBook Air or a cheaper Windows PC or netbook. The iPhone and a laptop fulfill different needs and both are pretty important right now. Like Google Wave, the iPad seems like a bit of a solution looking for a problem.

No camera, no Adobe Flash support (NO HULU, NO COLLEGEHUMOR.COM, NO FUNNYORDIE.COM, LIMITED YOUTUBE), no multitasking (listening to Pandora and imming), no sms app, etc. are all likely to be huge killers when it comes to making this a must-have device for teens, especially for the price.

So far Apple’s mobile rise has been similar to their rise in personal computers: meteoric. However, I still predict that people will ultimately revolt against the closed and arbitrary systems Apple tries to maintain and seek out an open experience that lets them use their devices to their fullest and maximize their potential in ways that the company that created the device may not have foreseen or intended.

I have to say, I love the way Verizon has pushed the Droid. Their marketing campaign has been just want Big Red needed to finally shake the stigma of being utterly stuck in the mud when it comes to smartphones.

My family has long been Verizon shareholders, but I thought they were always going to be an alsoran when it came to new technology. After they passed on the iPhone, I figured that was it. But this alliance with Android that, if rumors are true, will lead to a flock of awesome new smartphones in the next 3 quarters should give Apple and AT&T (and their fabulously poor network) a big headache.

As for the Droid campaign, well, I think it’s smart and I think it’s about time someone built something that stood up to the iPhone and could do some boasting of it’s own. The Droid definitely does AND it’s using Apple’s nasty playbook against it.

I don’t really enjoy nasty advertising, but I think Apple has long relied on nasty (and often completely untrue) claims in it’s advertisements. Those Mac vs. PC ads are about as mean as you can get and the tone is actually quite grating. I’m probably alone here, but I have long found them to be, well, mean.

So it’s nice to see the Droid rip into Apple. It’s going to have to transition away from the nasty iPhone dissing ads over the next few months or Verizon/Motorola though.  They need to start differentiating and showing what they specifically bring to the table (though they do have ads touting Google Navigation, that do this well) and focus a lot less on dissing the iPhone.

Just got back from a grueling few weeks on the road. The trip started ominously at the Embassy Suites. I walked into my room and there was lipstick on my pillow and a spilled glass of orange juice and some alcoholic beverage on the chair in the main room. I had to work so I asked maid service to take care of it. I returned late that night to find…the room exactly as I left it. Two weeks of this did not seem promising.

Luckily, after Miami we were in markets with accessible Starwood properties, but we were staying at aloft… aloft was entirely unknown to me as the newest Starwood hotel chain to launch. According to Wikipedia:

Aloft is a mid-scale, urban-style business / boutique hotel brand. The brand was launched in 2005 as a ‘vision of W Hotels’, a relationship similar to Four Points by Sheraton and its ‘brand parent’, Sheraton. Its first property was scheduled for Tucson, Arizona, but as of 2008 construction had not yet started.^[4]

Let me go on record as saying that I am creeped out a bit by the W Hotels. I mean, they’re wonderfully nice and upscale, but they feel so disgustingly late Boomer/Gen X with their faux opulence and “dream” motif. A fellow business traveler once described her disgust for the W chain saying, “It’s all 40 year old businessmen and hookers hanging out in the lobby. I don’t want to stay there.” I’m not sure how true that is, but it’s definitely the feeling you get walking in. Especially in New York City. It just feels phony the way most of the way Gen X’s cool, hip, excess feels lame now.

I didn’t have high hopes for aloft, but boy was I blown away.

Airline departure information in the lobby

The price was less than $200/night in 3 major markets (Minneapolis, Phoenix, Portland) and the vibe was similar to the W, but a lot less uptight. The folks at the front desk checking me in in all three markets were super helpful and super knowledgeable. I’ve come to expect that from Starwood hotels.  I surveyed the lobby. Pool tables and a bar. I was told there was no room service, but that there was a little store called re:fuel in each aloft lobby. Personally, I’m fine without room service. Paying $30 plus a mandatory tip and all the stupid taxes is offensive to me even if my company is paying so I usually avoid room service.

