Yaffe Tidbits

Ad of the Week: L'Odyssee de Cartier



The latest offering from high-end jeweler, Cartier, is really more of a cinematic short than an ad. It has sweeping vistas from around the world, a beautiful score recorded at Abbey Road studios, astoundingly gorgeous cinematography, dazzling special effects and a compelling plot - even if you're not sure what is going on.

The Odyssey of Cartier starts when a jewel encrusted panther shatters to reveal a real panther within. We follow this panther on an incredible journey that spans the globe over breath-taking vistas and through all sorts of flights of fantasy. We see giant rings rolling on mountainous snow cliffs. There's a golden Chinese dragon that becomes the Great Wall. We enter a hidden realm of all sorts of living jewel creatures. We visit a beautiful Indian palace that is perched upon the head of a colossal elephant. We see a paper flying machine and French splendor.

But the locations and vistas weren't chosen at random. Each place represents a significant place or moment in the brands journey through time from past to present. In the behind the scenes bonus feature, the explain that, even with all the special effects they wanted to shoot a real panther to capture the beauty and grace that only the real animal could possess. To their knowledge it was the first time a leopard was ever filmed running in the snow. It may have that perfume ad "what the heck was that about" vibe to it, but it's beautiful and compelling and has incredible production values. Watch the video below and if you want the behind the scene bonus features go here.

 Cartier - L'Odyssee de Cartier

That's it for this week. Thanks to Bethany Schafer for bringing this ad to our attention with a tweet to @TheYaffeGroup. If you have a suggestion, let us know here in the comment section or send an email to info@yaffe.com or let us know through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or wherever you happen to find us.

Mike McClure, Exec Creative Director & Social Media guy

5 Tips for Creating a Successful Event

Whether you're putting together a conference, a charity event or a brand new inspirational festival, there are certian things you need to do to make sure it's a success. Today's guest blogger, Jemina Lehmusoki, comes to us all the way from Helsinki, Finland, where she is co-producing a brand new one-day festival called INSPIRE. To help you with your next event, she's written this post on what she learned in the process. Enjoy - Mike McClure, Editor.

Five things I've learned while working on INSPIRE

INSPIRE is a new city festival in Helsinki, Finland featuring all the many ways we find inspiration: music, storytelling, food, dance and more. It's organized by a group of students in the interdisciplinary Master's Program of IDBM in Aalto University. While working together as a group of volunteers to launch this first time event has been fun and exciting, it's also been challenging at times. None of us were experts in organizing events when the project started, but we quickly learned and continue to learn. Here are some of the things that I, as a co-producer of the event, have picked up for projects in the future:

 

1) It's never too early to start talking. When you are organizing an event where you hope to get sponsors and guest performers to pitch in, the right time to start asking around is yesterday. We began the project only four months before the selected date. We knew that was kinda crazy. Luckily the response has been really positive with most people and organizations we've talked with, and the event is coming out pretty awesome. But if we hadstarted earlier, we could have saved quite a bit in costs and been able to reach all the people we wanted to.

2) Get your story straight. You might know what your event is all about, but others don't until you tell them. At first, we found it hard to start telling people about the event, because we didn't know exactly what it was going to be or how we would make things happen. So, we sat down with a couple of people who had more experience than us in building events, and practiced our pitch on them. They helped us hone our message. The important thing is to get started. You just need to start with something. It's ok to change your message during the process as you further develop it. You also want to make sure that the whole team knows how to talk about the event in the same way, so that you're not confusing people. Sharing the message and getting people to understand why your event is important is key.

3) Creating buzz is hard work. You would think that recording a cool video and posting it on Vimeo is enough. But the truth is that for a video to go viral you need to do a bit of planning. People may see your posts and think that they're cool, but not many of them actually hit 'like' and even fewer share the message with others. I've had people come and tell me face-to-face how amazing the event sounds, but those same guys have not given a single thumbs-up on our Facebook page or shared any of our content. So, you need to make sure that all of the organizers are active in spreading the word: it's much more effective if you have ten people posting about the same news than if it's only the event page doing so.

  

4) Always plan your photo- and video shoots beforehand. It's not sufficient that you have a storyline in mind, if you have not put together a list of the scenes that you need to shoot. You will be wasting everybody's time if you haven't checked out the location beforehand, and you'll have to re-take material later on if you don't know what you're looking for. So, make sure you have a basic script in mind, outline of the video and do a location scout ahead of time. You should also have a single person responsible for directing the shots. We had wonderful and talented guys filming us on a couple of occasions for our teaser, and if we had prepared better it would have made their job easier.

