Taking Social Media to the Red Carpet

We saw another great example of the changing face of media at the Grammy's last night. Imogen Heap, the British singer and songwriter accepted an award for Best Engineered album, Non Classical wearing the much hyped Twitter Dress. The twitter dress was Imogen's way of taking her fans with her to the award ceremony. The dress had it's own live twitter feed. According to Timesonline.com, her necklace was a digital sign displaying messages that her fans were writing to her on Twitter. Those tweets were relayed to her jewellery through a wireless router — equipment that provides an internet connection — embedded inside her black dress. What a great way to involve fans and followers!

Imogen's Grammy win and the popular twitdress is going to skyrocket her album sales for sure. Watch out Lady Gaga here comes Imogen Heap!

Diaster relief with technology

The recent Haiti earthquake has left hundreds of people injured and homeless. To aid in the relief of the aftermath of the deadly quake, Red Cross created a Text Message campaign which urges people to donate $10 towards the relief efforts. According to Mashable.com the campaign has raised more than $1,000,000 through this campaign. It's amazing to know that people are donating in droves to help those in need.

And Red Cross sure has done a commendable job of coming up with a creative, easy and fast way to raise money for the victims of the quake. Google is also showing it's support by having a display ad on it's homepage with resources and donation links to UNICEF and CARE. These are some of the best ways of disaster relief using technology I have seen recently. With new technologies comes new and faster ways of helping those in need.

Additional links and resources:

1. http://mashable.com/2010/01/13/haiti-red-cross-donations/

2. http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/

What's your bra color?

New year, new beginnings, new resolutions. And after two months of spending time with family, friends and eating and drinking I finally decided to start updating my blog again. There's a lot that happened since my last blog entry but the one thing that surely caught my attention was the color updates on Facebook by my girlfriends. The last few days my Facebook feed was speckled with colors -lacy black, beige, white, red, orange..all supposedly bra colors. I couldn't for the life of me understand what was going on till I got this message from one of my friends: "just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of breast cancer awareness."

Huh? How does writing the color of my bra going to help spread breast cancer awareness? I didn't think of breast cancer when I saw the color updates. Nobody was talking a word about cancer or how it affects women. It was more of a titillation than anything else. I am sure whoever started this meme had good intentions and the tons of women who flashed all their Facebook friends did it for a good cause. But just talking about it isn't going to help the fight against this horrible disease. There should be some call to action, don't you think?

In a true marketing sense I thought this Facebook meme was fun and silly but not effective in what it was supposed to do i.e. talk about breast cancer. It's nice to see people coming up with unconventional and fun ways to promote ideas and awareness but I am sure if this campaign had more content than color, it would have been widely popular for all the right reasons.

The mobile trail...

It’s a common sight these days to see people at supermarkets, cafes, restaurants, book stores immersed in their smart phones –either making phone calls, downloading apps,reading reviews, taking pictures, videos etc. Smart phones are every man's dream machine. They make life really convenient with internet on the go. But convenience at what cost? At the cost of our privacy?

Over the years, tech analysts and consumer advocates have touted the use of smart phones and privacy issues. The information an average smart phone user leaves behind is like a goldmine to marketers and advertisers. And it's just not any information but personalized, exclusive information. One can learn a lot about a person just by the apps he/she uses/downloads or their web browsing habits. Once that data has been collected and stored we lose control of it forever.

With more and more consumers opting for smart phones, the mobile web industry is just exploding with data that companies would love to use. According to Forrester Research, about 54.4 million people surf the mobile Web. By 2013, that number is expected to more than double to 110.7 million, Forrester estimates. Total number of wireless devices worldwide: about 3 billion. And companies slashing prices on cool new phone only helps increase that number. You can get hold of a cool touch screen phone like the Apple iPhone or the Google phone for $200 with a two year contract. With it you have all the other companies including news organizations developing consumer friendly apps that provide for a unique user experience. So who wouldn't want to own a smart phone!

The influx of smart phones has naturally given rise to a lot of mobile marketing companies. All though mobile advertising is still at the early stages it is soon going be the next best thing in the advertising world. With all that exclusive data that's out there, companies would grab the opportunity to market to us. Having said all that, I wouldn't trade my iphone for anything. I can't imagine life without it -it's convenient and a life saver at times! But the trail of information I leave behind and have no control of is definitely a scary thought.

Awesome Talk on life lessons by ad man Rory Sutherland

Paper or Plastic?

“Paper or Plastic mam”? I am asked. I smile and proudly say “paper”. I look annoyed at other shoppers who walk away carrying their groceries in plastic bags. Wondering to myself, is it too much to ask for paper? Don’t people read about global warming and the harmful effects of plastic on our environment?

While I was basking in my “green” moment for the day, little did I know that my choice of a paper bag wasn’t the best one either. I started reading up on paper vs. plastic bags and found that even though paper is a better alternative, it has it own set of environmental problems.

For example, according to the American Forest and Paper Association, it takes one gallon of water to produce one paper bag, equating to 50 times that of plastic bags! And since paper comes from trees – lots and lots of trees, it comes as no surprise that the entire journey of a paper bag from a tree to the grocery store is long and extracts a heavy toll on our planet. First the trees are felled using heavy machinery then converted to paper using chemicals and then finally transported to grocery stores across the world.

But one may argue that paper is biodegradable unlike plastic which is typically made from oil. Paper when thrown away, if lucky gets recycled or ends up in landfills. When in landfills it takes many years for it to break down into organic material. And when recycled it requires a chemical process to make it usable again. Plastic on the other hand, does not easily degrade and sits in landfills for centuries. And not to forget its harmful effects entering the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them.

So what’s the best alternative you ask? BYOB-bring your own bag! Try and use cloth or a canvas bag the next time you go grocery shopping. I personally use a cloth bag now and look smugly at shoppers who say “Paper and Plastic”!

Charity 2.0

Well, for my first blog post I thought I would write about something that’s been garnering a lot of attention lately- S.O.C.I.A.L Media. Social media has tremendously changed the way companies, brands and more importantly people communicate. Whether you are following someone on Twitter, or posting messages on Facebook, or commenting on someone’s blog, it’s become really easy to be a part or impact someone’s life. So it’s only makes sense for charitable organizations to use social media to spread awareness of their causes. Instead of spending pots and pots of money on television commercials or direct mailers that ultimately end up as trash, social organizations have turned to social media which enables them to connect with relevant audience members. It helps them to reach out to a wider audience by breaking down economic and geographic barriers.

Last month the socialsphere was literally turning pink with all the tweets, messages, blogs, videos about breast cancer awareness. An Atlanta based agency set the Guinness Book of World Records by conceiving and executing a one day pro bono campaign that raised more than $70,000 for four non profit cancer organizations. It was interesting to see people, organizations, institutions coming together to spread the word about breast cancer. It just goes to prove that social media for social change is an effective way to spread awareness and do some good for the community. People become ambassadors of the charity they believe in, which is an excellent way to convince others about various causes.

Social media has reinvented the way charity work is done. It’s easy, low cost, reach wider audiences and more importantly convince people that even a $1 or $10 donation goes a long way in helping those in need. Those days are not not too far when we have more virtual fundraising parties, mixers and events. So, let’s put on our social hats and make a difference in the world we live in!