Aside from running the very latest update of Nokia’s Symbian software – aka ‘Symbian Belle’ – these new Belle devices all come with Near Field Communications (NFC) baked-in. Which means, you simply tap – and go.
Working with the smart guys over at NFC-Hub we produced special NFC-enabled posters, similar to the below -
- that were placed up at different locations around Hong Kong. Delivering against Nokia’s release message of ‘Try Something New’, #NokiaTSN, we thought we’d set a two day course of exactly that, with our guests trying their hands at all things news. For example, riding the Crystal Cable Car or simply taking in a Tai Chi lesson in the park.
The best part being that once the on-site posters were tapped -
- the entrants would automatically check-in on Facebook and/or Foursquare (depending on the poster used) which in turn would produce results like this:
Much fun was had indeed.
With NFC becoming more and more prevalent [see Museum integration as well as Dennis Publishing getting in on the act], expect more NFC-based shenanigans from us very soon and, if you find yourself in the 1000heads offices at any point in the future, why not tap us up?
It’s time for episode two of ‘Three Cool Things’, for a bit of background on what this post is all about, please jump back and check out episode one. In the meantime, let’s crack on.
Yes, it’s a cool piece of work. Yes, it’s a cool use of Google Maps. But the most interesting part of the whole case study? Check the voice-over at 33secs -
“A TV commercial informed Norway that a Golf BlueMotion would drive northbound from Oslo in two weeks. People were invited to place their bet on where the car would run out of fuel.”
The interest wasn’t built via their Facebook page, nor was it garnered through Twitter. This integrated campaign used ‘traditional’ media to drive eyeballs to the activity. TV to Social. Not the first, but certainly part of a new trend.
Next up, Katie Bunting showed us this video. Simply entitled ‘Eat‘.
Now, this video [and it's two counterparts, Move and Learn], did the rounds a good month or so ago and this fact alone meant that it nearly didn’t make the ‘cool’ cut. However, Katie brought along a new insight. Over half of the ‘heads in the room had seen the video(s) but virtually none of them new why it was done or for who.
For us, this served as a healthy reminder that when your video goes viral [the three videos combined views are over 9million], most of those views will come from other blogs embedding your content and sharing with their own communities.
Which means, if you haven’t remembered to brand your video anyway, it’ll be much harder for viewers to make any kind of connection.
Finally, our third item consisted of the first half of a work in progress case study [one that we can't share yet - not until we get the results at least], so in the meantime take a look at this work from Sao Paulo to help launch a brand new ‘turbo’ fan -
We love our outdoor work here at 1000heads and this idea is simple, understandable and completely universal.
Or social business. Or social theories, whitepapers, stats or case studies.
It is to get stuff done. The stuff that your business is made of; be that selling shoes or healthcare provision or delivering fish.
We don’t call our colleagues on the telephone to discuss how awesome it is to talk on the telephone and brainstorm all the creative things we could do with the hold music. We don’t use email to tell our customers that we’ve redesigned our email signature. So why do we spend so much time using social platforms to talk about social platforms?
Sure, if – like us – your business relies on a sophisticated knowledge of this technology and the behaviour behind it, it makes sense to ponder these themes. However, in most companies the tools are best used when they disappear and become effortless conduits for better sharing, better innovation and better engagement.
For example.
Nurturing a company’s existing ‘social stars’ is an important first step in driving uptake of internal social tools, but in his recent blog post ‘Mr Popularity and Your Enterprise 2.0 Community‘, Steve Radick reminds us that “those very active champions who are so critical to the early growth of your community may also be the cause of its downfall.”
‘Mr Popularity’, the early adopter who is super comfortable with the technology , may also be skewing the agenda towards discussions about social itself, and inadvertently discouraging less confident and knowledgable staff from speaking out.
This indicates a wider issue. For most businesses, ‘social’ now brings with it such an aura of specialist knowledge and skills – usually accompanied by earnest company announcements, laborious workshops and promotion of predictably young digital natives to positions of guru-dom – that people forget it is an innate human instinct made up of familiar concepts such as openness, warmth, listening, quick reactions and word of mouth.
Every single person in a business, whether they’re a tech whiz-kid or still mistrustful of email – should understand that they have the ability to be social in what they do -whether they make tea or run the company – using whatever tools they find best fit their own personality and role.
Yes, some basic tool training is needed so that everyone has the full raft of options, and keeping on top of developments in social media can be inspiring. But the sooner the internal comms platform becomes a space to do deals, share ideas and tackle problems rather than being seen as an ‘innovation’ in itself; the sooner customer-facing social platforms are used to give better service and forge deeper relationships, rather than being considered social by simply existing – the sooner we’ll see results.
Results that everyone can take credit for and celebrate.
As part of our active membership of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) Social Media Council, it’s our duty to discuss, debate and disclose details and information about the issues facing the industry today.
