Take It Face To Face

…that viral marketing is awesome.  I have no idea who’s behind the growing legend of Leroy Smith but I cannot wait to learn more.

Another recent viral advertising campaign was Gatorade’s “What’s G?” campaign, which launched during the Super Bowl.  Gatorade strung viewers along using simple, star-studded commercials defining the unkown “G”.  The commercials were huge hits on YouTube and created the coveted “buzz” marketers strive for.
Charlie Murphy, aka Leroy Smith, you are well on your way.  At first glance, the site appears cheesy, poorly made, and over the top.  Then you see the video game, several instructional videos, recorded song, petition (actually a tool to gather your information), social media accounts, iPhone application, Dave Chappelle (yes, that’s him in the videos), and realize this character is no joke.

Leroy is so far from a joke that, in less than a week, he has stirred up 649 Facebook friends, 443 followers on Twitter, and closing in on 20,000 views on his YouTube channel.  If Leroy continues this pace, he will be a full-fledged marketing pandemic long before the brand behind his existence is revealed.

For the time being, we have to just watch, friend, and follow Leroy to find out what’s going to happen next…

Where have you seen successful viral campaigns?  Who do you think created Leroy Smith?  Does this post make you feel more motivized?

And I wish I had more hands so I can give this ad campaign four thumbs up.

When the video dropped last fall for Beyonce’s hit “Single Ladies” the response was resounding. The choreography, the song, and the black leotard with heels all became instantly iconic.

The months that followed spawned innumerable recreations, from a Saturday Night Live skit starring Justin Timberlake to YouTube videos starring just about everyone. The hype prompted Beyonce to hold a video competition, in which the winning entry would be shown during her 2009 world tour.

But six months is a long time in the viral video universe. How much longer can the wave of success be ridden?

Trident, for one, aims to find out. Earlier this week, they staged a reenactment of Beyonce’s video with 100 dancers (as opposed to the original three) in London’s Piccadilly Circus.

To the surprise of the unsuspecting passersby, droves of women began ripping off their trench coats to reveal the familiar black leotard hidden underneath. Cameras positioned at every angle captured the intricate and painstakingly executed four minute performance.

The event serves as a launch for Trident’s sponsorship of Beyonces “I Am…” tour, and their new sweepstakes that offers up tickets to her November London show.

Several things about the performance are clear. These women are professional dancers. They’re too good not to be. And the outrageous synchronization of their choreography suggests mind boggling amounts of practice. Someone must’ve shelled out to make it worth their while.

But was it worth it for one fleeting event? Of course not. That’s where viral video comes in. Both professional recordings of the event and clips snagged by bystanders took off on YouTube and other video sharing sites, despite the recent lull in the routine’s intrigue.

No matter what, the effort is impressive. But will it be enough to bring press to Trident? Or did the potential for such a campaign to pack a real punch shimmy away months ago? Tell us your thoughts.

For the last three or four years, the way I listen to music at home has undergone an overhaul. I don’t own a radio, radios are for cars. So when I get bored of my iTunes collection, I start fishing around for online radio sites.

Needless to say, there are hundreds, some better than others, most I’ve never explored. I don’t purport to know which are best. Take this, instead, as one humble listener’s journey through the mire on the quest for the perfect radio experience.

It started about three years ago with Pandora. Pick an artist you like and they’ll play similar stuff. Ban whatever you don’t like. It was great for a while, but the same hundred or so songs do, believe it or not, eventually get tiresome.

And no matter which artist I input, it always tried to make me listen to Jack Johnson. No, Pandora. Stop! I do not want to listen to Jack Johnson anymore! I could ban his songs til kingdom come, but they always came back. It was time to move on.

Enter Last.fm. You can choose the specific song you want to hear, or search for a radio station based on any key word that suits you, as users can tag songs however they see fit. Snazzy. And though it was a great way for discovering new things, it was a tad too eclectic and unfocused. Though I still head back there sometimes, the unusual offerings can be enough to make your head spin.

Next in my travels came Musicovery. Not only can you select or omit entire genres (no gospel today, thank you), but you can pick what decade you’re feeling, whether you want familiar or offbeat selections, and what mood you’re in (because heaven knows energetic, positive, rock is a far cry from calm, dark rock.)

