Archive - August, 2010

Choosing Customers: “The night, too, is for sport”

August 22, 2010 in Advertising, Corporate, Social Marketing, Social Messages with 1 Comment

After reading Seth Godin’s short blog on the subject a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about the extent to which brands choose their customers.

His take was that we can choose the customers we desire, the audiences we want to associate with.

Yes, you get to choose them, not the other way around. You choose them with your pricing, your content, your promotion, your outreach and your product line.

I watched this Puma ad (hat tip @GuidoWongolini) with that lens on. According to Creative Review, the ad was created by Droga5 and directed by Ringan Ledwidge.

Besides being a well crafted, beautifully written, pitch-perfect piece of commercial art, it’s also a case study in social messaging and how to define your audience.

All athletic footwear brands have lines of sneakers retailers refer to as “casual” or “urban footwear.” What makes this campaign interesting is that Puma is the first of the high performance, pure sport athletic brands that thought of creating a new tribe for this product (side)line.

With this campaign, Puma is choosing their customers: the social athletes, the play harders, the revved up revelers.

Welcome to the world, the “after hours athlete.” There was a time in my life when I would have met you on this playing field, would have joined your team, but I go to sleep way too early for your pick up games.

I’m content to admire your endurance — and watch you get some action — from the bleachers.

-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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The Quiet Riot: Lessons From Social Networks

August 20, 2010 in Social Marketing, Social Messages, Social Movements with 2 Comments

Hat tip to Simon Mainwaring for posting this video of Harvard Professor Nicholas Christakis delivering an enlightening lecture to The RSA on the profound power and potentiality that exists (sometimes quietly, just beneath the surface) in all human social networks. Dr. Christakis referred to it as “the quiet riot.”

I was fascinated enough to watch all 43 minutes of the presentation and accompanying Q&A. Watch the whole thing if you have time. If not, here are five top-line takeaways:

  • 1) An important point: social networks tend to “magnify whatever they are seeded with.” And things tend to spread through networks to three degrees of separation – sometimes more, sometimes less, but that’s a general rule of thumb.
  • 2) Connections do really matter and it’s the structure of the network around an individual that’s important. One’s experience in life depends on where they are situated in the structure around them and what is happening in the structure around them.

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GQ Finds A Better Man; Take That, Pearl Jam!

August 5, 2010 in Non Profit, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Messages, Social Movements, Social Technology with 0 Comments

As it turns out, it is possible to find a better man. Many, in fact.

GQ’s The Gentlemen’s Fund got the better of Eddie Vedder today as it named the five finalists of its annual Better Men Better World Search.

GQ received hundreds of nominations from across the country in its search for men who “dedicate their time and energy for the betterment of society through charitable work, volunteerism, and community involvement.”

You can view a slideshow of all the men who were nominated and meet the five finalists. It’s an impressive list of change-makers.

The winner will be determined by popular vote, and all votes must be in by September 30.

My vote goes to Jimmie Briggs. A former journalist, he started an initiative I admire, The Man Up Campaign, which is  dedicated to bringing men together and putting an end to violence against women in all its forms, from domestic violence to sex trafficking.

So, who’s getting your vote? May the best man win.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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