I perused the re:fuel selection. Everything from the sodas to the cupcakes to the fruit and candies was priced reasonably. There wasn’t much hotel price creep at all (maybe $.50 on most items). There were fresh breakfast sandwiches and muffins in the morning. Nice wraps and sandwiches for anytime. Gummy bears! Yatta! This would be ok! And…the store didn’t close. A lot of times I work late, don’t get food, get back to the hotel and find room service closed. Next thing I know I’m standing in a skeezy parking lot in Revere, MA trying to order Taco Bell drive thru on foot.

As I wandered to the elevator I noticed that there was a monitor that always displayed the latest flight information for flights out of the airport (I was at the airport aloft in each market…not sure if this is at all aloft properties). Super helpful!

I checked out the workout facilities and found new equipment and treadmills/bikes. All the cardio equipment was equipped with individual TVs that even accept iPod connections. Now, I don’t have an iPod or iPhone due to a longstanding distaste for Apple, but how awesome would it be to plug your iPhone into the machine and watch a movie while working out. Maybe I’ll buy one just for travel. Also, every aloft has a pool. I’m probably a weird business traveler, but I love sneaking in a swim. It makes me feel like a kid. Unfortunately, the pools are usually closed by the time I’m done with meetings. However, the aloft staff told me that the pool was available 24-7. AMAZING! A nice touch for travelers with non-traditional schedules.

I got into the room and it was pretty much the same in each market. Which was…comforting. The rooms were not gigantic. There wasn’t a front sitting room with weird chairs like in many W’s. Just a room with a big king size bed, gigantic HDTV, and a desk by the window.  Everything feels like “loft living”…simple…clean. On my bed was a note that I could help protect the environment by not washing my sheets every day. I’m down with that. I also appreciated that if I notified them of my plan to do that they’d reward me with a $5 gift card to re:fuel for every day that I chose to sleep in the same sheets. If I didn’t want anything from re:fuel, they’d give me reward points instead of $5. What’s more millennial than rewards for good behavior? I’m pretty sure that was the teaching device du jour for my entire childhood.

Reasonable phone rates

So I sit down to log on to the internet. Embassy Suites was $12.95 a day. The W usually charges a bundle. Granted, my company will pay, but it doesn’t make it feel any less like highway robbery. Internet is the 2000’s equivalent of having HBO in a hotel. It isn’t an up-sell, it should be free. In fact, they could drop the cable TV and just provide internet, I would be fine without cable TV. Also, it’s absurd that internet is free at Super 8 and high end hotels charge for it. Some charge almost $20. You can get DSL for a month for that. Come on. So I plug in and get ready to be raped. I sign on to the hotel network and…IT’S FREE. Fantastic. Free internet. A quick look to my left and I see a card by the phone clearly explaining the phone rates…again, no huge over pricing, just regular rates. One time I accidently made a 15 minute phone call home on a business trip after my cell phone died. It cost a fortune. This up-front pricing was comforting. Wow. Good feeling.

I watched the second X-Files movie

Simple to use, A/V input box, charge, mega-outlet

Then I did my weird thing and pulled out my travel DVD player. Yes, I travel with either a DVD player or a Creative Zen loaded with movies and TV shows. I usually plug into the RCA ports on the back of the hotel TV. It can be a pain and some hotels lock you out of the RCA ports (which means I have to carry an RF switch too). On the desk, as convenient as the phone, is a box with inputs for RCA, HDMI, AUDIO IN (1/8th in), and USB. NO WAY. Aloft embraced the iPod generation in their fitness center, but they also embrace almost any type of media in their rooms. Laptops, iPods, Blackberries, anything can charge and play into the TV. I switched the TV on, plugged in the RCA cords and was automatically switched to the channel featuring my input. EASY. I asked about it the next day in the lobby and the aloft employee told me that every aloft had them. And what if I forgot my cables? They had a bunch at the front desk I could borrow. Whoa. Also, the TV’s were mounted to the wall on an arm that extends and lets you rotate that TV all over the room. Phenomenal touches.

