NIKE, AKQA and MindShare Partner to Change Widget Advertising For Good - NOT!

Got this Press Release from Eyeblaster claiming to have changed the widget world:

“The widget represents fresh thinking that adds value to consumers' experiences of the brand. It allows us to sustain a 3-way dialogue between Nike and consumers and amongst themselves, throughout the campaign and beyond, by continually refreshing our messaging and the functionality of the widget,”

What does this mean? Seems to be that they've used Gigya to sustain that 3 way dialogue. Of course, no-one else is doing this yet, are they? Or maybe I missed something.

NIKE, AKQA and MindShare Partner to Change Widget Advertising For Good Eyeblaster distributes largest dynamic video widget campaign to 10 countries

New York, New York (June 30, 2008)—Eyeblaster, home of the world’s most innovative integrated digital marketing solutions has been selected by global advertising agency AKQA and worldwide media agency network MindShare to serve and measure innovative branding video widgets for NIKE across 10 countries.

As part of a multi-faceted campaign that crosses multiple borders, the widgets leverage Eyeblaster’s digital expertise and technology to enhance user experience and brand integration for one of the most well-known brands on the planet.

“We’re excited to launch one of the largest global video widget campaigns ever,” said Mike Cookson, content and media director at Nike EMEA. “AKQA’s creative ability, MindShare’s leading distribution strategy and Eyeblaster’s targeting technology is enabling Nike to distribute content in ever-smarter ways.”

NIKE’s new campaign uses ad-unit content distribution (ACD) to extend the reach of NIKE branded football films found on its groundbreaking NIKEFootball website. AKQA designed the NIKE widget to showcase video using well known sporting and media celebrities to deliver NIKE branded content directly from a video banner ad to social networks, homepages, blogs, etc.

“NIKE’s new campaign breaks the traditional online advertising model,” said Chris Hancock of AKQA. “We wanted to invent a way to push content out to users. Using Eyeblaster, we designed a campaign that uses advertising space on websites as a channel to distribute video from a site in conjunction with the added ability for consumers to ‘grab’ the content.”

“The widget represents fresh thinking that adds value to consumers' experiences of the brand. It allows us to sustain a 3-way dialogue between Nike and consumers and amongst themselves, throughout the campaign and beyond, by continually refreshing our messaging and the functionality of the widget,” added Hani Mahdi, account director at MindShare WorldWide.

To maximize ad spend and add a viral aspect to the campaign, AKQA integrated seeding technology with the video widget. The seeding technology is powered by Gigya in cooperation with Eyeblaster. Users can “grab” the widget from the website they are looking at and install it on their social networking page. This opens a direct, permanent communication channel with users where NIKE can update video content at anytime.

“NIKEFootball’s new widget campaign revolutionizes the way any brand has ever used ad serving technology,” said Gal Trifon, CEO and co-founder of Eyeblaster. “Eyeblaster makes it possible to fully execute MindShare’s and AKQA’s creative strategy and we are confident that the campaign will generate great results.”

The campaign is being served and measured using Eyeblaster’s Ad Campaign Manager (ACM) platform. With ACM, AKQA and Nike can access data consolidation and manage geo targeting, dynamic content and global distribution from one platform.

You can get the widget at: http://creativezone.eyeblaster.com/#ItemId=4023
About Eyeblaster

In 1999, Eyeblaster was among the pioneers in rich media communication. Today, Eyeblaster extends its inventive heritage in digital advertising through Ad Campaign Manager (ACM). ACM enables interactive agencies, advertisers and publishers to manage campaigns across digital media channels, including online, mobile and in-game, and a variety of formats, including rich media, in-stream video, display and search. ACM is a robust, integrated and easy-to-use platform that allows customers to focus on campaign strategy, creativity and media efficiency without having to worry about the technical complexities associated with managing global advertising campaigns online.

In 2007, Eyeblaster delivered campaigns for nearly 7,000 brand advertisers serving approximately 2,500 ad agencies across over 2,500 global web publishers in over 40 countries worldwide throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East.

Learn more at http://www.eyeblaster.com.

Widget Marketing from Kimberlly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark roll out a competition and giveaway in a widget. This is a bit yuk, but at the same time it's good all round to see top end marketing trying things out in widgets. It's also very intersting to see them using the Gigya distribution code - well done guys!
Kimberly-Clark Room-A-Day Giveaway – Dancing Packages.

