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YouTube How do we increase brand loyalty for YouTube among...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:51:00 -0800

YouTube

How do we increase brand loyalty for YouTube among young moms?

By providing a unique opportunity to speak about the issues that matter the most to them.

YouTube reaches nearly every possible demographic as the default online video platform. Despite this, some segments are under-engaged with YouTube, including the so-called ‘Young Facebook Friendly Moms.’

While these digitally-savvy moms aged 25 to 34 have great awareness of the YouTube brand, they mostly see it as a distribution platform with very little emotional attachment to the brand, and typically engage with YouTube through external shared links and not through the YouTube website itself.

More than just consumers

Beyond their consumer behavior, what we found interesting about moms with children under 5 years of age is that they possess great unrealized political potential, for a couple of reasons.

One, there is a growing sense that ‘digital moms’ are well-positioned to be the defining voter archetype of the 2012 election. This is due to the strong online communities they’ve already established and their pre-existing involvement in issues-based initiatives both on and offline. These moms aren’t ‘activists’ by any means, but rather passionate individuals who feel increasingly empowered given an election year and the uncertain mood of the country.

Second, we wanted to understand why 70 percent of moms participate in online communities in the first place. The most significant reason was that they are looking to increase the number and quality of connections they have with other moms, with 4 out of 5 moms wishing they had more friends in their lives. Add to this fact that moms with children younger than 5 have the highest rates of depression, and it becomes clearer that moms are looking for an opportunity to be a part of something larger than themselves.

A mother’s voice is the sound of an ideal future

Whether they’re into music, fashion, use tablets or take pictures with their phones, every mom has an intrinsic dedication to ensure that the future of their children is the best that it can possibly be. They may have different priorities in what that might look like, but what all moms have in common is that their kids are their number one priority.It’s their care and concern for the future of their children that unites them, and it’s one discussion they will always want to be a part of.

Given their desire to make connections and common interest in the future of their children, we developed the insight that moms are hungry for a creative outlet to voice their concerns while simultaneously making connections with other moms. We then saw a powerful opportunity for YouTube to make a connection with these moms by providing such a creative outlet.

Moms for Change

Our goal was to make YouTube the go-to platform for moms to discuss for their kid’s future. To accomplish this, we want to allow moms with all levels of commitment and interest to be a part of the discussion through an aspirational campaign that is detailed in the following video.

Our engagement timeline is a multi-tiered process that first uses ambient and banner ads to create buzz about the Moms for Change initiative. Banner ads would be placed on popular mommy blogs and forums, while ambient ads would be placed where moms are already considering their children, such as supermarkets and playgrounds.

A partnership with TED would form a central part of the Moms for Change channel, providing an easy way to find TED Talks relevant to moms and giving them the opportunity to interact with the speakers through their YouTube and their Google+ accounts.

The Moms for Change weekly web series is hosted by top mommy bloggers and influencers, who discuss a variety of issues relevant to moms and offers them an opportunity to be a part of the show based on their participation on the channel and the Moms for Change hangout on Google+.

There will also be a user-generated campaign that will ask mothers to submit the single most important hope for their child if a computer webcam is detected while searching or exploring mom-focused content around the web.

Throughout the campaign, there will also be Moms for Change hosted events in communities across America that continues to build engagement and further the discussion well beyond 2012.

By seeing moms as more than consumers, YouTube can be seen as a brand that is sympathetic to the real concerns people have. This creates an aspirational mindset and high-minded expectations of moms that positions YouTube as more than just a place for viral videos, but a place for meaningful and valuable discussion relevant to their day-to-day lives.

2 Degrees How do we get twentysomethings who are pessimistic...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:51:00 -0800

2 Degrees

How do we get twentysomethings who are pessimistic about online dating to try a new service?

By making online dating less about dating – and making it a natural part of what they’re already doing.

Online dating is an already crowded market that has grown exponentially in the last decade. The numbers are impressive – it’s now a more than $1 billion industry, making it bigger than porn, with at least 40 million users in the US and counting.