Best of all, it draws a colorful roadmap detailing the play list to come. This computerized selection, though, too came a little bit repetitive. The program is all but convinced that Kelly Clarkson is the only dark pop artist to ever walk the earth.

Innumerable accolades to Blip.fm for reviving me as a consumer of online music. This combination social media site lets users “blip” whatever song strikes them onto their own radio station. The twitter-like setup allows new djs to add commentary to their plays or chat with others. Others, user or not, can listen to you in real time or whenever else it’s convenient.

Find a dj, or 50, whose style you like on Blip.fm, and you’ll never be bored again. And really, it’s just a lot of fun, putting your favorite songs out there for others to pick up on.

So yeah, those computerized radio programs of the past were great and all. But social media, it’s the wave of the future.

Have you checked out Blip.fm? How does is compare to these other sites? Which do you like to use? Tell us your thoughts.

There’s nothing better than killing two birds with one stone. Ben & Jerry can attest to this fact.

The ice cream company just rolled out a new “Do the World a Flavor” contest that invites people to design their own ice cream flavor (choosing a base, chunks and swirls from lists of preset options) and then name their creation for a chance to win prizes, including nationwide distribution of their creation.

My brain immediately rushed to calculate how many possible ice cream combinations such a process could yield. I stopped half way through the process when I realized, once you rule out the profuse pairings that simply do not belong in the same carton, you’re really not left with much room for creativity.

I mean, as much fun as you might have proposing cinnamon hazelnut ice cream with peanut butter and strawberry chunks and cinnamon and ginger swirls, the odds are that it’s not going win you any awards.

Given the limited choices, this contest seems destined to produce entries that fall into either one of two categories: entirely inedible, or entirely unoriginal. So what’s the point?

Well, marketing’s the point. Contests are fun. Ice cream is fun. Random online generators are fun. This process will draw consumers in and get them thinking about everything that the brand entails.

That second bird comes in to play when you consider the fact that Ben & Jerry’s is essentially conducting a contest to get the public will do their job for them. When the whole process is done, they’ll be left with immeasurable free marketing and a brand new ice cream flavor named and ready to be churned and distributed.

When ice cream is involved, it looks like everybody wins.

Newspaper giant Rupert Murdoch has been talking publicly this week about his beliefs that other publications will need to follow his lead in charging for web content if they want to stay afloat. This is obviously not what readers want to hear.

There’s something very psychological and also rather arbitrary about which content American consumers are and are not willing to pay for. Historically it’s been understood that because time, money and effort must go into developing and distributing content, it’s necessary to reimburse the creator.

And for many products, consumers still think this way. We expect to pay to read a hard copy of the newspaper, book or magazine. We expect to pay a ticket price for concerts and films, or the cable bill if we want to access more diverse and high quality television programming.

But with the advent of the internet, this logical model has been shattered. Many corporations and publications began offering free content over the internet long before they had a real grasp of the implications of such a decision.

Charging for internet access to newspaper content is not unreasonable. The papers need to be reimbursed for their efforts, and the advertising revenue simply isn’t doing the job.

But after upwards of ten years of paying nothing, consumers have an often subconscious expectation that it will remain this way. The job of the newspapers that are simply trying to stay afloat is not an enviable one. It will hard, if not impossible, to undo this mode of thinking.

Think about Napster for a moment. When it first came about, users flocked to the program as a way for acquiring music content for free. After it got slammed with multiple lawsuits, the site had no choice but to start charging for these songs.

And then it fell off the map. The monumental success of ITunes demonstrates that consumers are willing, in theory, to pay for music content. But they are not going to do so from any place whose name has for so long been synonymous with “free”.

Could the newspapers ever pull it off? Some argue that users will find another place to go for free content. But unlike Napster and ITunes, there’s no guarantee of comparable content when you jump from the New York Times to some no-name small town post.

I have some degree of hope. After all, Sirius and XM (now merged) pulled it off. They got radio users to pay for content they essentially already had access to for free simply by making it better.

If the newspapers think outside the box and find an original way to reprove to their readers that their stories are worth paying for, I think things will work out just fine.

What are your feelings about newspapers charging for online content? Do consumers have any entitlement to continue to receive it for free? Tell us your thoughts.