Last week, emarketer.com sent this email to me. It had some interesting facts about digital music and its growth over the last couple years. As consumers (me included) increasingly switch to digital devices and legal purchases of music, I began to wonder why digital packaging has not caught up to this trend.
The chart above shows that almost half of all US teens did not purchase a CD in 2007 ( a number which is sure to continue to rise). If teens are switching to digital music at such a dizzying pace, why has the packaging not caught up? Most digital albums still include mirror images of their in-store counterparts. Why not progress to something more dynamic to reflect the new error?
Dynamic digital album artwork is the next progression in terms of packaging design for a digital universe. I could see a whole industry built around buying cool iPod/iPhone screensavers with animated capabilities. Does anyone else agree?
Most people think of Michael Jordan as the world’s greatest basketball player who won multiple championships with the Chicago Bulls. I always admired his game and thought of him as more artist than athlete. He was elegant, graceful and driven with a purpose to succeed. Despite all these successes there is another side of Michael Jordan that does not get as much exposure.
It’s a trait he shared with Thomas Edison, Mahatma Gandhi and Leo Burnett. You are probably thinking its inventiveness or creativity. While both of those are true it’s not the specific characteristic that I am thinking about. The trait I refer to is…
FAILURE
While everyone of the folks above has succeeded and become legends in their own right. They also have each shared terrific insights into the failures that helped them to achieve their goals in life. Let’s take a look at what they said.
Thomas Edison
‘Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.’ — Thomas Alva Edison
Edison is getting at a bigger issue of the natural “flight or fright” characteristic. Are natural tendency is to give up before we get to that “a-ha” moment. He is saying to just stick with it one more time and you could find a better solution.
Mahatma Gandhi
‘Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.’ — Mahatma Gandhi
Ghandi is telling us to always remember that freedom is a two-sided coin. We should not take the freedom to make mistakes for granted. It’s as important if not more than always succeeding.
Leo Burnett
‘To swear off making mistakes is very easy. All you have to do is swear off having ideas.’ — Leo Burnett
Burnett is saying essentially that creativity flows from mistakes. To become truly creative you have to be free to let your mind go wherever it may decide. Often it is the mistakes that lead us to the best idea.
Michael Jordan
‘I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.‘ — Michael Jordan
I think that pretty much sums it up! Look for me to fail sometime soon but the only difference is I will enjoy it much more this time.
A follow up to my Buzz for the Triple Crown from last week:
Horse-racing fans eagerly anticipated the Belmont Stakes this weekend as Big Brown competed for the Triple Crown. After breezing through the Kentucky Derby in May and the Preakness later that month, Big Brown surged to the head of the pack with a major spike in online conversations referencing the “Triple Crown.” Even after a disappointing loss at Belmont, Big Brown was still able to influence a significant amount of discussion although much less optimistic in sentiment.
The first wave in consumer discussions took place on May 3rd, as Big Brown captured the Kentucky Derby crown at Churchill Downs. Sentiment drivers included the remembrance of second runner-up Eight Belles, who collapsed after the race and was immediately euthanized, Big Brown’s big win and references to Barbaro, the 2006 Kentucky Derby winner who shattered his leg in the Preakness later that year.
Online chatter for the “Triple Crown” peaked on May 17th as Big Brown won the Preakness, up 18.5% from May 3rd, while conversations increased 64% for “Big Brown” in the same time period. Most conversation centered on Big Brown’s run at the second leg of the triumvirate and whether he had the stamina and strength to do it.
The final and largest spike for Big Brown came last weekend as his completion of the historic feat was on the minds of the digital world. Belmont Buzz was almost three times as much as the two previous races with 0.15%. However sentiment was noticeably less optimistic as Big Brown failed to gain the Triple Crown. Many of the messages referenced him being in the same class as the 11 horses that have won the first two legs but lost at Belmont. Ultimately, though, the data showed failing to win the Triple Crown is still something to buzz about.
This post is long overdue but it’s still resonating in my head and therefore must be written (lol). A few weeks back, I penned a post about using the blogosphere to mine consumer-driven keywords from free text-analysis tools available on the web. In the post, I described the difference between what consumers say about your brand versus the internal verbiage used by employees and the ability to adjust search campaign spend appropriately based on consumers thoughts about your brand.
Its particularly interesting in the light of a May 19th post by Gerry Bavaro on the Mediapost Search Insider Blog. (here) In the article, he points out that analytics for search are one of the main factors of the rise of search and its huge spending forecast for the coming years.
I find it very interesting that when most people focus on the analytics of search they tend to look at the primary functions while completely ignoring the underlying causes. For example, we all get so focused on clicks we forget to wonder why someone clicks on a particular ad.
The psychology of the click is an integral part of understanding the nature of everything from visitors intent to consumers relationships with products. Why someone clicks, is the foundation of online advertising and could be considered the special sauce. It gives valuable insights into your brand’s position via the consumers mindset and motive when seeking out your services.
Lets face it, the closer you get to your consumer’s mindset, the better you will be in the long run.
Horse-racing fans are eagerly anticipating the Belmont Stakes as Big Brown will compete for the Triple Crown on June 7th at Belmont. After breezing through the Kentucky Derby in May and the Preakness later that month, Big Brown caused an uptick in online conversations around the Triple Crown. The first spike in consumer discussion took place on May 3rd, as Big Brown captured the Kentucky Derby crown. Conversation drivers included the remembrance of second runner-up Eight Belles, who collapsed after the race and was immediately euthanized, Big Brown’s big win, and references to Barbaro, the 2006 Kentucky Derby winner who shattered his leg in the 2006 Preakness, and then put to rest. Online discussions for the Triple Crown peaked again on May 17th as Big Brown won the Preakness, up 18.5% since May 3rd, while conversations increased 64% for Big Brown.
