Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 187
June 28, 2016
Starbucks Proves That Mobile Apps Work... To The Tune Of $1.2 Billion
Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.
This week we discussed:
Heather B. was off today.
There's often talk that it's hard to make money with mobile apps. Maybe more brands need to make an app like Starbucks. How's this for some interesting data: Starbucks has $1.2 billion loaded onto Starbucks cards and the Starbucks mobile app as of the first quarter of 2016. What's most crazy about this? The number exceeds the deposits at many US banks, including California Republic, Mercantile and even Discover.
We talk so much about Snapchat, that we sometimes forget Facebook's little billion dollar acquisition: Instagram. Well, Mark Zuckerberg was thrilled to post a picture to his own Instagram account this past week celebrating the fact that the photo/video sharing app now has 500 million monthly active users, with 300 million people per day snapping away.
Ok. Fine. We will talk about Snapchat too, but only because they made a very interesting announcement. Snapchat is starting a digital magazine called Real Life that will cover the world of technology. Instead of focusing on the news of the industry, Real Life will feature "essays, arguments, and narratives about living with technology," according to a blog post from Nathan Jurgenson, a Snapchat employee and social media theorist who will serve as Real Life's editor-in-chief. What makes this most interesting? Real Life will live on the web, not in the app. It will publish one piece of writing each weekday, which lines up well with Snapchat Discover, the part of the Snapchat app where a number of publications offer up new content every day. I'm curious to see how long it will be until it has it's own Snapchat Discover segment as well.
App of the week: Google Chrome extension: TL;DR.
Listen here...
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June 26, 2016
Illuminate Your Brand Story With Nancy Duarte And Patti Sanchez - This Week's Six Pixels Podcast
Episode #520 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.
One of the world's foremost thinkers on the subject of better communications and presentations is Nancy Duarte. She has been on the show countless times. If you ever need to really study and deep dive into what makes a truly persuasive presentation, you won't find better business books than Slide:ology, Resonate, HBR Guide To Persuasive Presentations, Slidedocs, and her latest, Illuminate. Illuminate was co-written with Patti Sanchez, who also joins us this week to discuss the mechanics behind what a great story is, how a business leader should sell that story and, ultimately, how to best package a presentation to get your entire team (and customers) aligned and on your side. This is not about building a better deck or the function of good presentation structure. This is a dialogue about making your communications truly connect. If you have never checked out their business, Duarte, you should. Enjoy the conversation...
You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast #520.
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June 24, 2016
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #314
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
Using Metadata To Find Paul Revere - Kieran Healey. "I came across this post while looking into other data science stuff. It's interesting, because it shows how simple facts (like membership in known groups) can tell us a lot about people -- in this case, that Paul Revere was plotting against the British. But it's brilliant, because the writer stays in character. He doesn't say, 'here's the source code,' for example, but rather, 'there is a secret repository containing the data and the appropriate commands for your portable analytical engine.'" (Alistair for Hugh).
Super-chill rapper wins South Korean space-out competition - Mental Floss. "I'd suggest this one for the title alone. But they say that when something becomes abundant, that which it consumes becomes scarce. So in a phone-charged, always-connected world, the ability to do absolutely nothing is rare. So rare, in fact, that there's a contest. Yes, there are commentators. And while it's performance art, apparently it's also hard. 'Artist Whoops Yang invented the contest in a period of intense stress in her own life two years ago.'" (Alistair for Mitch).
Three shirts, four pairs of trousers: meet Japan's 'hardcore' minimalists - The Guardian . "God, I wish I was a Japanese minimalist." (Hugh for Alistair).
The Neu Jorker. "This is the most comprehensive bit of parody I think I've ever seen. I'm a fan of the New Yorker magazine, but it's always just veering on the side of insufferable. Well, here is a full 82-page(!!) parody issue, complete with ads ('Acela: The train for nieces', 'Father hats'), articles, with opening sentences like this: 'I attended my first Kentucky Derby the year after college, taken by my then-boyfriend who was something of Tennessee royalty,' and even, God bless them, cartoons: 'Crab? Like the animal?'. This is a serious bit of commitment to the craft of satire." (Hugh for Mitch).
