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by Bryan Boettger, Chief Creative Officer

There seems to be two “must attend” tech conferences: CES and SXSW. So, as everyone gets ready to attend SXSW, we thought it the right time to release the first five videos in our Connected14 Thought Leadership Series filmed at CES.

The resulting videos on Connected14 — the connected experience of the 10-ft smart television, the 3-ft computer and the 1-ft mobile device — have been themed under five topics:

• CONNECTED14: What is the power of Connected14?
• OWNERSHIP: How do you divide responsibility within your organization?
• DEVICES: What should organizations know about Connected14 technology?
• TIMING: When should an organization get involved?
• PREDICTIONS: Where will the future take us?

See all the videos in a handy playlist on YouTube. Hopefully this provides some fodder for some of our Buddies to talk about at SXSW!

Speaking of Buddies. A big shout out to all the Buddies who graciously agreed to be interviewed and took time out of their busy CES schedule. So “Thank you!” to:

• Aayush Phumbhra, Co-Founder, Chegg
• Alan Chan, Founder and CEO, Bread
• Brad Ball, Former CMO McDonald’s/Former CMO NASCAR, Moroch
• Catherine Spurway, Senior VP Strategy and Marketing, Pointroll
• Chris Curtin, VP Digital Strategy, Global Marketing, Hewlett-Packard Company
• Darren Herman, Chief Digital Media Officer, The Media Kitchen
• Eli Marcus, Sr. Director of Products, CNET Content Solutions CBS Interactive
• Eric Meyerson, Head of Video Advertiser Marketing, Google
• Frederick Lee, Media Solution Manager/Architect, Panasonic Avionics Corporation
• Galileo Destura, APAC Philips uWand Sals Manager, Philips uWand
• Heather Anderson, VP of Marketing, The Retail Outsource Companies
• Jason Lopatecki, Chief Strategy Officer, Tubemogul
• Jason Mowery, Verizon Wireless
• Jeffrey Hayzlett, Former CMO-Kodak, Bestselling Author, The Hayzlett Group
• Jordan Fiksenbaum, Cirque du Soleil
• Pete Deutschman, Founder & CEO, The Buddy Group
• Seth Barron, Team Lead- Account Solutions, Google/YouTube
• Shaheen Kazi, VP of Marketing, Omek Interactive
• Tom Moroch, Founder, Moroch

We look forward to releasing more Connected14 videos in the (near) future!

Buddy Up!

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by Bryan Boettger, Chief Creative Officer

Steve Jobs put me on the path of my life.

“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”
– Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

In the hours following Jobs’ death, I was a bit dumbstruck by the outpouring of love I saw on Facebook and Twitter. I wondered how all these friends of mine could be so affected by the death of someone they had never met.

It made me reflect. And, slowly, I began to connect the dots back. (more…)

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by Bryan Boettger, Chief Creative Officer

Doing a little light reading while traveling last night (hey, a guy can only watch so much Storage Wars in his hotel room), I decided to take a second read-through of the “2011 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report” by Experian Marketing Services. (more…)

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by Bryan Boettger, Chief Creative Officer

Anyone that knows me knows I’m a big Clint Eastwood fan. By far, a favorite movie quote of mine is from Magnum Force: “A man’s got to know his limitations.” It’s an important quote in marketing because a brand has to both stretch its potential and also know its limitations. I love to push clients to try new things and take a chance, but you also have to be realistic about who/what your brand is, who your clients are and the perception equation between the two.

As an example, iTunes has the soundtrack for The Hangover (Yes, the quality movie where Ed Helms loses his tooth and a baby is found in a closet) available for sale — But, only for sale as a complete album. Consumers cannot purchase individual songs.

Apple knows the limitations of this soundtrack. Frankly, it’s not that good. But, it has some quality tracks on it from the movie. Songs custom from the movie that you can’t get anywhere else. Chances are fans of the movie will go ahead and drop the $9.99 to get the full album. However, if the individual tracks were available, it’s virtually guaranteed those same fans would only buy a couple tracks.

That’s smart marketing due to knowing the limitations of the product. Ideally, if you recognize the limitations, you try to better the product. If that’s not an option though, a business needs to make the best with what they have and not fool themselves by putting on blinders about their product(s). In the end, working with your limitations is always better than ignoring them.

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by Bryan Boettger, Chief Creative Officer

They weren’t “350 million” — as in the number of people currently using Facebook worldwide. Neither were they “50 percent” (number of users who are regional network members) or “remove…completely” (Facebook’s plan to entirely get rid of networks).

No, the two most important words were: “or everyone.”

As in, you can choose to share your info and updates with only your friends, friends of your friends, “or everyone.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s letter is positioned as an update on how Facebook is dealing with its expanding user base and protecting the privacy of that user base. However, couple the two words “or everyone” with the recent news about Facebook’s impending homepage redesign, and you can start to see that these two feature changes make Facebook more competitive with Twitter’s feature sets.

Here’s how it will work: 1) Users can share their content with everyone, 2) Other users can search this treasure trove of status updates, link sharing, etc., and 3) Everyone starts to be able to share and find content more broadly, much as is being done on Twitter. No doubt Facebook will open up additional APIs so other sites can tap into this content as well.

How does it work now? Do a search via the Facebook search for the term “Zuckerberg Open Letter.” There will be results for Groups and, at the bottom, Posts by Friends where you will find Zuckerberg’s open letter. Now, go to Twitter and do the same search for “Zuckerberg Open Letter” via the Twitter search. Your results are filled with all the commentary people are making about the open letter, links to the open letter, etc.

Imagine the Twitter level of search results, but fueled by the level of activity going on in Facebook. Keep in mind Facebook has 350 million users and Twitter is estimated to have approximately 35 million…

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by Bryan Boettger, Chief Creative Officer

With tentative optimism, I looked forward to Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year. Not because I love shopping, but because I was eager for our customers like Western Digital, DTS and Bandai.

You see, I judge the economy not by CNBC, the Wall Street Journal or some other pundit. I use taxis and airports. And, things looked good.

We believe strongly in social media at The Buddy Group, and taxis and airports are truly real world social media conversations. Nowhere, other than online, can you get a better cross-section of people from places across the country. If the airports are busy, it means businesspeople are willing to spend money to make money. If taxi drivers are happy (as happy as they can be), it means consumers are spending more.

In fact, just last week a (more honest than normal) cab driver told me business the last couple months was back to normal levels again. He said many people were coming into the city to shop. They weren’t spending large amounts of money, but they were coming in larger volumes. This jives with data from the National Retail Federation released Monday that said 23 million more consumers shopped Black Friday weekend than the same weekend last year but the average consumer spent $343.51, down from $372.57 last year. See the full report here.

So, I encourage those of you that travel to ask your cab driver and flight attendant: “things been busy lately?” Remember, flight attendants will always be a little more optimistic because it’s their job to make you feel good, and cab drivers will always be a little more pessimistic to get a sympathy tip!

And, from all the online social media talk we’ve seen the last few days, we expect some pretty strong numbers from Cyber Monday, too. If taxis and airports are good prognosticators, then social media should hold especially true.

So, happy travels – both online and offline! From my conversations, things are starting to look up out there. But, I’d love to know what you are hearing. Hit me up on Twitter at @bboettger.

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