For a company looking to start a new online dating service for twentysomethings, there are other serious challenges. For one, it’s now an increasingly segmented market, with dating sites available for everyone from atheists to farmers to eligible seniors. Mostly, however, it’s still dominated by a few big players (Match, eHarmony, OK Cupid) who capture a certain segment due to their tone and approach (older singles looking for serious relationships, twentysomethings looking for casual dates). So any new online dating venture needs a truly novel approach in order to set itself apart from the sea of services already available.

Online dating is for the old and desperate

The other important piece of data here is that the average age of those using an online dating service is 43. This tells us that twentysomethings aren’t using online dating in the same way that older singles are, and there are a few potential reasons for this. For example, people are getting married later in life, so they are less interested in finding a life partner right away. They also tend to have more social options because of this and the fact that more of their peers are single at this age. Or, maybe they feel less strongly about the idea of a life partner in general, which has been the general trend in the US.

Tell us what you really think

To really find out what they were thinking, we created a multifaceted research plan that included:

man-on-the-street interviews
in-depth one-on-one interviews
experimental research exercises: visualization map and character profiles
direct experience immersion

Through our own social networks, we identified local subjects in their 20s or early 30s who had at least some experience with online dating. An initial screening that evaluated their various attitudes, experiences and outcomes helped narrow down our list of subjects to four diverse individuals.

Love is a journey

As a warm-up to get our interviewees thinking about love and relationships in general, we asked them to complete two exercises. The first was a visualization map exercise where we asked interviewees to imagine the course of their love life (past, present and future) as a journey around the world. They were asked to describe important events in their love life, either real or imagined, and place the descriptions wherever they saw fit on the map.

The purpose of this exercise is to get the interviewees to start thinking about how they see their love lives and to start processing what that means to them. The lack of specific instruction gives the interviewees a sense of self-discovery and creativity through the exercise. For the researcher, it can provide insight into the interviewees’ train of thought, what romantic events he or she places value on and any associations that go along with it.

For example, this map gives the impression that the interviewee may not be sure about how to approach love. There is a mix of intrigue and insight and she seems to struggle with what the notion of love means to her while being optimistic about it at the same time.

Expectations are everything

Next, we asked our interviewees to create an imaginary biographical sketch of someone they would expect to meet through an online dating service. We asked interviewees to give us some basic details about the character’s age, why they’re online dating, what they do, their outlook on life and any other details that they wish to include. Here’s one example:

Jason, 32, straight white male, works as a consultant in the tech industry, rides his bike on weekends, plays recreational soccer, and likes to go camping/hiking/travel. His last big trip was to Brazil where he became enamored with capoeira; upon his return to SF, he started taking classes and now it’s his new hobby. He’s been to Burning Man twice though he doesn’t self-identify as a burner. He’s a foodie & likes good farm-to-table food and nice whiskey. He’s online dating to meet girls, mostly for short-term but is open to the possibility of something long-term, though he’s not ready to settle down for at least several more years.

Profiles give the researcher a better sense of the interviewee’s expectations of who they might meet through an online dating service. By analyzing this created profile and the interviewees own responses, one can gain a better sense of how their expectations match up with the reality, as well as their overall attitudes about online dating services.

I’d rather just be friends

Finally, we had detailed conversations with interviewees about their online dating experiences and what would make it better. Here’s what they told us.

To confirm what our interviewees told us, my planning partner Haley Sevalstad went undercover and signed up for an account on OK Cupid to go on a couple of dates. Her experience helped us confirm the following conclusions:

Twentysomethings are highly social and don’t rely on online dating as a primary way to find dates.
There is still somewhat of a stigma associated with online dating in that it’s seen as being suitable for someone who’s older, has less romantic options and looking to get married, which is not what this age group is interested in.
Twentysomethings see online dating as one of many ways to meet people, but the most compelling and comfortable way is still through friends or friends of friends.
Creating another yet another online identity for the purposes of online dating felt awkward, unnecessary and antiquated. Online trends are also moving away from fictional identities and towards use of one’s real identity, which is par for the course for most twentysomethings.
Twentysomethings often engage in some form of ‘Facebook stalking,’ where they check out friends of friends they are interested in on Facebook.