Can Becoming A High-Tech Hub Lift A City Out Of Poverty? - City Lab . "I love everything that Richard Florida writes about. In this piece, the always-urban writer about how humans and cities intersect looks at the merits of building tech hubs in our cities. It has long been thought that if you invest in the people who are building the next generation of businesses, then you can create a wealthy and sustainable city. These businesses inspire creativity, create jobs and more. So, is it working?" (Mitch for Hugh).
The Dark Side of Longform Journalism - Literary Hub. "I'm pretty transparent about content. I love spending a lot of time deep diving into text (business books, magazine cover stories, longform journalism and more). I like sharing links and tweets, but they really don't satiate my infovore diet at all. It's not just reading longform content, it's the thinking about it, taking notes about it, and applying it to the work that I'm doing. I rarely get that same output from a listicle (big surprise). What you may not know is the true motive behind the journalist. Why do they write these stories? Their answers might surprise you..." (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.
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The Future Of Advertising Is... Magic?
This is a big week in the marketing world.
In case you have been living under rock, this is the biggest week in marketing. In Cannes, France the marketing industry is primed for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Whether you like what these awards stand for or not, it's hard not to get caught up in all of the excitement (Who won what? Who said what? Who did what? Who did what to whom?). There are the late night parties (featuring industry luminaries and Hollywood stars) and, of course, the plethora of awards being handed out. That smell? That's the smell of great communications from across the globe!
How much of great advertising is magic?
I love magic. I watch countless videos on YouTube of magicians (and how they do their tricks). There are few artistic and creative forms that I appreciate as much as the art of magic. I'm not talking about pulling a bunny from a hat. I am talking about close-up card and coin manipulation. It's not just the repetitive practice and hours in front of a mirror that these magicians put into their craft, and it's not just the tricking result of what a flawlessly executed manipulation does to your eyes, mind and body. I see a direct (and powerful) correlation between the performance (and skill) of a magician and the work of both being a professional marketer and public speaker. Insert your joke here about how the two are connected, because they're about tricking an audience. That's not what I meant (and, it's not what I believe). One of my favorite books on presentation skills is actually a magic book titled, Strong Magic by Darwin Ortiz. This is a book that really digs deep into the art of performance and - more importantly - how to tell and sell a story.
Storytelling.
The best magicians and the best magic tricks (like the best marketing) tells a powerful and expressive story that moves the audience. When it comes to one of the originators of magic (and telling a much bigger story), there are few like master illusionist, David Copperfield. Yes, he performs incredible tricks, but more importantly he does so with a very powerful narrative and flow... and he's been doing it for decades. He's literally sold billions of dollars worth of tickets to his shows. Here's a secret: I used to have this old piece of luggage. It was one of those trunks with metal clasps. I filled it with magic tricks when I was a kid (the standard fare) and used to give magic shows for little kids' birthdays (yep... there... now, it's out there). So, you can imagine how surprising it has been for me to connect the dots between magic, marketing and public speaking over the years. When David Copperfield would have his specials on TV, the world would stop for this young man. While everybody marvelled at the scale of his tricks, I could never imagine what it might take to perform like that. Copperfield was always miles ahead of the magicians we would see at the local magic shop, performing on the weekend at the Italian restaurant, or the performers who worked the birthday, bar mitzvah and wedding circuits.
What can business professionals learn from a master magician?
It turns out that David Copperfield was in Cannes last week, talking about transparency, storytelling, presentation skills and, of course, the power of magic. This is a great conversation that is mixed in with a couple of fun illusions that Copperfield performs for the crowd. I'm going to urge you (and everyone that you know) to watch this presentation. Listen to how he talks about inventing illusions, and watch as he preps to perform (and how he speaks to both the audience and the people off to the side of the stage). His presence, his words and his power.
Amazing: Making Magic: The Art of Illusion in Modern Brand Narrative - David Copperfield - Cannes Lions 2016.
Also, check out Shin Lim:
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Algorhythms For Marketing Transformation
The real world teaches you real lessons.
