This blog has become a desolate wasteland. My deepest, most sincere apologies.
In this heavily-connected world we live in, it’s very easy to over share, sometimes to one’s own detriment. One particular case of detrimental over sharing hit close to home for me, as it involves driving other people’s BMW’s (I work for a BMW dealer).
A couple of now former employees of Pacific BMW in Glendale, Calif. decided to record their joyride in a customer’s not-yet-delivered 2012 BMW 1M, and then post it on YouTube. Car enthusiast blogs linked to the video, and thousands of views later, the dealership came under fire. NBC Los Angeles even reported on the story. This no doubt brought unwanted attention to the dealer, and has probably damaged its reputation.
Moral of the story? Even if you think no one is looking at what you upload to the web, unless you adjust privacy controls, everything is public. What you say or shoot video of yourself doing and then upload to the Internet could do heavy damage, and fast.
Wikipedia on Viral Videos:
A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email. These consumer-shot videos are typically non-commercial, intended for viewing by friends or family. A video becoming viral is often unexpected, and an accident, and therefore a video cannot be called viral purely in the creator’s intention at the time of recording.
Everything on the Web is indexed and available instantly on the growing number of mobile devices world wide. For this reason alone, it is imperative that you think twice before posting.
Rewind your mind back to the last presidential election in 2007-2008. Facebook was starting to boom, tons of images were being uploaded to Flickr, and users were uploading 13 hours of video to YouTube every minute (compare that figure to March of 2010, where we saw 24 hours of video uploaded every minute). Social media was on the cusp of being the next big thing, but it hadn’t quite gotten there yet. People seeking elected office hadn’t yet embraced it, save one Barack Obama. The point is this: social media was still very young back then, but it will play an enormous role over the course of this next election we now find ourselves in. Jay Samit of Ad Age had this to say regarding social media and the campaign of 2008:
Social media made some inroads in the 2008 election, with the Obama campaign using Facebook to build volunteer donor networks and activate the base. In three short years, however, social media has evolved so dramatically, and become so pervasive in daily life for most likely voters, that the fledgling tactics deployed in 2008 look positively ancient.
Today, nearly all candidates and current officials use their social profiles to release statements and communicate their messages. And it’s a good thing they do, because most young people look to social media as a source for news. Samit points out:
With the median age of a TV evening news viewer approaching 63 years old, it’s possible that voters age 18 to 35 won’t even hear a candidate’s message — unless it’s coming to them through social media.
The thing about the Web is that content uploaded to it is easily sharable and available on-demand. Candidate Obama continued his use of social media as President Obama, creating a White House Twitter account, Flickr stream and redesigned WhiteHouse.gov complete with blog.
It’s easier now than at any other time to communicate en mass, and for political office seekers, getting your message out is the name of the game.
Indecision 2012 – The Awakening
(I am unable to embed this, so a link will have to do. It’s worth it.)
A message from the BMW Dealers of North America:
OK, I see your point.
This video is starting to make the rounds, and for good reason: it shows both the potential of what eBooks can be, and where the publishing industry is headed. Really incredible work Push Pop Press is doing.
All I can say about this new ad from Google is that it is very effective, which is probably the best compliment one can give to an advertisement.
It probably works more for those of us who have children, but still, it’s damn good. Of course, you wouldn’t have to use Gmail or Google’s Chrome browser to accomplish what “Dad” did in this video, but they certainly made what they did look easy using Google’s tools.
In a recent letter I read, my half sister Tammie reflected on some dramatic moments in Hawaii. For fear that the Tsunami would collide with ferocity on the Islands, some residents were apparently evacuated.
“It was interesting to hear the worries of these families as we all prepared to evacuate. They thought they were leaving their homes behind for good. As they rushed through their homes trying to figure out what was most important to take was a very difficult task.”
As I read this passage, my mind instantly shifted to my own home, and what I would grab if I had only a short time to collect what I could carry, not knowing if I would ever see my house again. Pictures? Backup hard drive? Clothes? What is irreplaceable? What could stand to be left behind?
The images coming out of the north of Japan are horrific. Entire towns and villages reduced to piles of lumber, stone and rebar. Cars half hanging off of bridges. Lone figures sorting through rubble. What did those people grab? Do they have nothing left but memories?
The creatives over at Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners have come up with this really creative ad that wraps around a building in Times Square, NYC. The Countryman is made of fiberglass.
It’s eye catching, it seemingly defies gravity and gets the point across in an obvious way: MINI’s are now off road capable.
Billboard advertising has been around a very long time. It’s nice to see someone keeping it fresh.
Someone recently asked me what I thought about the Super Bowl commercials, because ads were right up my alley. I did study communications in college, and I did work for an ad agency, so here’s my two cents: they were OK but not mind blowing.
I’m a sucker for chimps performing human tasks and wearing human business attire, so the Careerbuilder.com spot is always welcome. I chuckled.
Another memorable one that made me laugh out loud was the Bridgestone “Reply All” spot. I honestly don’t know how much it really made me want to buy tires, but often times ads don’t have to be super persuasive to still win me over.
BMW and MINI aired a total of three spots that I thought were very effective. Let me preface my comments with the fact that I work for Baron BMW/MINI, a Kansas City dealer. I was looking for these commercials the night of the Super Bowl with great interest. They didn’t disappoint, and I thought they were actually very effective at pointing out new features, showing off new models and breaking stereotypes. The X3 commercial in particular was great because at a time when seemingly everything is manufactured overseas, BMW points out that a few of their models are made stateside, and shipped all over the world. Watch:
Diesels are dirty. No, they’re not. They’re sexy and they’re fast.
Lastly, MINI is an eccentric brand that caters to a small niche of people. They’re trying to break out into the mainstream by making bigger MINIs, thus we have the MINI Countryman. Their ads are always funny, and this innuendo filled spot is no exception:
Those were my favorite ads of the night. Honorable mention to the two minute long Chrysler 200 ad.