Effective immediately, we’ll be contributing a monthly column to the IAB UK Social blog pages and that kicks off today with this blog post covering off the ASA’s new remit, Tiger Woods’ sponsorship with Nike and acceptance of modern day commercially arranged endorsements.
This morning, Mashable is reporting the launch of Ticketmaster‘s latest layer of Facebook integration, a move that allows users to see exactly where their Facebook friends will be sitting at various different events and gigs across the globe.
Live on over 9000 events across the Ticketmaster website, the new interactive map enables seat tagging, which will post to your Facebook wall requesting (or nudging) your friends to do the same.
Got that? No? Try watching this 80 second explanation -
Social ticketing is something we’ve talked about before here at the ‘heads, but that was more around using social media to reward regular attendees with loyalty points and bonuses. What Ticketmaster have done here – really quite well – is taken the Facebook social graph API and applied it to their own site.
In a similar way that Trip Advisor change the structure of what you’re looking at depending on your friends’ purchasing decisions after their experiences, Ticketmaster has taken a step forward by showing the purchasing decision before the experience. Enabling friends to buy tickets whenever they want instead of waiting and waiting until they’re able to get their tickets at the same time.
“How much are we seeing of social brought into commerce rather commerce being brought into social?”
Setting up shop in a Facebook tab is [relatively] easy by comparison, so why not consider changing your customers’ web experience based upon their Facebook preferences as they travel around your website?
To top it off, Ticketmaster’s research suggests that every time a ticket purchase is shared through social, that converts to an extra five dollars in additional ticket sales. Social media integration moving the sales needle? Perfection. Definitely something to keep an eye on in the future.
Irrespective of your feelings around the Ticketmaster brand, this new feature is smart, useful and ultimately beneficial to the end customer. Well done.
Up until this point however, unless you’ve been in or around our office at 5pm on a Friday, you wouldn’t ever know what actually we get up to.
It’s time for that to change.
#3CT, as it is known internally, is our way of shutting the laptops, sitting down together and sharing the three coolest things we’ve seen that week. From now on, every Monday* we’ll be sharing (where possible**) those things from the week before with you too – hopefully kick-starting your morning and your week with some awesome creativity.
Sometimes it’s our own work, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it’s new stuff, sometimes it’s old. Sometimes it has no relevance to word of mouth whatsoever but has simply sparked ideas in our ‘heads.
Welcome to #3CT.
First up, Hatim Zakout wanted to show us this awesome video from Cadbury, showing off their augmented reality partnership with Blippar.
Working in-line with their 2012 Olympics-based Spots v Stripes campaign, the AR in this video is cool for a whole ton of reasons. But why we like it is that it takes an everyday object that you wouldn’t normally look twice at (the chocolate bar) and turns it into a campaign-focused augmented reality game.
Very cool.
Second, Emma Parsons took the company through the great work currently being demonstrated by the Bulmers ‘Experimenters Wanted‘ campaign.
A cursory glance at the Bulmers homepage right now will show you an abundance of different executions all trying to encourage experimentation, with rewards available for the brave-hearted. All of this in the name of their new drink, ‘No.17′.
Why is this cool? Well (and there was some discussion around this), some ‘heads thought that it tried to do too much - however, others felt that doing all of these different ideas lived up to the exact principles that the campaign is trying to endorse; be different, try something new. Good work Bulmers, definitely cool.
Finally, for our third cool thing, Michael Quinn wanted to talk to us about KLM and their recent ‘Tile Yourself‘ campaign. We’ve talked about KLM before here at 1000heads, and their work is constantly referred to as some of the best in the business. ‘Tile Yourself’ is awesome also.
The above is merely the launch video. To watch the whole ‘this is what we did’, you have to head over to the Facebook application page which is still live. On Friday we talked about how while this is a huge idea, it is also uniquely KLM. The Delft blue portrait element just works for the brand, perfectly.
Also, picking up on the case study video, there is a danger in digital/social media marketing that when creating campaigns (especially on Facebook) of ‘the legacy problem’ – what to do with an app/page/group (delete where appropriate) when the work is done.
KLM have countered that by simply leaving the app URL active and have made it the only place where one can see the case study video of what they did.
A great lesson in social media marketing best practice.
That’s it for #3CT for this week, thanks for stopping by.
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*Yes, I know it’s Tuesday. But rules are there to be broken, right? **Sometimes we’ll share new (top secret) facts and (NDA’d) figures, or the latest cut of a soon-to-be-released video/case study. Obviously we can’t share these but, when this happens, we’ll always try and find a replacement.
Today I’d like to share a really useful social business deck created by Michael Brito for Edelman Digital, promoting his new book ‘Smart Business, Social Business’.
Then I’d like to make some suggestions about how we can broaden that concept of social business to become something a little more, well, physical.
Brito’s slides provide an admirably clear and comprehensive overview of the evolution and anatomy of social business. They outline the industry’s progression from social customer to social brand to social business, and include some good basics around social organisation models, governance and training frameworks.
However.