I've been on the road working, nurturing, tweaking and developing a brand new presentation that I've titled, Algorhythm - The Pulse of Creativity, Data And The Future of Brands. Here's how I have been describing it: "We live in a culture of change. Most brands are overwhelmed by the massive shifts they have to make to their business models. Disruption is everywhere. Digital transformation is imperative. We live in the Uber-ization of everything. There are several new (and dramatic) realities that will force businesses to rethink many of their commonly held beliefs about what works in business today, and what the future may look like. Interestingly, this is less about the evolution of technology and much more about how consumers have become that much more efficient in this very different landscape. Bring an open mind, because the world continues to change and challenge brands like never before. The new leadership is being a digital leader. Algorhythm is your compass."
Algorhythm is not working.
The content is working fine. It is getting stellar reviews and feedback from both audiences and my talent bureaus (thankfully). It's the title. Algorhythm. Nobody is "getting it." They're not getting the nuanced spelling (one wrong on purpose) and change from "algorithm" to "algorhythm." Like I said, the real world teaches you lessons. It's not just that. I've done a few concurrent sessions, and I wind up have to compete with sessions that have titles like, How To Monetize Your Facebook Feed or 10 Things Every Marketer Must Know About Digital Transformation. My artsy, cutesy title doesn't stand a chance, if the attendees don't take the time to read the subtitle or the sessions description. This is compounded when attendees are choosing sessions on their mobile devices, and these conference apps have very limited details beyond the session title. They're not choosing mine. So, Algorhythm may well be the title of my third business book, but it's looking like I'm going to have to give it an early retirement from the speaking circuit (sadly).
Who is this new customer?
That's the real crux of the algorhythm presentation. In this session, I look at some small and nuanced changes that consumers have made to their consumption habits, and the grave impact that it has had on all businesses (yes, B2B to B2C and small, medium and large enterprises). I recently presented an abridged version of the new presentation at the amazing BRITE conference held in New York City at Columbia Business School. Here is that presentation...
Watch here: BRITE Conference 2016 - Algorhythms For Marketing Transformation with Mitch Joel.
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June 22, 2016
More Work Opportunities Here At Mirum In Canada
We're having an amazing growth spurt, and we think that you should join our team!
Back in April of this year, I posted about over ten new work opportunities that we had at Mirum in Canada. Well, we're still growing and looking for more people who are passionate about marketing, digital and the future of business. We announced that after just one short year of being this new entity called Mirum, we were named to Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Global Digital Marketing Agencies as a "Visionary." Now, Mirum has about 2500 team members in 25-plus countries with over 40 offices. Still, Mirum in Canada retains the same spirit we had (back when we were Twist Image), while adding in some new services, augmenting our positioning (which, in marketing, is an ongoing practice) and we now have an extended bench of team members, tools and opportunities. All in all, it's been exciting (and, obviously, super challenging). Along with that, we announced that we won UNICEF as a new client (as their global partner for the design and development of its entire digital ecosystem) and a fascinating new project for adidas called, Avenue A (a subscription box service for female runners). With that, we have a bunch of other new business wins, that we will be announcing publicly, along with some healthy organic growth from our existing partners.
Now, we're growing some more.
We need additional talent and here's what we're looking for...
Montreal...
Accounting coordinator.
Toronto...
Account Manager.
Account Supervisor.
Account Director.
QA Analyst.
Senior Content Creator.
Senior Copywriter.
If you are interested in any of these (or know someone who is)...
Please do not contact me directly (I say this with peace and love... peace and love). The truth is that I have nothing to do with HR and how we hire, at this point. I really do not know the details of the work that we're looking for (beyond what you too can read in the links above), and you will be best suited to follow our process, rather than hit me up for specific questions (that I probably can't answer). If you send in your stuff, rest assured that we're always looking for the right talent. So, if our folks think there is a possible fit, they will reach out to you.
Beyond Mirum in Canada.
Plus, if you would like to see what other work we're looking for beyond Canada, always feel free to check out the careers section on our LinkedIn page.
If you're looking for a career with a great digital marketing agency, or know someone who is, please feel free to share! Work for Mirum in Canada.
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June 20, 2016
LinkedIn - A Newer Professional Social Network?
Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.