Other great touches in the room include plugs galore, mini-fridge, a copy of SPIN and WIRED magazines (YES! YES! YES!), unlimited soap and shampoo, huge shower heads, and, in Phoenix at least, a chocolate on my pillow.

Hotel hair dryer came in handy as I did get rained on...a lot.

This hotel chain “gets me”. I normally don’t get all weepy and emo about products, but business travel is life altering, sometimes boring (when not working), and just kind of a hellish life disruption and usually the hotel can be the worst part. aloft really made my last two weeks super pleasant and felt like home. In Portland as I walked in I noticed a bike rack full of bikes. The front desk informed me that if I wanted to go for a ride there was a bike path nearby and the bikes were free. I just had to ask. Helmets were free too. And so I had a beautiful bike ride along the Columbia River.

A couple of other fun Easter eggs. The aloft in Minneapolis has a floor -1.

The floors in all the elevators have squishy water in them that makes the ride down lots of fun.

Squishy Water Tile

It’s pretty pathetic how hard it is to get MySpace and Facebook to play nice with Twitter. For the longest time Facebook magically didn’t work correctly with the two Twitter applications available (now it does). Last week Facebook even added a way for pages (not personal profiles) to update Twitter from Facebook.  Now MySpace has announced two-way syncing with Twitter which means you can post a status update to MySpace and it will go to Twitter and vice versa.  Ping.fm has long allowed me to do this through a few workarounds, but MySpace and Facebook seem to be starting to understand that in the age of the Millennial everything is a dumb pipe and everything must be portable. This isn’t a death knell for a brand where, perhaps, it used to be. Just because I find Twitter to be an easier way to update Facebook doesn’t mean my Facebook usage has declined.

Where MySpace could really step ahead is to focus on conversation. Why not pull @replies from Twitter and post them as responses on MySpace with the comment that their related to. When a comment is made on MySpace that comment should propagate as a ReTweet on Twitter. Why? Two reasons. One to keep any conversation thread from fragmenting. Some followers may only be on one service and won’t see other commentary.  Both services want discussion to be heavy so the more commentary, the better. Second, Twitter sucks at conversation. It’s just a damned mess. It’s great for discovery and a quick back and forth, but a group conversation….uggg…it’s gross. Facebook excels here with easily readable, threaded conversations. (Google Wave will likely murder all of these services…) If MySpace found a nice way to make conversations traceable both on Twitter and MySpace I think it’d be phenomenal.

That said, come on Twitter. Non-threaded conversations are a must. I know there are services that do trace conversations, but only for a post or two and then they lose the thread. I crave some threading almost daily. Half of my @replies are stuff like “I totally agree, that’s awesome!” and I have no clue what the poster is referring two. What is awesome? I posted 10 tweets today. Which one? So I often ask…”What was awesome?” And 3 tweets are wasted (or more) figuring out exactly what was awesome. That’s at least 420 characters. I’ve learned to rephrase the original tweet in my replies, but that takes up space, time, characters, etc. and just shouldn’t be necessary. Twitter gets a bad rap for people yapping aimlessly and some basic threading would actually allow for group discussion and conversation that works far better than #hash-tags.

Great post today on the most insightful millennial marketing blog Millennial Marketing called “Watching What I Want, When & Where I Want“.  The title kind of says it all and isn’t all that revolutionary. Between DVR, DVD, Hulu, iPods, Zunes, and Slingbox people just aren’t tolerant of TV telling them when to watch it. Frankly, we’re over the TV as well as the only box for visual content. What really struck me about the post was some of the data about shifting viewing habits and (Go to the site for the numbers, I don’t want to steal from another’s post, but TV is steady and mobile and web viewing are UP. Who’d have thought.) the closing quote:

Ironically, this may be the dawn of a new golden age of network brands where the focus is on the content and not the venue.

This, I thought, was a great connector from media watching data points to the idea of creating a viral hit and using things like viral video and social media campaigns to sell your brand. On TV you pick and choose. Advertisers get screwed every year buying ad time on shows new and old that fizzle or sizzle. They spend huge sums based on anything but real time data to force their message down the throats of viewers. Picking the right “pipe” for your ad content is key.