5) Let your excitement show. As I said, none of us had experience in organizing a festival before. Things could have started to go terribly wrong, since on many occasions we honestly had no clue what we were doing. However, a lot of people have been willing to help us out in whatever way they can. Why? Because t they've seen how important the event is to us organizers and how excited we are about making it happen. It's fun to work with someone who is genuinely excited about their project. Make it easy for people to join in and lend a hand. Get them excited and make them feel glad that they did.

Do all of these things and you will be on your way to creating a successful event!

 

Jemina Lehmusoki  Co-Producer INSPIRE

Ad of the Week: Renaissance Hotels - Live Life to Discover

The cinematography is stunning. The locations are beautiful. The soundtrack - mesmerizing. But the best thing about this ad is... the strategy. It takes high end business travelers and tells them, just because you're traveling on business doesn't mean you can't have an exotic adventure. It positions the hotels as big and beautiful and luxurious, yet uniquely tied into the local culture and textures of the world around them.

I have often traveled to Chicago on business. Friends usually say I'm lucky, it's a great city. I say to me it looks like taxi cabs, conference rooms and hotel rooms, if I'm there more than in and out in a day. There's no feeling of local flavor. These spots say, even if you're trapped in your hotel room you can still experience the beauty and exotic flavors of the world, without leaving the hotel. It definitely made me want to go there.

 Renaissance Hotels - Live Life to Discover.

It's a great ad from strategy to concept to execution. Right down to its line; "Because where is it written business travel shouldn't be an inspiring, eye-opening get-away you just happened to bring your briefcase along to?"  

Did you find it as alluring as I did? Let me know. Thanks to my friend Bill Quiseng who posted this on Google+ where I found it. If you have a suggestion for Ad of the Week, let me know here in the comments or through any of my or Yaffe's social channels.

Mike McClure, Longing for a business trip like this.

Why Hiring the Overqualified is Good for Business

We all love getting more than what we paid for. Yet a lot of companies shy away from hiring people who are interested but overqualified for the job. Personally, I love hiring overqualified people and think you should strive to always do it if you can. If you can get someone who brings more experience needed to a job, has the interest in doing it and has a passion for what they do, why wouldn't you? Let's look at two recent cases in point, one at the beginning of his career the other closer to the latter stages of hers.

About six months ago, I was looking for some help on my social media team. We had more work than we could handle well, but not enough that I could hire a full time person. A friend of mine suggested I look at someone he knew. This person had a ton of experience. Unfortunately for him, it was a string of contract work and five or so internships.

When we met, I was impressed with his knowledge and passion. At his freelance rate, I would have only been able to use him on and off. But, he suggested I take him on as an intern if it would allow him to work more hours. Now, he was way overqualified to be an intern, but I really liked the idea of having him on premise working most of the week. I immediately agreed.

In the time he worked as an intern, he did some great things for our clients and helped me expand our social media programs. He showed me and the entire agency what an asset he was and how invaluable his skill were. As of last week, we hired him full time. Being an extremely overqualified intern paid off for both him and our agency.

On the other end of the scale, I have a friend who has a very accomplished career as a project manager, traffic manager, creative business manager and finally a marketing manager on the client side. Suddenly, she found herself without a job, as hers was outsourced. She's a person who has a passion for work and has applied to a number of positions where the company didn't hire her because she's overqualified.

Here's a person who has always made her departments smarter and more efficient, she's loves to work and has a passion for wherever she is. If she's willing to take less than her experience dictates she should, why wouldn't a company want to take advantage of that?

Some companies are afriad that if you hire someone overqualified, they'll just move on first chance they get. First off, let me say that's a risk you take with any position these days. The average stay at one company is getting shorter and shorter every year. Secondly, so what? If you get great value for a year or two and then need to find someone new, aren't you better off for those two years of extreme competence?

We brought this woman in for a six week temporary position, just to get us through a transition period. It was for a position she was way overqualified for. But in just six weeks, she cleaned up our systems, trained some of our employees on better ways to do things and put in place better processes. We're better off for just six weeks of an overqualified employee. So, I'm not buying you wouldn't be better off, even if the person you hire leave earlier than you'd like.

I know a lot of companies don't agree with this philosophy, but I just think it makes sense to always hire the overqualified if you have a chance. What do you really have to lose? Do you agree or do you think it's not worth the risks? I'd love to hear what your take on this.