This week we discussed:
Right after our segment last Monday, I hopped a plane to The Art of Marketing in Toronto. Within that one hour flight, Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for over $26 billion dollars. If Facebook is our social network, is Microsoft now our professional social network?
Are we done with words? We write a ton on Facebook, but shortly the world's largest online social network is predicting that it will be entirely mobile and - probably - all video. Think about that. Does this mean that the written word can become obsolete, in a world where moving images and speech will prevail? Voice platforms like Siri and Amazon's Echo might be a contributing factor as well.
And, if it is all videos and live streaming, what do we do in a world where people are - literally - being killed live on Facebook? That may sound extreme, but it happened - tragically - last week. A Chicago man was shot and killed while live streaming a video on Facebook, police said on Friday, just days after a double homicide in France in which the killer later took to Facebook Live to encourage more violence. Wow, times are changing, and this underscores the huge challenges that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will face, as they push live video streaming to hundreds of millions of people.
App of the week: Flogg.
Listen here...
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June 19, 2016
Invisible Influence With Jonah Berger - This Week's Six Pixels Podcast
Episode #519 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.
Nothing makes me happier than when people that I deeply admire and respect come out with a new book. I don't know about you, but I love everything about the deep dive that a rich and enjoyable business book has to offer. One of the thinkers that never lets me down is Jonah Berger. Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and bestselling author of Contagious - Why Things Catch On and, most recently, Invisible Influence - The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior. In his new book, Berger looks at the subtle and secret influences that impact our choices. It's not what you think (the standard persuasion type of fare), and his research will not only surprise you, but have a direct impact on how your marketing, advertising and communications can be that much more effective. Enjoy the conversation...
You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast #519.
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June 17, 2016
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #313
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
Is Your Startup Idea Already Taken? - BuzzFeed . "Plenty of advisors tell founders to pitch their companies as 'A for B' (echoing the famous, possibly apocryphal, 'Aliens is Jaws in space' pitch story). The reasoning is, that if you pick two concepts people understand, they can put them together in their brains and make a delicious mental blend. But with AirBnB, Uber, and a few other giants occupying most of the mental models, you get a lot of 'it's Uber for dog-walking' startups. So many, that the always imaginative Michelle Rial made a handy chart. It was intended as a tongue-in-cheek testament to startup saturation. Sadly, it's also a useful checklist." (Alistair for Hugh).
Patience - 4k timelapse movie - Paul Richardson - YouTube . "Given how much sadness there's been in the world this past week, I thought I'd share some more upbeat content. For starters: This guy spent 7 hours per second of video, totalling 30 TB of storage, to make a video just over two minutes long that merges timelapse shots across Europe. It's pretty remarkable." (Alistair for Mitch).
A rare, risky mission is underway to rescue sick scientists from the South Pole - The Washington Post . "Imagine flying a small twin prop plane, in total darkness, for 10 hours straight (with only 13 hours of fuel if something goes wrong), into the center of an (almost) unihabited continent, where the average temperature is -76F. You are the only plane flying on the entire continent. Good luck." (Hugh for Alistair).
Time perception - Wikipedia . "How, why, when do we perceive time differently? What makes one thing seem 'long' and another 'short,' even if they are the same duration?" (Hugh for Mitch).
What Happens If Society Is Too Slow to Absorb Technological Change? - SingularityHUB . "The title of this article says it all, and should be enough to get you reading, thinking and... really scared. Think about it this way: technology is probably really, really good for us. The problem is, that we need human beings to keep pace, figure it out and use it in the best manner possible. This isn't about whether or not artificial intelligence is good. This is all about what we're going to do with it, and how smart we will be about the implementation and marketing of it to the masses." (Mitch for Alistair).
How to Preserve Cultural Memory in the Digital Age - The World Post . "Honestly, I can't remember your phone number or email address. Honestly, I don't have to. I have a smartphone and some fairly intelligent search engines (some of them look like Google, while most of the best search engines are in places like LinkedIn, etc...). What do we really need to remember anymore (and, is that even a negative statement)? This is an interesting perspective, that begs the question: in a day and age when we don't need to remember much of anything, how will digital memory shape our future?" (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.
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Don't Confuse An Influencer With Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is all the rage right now.