Friends don’t let friends date strangers

Our insight is that highly social, internet-savvy twentysomethings use their social network as the primary means to engage with new experiences. Our strategy leveraged the power of peer recommendation and took the ‘creep’ factor out of online dating by moving it to a venue that they already use and see as safe – Facebook.

Also, we wanted to make dating less of a search for serious romance and more of a fun social activity – which is what this demographic is already using it for.

2 Degrees

Our prototype campaign is about giving people the opportunity to meet the friends of friends they’ve always wanted to meet in an easy and legitimate way – through Facebook. The idea that people can connect with someone meaningful for either love or friendship just two degrees of separation from them appeals to many twentysomethings.

We also wanted to refer to the service not as a dating service, but ‘a place for introductions.’

2 Degrees is a Facebook app that brings mutual friends back into the conversation on dating. This site encourages users to explore the friends their friends have.

People will be able to browse mutual friends and see the various common grounds they share, whether that be interests or activities.

For premium users, the app will feature a “nudge” button as well. Anyone that wants to be introduced to a new friend can “nudge” their mutual friend, asking them for a bit of help.

Finally, the site will cater to matchmakers as well. Any mutual friend that believes their friends should make a connection can use the introduction photo to tag each person, and suggest they meet.

To promote 2 Degrees, our campaign will start out with a simple print and outdoor executions that reminds everyone, ‘your friends have friends.’

We will then create a mobile app that works with Facebook Places and Foursquare. A news feed will let you know who has checked in at your location and how you are connected with them by displaying mutual friends. You can then explore their profile to find common interests, and strike up a conversation.

In bars we will create linked coasters that encourage you to meet your friends’ friends. People will be able to share their double coasters with people they would like to meet.

Finally, we want to thank the unsung heroes in every relationship – the person who first introduced any couple.

We will do this by circulating a Facebook petition for couples to sign with their matchmakers. This petition will fight for the creation of a Matchmaker’s Day on February 15. Furthermore, people changing their relationship status from ‘single’ to ‘in a relationship’ will be able to add a ‘thanks to…’ credit in recognition of their matchmaker. This feature will be shown as a status update on the couple’s wall, as well as the matchmaker’s wall.

How do we grow a business whose target consumers have...

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

How do we grow a business whose target consumers have wholeheartedly rejected it?

We turn the problem into an opportunity to redefine the business.

Electronic Arts has had difficulty building support for their digital distribution platform, Origin. Part of the problem has been defining what the product actually it is. On the surface level, Origin is a way to deliver PC games directly over the internet without the need for any physical media. Ultimately, however, EA sees Origin as part of a larger plan to create a cloud gaming platform that gives users the ability to continue their gaming experience no matter where they are and what device they’re using, and to share it with their friends.

This ambitious plan has been set back by major problems with the Origin product, including bugs, limited functionality and almost unanimous negative feelings among hardcore gamers (their initial target audience) towards the product. These gamers feel alienated because in most cases they did not choose to download Origin, but had to in order to download an EA game that they purchased. Many gamers are so suspicious about Origin that they consider it to be possible spyware, created by EA to scan their computers in an effort to find pirated games.

Backs up against the wall

As if a poor product launch and alienated target consumer base weren’t enough to deal with, EA faces another challenge in trying to build a critical mass of users for Origin, in that there is already a PC game distribution platform that already does all of the things Origin promises to do and more.

It’s called Steam, and unlike Origin, it is widely praised and supposed by hardcore PC gamers, with a loyal community base and 70 percent of the market share. Steam offers a wider selection of games and a powerful user experience that has put them at least two years ahead of any competitor, including Origin.

Playing on the wrong playing field

Given these severe disadvantages, it’s questionable whether EA is in the right league, or if they’re even playing the right game. EA has many things going for it – they publish many of the most popular games on any platform and remain a big player in the gaming world. However, by focusing on the hardcore gamer demographic with Origin, they’re missing out on where the video game industry has been shifting towards – social and casual gaming.