Mike McClure, Exec Creative Director & Social Media Director

Ad of the Week: Ford - Go Further

It's not often a big brand will spend time and money on a big ad that doesn't mention their name or show their logo. But that's exactly what Ford did in this spot designed to intrigue you and send you to a micro-site. Granted, they do show the product and if you read the disclaimer type, you'll see Ford's name in it. However, they shoot the cars beautifully without ever revealing the Ford jewelry. 

The :60 second spot opens up with a car covered in a form-fitting sheet being revealed from the shadows as an announcer tells us that "Right now, there are over 20 brands of cars being sold in America." As they unveil the cars, the announcer asks if we were starting now, what you have to do to create cars that stand out. He then goes through a list of things like advanced technology features and the creation of electric and hybrid models. The basic premise is that you would have to "go further" than the current crop of vehicles available do. It's beautifully shot, nicely written and the cars look great.

 Ford - "Go Further"

At the end of the spot, they simply invite you to go to GoFurther.com. The opening frame on the site shows the front end of a Ford with the logo and the words "Surprised? Ford vehicles go further so you can" and then you scroll down to see all the various feature. The site is done very nicely. It's not a straight scroll, but different visuals move in unexpected ways and other moves and changes are incorporated as you scroll down. All in all, it's as beautifully done as the spot was. It's uniquely put together in a simple, non-flashy way. And it tells a good story. Nice job, Ford.

What other campaigns have you seen that draw you in without revealing who they're for? And do those campaigns work for you? How about the web integration, have you seen good examples of that - ones done as well or better? I'd be interested to check them out, so please share in the comment section below. And if you have any suggestions for a future Ad of The Week, let me know that too.

Mike McClure, Exec Creative Director

Data is sexy - just ask Avinash Kaushik

I am not a data geek. I don't live for data. Other people here at Yaffe do, but I'm not one of them. I appreciate how data can help me develop better creative or social strategies, but data makes my eyes glaze over. That being said, I love Avinash Kaushik's outlook on data and analytics. Seriously, I could listen to him all day, because as he himself would say "data is sexy" - at least when he presents it.

I had the pleasure of seeing Avinash present last week at The Art of Marketing in Chicago. (Much thanks to Mitch Joel and Twist Image, for the invite and the sweet seats up front!) He opened up talking about people who use web hits as a key measurement by explaining that HITS stands for How Idiots Tell Success, in other words, it's not a good measure of anything. You need to look at specifics against objectives. Look at your bounce rate, if it's high, people are telling you "I came, I puked, I left!" - they didn't find what they wanted or it was a bad experience. Even many of those who have taken out their wallets to buy something are finding something that turns them away - as evidenced by the average online shopping cart abandonment rate of 70%.

So, what do you measure? For one thing, says Avinash, you should measure your share of search. He also said we spend to much time looking at aquisition data and should look at it in combination with "behavior" and "outcomes" metrics - viewing all three at the same time. He then showed us some more meaningful ways to look at data charts - ones he thought were very sexy. I have to admit, they were way sexier than your typical pie chart or bar graph. 

Finally, Avinash talked about what he thinks are the 4 key measurements for Social Media:

Conversation Rate - which is how many interactions you generate per post.

Amplification Rate - the number of followers who share your post and the number of their followers who share it.

Applause Rate - the number of positive comments/denotations generated per post.

Economic Value - the sum of short and long term conversions plus the cost savings.

He suggested a great place to find a dashboard to measure all this was at www.truesocialmetrics.com/metric

This is all good information, but there's nothing like hearing Avinash Kaushik talk about them himself. He gets very excited and it's infectious. He talks about little things like how we need to create a series of little orgasms for our potential clients/buyers with what we do online. And he knows how to achieve it. If you'd like to hear Avinash talk about some of this stuff, I'd recommend listening to this recent podcast interview between him and Mitch Joel.

So, what are you measuring these days? Is it measuring up? Are you creating little orgasms or are people leaving before they ever get where you want them to go?

Mike McClure - new data fan

Blogging For Your Company Is Still About Storytelling & Using Your Own Voice

Building a blog is a lot like building a brand, except the brand is you - even if you're writing a company blog, says Lynne Meredith Golodner, author of The Nourish Cafe Blog and six books. I had the pleasure of introducing Golodner when she spoke on blogging at the Social Media Club Detroit meeting last week. She spoke about the importance of blogs for both companies and personal branding - and how the two don't necessarily have to be separate. Sure, your voice on a corporate blog should be more professional than on your personal one (no ranting!), but it should still sound like you. It's your personality and expertise that will make the posts worth reading, not the company brand itself.

