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we are fallon

Brainfood:

5 Lessons Marketers May Learn from “Kittens Inspired By Kittens”

February 24, 2009

Fallon Brainfood: Trends, ideas, opportunities, and thoughtleadership for our brands.

Brainfood is a monthly presentation lead by the Fallon Insight Group.

Where We’ve Been in 2008:

Virtuality // Design For All // China Rising // The Social 10 // The Mobile 10

What’s Next in 2009:

Return of the Hero // Fast-Acting Brands // Generosity // The Dirt on Green

// The Viral Vanguards // The Social Enterprise // Alternate Reality Gaming

Missed previous Brainfoods?Go to http://www.slideshare.net/group/we-are-fallon

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In September 2008,Fallon’s Executive Creative Director Al Kelly

posted to YouTube an innocuous video entitled,“Kittens Inspired By Kittens.”

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Five months later a groundswell ensued, seemingly overnight.

• 4,762,374 Video views acrossYouTube and Yahool Video

• 95,000 Blog mentions

• 6,400 Tweets

• 1.5MM Google Search citations

• 28 Traditional News mentions

Source: Google Blog Search, BlogPulse, VidMetrix.com, TweetVolume.com

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What might marketers learn from the “Kittens…” phenomenon?

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In this Brainfood session:

We’ll Discuss

Five Lessons To Apply When Developing Conversational Ideas for Our Brands

By Dissecting

The Forensics of a Conversational Idea:What happened that enabled the “Kittens…” success?

And Separating

Strategy from Serendipity

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Lesson 1: “Thundercats, Ho!”Rally your networks

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Feb 9, 2009

The “Kittens” video posted in September 2008, but it was on theevening of February 8, 2009, when Al Kelly began “working hisnetworks” that views began to soar.

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Among Al’s 800+ Facebook friends—mostly ad industryprofessionals—some friends whispered in the earsof influential bloggers.

571,891 Visitors Monthly

40K Visitors Daily

1.3MM Visitors Monthly

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Those influential bloggers drove the early awareness and viewsof the video. The groundswell was ignited.

Fueled +50K views

Fueled +16K views

Fueled +18K views

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Implications of “Thundercats, Ho!”:Never underestimate the power of the network.

≥ View your corporate organization as a network.(Could be 10. Could be 1,000. Could be 1,000,000.)

≥ View every individual in the organization as a network to tap into and thenfigure out ways to tap into these individual networks.

≥ Consider it the obligation of everyone in the organization to nurture theirnetworks and tap into them when a groundswell needs to happen.

≥ Outreach to bloggers and influentials beyond your network, too.

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Lesson 2: Take Me, PleaseEnable “slippyness” of your contents

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YouTube’s “slippy” embed code was replicated and reposted on700+ blogs, thus rendering the entire Web a “macrosite” host forthe video.

Source: VidMetrix and Youtube Insights

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On Twitter an echo chamber effect ensued. The result was almost6,500 re-tweets of the “Kittens Inspired By Kittens” meme and link.

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@RainnWilson endorsed the video to his Twitter fanbase of +96K,who re-tweeted and catapulted the meme to #3 “most discussed”on Twitter in a single night.

Source: Twitter Search

Rainn Wilson akaDwight Schrute ofNBC’s The Office

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Implications of Take Me Please: You never know where the socialmedia fire may get lit, so be generous with the matches.

≥ Encourage theft of your idea.

≥ Build ideas that play well in “slippy” content venues (like YouTube, Twitter,and Facebook).

≥ Allow people to steal liberally to echo your content on your behalf.

≥ Be promiscuous. Get beyond your microsites.

Enable

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Lesson 3: Talk To “Strangers”Embrace the Social Web’s fringes

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Social media groundswells tend to bubble up from the fringes andripple outward to the mainstreams.

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Groundswells then echo back from the mainstreams throughoutconversational channels like Twitter with even more velocity.

Source: Twitter Search

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Over 50 user-generated mash-ups sprouted. “New news” wasgarnered daily creating over 319K views, which renewed interestand views of the original video.

Source: Vidmetrix, YouTube

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Implications of Talk to Strangers: Recognize that the newinfluencers at The Social are the nerds, the weirdos, and thefringe elements who command the attention of millions.

≥ Get beyond your comfortable industry cohorts.

≥ The most influential communities dance on the thin line of moral decency,correct spelling, and good taste—and this is why they’re popular!

≥ Celebrate and showcase the mash-ups and imitations. They love you, man, solove ’em back.

≥ Loosen up, dude. Really.

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4. Be Interesting.Embrace your edges

SillyStupid

WeirdOutrageous

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Let’s just be honest. This video is freakin’ weird! Cute. But weird.

Source: Twitter Search

And weird is exactly why we love it!

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The Implications of Be Interesting: The Social does not celebratethe bland or the grey. Go bold or go home.

≥ At The Social, “interesting” often translates to: “silly,” “stupid,” “weird,”or “outrageous.”

≥ But, corporations tend to be more comfortable with the “witty” or “humorous,”rather than the “stupid” or “weird.”

≥ Stop taking yourself so seriously, Dude.

≥ If you want conversation about your brand, then give folks somethingto talk about.

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Lesson 5. Perfectly ImperfectWiden our classic standards of perfection

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Decades of TV commercial production trained us to maniacallypursue glossy perfection. On YouTube, people don't necessarilycare about our gloss.

In fact, the raw imperfections make this video endearing, fresh,and vital.

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Implications of Perfectly Imperfect: Web audiences sometimesforgive and expect some imperfections in exchange fortimeliness, authenticity and Beta technology.

≥ At The Social, “perfect” can sometimes be “imperfect” by traditional TVstandards

≥ Perhaps less energy on a single overly produced "perfect" idea that may fail atThe Social…

≥…And more energy on enabling the idea’s dispersion, the idea’s timeliness, andthe beta testing of more social ideas.

≥ Building a winning conversational idea for The Social is more art than science- fail fast(er), fail cheap(er) - then optimize.

≥ Bad ideas aren't made any better because they’re built expensively.

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Some actionable lessons to apply to our brand ideas:

5. Perfectly Imperfect Widen our classic standards of perfection

4. Be Interesting Embrace your edges

3. Talk To “Strangers” Embrace the Social Web’s fringes

2. Take Me Please Enable “slippyness” of your contents

1. “Thundercats, Ho!” Rally your networks

Share ideas that inspire. FALLON PLANNERS (and co-conspirators) arefreely invited to post trends, commentary, obscure ephemera, andinsightful rants regarding the experience of branding.

http://fallontrendpoint.blogspot.com

Let’s continue the conversation on our blog.

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