Viral video says forget the venue. Forget that you’re on NBC, ABC, FOX. Forget that you’re advertising on a soap opera at two in the afternoon and you probably can’t sell beer to horny guys because it’s mostly housewives watching.  What matters is that your video or your campaign is memorable. Surprise, upend, delight…whatever, but make your campaign something worth passing along. The capital on social media and viral campaigns isn’t about pushing your media into the right venue, it’s about creating great content.  The great thing about the internet is that there are so many nodes of information that are STARVED for content. If you’re Engadget or Defamer your bread and butter is CONTENT and they’re actively looking for it. I’ve had several videos featured on sites like that and all it took was a short email. I’ve found that when I’m working on behalf of brands or companies (rather than my own creative ventures) it’s even easier to get blogs and other sites to pick up the content. Be sure that once one does…every other blog like it will follow.

In an article on AdAdge.com Michael Ramah writes about the role of marketers in this social world:

Consumers from 7 to 70 have embraced Facebook and Twitter, and man do they love to hear themselves talk. Social media provides everyday people with an audience, allowing them to debate politics, gossip about celebrities and glorify or bash products and services with whomever has signed up to listen, like mini talking heads in a meta media universe. To Hoffman’s point, it’s true that individuals are empowered to become marketers. By virtue of their online savvy and assertive personalities, they can put their stamp on a product or service and send their message of like or dislike far and wide, to the networks they’ve built from their living rooms.

But while there is unequivocal value in many of those conversations, there’s also a great deal of superfluous noise and distraction.

It’s our job as marketers to be ombudsmen of sorts on behalf of brands, ensuring they aren’t getting lost in blather but are finding the key pieces of information that they need to make insightful choices, intelligently influence audiences and get measurable results.

I will agree that there’s a lot of noise, but I think this doesn’t go far enough in telling marketers to listen to the noise. I mentioned http://www.youtube.com/hotforwords and http://www.youtube.com/nigahiga in my previous article and I’ll go further. There’s a lot of noise, but there are people in every office, friend group, and social network (real or digital) that create a disproportionate amount of noise and are heard. These are the closest things to the old school gateways of TV/Radio networks you’re going to find in the social space and if you’re a bit scared about jumping in without knowing whether there will be success reach out to them.

Here’s another example of great viral content that instead of being forced down my throat during an episode of “Lost” I actively sought out and in the process realized it’d been awhile since I’d had a Bud Light Lime and I was going to pick up a six-pack before the Cubs game today. (In the can, of course.)

So you want to infect millions and millions of people with some viral content…

The first thing to recognize is that you can’t guarantee a hit. Sure things fail all the time. The first rule of viral video and web content is that it cannot feel like an advertisement. It can be an advertisement, but if it feels like an advertisement it’s not going to have hordes of people forwarding it to their friends.  When was the last time you forwarded your friends a Clorox ad? You haven’t. But if that Clorox ad featured dancing ninjas murdering stains and felt more like a short film…you just might. On TV or radio you can push the content to the viewer. They’re forced (historically) to sit there and watch your message. If you’re creating a viral video it isn’t something you can force onto people in the same way. Instead you have to find a way for people to actively seek out your advertising. This flips the traditional advertising model on it’s head.

I’ve been pointing to what Nike has done with Leroy Smith as an example of a great viral campaign that utilizes viral video and social networks extremely effectively. Nike has resisted branding it at all, instead forcing anyone who wants to know exactly what the point of all of this is….to do some detective work. It’s certainly innovative and the videos are hilarious. Leroy Smith’s Twitter feed is hysterical and continually updated several months after the campaign has started. The same is true with the Facebook page. There’s great interaction that keeps this viral campaign moving forward.