To be a fully social business, you have to be social on and offline. There is an assumption in these slides that ‘social’ means ‘social media’ (whether you’re using it as an internal tool or for consumer engagement), when of course social media is just one channel businesses can use to be social, both inside and out. Take a look:
Brito makes a great start here, but don’t forget that a fully social business will also have to look at things like:
Helping staff to be more social offline – getting them regularly interacting face to face with consumers and each other
Embedding a knowledge of what ‘being social’ and ‘word of mouth’ means beyond social media so that the attitude and effort that goes into the virtual presences and intranet translates into every area of the business
Understanding and using social catalysts such as observational learning, authenticity, gaming and disruption in everything you do – be that in the retail store, in the staff kitchen, or on Facebook
Another important qualification I would make to Brito’s definitions is that social businesses facilitate people being social with each other, not just with the business itself. This is essential because the most valuable, trusted and behaviour-changing sharing occurs between people and people, not between people and brands.
That’s our take on social business. Questions? Thoughts?
Disrupt! Be out of the ordinary! Be human! Surprise! Delight! Think about the offline!
^ Welcome to 1000heads.com. We preach about all of the above and much, much more. When it comes to adopting a human tone of voice, we yell our thoughts and beliefs from the rooftops.
Often we find the best examples of this away from our computers and out on the streets around us. Today, we’d like to show off five awesome examples of randomness that we’ve spotted and/or come up with that have made us smile, sparked a conversation and ultimately, enticed us in-store to make a purchase.
First up, as it’s a Monday, we’ll start with something cute. This sign should read: ‘Kitten for sale’, but it doesn’t, it says this -
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I spotted this one only last night on my way home from work. Inspiration (and humour) is everywhere, you just have to look up.
Next, your bar is closed. First of all, why? Second, how do you communicate it? B@1 has the answer -
These guys are up front about the lack of cocktails on this particular evening and, as fellow hard-working human beings, we totally understand the difficulties giving all of the staff a night off and this communicates it brilliantly. Fair play.
Returning to that journey to and from work, it’s not often you spot furniture just left around in the street. What’s even more infrequent is spotting this kind of note attached:
“I need a new home! I’m a super sofa bed.”
Of this, I am a fan. According to my neighbours this sofa was snapped up within hours of it being left out like this and, even though dumping furniture like this is probably illegal, putting a human face on it all suddenly changes your perspective.
This next one we spotted on Twitter this morning, c/o ‘Professor Snape‘. We don’t know what store this was snapped in but, as creative ideas around empty shelving areas go, this one is definitely one of our favourites.
Is your business ready to be mobile? Because your workforce is.
Social contact manager Gist has put together this infographic on the rise of the mobile worker and, as you can see, productivity is no longer synonymous with desk-bound nine-to-five. A mobile business culture is going to be very important to the next generation of talent.
However, it is important to remember that mobile working does not necessarily equate to working virtually. We have had the tools to work remotely for decades now, and we still rely on water coolers and meeting rooms. We still travel thousands of miles just to share the air with a colleague; video conferencing is as disappointing as it ever was.
This is because the fact remains that nothing beats face to face contact when we’re getting a job done. It brings energy, challenge and emotional investment to our work, prevents misunderstandings, ensures quicker resolutions, and allows much more chance for serendipity to surface.
Yes, working socially means using the best social technology available – but it chiefly means working by engaging with people. And that’s still generally best done in the physical world.
Of course, it’s great to opt out of the rat race. Some focused tasks are much better done in a room of one’s own, where we can put the outside world on silent. When we feel like we have the freedom to move where we wish, that sense of empowerment often brings more passion and ownership to our work.
But when we’re not tethered it’s also much easier to be social, as well as solitary. We can go and see people, rather than always talking on the phone. We can mingle on the shop floor while we’re creating that customer service strategy. We can dip between different regions, departments and desks, ensuring that we’re not solely sharing with and learning from the one guy who sits next door. This is where I think the real value of mobile working lies.
Mobile technology is a gamechanger; I couldn’t work effectively without it. But make sure you’re using it to be more social in the real world, as well as online.
As a global word of mouth creative agency we have offices all over the world, aiding and assisting clients everywhere. Our roots, believe it or not, are in rural Oxford but for the past two years, our global headquarters (and natural home) has been right here in London.
We work here, we live here, we play here.
Tonight we’re closing the office at (an unheard of) 5:30pm to send our teams home to their respective homes to be safe. Some will be joining the clear up efforts; spear-headed by the spontaneous camaraderie forming around the #riotcleanup hashtag (and website), others will be headed out of town to join loved-ones in safer areas away from the potential flashpoints.
Word of mouth is our thing and, over the past 72hrs, we’ve seen what an amazing platform that can be. Both negatively and positively.
We’re not going to pour data through meaningless charts, nor extol the virtues of product ‘a’ or campaign ‘b’, we’re just going to crack on with our work, both within the office and without.
Be careful out there, friends. London – and the rest of the UK – will pull through this.
As part of our active membership of the 
