When you ask people who’s running the United States, you will get many answers. The most common one is: “The President”. A popular one will be: “Wall Street.”
There’s no wrong answer. The first answer provided me a data point/a fact, the second offered me an insight.
Brands don’t care about data. They want insights.
Brands are clamoring for insights. They built their own CRM systems, work with media companies that add more data sets and are starting to tap into the social conversations. Just to get more data. And no insights. Brands spend millions on surveys, research, data mining, data analysis, focus groups, brand experts – and what they get are facts. Self-congratulating facts to keep things the way they are, rather than mind-boggling, enterprise-changing insights.
The false promise of Social Marketing
We just analyze social conversations about our brand as well as the competitive space and we finally get the insights we were waiting for, right?
Wrong.
Mining social conversations will get you a lot of data. A lot of sentiments. A lot of analysis. But when the agency or technology provider comes to the conclusion slide, you’ll only get facts. Interesting facts, maybe. But not insightful or valuable enough to transform your brand. To... Read more
Archive for Uwe Hook 
Stop creating reports and start developing insights.
Social Media landscape in Japan
I'm spending a few days in Tokyo for ad:tech, speaking on a panel about Social Media ROI from the US perspective. Should be an interesting panel with perspectives from Japan as well as Malaysia.Participating in a panel is beneficial but the best learning, as usual, was through casual conversations with panelists and conference attendees. Here are a few highlights:
Mark Zuckerberg should visit Japan once in while. The network has never gained traction here, is barely used by people.
Mixi is the biggest social networking site. 30 million out of 127 million have an account on the site.
Other popular sites: GREE and Mobage-Town are specialized mobile social networking that draw people in by selling flashy avatars and games.
Ameba and Livedoor are popular blogging platforms.
Twitter started slow but adoption rate is now 100% higher than the US.
Most Japanese don't participate in social networking under their real name.
Anonymity is a part of the culture here. I think many Japanese people are aconcerned that their ‘internet personality’ will be discovered by real friends or colleagues. Some anonymous power users, using pseudonyms, have a lot of authority in Japanese social media. On top of that, many believe anonymity helps protect people from crime and harassment, especially... Read more
Thirsty for help.
How often do you stop and consider how fortunate all of us are? Having fresh water freely accessible is something we expect. And many people crave.
Did you know:
That unsafe and lack of basic sanitation causes 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war?
90% of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions are to children under years old?
In Africa alone, people spend 40 billion hours every year just walking for water. Women and children usually bear the burden of water collection, walking miles to the nearest source, which is unprotected and likely to make them sick?
In Africa alone, the overall economic loss due to lack of safe water and sanitation is $28 billion, or about 5% of GDP?
Some of the poorest households in Africa spend up to 11% of their income on life's most basic need?
We need to change this!.
The blogosphere made it easy for you: Today is Blog Action Day and this year we're trying to improve the abysmal water situation and make the world a better place.
I was honored to participate for the third time and contribute a chapter for the Age of Conversation... Read more
Walking to get a job in advertising.
I got my first job in advertising as a copywriter by writing a script about my own life. It must have been mildly amusing since I was offered the job a few days later. Times are tougher in 2010. And we have more engaging tools than just a piece of paper and a pen.
In this video, Santi and Victor set out on a pilgrimage to the "Mecca of creativity", Crispin Porter, to prove their devotion. And get a job. You can follow their journey here and find out if they ever made it to Colorado.
This young man (in German, sorry) walked 100 miles to meet with Red Bull Creative to apply for a job as a copywriter. (Since Red Bull is a leader in Event Marketing, a pretty good match.)
And, Marcus Brown, a well-known personality in the Social Media space, attempted to walk 500 miles to meet with the head of the one most creative agencies in Germany. I'm sad to report, he failed with his walk. Given Marcus' amazing storytelling ability, his subtle understanding of the Social space, the head of the agency should maybe start walking himself.
Have you been Vanilla Ice'd yet?
How would you promote a show on the DIY Network with Vanilla Ice, where Robert Van Winkle (a.k.a. Vanilla Ice) wrecks and rebuilds a house? You could run a BT campaign, cover buses with the promo and run commercials. Or you could come up with a brilliant campaign: Put yourself in a video with Vanilla ICE. This will take off in the next few days.
ICE yourself.
And, here's a link to my sad creation.