Social and casual games include everything from Facebook games such as Farmville to mobile games such as Angry Birds – essentially any games that don’t require a specific console or platform and can be played in small intervals of time. They are a big and fast-growing market – social games grew 116 percent last year to create $1.4 billion in revenue, while mobile games grew 160 percent to create $2.2 billion.

It is clear that social and casual games are where the bulk of the growth in the video game industry is going. EA is fully aware of this, which is why they have now invested heavily in the development of social games after a slow start. They’re making some inroads, with Sims Social has cracking the top 5 most popular social games in an industry that has so far been dominated by Zynga. In the mobile sector, EA already has a big presence as a publisher of popular games such as Madden and Bejeweled.

Refocusing the target

Given Steam’s dominance of the hardcore gamer market and EA’s interest becoming an even bigger player in the social and casual gamers market, it makes sense that the best strategy to make Origin a success is to retarget the product to include social and casual gamers who are 28 to 40 years old, slightly more female and better educated than the average gamer demographic.

Besides the fact that they’re a growing and desirable market, this demographic’s user behavior is a good fit for what Origin has to offer. The demographic prefers to fulfill their entertainment needs with easy-to-use distribution services such as Netflix or Hulu and often remain loyal to them. They are also willing to pay more for their media than the hardcore gamer group, where piracy is relatively common.

This demographic also don’t see themselves as gamers, and they view games as simply another form of entertainment. What they don’t have available right now is a one-stop shop for all of their gaming needs, and this is an opportunity that Origin is well-poised to take. But first, they must see themselves not as a competitor to Steam, but as a competitor to the likes of iTunes or Amazon and other digital distribution services.

Come out and play on your own digital playground

An effective strategy to make Origin a success is dependent on repositioning the product from one focused on hardcore gamers to one that appeals to a wider spectrum of gamers, including social and casual gamers. Origin can be a destination hub where one can play and discover a variety of games while sharing and interacting with a like-minded community.

Turning relationships into rivalries

Our campaign focuses on the gamer who’s particularly interested in the social aspect of gaming while maintaining a casual sensibility. Since these gaming experiences can happen on any device and at any time, they can easily turn into ‘rivalries’ with friends, family or even strangers. We used some of these situations as a way to speak to a casual social audience, which is detailed in the following video and communications plan.

SLACKER RADIO Slacker Radio has little to almost no brand...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

SLACKER RADIO

Slacker Radio has little to almost no brand awareness in comparison to Pandora, Last.fm or Spotify, despite the fact that they offer something that no other service has – personalized music programming from actual live humans. Given the dissatisfaction the casual music listener has had with the lack of guidance on Spotify and the lack of selection on Pandora (which has only a third of the music available on Slacker), we wanted to present Slacker Radio as the smart alternative to these services using an irreverent tone that speaks to 25-to-35-year-olds.

For this spec ad, we wanted to show the importance of having the right music for the right time, and how things can go terribly wrong without the smart personalized experience that Slacker Radio provides.

HUNGRY IN THE HOOD What if you had to buy all of your groceries...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:33:00 -0800

HUNGRY IN THE HOOD

What if you had to buy all of your groceries at your local convenience store? For about 23.5 million people in the US who live in neighborhoods without easy access to fresh food, or ‘food deserts,’ this is often a day-to-day reality.

For this video series produced for the online public media service Turnstyle, we decided to use a format that our audience (young urban professionals) has a strong affinity with – the instructional cooking show – and used that as the stage to illustrate how the other side lives. ‘Hungry in the Hood’ is a series of videos where we take a farcical look at what culinary creations one could make without regular access to fresh groceries and what consequences that can have on people’s health.

DORITOS: CRASH THE SUPER BOWL People love Doritos for their...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

DORITOS: CRASH THE SUPER BOWL

People love Doritos for their tasty flavors, but there’s something else about them that’s just as unique – the sound of a Doritos crunch.