Multi-million dollar businesses are being built around how to connect brands with influencers. In case you didn't know, it's not all that difficult to pay someone that has a large social media presence to talk up your products and services. These individuals (some of them are traditional celebrities, but most of them are just individuals who have built their own social media followings) can be bought and will shill for your brand. Some of them are very picky and particular about how to make this happen (these influences usually have larger audiences and will cost a brand more), to those that are - somewhat - shameless about the transaction. Brands see this as a new form of marketing. It isn't. There is nothing unique or different about influencer marketing. We've had it all along in the marketing world. We simply called it celebrity endorsements.
Still, there is such a thing as real influencer marketing.
Real influencer marketing is when someone talks up your product and service not because you paid them to do it, but because they love what you're doing. This might lead to some kind of paid sponsorship, and can be extended beyond paying someone to post about your brand, but these moments are few and far between. The majority of online influencers are looking for ways to make money, in a word where brands are looking for a way to buy into a larger social media audience that doesn't require them to do the heavy lifting of building it themselves. It's the perfect storm.
The thing that brands often fail to understand.
More often than not, these paid influencer marketing initiatives are little more than paid advertising with a celebrity endorsement. They have little-to-no half-life (typically, these influencers post so much throughout the day, and their core audience is not always following and taking action on each and every piece of content that they are creating). These influencers don't keep pushing for the brand (unless brands keep paying). So, it looks, feels and acts nothing influencer marketing but, rather, traditional advertising. The one thing that brands often fail to understand is this: Influencers have that title, because they have become trusted by their audience and community. With that, and here's the big thing: trust is non-transferable. Yes, the audience will trust that the influencer is talking something up because they believe in it, but these same audience members will not (necessarily) trust and buy your brand. Brands have to earn their own trust.
This is nothing new.
Back in 2008, I wrote a post titled, Trust In Non-Transferable. Nearly a decade ago - long before the dawn of YouTubers, etc... - brands were trying to get bloggers to talk up their products and services. Some of these bloggers were being paid. Some of these bloggers were not all that transparent about their pay-to-play situation. It created a storm. From that post:
"Marketing and advertising works when there is trust between the content provider and the audience. It's not just about that relationship of trust, it is extended towards two very different sides of publishing - the content and the economy behind it. On the one hand, the audience trusts that that the content creator will stay true by providing valuable content, and on the economic side, the audience continues to play along knowing full well that all of this great content comes at a cost - advertising, sponsorships, consulting gigs, book deals, speaking opportunities, and everything else. No matter what, both sides have to live up to the audiences expectations, meaning the content must be strong and the advertising must be relevant. That's how all successful publishers across all of the media channels have won to date... Trust is non-transferable. We have companies who have little-to-no social community credibility riding the coat-tails of Bloggers who have spent a long while building up their community... You can't buy trust. The best advice a Digital Marketer can give a client who is asking them if they would accept money to post about them, etc... would be to help them understand that a brand can't buy trust, but they can - over time - build community and earn reputation. And, by going through with a program of this nature, it's also not very social media at all - it's just advertising (whether a Blogger yaps about it or they run a banner ad on their site). Someone is being paid to write about something. The advertorial has been around forever (well, at least, since the 1960s). There's nothing all that experimental with this format. But there's a problem if it doesn't work: the bigger brands can chalk it up to experimentation and simply move on, while the Bloggers now have to rebuild something that is incredibly frail and impossible to buy from their audience: trust."
The more things change. The more they stay the same.
Here's the thing: Influencer marketing has a tremendous opportunity for brands to align themselves with new and interesting influencers that can help them co-create, market and network with a new audience/community. If the economics stay stuck in a traditional advertising model, it will be just that: plain, old, boring advertising. Trust in non-transferable. Take that off the table. Think about the brand relationships that can be built. Think about mutually beneficial opporutnies that can be created where everyone - the brand, the influencer and the audience - can win. The solution may not be easy to find, but that's the harsh reality of marketing in these climates: it's getting harder and harder to make something have impact. The trick is not falling back on what the marketer have done to date (pay for access), but to start thinking about ways to win (pay for interactions).
Let's see how much influence this will have on marketing today.
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