Video

‘Content’ Isn’t Just ‘Marketing’

“Content” isn’t just things we think of as “marketing.” A great example is Virgin’s new pre-flight safety briefing, which my friend DJ Waldow Skyped from on board a Virgin flight to share with me last week. If you haven’t seen it, check it out here: There’s much to love about this video. I detailed why I think it’s brilliant (and what companies of any size can learn from it, over at LinkedIn, in 4 Things Your Business Can Learn from a ‘Boring’ Pre-Flight Safety Briefing. (Check it out, and please subscribe to my updates there if you like what you see!) But over here, I wanted to highlight one key takeaway from the Virgin music video safety briefing. Notice Content Moments Everywhere For all of us, it’s important to notice content moments everywhere. Or, as the image on this page suggests (to me, anyway!): Content blooms everywhere. Even in unexpected […]

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Lessons from Skype: Your Story Is about People (Not Your Technology)

Whether you sell technology or toasters, your marketing should always be about people. In other words, your customers should be at the heart of your content, not your products. Your product might be as revolutionary as an escalator to the moon, but your story isn’t about that: It’s not about what you do or what you sell, it’s what you do for others. How does your product help people? How does it shoulder their burdens? How does it ease their pain? How does your product live in the world? That’s a subtle shift. But focusing on how your business connects with people makes a huge difference in your content. It makes the customer—not your product—the hero of your story. In the business-to-business space, especially, it also gives puts flesh and blood on the dry bones of a “solution.” That’s why I really like this new video from Skype, which tells

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The Best Political Ad Ever

I know that’s a strong statement, but I’d only amend “best political ad ever” with a “so far.” Because that’s how good this video is. It blurs the line between traditional political advertising and content marketing, because it tells an incredible story in a little over a minute. And in doing so, it breaks the mold in political campaigning: I’m certain that every politician in America directed his or her campaign manager over the past few days to figure out how they can replicate some of this magic, too. Take a look: Carl Sciortino is running for a Massachusetts Congressional seat in the 5th District, which includes several communities outside of Boston (but not mine). He is one of seven Democrats running for the seat in a special election this December that is part of a sequence of events set off when John Kerry became secretary of state. The 5th

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Airbnb: When Content Marketing Looks a Lot Like Art

We’re used to seeing companies producing content marketing that sometimes looks too much like advertising. (Like this. Ick.) But, increasingly, I’m noticing another trend: Content marketing that looks a lot like art. Yesterday, I wrote about Chipotle’s creepy but awesome new marketing program, “The Scarecrow,” which hauntingly depicts a dystopian world that makes a heart-wrenching statement about the sorry state of industrial food production. (You can read my write-up on it over at LinkedIn.) Then, last Friday, Airbnb released another bit of awesome, a first: An innovative short film directed via Twitter and shot entirely on Vine. Written by writer/filmmaker Ben York Jones and crowdsourced via Twitter, the story centers on the transformative journey of a white sheet of paper. (Stay with me on this one.) The resulting 4 ½-minute film was released Friday on Airbnb’s blog, on its Hollywood and Vines website and on the Sundance Channel. It’s beautiful.

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Lucky

The Boston outlet of Morton’s, a Chicago-based steakhouse chain, sits across the street from Boston Harbor in a newly developed part of town called the Seaport. Inside, Morton’s has a clubby feel—all hushed tones and white linen and dark paneling. The bad lighting makes it hard to read the prices, which are high, so perhaps that’s the point. I guess it’s a very nice restaurant, but it reminds me more of the kind of place my parents might think of as a very nice restaurant: When a group of us walked in one recent night, it was a little like entering a private inner chamber. We weren’t exactly rowdy—but, still, it felt like the Laugh-In party of seven had just crashed Masterpiece Theatre. Morton’s is known for its beef. Right away, after you’re seated, a waiter trots over, parading raw steaks on a wheeled display cart. He takes a lot

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Excerpt: Things That Scare Me

I’ve been thinking about Things That Scare Me for a while, and when I wrote it, it turned out much longer than a blog post. So here’s an excerpt, including photos of the video shoot in Steve Garfield’s dining room cum video studio. A few weeks ago, I had to film a video greeting that would be shown to 14,000 people who had registered for an online conference my company was holding. It was a short video – no more than a minute or so. All I had to do was smile warmly and welcome folks for dropping by – sort of like a digital version of a Wal-Mart greeter. It sounds easy enough – fun, even – but for some reason the prospect of the filming completely unnerved me. Maybe I was worried about the number of potential eyeballs gawking at my every move. Or maybe I worried about

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I Suspect Everyone Else Is Smarter, Better-Looking, Taller, Cooler, Cuter, Has Newer and Shinier Objects than I Do (and Is More Modest)

When you are prone to measuring yourself against others, like I am, and when you both work and live out chunks of your life online, as I do, the Internet can be a bitch. It’s easy to get caught up in measuring your impact online, and to suspect that your own self-worth is tied to it. It’s easy, for example, to measure your popularity and self-esteem in terms of the number of “friends” you have on Facebook, the number of followers on Twitter, the extent of your professional contacts on LinkedIn, your cache of Feedburner subscribers, your Web site’s Google PageRank, tags on Flickr, comments, links, visits, clicks, referrals, Karma on Plurk, and—worst of all!—your Technorati degree of “Authority,” which implies a sort of collected clout and power that, for most of us, doesn’t really exist outside of the unblinking screen that is our dashboard to the world. Those of

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MarketingProfs in Santa Barbara: Show Notes, ‘Ann-otated’

00:00:01 My daughter Caroline. “I like the weather” (paraphrased) is kid-code for “Check it! I love being out of school!!” 00:00:18 Real drama unfolds as Sharon H. reveals that her work-BFF is actually… well… it’s not me. And it’s not Val, either, even though they live together. (Val: You might want to sleep with one eye open.) Behind her, Corey nods his head. Is he agreeable, or is it just easy to dance to? 00:00:40 I intimate what my real passion is. Is it blogging? Maybe. Or possibly it’s all that wine I’ve obviously had. My real passion becomes trying to stay upright. Meanwhile, Val is ready for her close-up, but soon gives up and joins Sharon E.’s mission to stay out of the frame entirely. 00:01:03 Penny is captured on camera saying with a smug dismissiveness: “You can’t blog? Well, can you type? [Then] You can blog.” Eavesdropping across

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