This entry for Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl Contest was made with the idea that the crunch of a Doritos chip can be as distinct as its flavors. The crunch can be something more than just noise, and instead a powerful form of communication. Given the popular success of Doritos’ past Super Bowl commercials, we wanted to also include humor and slapstick in an unexpected setting – with surprising consequences.

ALMANAC BEER COMPANY Many of today’s microbreweries...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

ALMANAC BEER COMPANY

Many of today’s microbreweries creating sophisticated craft beers started as homebrew enthusiasts who were able to turn their passion into real successful businesses. Almanac Beer Company, a new startup brewery in San Francisco, continues to follow that tradition while using influences from the Bay Area’s rich food culture to produce a truly unique beer.

Featured on: Huffington Post

JOHN CHO MOORE John Cho Moore felt held back by the limitations...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

JOHN CHO MOORE

John Cho Moore felt held back by the limitations of the industrial design process and is now trying to capture the essence of design with his beautifully handmade bamboo and canvas bags.

In this video, we follow John through his unique manufacturing process that challenges convention thinking about product design and the creative process.

Featured on: Huffington Post, Core77, Lost At E Minor, Hypebeast

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS In 2011, I began an overhaul of...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:53:00 -0800

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS

In 2011, I began an overhaul of promotional video content for Yerba Center for the Arts, a major contemporary art and performance center in San Francisco. At the time, YBCA’s video content spanned a wide array of approaches, formats and production values, creating a lack of cohesiveness and confusion about what YBCA was saying about its diverse art, film and music programs.

The challenge was to find a way to make YBCA’s video content consistent with the organization’s values of being contemporary, authentic and community-oriented – with a dash of irreverence thrown in. YBCA also saw itself as more than just an arts center, but as a place for community sharing and fun that was hip to other forms of culture that its audience was passionate about.

The first insight I had was that YBCA should then act as more than an arts center, but as a creator and curator of culture at-large. Being seen as an arbiter of culture helps build the YBCA brand as one that is highly engaged with and knowledgeable about the kind of work their audience cares about. Whether it is art or another form of culture and entertainment, YBCA is first and foremost about thought-provoking and fun ideas – not art for art’s sake.

In understanding how their target audience saw YBCA, I understood that they also don’t necessarily differentiate arts experiences as separate from other forms of culture. This means that YBCA should not position itself as a competitor to other arts institutions, but as in competition with other venues for culture and entertainment.

Based off these insights, the video content should then reflect these values and positioning. The content should be smart, engaging and be able to live beyond life as a promotional vehicle for upcoming programs, which furthers YBCA’s authoritative grasp on culture while providing an authentic voice.

So instead of promoting a particular event or exhibition, tell a story of how the work was produced, or what influenced it. The stories unique and personalized, using a simple, clean approach that matches both YBCA’s mission and visual aesthetic. It was also necessary to create consistent formats to maintain engagement, high production values to compete with the best online videos, and offer an intimate perspective that satiates their audience’s interest in how things get made.

Due to this strategic shift and the quality work that was produced from it, YBCA has been nominated for multiple national museum awards. They have also increased their brand recognition both in San Francisco and nationally, and have seen online conversations about their brand increase significantly.

170 MILLON AMERICANS FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING 170 Million...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

170 MILLON AMERICANS FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING

170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting is a movement to prevent Congress from cutting federal funding for public media stations and organizations across the country. The organization seeks to build support for public media by dispelling the notion that public media only appeals to a small percentage of Americans when more than half of the population (170 million) use it at least once a month.

To change the perception of public media, the organization needed to show how public media doesn’t only cater to older, upper-middle class white elites, but rather a true diversity of all ages and backgrounds. A video campaign to deliver this message would need to feature voices that would be surprising and unexpected. In some ways, the subjects would need to be the polar opposite of the ‘NPR crowd’ stereotype, but without losing any of the authenticity that make these testimonials so powerful in the first place.

For this campaign video, I worked with the young journalists at Youth Radio to give their thoughts on what public media means to them, which became the featured video on the 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting website and social media feeds, which were seen by hundreds of thousands of people across the country.

