Monday, August 30, 2010

Social Media Machine: "The Gaga"



First things first The Gaga does follow our agency on Twitter @gigantic

Some other amazing feats since she was "Born This Way"

5.6 million followers on Twitter! Believe it!

18.1 million**: Number of digital singles Lady Gaga has sold.

3.64 million: The number of copies Lady Gaga's "The Fame" has sold in the U.S. since its release in August 2008, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

1.3 million: The number of copies "The Fame" has sold in 2010 alone, making the 2-year-old album this year's fourth-bestselling album thus far.

$24 million: Billboard's estimate of the gross for Lady Gaga's 47 European and Pacific Rim tour dates.

$440: The most expensive ticket package when Lady Gaga returns to Staples Center on March 28, 2011.

$40: Cost of a Lady Gaga 2010 tour shirt.

Mission: "I want to make pop music that my heavy metal friends will listen to," Lady Gaga told The Times in 2009.

10: Height, in inches, of the heels on the Alexander McQueen Armadillos that Gaga made famous in her "Bad Romance" video.

179: Total number of shows Gaga will have played when the tour wraps next year (it began in 2009).

19: Number of songs Gaga treats her "monsters" to during the spectacle.

13: Number of Moonmen she could potentially walk away with at this year's Video Music Awards; she received the most nominations ever in a single year.

15: Number of costume changes during the concert.

And what was all of this as a result of? Her sheer understanding of how social media works...and of course being outrageous always helps too!
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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Snuggie Rips Off the Macarena




We've all seen it and some of you probably even got one in your stocking filler at Christmas last year, but now its back in 2010 acting CHEESE as ever with their new campaign ripping off Los del Río's "Macarena". Cheese and more cheese please.

This blanket with sleeves was snagged up by 20 million people during 2009, and while exact sales numbers are hard to come by, this novelty has turned out to be a recession hit. Why? The one thing we all did a lot in 2009 to save money was stay home, curled up on the couch - just like the Snuggie commercial. The Snuggie is proof that novelty, the right price point and timing can translate into big bucks and it did. Snuggie now comes in a range of new out of this world colors and designs! Not really. But you can be sure they will be laughing all the way to the bank with their new line and campaign! I guarantee it! It gets cold in Ireland and New York in winter. HEY. Stay warm with a Snuggie!


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"The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" Wins An Emmy!

Ad agency Wieden + Kennedy’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” TV spot for Old Spice has won the Emmy for Outstanding Commercial. Well deserved!

The spot starred former NFL wide receiver Isaiah Mustafa as the Old Spice Guy, a character now well-known in pop culture thanks to the TV ads and a highly successful social media campaign.

The Old Spice Guy solicited questions from fans on Twitter, Yahoo Answers and other websites, then answered them in short, humorous YouTube videos. Total upload views for the Old Spice YouTube videos (including both the TV and the social media campaigns) currently stand at almost 135 million. “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” has more than 18 million.
Mustafa joked in one of the final videos that he was a struggling actor, but the ads seem to have stripped away the “struggling” bit. He’s been signed to two movie roles, and will also appear in the NBC TV series Chuck.

What I did find also interesting was not only was the campaign a huge success in terms of creating awareness of Old Spice, but it ultimately did translate to sales. The months June and July of 2010 saw a sales increase of 107% in Old Spice Body Wash! Kick it.



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Thursday, August 19, 2010

Facebook "Places". What's It All About?


If you're like me you probably watched and are digesting the Facebook Places announcement. I've had some time to check it out and to read the documentation (a techy perspective) and what follows is a brief perspective from my point of view. Ok. So here is a rundown of what I know so far.

Why is it important?
Because Foursquare and Gowalla combined have just a few million users. Facebook has north of half a billion. When Facebook gets into a market, they bring everyone. Literally, everyone.
So that said, let's talk about what it offers for marketers and developers.

API
Currently the API is limited to read access only. This means we can read information about places and we can ask users via an extended permission if we can read information about the places they are checking in to. We can't currently create places or check people in to things via the API. This is what's called a "write" API and Mark Zuckerberg said this is still a few weeks away. But rest assured my Irish and American friends...he's on it!

Facebook Pages
Pages are what excite me the most. Every place that gets created will also get a standard Facebook-type of page that we're all used to. Many brands, especially in retail and tourism/hospitality, are creating Facebook Pages for each of their locations, branches, etc. Now, those pages could be the actual "places" pages that are generated from this new product. I believe that this is what will happen and companies that jump on board early will see huge benefits of moving fast. We saw this with the "Page" product launch in March 2009 and the "Like" launch in April 2010.

Facebook provided some information for "claiming" a Place Page as your own and creating a real page out of it. Currently this seems like something that is still in the works. When a "place" is created it is not technically a page yet. The owner of that Place has to come and "claim" the Page. Officially, Facebook says, "Places can only be claimed by official representatives. Verifying a Place claim requires uploading some kind of official document, such as a local business license or Better Business Bureau accreditation."

Apps
There's absolutely an opportunity here for new Facebook apps, or "tabs," on your Facebook page. $$$. Initially developers could probably easily build an app that reads in a specific "location" and displays all of the people who have checked in. There's likely much more developers can do here, especially once the write API is opened up. Currently its only available for the iPhone! I'm excited  for when they  release the "Places" app for my Blackberry!!

So will the current 1 million Foursquare users retire their apps?
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