You’re dead on. The ‘Anvil’ case you mention is a perfect example of how entertainment properties have a natural advantage in social media marketing. Especially when they can get key celebs involved, per the ‘Anvil’ situation.

Brands will definitely have to work harder than a movie to get people to pass it along.

If you come across any stats regarding how the Anvil campaign goes, I’d love to hear. I’ll be looking for it as well.

Thanks for posting.

A bit off topic but this got me thinking about a story I heard on NPR this afternoon. Claude Brodesser Acker (sp?) was talking about “Anvil, the Story of Anvil.” Reportedly VH1 has the video rights so really wants it to do well in the theater. However the film doesn’t have major studio support. So, VH1 has sent copies to artists it is very close to who have huge followings on twitter,etc (John Mayer was mentioned as well as a few others.) All based on the idea that they will view and support the film to their followers, those followers retweet, so on and so on.

Where the creative unit is not being passed, but instead inspires those with followings to create a bit of echo viral. Much less hamfisted than the half-a-dozen clients that have asked for a “viral something” over the past few years, when they mean make my product ad and get people to watch it for free.

One point they made is that this would never work for Gilette or Ford or whatever else that is unlkely to tell a story that is not totally self serving. Really, any brand that is not willing to put it on the line and really be creative.

Influencing the influencers is not new of course, just a new medium to spread the word. The really interesting part was the speculation that there wouldn’t be much support besides this, giving as close to a controlled environment for a twitter only campaign for a marketable product so far (that I can think of at least.)

Yeah, there’s all the PR around the film that will skew the results, but nothing is perfect I suppose.

An interesting experiment none-the-less. And a film I want to see, even if it is total BS.

thanks for indulging.

Thanks for the note. I haven’t done an exact comparison between the engagement and standard units, but are planning it on an upcoming campaign (we do a lot of testing). There’s been no shortage of options stating display ads on social nets don’t work, but from first and second hand experience, I’ve seen both the MSN flash and the Facebook units perform well. As with most ads, it probably comes down to strategy and message, right?

This is pretty rich territory, so I’m sure this won’t be my last post on it.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks for blogging!

Thanks for the added insights. You tapped into the reliance of tools, which is interesting because one thing I heard from the Facebook people is that a lot of agency creatives are looking for technological solutions for creative problems. There’s a sense that the technology always has to have a new angle to it for creatives to be able to come up with something distinct. And of course, that’s not much more feasible than for TV to ‘reinvent’ the technology for each campaign.

Also, per your comment on out of work creatives, at SXSW I saw Tim Hwang of ROFLcon make a compelling case for how social media was exploding with so many out of work people, or at least people who weren’t as busy as they were last year. And I think it’s playing out.

I would also add that the shift in perceived value will have a dramatic influence on the future of creativity. There is a good and a bad side in a time like this, you have more people trying to be creative to keep their jobs and keep their clients, and you have those out of jobs trying to reinvent. And with the convergence of technology, creative people are relying more on tools rather than imagination.

Similar to innovation, many creative people are restricted to knowledge and just like what Albert Einstein said “imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited.”