Showing your expertise on a company blog doesn't mean creating a boring dissertation of facts, either. More and more marketing these days is about storytelling (of course, good marketing has always been about storytelling). This is especially true when it comes to inbound marketing efforts like having a blog. "I start each day saying, what stories can I find today," says Golodner. I like that. It's a pretty good way to approach the day, if you want to be a good blogger or corporate storyteller. Keep your mind open as you go through your daily routine. What seemingly regular part of your business would make an interesting story to someone hearing it for the first time?

Sometimes the stories about your brand can come from multiple sources. Golodner talked about a chocolatier client of hers that invited other people to tell their stories about what chocolate meant to them. So many people have a special attachment to chocolate, that they got great stories from a wide range of people. They got some very big names to tell their stories, including a high ranking elected official who suggested he come in and buy some chocolate, while they interviewed him about his love of it. This just goes to show, you never know unless you ask.

As a blogger who does almost all his blogging here on my company blog, I found the presentation inspiring. I understand blogging and I do always talk in my own voice. But, I've been on a bit of a dry spell here, not posting nearly as much as I have in the past. I like to think that it's because we've become so busy that I just don't have the time. That's not a good excuse. I'm actually a pretty fast writer once I have the inspiration. It's finding that inspiration that takes time and I think I was a little burnt out. Now, I'm starting my day looking for stories. It's not even 9am and I have an idea for my next post - thanks to a conversation with a coworker this morning. There was a company story there. I'll be telling it later this week. And I'm committing to finding stories to share with you 2 - 3 times a week. Feel free to call me on it, if I don't.

So, how about you? Are you a blogger or thinking about starting a blog? Where do your stories come from? Are you starting your day looking for the stories that come your way? It's a good way to spend a day!

Mike McClure, company storyteller

 

How To Stay Connected Out On The Road

 

Photo by Kathleen Howell

The flowers are blooming, the grass needs cutting, and travel season is around the corner.   Staying connected on the road can be a necessity or a choice, whether it’s business communications or sharing photos of your kids with Mickey Mouse.  In today’s online world, there are a plethora of connectivity options, which allow you to connect with colleagues, share your experiences with friends and family, or gather useful information as you navigate your route.  

As a blogger, photographer and avid motorcycle rider, all that’s been on my mind is the upcoming 2012 riding season.  Details for planned trips are coming together, hopeful trips are being added to the yearly bucket list, and subject ideas for my photos are forming.  As I type this post, Facebook dings periodically with messages from the group of riders that we’ll be spending Sunday with, as we make our plans to cruise out to the Irish Hills area for the first day trip of the season.  

Technology continues to make it easy for me to stay connected while on the road. I’m looking forward to sharing our experiences on my photoblog this year, in addition to social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.  The epitome of our summer comes in late July, when we pack up the bikes and make the 1300 mile trip to the land of our dreams, Spearfish, South Dakota, for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.  This year, our trip out west will be different, as my plan is to blog from the road using the WordPress App for Android on my Motorola Xoom, rather than compiling our two-week story from a tattered journal upon arriving home, sunburned and tired.  Our campground has Wi-Fi, and I look forward to typing out our daily adventures each evening next to a crackling campfire and a cold beverage.

I purchased my Motorola Xoom tablet last fall, and it’s become an extension of my left arm.  As a social media coordinator by day and communications volunteer for several groups, I’ve found it much easier to check in and live tweet from events and places versus using my smartphone (when available), rather than tapping (backspace, re-tapping!) out content.

On the road, these social platforms are a great way to share and receive information, of course, when there is a signal.  During a recent car trip to Florida in early March, apps such as GasBuddy and Hotel Finder were very useful in finding the location and best deals as we made our way down I-75, not to mention the built-in GPS feature when we took an hour-long detour through the mountains of Tennessee.  Checking in and reading the tips at restaurants on Foursquare gave us insight into recommended choices.   And on the road, tethering my tablet from my phone using Mobile AP provided on-the-go access. Meanwhile, I was able to get a head start on my blog post, right as it was forming in my mind.  With my camera in tow, my passions take me off the beaten path, and I love that social media allows me to share them even further.  The technology not only enables this, but also provides helpful knowledge as I set out for my next adventure.