This is another important thing to remember. Just because you made one video that is a viral hit, doesn’t mean that your audience will return to it regularly. But, by regularly updating the content and continuing the “series” you’re going to build an audience. I read all of Leroy’s updates and sometimes comment. Every time in the back of my mind I think “Nike”.  That’s a good thing for Nike. Why not update and sequel-ize your viral content? You’ve put money and time into launching the first version and if it was a success, why abandon that platform? Build something long lasting and form a long-term plan from the beginning so that you can capitalize on your successes.

Oreo launched a campaign with Peyton and Eli Manning competing at licking Double Stuffed Oreos during the Superbowl last year. It was pretty funny stuff, but they’ve continued it in social media. They have a new campaign running that continues the series with Eli and Peyton teaming up against Donald Trump and Donald Trump (Darrell Hammond from SNL doing his Donald Trump) in an eating contest. The videos are absurd and the comedy is very SNL. They take Donald Trump’s ego and make great fun of it. Darrell Hammond’s appearance is hysterical. Sure, these are Oreo ads, but they’re hysterical and unexpected.

I particularly enjoyed this one:

It’s too early for metrics, but it’s good to see that the platform Oreo previously built and had viral success with is being re-used.

Be careful though. You can’t rest on your laurels or simply rehash the past. Videos “go viral” when they’re fresh and surprising. Recall the insane success of Chocolate Rain?

The song was so absurd and so awful that it became featured on the popular website 4chan.org and from their was forwarded everywhere. Tay Zonday’s hit was later co-opted by Dr. Pepper and used in an ad campaign, but didn’t generate nearly a quarter of the views or the buzz that the original made, though it did get nearly 9 million views. This brings us to another key point. On sites like YouTube! users both large and small develop fan bases. People like Tay Zonday who have released several viral videos tend to aggregate followers. Channels like www.youtube.com/nigahiga and www.youtube.com/hotforwords have thousands of followers that drive each of their videos to hundreds of thousands of views. These channels are not unlike an NBC or ABC. They have an audience that is regularly tuning in to their viral message.  These channels are something that can help you get your message out. It’s no different than my parents buying Breathe Right nasal strips when they first came out in the early 90’s because Rush Limbaugh recommended them. Instead of a straight up ad, use these people to help you create viral content.

Step outside your comfort zone, do something unexpected. In real life, how many of your best stories that you can’t wait to tell friends start with, ” I can’t believe he just did that…” Surprise is noteworthy and contagious. It spreads. Seeing Tom Cruise dancing and swearing as a fat movie executive in Tropic Thunder is a perfect example. Seeing Donald Trump the world’s foremost egotist make fun of his larger than health sense of self is surprising and fun. Seeing Nike which is known for sporting excellence embrace a sporting buffoon masquerading as a motivational coach for Michael Jordan is unexpected and hysterical. It make you want to call your friends and say “I can’t believe he just did that…”.

The internet and viral videos many times seem to be all fart and pee jokes. Silly humor made for an SNL audience and to a certain extent that’s true. In a sense people are getting their comedy not from a nightly sitcom, but from short bursts during the day. It breaks up the monotony. However there is also room for a plain old uplifting experience. Look at the success of the video of the dancing wedding processional as an example of a video that went viral just by celebrating life in a fresh and exciting way.

Lastly, engage your audience. Be ready to respond to (BUT NOT CENSOR) your comments. Yes, there will be racist 13 year old homophobes who post crap on your comments. No one is going to associate that garbage with you, but if it looks like you are censoring comments then you’re going to have a problem with backlash. When you put something out there….it’s out there. Embrace that. There will also be people who re-post your video and/or make their own response that may or may not violate your copyright a bit. This is a grey area, but generally, embrace this as well. These people loved your content enough to use it as a basis for creating their own. The context necessary to understand their content means that their viewers must know your content. It’s free additional advertising.

If you can’t think of a viral concept why not have a contest or encourage your fans to make a video. Harnessing the creativity of your fans gets them involved and might yield something far cooler than what a high priced ad agency can come up with.

Lastly, remember your video must be everywhere. YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter are all givens. It must be easy to share. Your own website matters much less especially because users are not seeking it out daily. Embrace the channels people visit every single day.

You can also pay to feature a video on YouTube, but that never has the same power.