Featured on: 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting

TURNSTYLE I was contracted in 2010 to develop all video content...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:14:00 -0800

TURNSTYLE

I was contracted in 2010 to develop all video content for a new online public media service called Turnstyle. I established the creative and strategic vision, developed target audience insights and built an online outreach strategy.

We received an invitation to the Sundance Film Festival, and our video strategy was centered on the insight that the most interesting thing about Sundance these days is not necessarily the stories being told through movies, but how those stories are being told.

One such project was director Lance Weiler’s transmedia storytelling project Pandemic 1.0, a part-film, part-interactive game, part-sociological experiment that was one of the most talked-about experiences at Sundance’s New Frontier program.

Featured on: Huffington Post, Gizmodo

In researching our target audience (18-to-35, skewing urban and skewing people of color) was that jobs and employment were among the top 5 interesting topics for nearly everyone surveyed. Given that almost a quarter of twentysomethings are considered to be at least underemployed, this makes sense, but what’s even more interesting is that there is now a growing interest in returning to the working man, blue-collar occupations that offer earning stability over earning potential. In pursuing this work, the other result is that those interested in back-to-simple careers are expanding the notion of craft and creating a culture of their own – all of which inspired the video series ‘Barber School Days.’

Featured on: Boing Boing

What was more surprising for me was that religion and spirituality was nearly as important as employment to this demographic. It was not necessarily that they wanted to continue the same religious experiences as their parents, but rather that most believed in God and found that the desire to belong to a spiritual group as highly important – whether they actively practiced or not.

A large part of this interest in matters of the soul is in exploration, which is the inspiration for this ongoing series that brings to light unexpected takes on religion. This story is focused on a church that claims the legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane as a saint and primary focus of worship, which simultaneously also highlighted another strong interest of this demographic – music – as a means of worship.

I created the video series Word on the Street as part of a partnership between Turnstyle and Youth Speaks, an acclaimed performance poetry organization. The goal here was twofold. For those already familiar with slam poetry, we wanted to differentiate these videos from the Youth Speaks HBO series, which mostly featured competitive performances on a stage. More importantly, we were also introducing these poets to an audience unfamiliar with poetry, which meant that the best possible strategy was to also take the performance off the stage and a more formal setting and to recontextualize the performances in unedited ‘guerrilla’ performances.

The concept for “Turning On” was to turn tastemakers at the online radio station AllDayPlay.fm into ambassadors for music news and commentary on the public media online service Turnstyle. Using original ideas from the talent, I created an ongoing video opinion series that was tailor-fit for a young, urban and diverse audience interested in hip-hop/R&B, viral videos and social media.

Turnstyle Asks was conceived as a weekly video segment that focuses on a current event inspiring discussion and creates a mash-up of answers from regular people on the street that created a ‘unified narrative’ that would set it apart from the typical man-on-street interview. The goal of these segments is to not only gain a sense of popular opinion with a quick and simple production turnaround, but to engage viewers on ongoing discussion topics well beyond the initial story.

With all Turnstyle Asks, the question was reframed to be broader and part of a larger discussion. The initial story that inspired this segment were the Wikileaks cables that were revealed in fall of 2010, which was then reframed into a larger overall discussion about government transparency.

FLIP VIDEO Flip Video wanted to position itself as an...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

FLIP VIDEO

Flip Video wanted to position itself as an inexpensive, easy way to produce high-quality video for nonprofit organizations who often have scarce resources. The company also wanted to be seen as a brand that cares about and is interested in the issues these organizations work on through their Flip for Good program that gave them product discounts.

Part of what Flip needed to do was to work with a nonprofit who could demonstrate all of the possibilities and benefits of a Flip camera. Understanding this need, I made a pitch for a collaboration with The Laundromat Project, a nonprofit in New York that brings arts programming to local laundromats in the city, with the idea that the resulting film would serve as a high-quality model of how organizations and businesses with limited resources can use Flip camera products to create excellent content.