So what’s in your forecast this year?  Do you look forward to time “off the grid” or is staying connected a part of your relaxation, or perhaps a requirement?   What are your tools/technologies of choice that make your travel communications easier? 

Guest post by Kathleen Howell. Kathleen is a Social Media Coordinator/IT Recruiter for Custom Business Solutions and a volunteer for the Social Media Club – Detroit and the Michigan Council of Women in Technology.  Her photos have appeared in several issues of American Bagger Magazine and articles in Thunder Roads of Michigan.  Find her blog & photos at kathleenhowell.com or follow her on twitter at @howelltracks.

 

LinkedIn: The Most Important Network You Keep Forgetting

LinkedIn isn't sexy. It isn't the new social media darling. It doesn't have the sheer volume of Facebook, the immediacy of Twitter or a giant corporation backing it like Google+. It doesn't offer deals like Foursquare or have the rocket-like buzz of Pinterest. Yet, if you are trying to find more business for yourself or your company, it's the place you want to be.

Many of us forget LinkedIn. Or have plans to use it, but never get around to it. I know I do. If it wasn't for requests and messages that come to my email, I probably would hardly ever go there. And I know better. For one thing, it is one of the few places that is all about business. Time spent helping people in the Answers section alone is a great way to connect and have your expertise out there where potential business partners can see it.

I was reminded of all the great things LinkedIn can do yesterday, when I attended Nikki Little's presentation "How To Fully Take Advantage of LinkedIn" at the Macomb-OU INCubator Lunch and Launch series. Nikki was kind enough to post her deck from her presentation on SlideShare. I'm sharing it here, as well. Thumb through it and even if you already know most of it, it'll remind you why you should be doing it. I know it did for me.

How to Fully Take Advantage of LinkedIn

View more PowerPoint from Nikki Little

 So, why are you still here? Go over to LinkedIn and start taking advantage of it!

Mike McClure, picking up my on and off again love affair with LinkedIn all over again.

Turning Mega Millions Mania Into Facebook Marketing

Yesterday, the $640 Million Mega Million lottery jackpot created a bunch of winners long before the numbers were ever picked. Sure, there were three winning tickets when the numbers finally were drawn, but in the mania that lead up to the drawing a lot of media outlets were using their lottery tickets to buy Facebook likes, shares and eyeballs.

Almost all at once, they popped up all over Facebook yesterday. I personally saw two radio stations and a newspaper using the tactic and heard of many others. The method to their madness? Some variation of "share this post before the drawing and if we win, we'll share our jackpot with you." Each post had a picture of some lottery tickets they bought - although in many of them you could only see the numbers on the front one in a stack. Some said we'll give a portion to one random person who shares this. Others said we'll pick 10 people and share it with them. Another said one random sharer would get 150 million of the loot.

Low Cost. Big Gain?

So, basically for $10 - $20, these people bought a lot of Facebook traffic. The chances of them winning were practically zero. And then if the company running the contest did win, you had to beat the odds of however many people shared the post and were in that drawing. The odds were really long. Yet, I saw a lot of people caught up in the mania, sharing the posts.

Were these companies brilliant or doing it all wrong? On one hand they got their pages in front of a whole lot of new eyeballs, probably got a whole bunch of new "likes" and can probably show some amazing "engagement" analytics. It follows the theory of David Meerman Scott's latest book, "Newsjacking" in that they took a hot topic in the news and created content around it, drawing off the buzz already being generated. But, most of Meerman Scott's examples had more meat and creativity than this.

What did they really gain, though? Are any of those new fans going to stick around or even start listening to those stations or reading those print mediums? Is that engagement worth something? Or is it like empty calories, good at the time but with no real benefits in the long term? And besides that, I'm pretty sure all these contests were against Facebook's own contest policy, which states you need to run contests on your page through one of the Facebook apps. Although they were in and out so fast, I'm sure Facebook can't really do anything about it.

Did you participate in one of these promotions? Did they change your perception of the company who ran one - for better or worse? I'm really torn myself. Part of me applauds them for the quick thinking and initiative (unless they were just copying the others they saw doing it). Another part of me is shaking my head, thinking it was wrong and probably ineffective. But, even if it was, it didn't cost much and social media is very forgiving, moving from one thing to another and forgetting the bad moves quickly. What do you think? How do you feel about this tactic?

Mike McClure, Didn't win, still working as Yaffe social guy.