The horse racing world is eagerly anticipating the Belmont Stakes. Big Brown, the winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, will compete for the Triple Crown on June 7th at The Belmont Stakes in Elmont New York. With two-thirds of the Crown complete, Big Brown has been causing an uptick in online conversations leading up to and the day of the events.
The first spike in consumer discussion took place on May 3rd as Big Brown captured the Kentucky Derby crown. Conversation drivers for the first spike were not solely focused on Big Brown’s win. Other topics driving discussion included Eight Belles (the tragic runner-up who was euthanized on the spot after the race) and Barbaro, the 2006 Preakness Winner who was put to rest after shattering his leg during the race.
Online discussions for the Triple Crown peaked again on May 17th as Big Brown won the Preakness Stakes; it was up 18.5% since May 3rd, while conversations increased 64% for Big Brown. Discussions were primarily based around whether Big Brown would be able to capture the Triple Crown or if he would fall short like Smarty Jones.
Special thanks to Sandra Parrelli for helping with the data/idea to this post. And have fun at the race this weekend.
In the days of BI (Before Internet), poets would scrawl in their notebooks chosen words that would carefully compose a masterpiece of creativity. It was an age-old tradition, and these notebooks are sacred testaments to the accomplishments of man. Their notebooks would wither, rip and turn into relics of a past time; the knowledge passed down to the next generation to inspire in a creative cycle.
Those days are long gone and a new trend is emerging in its place. What is this trend? I am tentatively calling it the Digital Walt Whitman Theory. Its analysis based on my observations as both a creative person and researcher of sorts.
The main gist of the theory is: the creative arts adopt new technologies at a much faster rate than the general public due to above average overlap between technology and art. For example, artists are problem solvers, which leads to experimenting with new technologies as forms of expression. This insistence on experimenting for solutions to creative problems is common in artist and creative folks from all fields.
Furthermore, as society becomes more connected and digital adoption rates amongst artists’ trends higher than the general publics rate of adoption, will we see more artistic folks take leadership roles as inventors? Consumers are savvier then ever and no touch point is safe yet the fine arts remain a beacon of experimentation into these new technologies. While consumers slowly grasp at the new world, artists are experimenting with Twitter, YouTube and other social networks and learning what works and what fails.
The results are interesting, showing that buzz levels for each movie seem to be equal as they spike and decline in the days before and after the opening. Does this pattern hold true for all premieres? Three days before the premieres of Iron Man and Speed Racer their buzz levels began to spike and eventually tripled on opening day. Iron Man went from 0.182 to 0.486 percent of all blog posts and Speed Racer went from 0.055 to 0.195 percent of all messages measured by BlogPulse.
The buzz level for Indiana Jones three days before was 0.273 percent of all messages. If the theory holds true on opening day, we will see the spike for Indy triple to somewhere in the 0.8 percent range… well beyond Iron Man which has been the biggest blockbuster this year. We’ll check back next week to compare the buzz and the box office for Dr. Jones.
Some data from my company, the latest information on social networks. Enjoy.
NIELSEN ONLINE PROVIDES TOP U.S. SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AND BLOGS FOR APRIL 2008
Nielsen Online provides April’s top U.S. social networking sites and blogs for your reference. They are ranked by unique audience and rounded to the nearest thousand, so LinkedIn had 8.7 million unique visitors in April 2008, growing 361 percent over April 2007.
Please note that these are custom lists compiled by the Nielsen Online PR team with the help of our media analysts. While these lists are not meant to be exhaustive, they provide a good idea of the significant players in each space.
We periodically review the lists and add new sites, so the results may change accordingly. Please source data to Nielsen Online.
I just read this interesting story from the NY Times about online ad spending and the economy. It basically says that display advertisement is down across the board and search remains strong. Its not super surprising to think that in a time of economic slowdown that search with its increased ability to track is weathering this storm well. But I am slightly caught off guard that display has had such significant declines in recent months.
The NY Times reported 16% growth this April compared to 20% last year making the slow down about 4% year-over-year. Not a major slowdown but still enough to be alarmed especially in a weakening market. Although its too early to declare an end to online advertisement’s growth, the companies that can better attribute steps in the online sales funnel to display, stand to gain a great competitive edge.
A quick post to shout out about Pete Blackshaw’s latest post for ClickZ. In it, he discusses Twitter segments and different classes of individuals on the site. As the micro-blog evolves it will be interesting to see all the different types that join up and further the analysis.
One interesting footnote, Pete actually used Twitter to gather his data by proposing this tweet to this followers, “ok i think im going to write my mkt column about twitter “types” (user segments) send thoughts 03:55 PM May 08, 2008 from web.” The tweet stoked some thoughts in my head. As I have been thinking about that very thing for quite sometime and was happy to help. I added a few segments including: TweetSquatters and Tweetniks.
I wanted to talk about the Tweetniks, or someone who uses Twitter to write 21st Century prose. Listed below are a few examples of these modern day Whitmans.
Society’s becoming more connected and much more digital. Artist are sometimes the first to adopt new technology for purposes of expression. Social platforms provide a natural fit for artist to express themselves and explore new mediums. How will digital change creative endeavors? Tweetniks might be blazing a trail of digital creativity that is a game changer but only time will tell.
What do you think?
FYI - Here is Pete’s website dedicated to the topic. Please visit and leave him some feedback on users you have encountered. Additionally, if you would like to add me to your twitter list feel free to do so @stemato.
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