The footage was shot entirely on low-cost Flip cameras by Laundromat Project staff, artists and volunteers, who received direction and weekly feedback on their uploaded footage. The resulting film was used to directly connect with other nonprofits interested in the Flip for Good program and was effectively used by the organization to effectively expand the reach of their programs.

CURRENT GREEN The goal of this campaign was to create a...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

CURRENT GREEN

The goal of this campaign was to create a promotional vehicle for the launch of Current’s online ‘Current Green’ channel for both television and online that was interactive, relevant and engaging for Current’s online community.

The insight I developed for this campaign was that despite all of the hype around all things ‘green,’ a lot of people still did not know a great deal about what environmentally-friendly behavior should be and were often afraid to ask, or did not even know where to do so.

The focus of this campaign was then to give our audience the opportunity to ask those burning ‘eco-questions’ they’ve always wanted to have answered. We would ask our audience to submit common environmental questions that would then in turn be answered by notable green bloggers whose participation could help build cross-platform support for Current’s green channel. These informational promos were then not only seen by Current’s viewers but on popular sites such as the Huffington Post, Treehugger and Grist.org, all of which helped build critical mass for ‘Current Green.’

Featured on: Current TV

UNDER THE RADAR At Current, sponsors had the opportunity to...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

UNDER THE RADAR

At Current, sponsors had the opportunity to create interstitial content in partnership with the network. One of these partners was T-Mobile, who wanted a unique way to promote their Sidekick brand of phones.

Current had a few goals as a network at the time that drove this initiative. One was that they wanted to become more nimble and respond to real-world events in real time. Our production turnaround was quite lengthy because of the sometimes unpredictable nature of nonfiction documentary content, and it became necessary to find other ways to generate other types of content quickly and with shorter turnarounds.

In order to do this, there was a need to create new opportunities for user-generated content by finding new ways for users to participate. You didn’t need to be an aspiring filmmaker to contribute to our network – you could do so by posting, commenting, sharing, voting – and ultimately have that activity turn into something that could be broadcast on television.

This is an example of an Under the Radar segment that I produced for Current from concept to execution. The idea was to build a destination on Current’s web site and television presence that would serve as a hub for people discovering new and interesting events going on in their local area. The audience could submit information online about their favorite upcoming events, and then we would in turn curate the best submissions for inclusion in television programming, in both hosted and unheated forms.

Users were motivated to share by the opportunity for their contribution to be promoted on a larger platform and to be recognized for their action, which resulted in this initiative having one of the highest rates of participation of any on the network. Besides making it simple for users to participate and contribute to television, Under the Radar also provided key insight into what our audience was thinking and doing with their lives that would lead us to opportunities for further engagement.

Featured on: Current TV

KIVA Kiva is an online platform where anyone can give loans to...

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

KIVA

Kiva is an online platform where anyone can give loans to help small businesses around the world. They were chosen to compete against four other entrepreneurship nonprofits to win $1 million as part of Sam’s Club’s ‘Giving Made Simple’ Contest – with this video as the main source of information for Sam’s Club members to base their voting decisions.

In trying to understand the best way to create a message that would appeal to Sam’s Club members, I developed a profile of who these shoppers were and what was important to them. In developing this profile, I used demographic and psychographic research compiled from Sam’s Club, as well as in-person conversations and online questionnaires with members.

I found that most people I talked to considered themselves working class and were small business owners. They considered the hard work of starting and operating a business part of a ‘culture of sacrifice,’ which is inspired by the importance of supporting their family.

I learned from these conversations with Sam’s Club members that the most compelling reason to support a nonprofit would be whether they could relate to the people who were helped by their services, either firsthand or through someone that they knew.

It was also clear that authenticity was the way to communicate to this audience why Kiva would be the best recipient of $1 million. What this campaign video needed was to tell a story where the subject shared many of the same values and struggles that Sam’s Club members identified with and that success could not have happened without the services Kiva provides.

Working with the organization, we were able to identify a woman who started a therapeutic massage service as a way to help alleviate her son’s medical condition but soon became the way that she could support her family. The result was a simple video that met all of these goals and resulted in a $1 million win for the client.

Featured on: Mashable