Birth of the Brand Widget

HOTorNOT is busy reinventing itself, and as James Hong blogs, they've added what they are calling Stylepics. That is, little images that represent brands or anything really, that you can add to your listing to represent things that define you:

The concept: wouldn’t it be cool if users could, as a means of self expression, display pictures of the things they think are HOT on their HOTorNOT profile? Kind of like how people like to put posters of things they like on their walls, or how people like to wear t-shirts with logos of things they like.. it can be anything.. bands, tv shows, movies, clothing brands, colleges, products, even non-tangible ideas!

This is more or less what I've been anticipating for a year or more: the birth of self identifying badges for your online social life.

By enabling people to add Stylepix to their profiles, people are able to define themselves through a collage of entities that already have well known attributes. In other words, I am expressing my “james hong brand” as a mashup of many other well known brands that I identify with. It doesn’t have to be just brands, by the way… we encourage people to list anything they identify with. If you hate corporations, then be sure not to stick any company brands on your Hotlist. That’s cool with us.

Where do these badgets come from? The user community of course. They are all generated by the users and added to the pot for communal use. So all the popular brands are very quickly added to the pot, new things come in from communities, obscure items can exist.

Of course, in the social web, there isn't much point in keeping your wonderful invention locked in your walled garden (Facebook take note), so HOTorNOT has brilliantly made their Stylepics exportable as widgets:

Not only exportable, but they get the bigger picture:

Here’s something else a bit different: our goal is not to build these communities for HOTorNOT’s users only. We are happy to overlay these communities on top of existing social networks and connect them all. In fact, we already have over 500,000 people on Facebook are already using the Hotlist product, and they can communicate on the Stylepix page with any other Hotlist user whether she comes from Facebook, HOTorNOT, or anywhere else we distribute the system to. There are a lot of cool things we are going to do with the data in addition to the cool communities we are building, and we are fine with the entry points to the system being distributed rather than centralized.

And the business model? Well, they certainly have a view of where this is all going:

1. Improving Ads on HOTorNOT
2. Use the data collected to build a superior Brand Ad Targeting Engine
3. Helping Buyers. By connecting people who may be able to answer questions about the products they love to people who might be making purchase decisions, we can start helping people who are in the market to buy things.
4. Market Research.

HOTorNOT has been an amazingly successful and lasting community based on the slimmest of ideas. Looking at their approach to Stylepics, it looks like they might just have their finger on the next wave of advertising and marketing. They understand how these widgets can spread, what their value is and how they are generated. And they are not shy in being open about how the existence of these Stylepics can be mined for data to help their business. A two way street.

NewsGator - Hosted Conversations

Has anyone seen one of these in the wild?
NewsGator - Hosted Conversations.

NewsGator and Edelman have joined forces to introduce a new dimension for branded communities and conversational advertising. We have transformed the tired “click and go” protocol into a dynamic forum for interaction and conversation.

At the core of the equation are Hosted Conversations. Our clients can now select a specific theme or topic and build a branded Hosted Conversation around that theme. The conversations will feature an expert “host” and relevant content hand-picked from news media, blogs and other channels. Visitors may participate in the conversations by commenting on the existing posts and even publishing their own. The interactions are intuitive, informative, and require no knowledge of blogging or RSS from the consumer.

As a powerful extension to our clients’ Hosted Conversations, we will drive traffic to these topical areas through Conversational Ads. These ads (embedded widgets), branded by the sponsor’s logo, extend the theme through ad tiles containing constantly updated news, posts, opinion, etc, which consumers will be able to comment on, rate, and even email.

NewsGator and Edelman provide all the technology, hosting, content and moderation services. Implementations can take as few as two weeks. Edelman will also bring their full PR resources to bear in promoting the Hosted Conversations across all forms of media.

Don't reduce a brand to the level of a widget

Brian Phipps at Brands Create Customers. rates the graphics on the Rolex site:

A visual feature of the new Rolex website is so stunning in its elegance and simplicity that it sets a standard for brands on the web—and especially for widgets that wish to convey brand meaning with a single graphic device.

An he makes a telling point, that brand widgets had better be dammned good or go home:

Widgets must rise to the level of brands.

If you’re creating widgets with brand aspirations, Rolex has set the standard. Your job is to do no less, and preferably to take it to the next level. The last thing you want to do is to reduce a brand to the level of a widget. It has to be the other way around.

I look forward to judging the 2008 Widget Awards.

Disney.com 2.0 to Get Widgetized?

Steve Rubel at Micro Pursuasion says Disney.com 2.0 to Get Widgetized, But Is It Enough?.

Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger gave a keynote address at CES where he unveiled the new Disney.com. According to the WSJ.com CES blog the site is going to be heavy on widgets, video and personalization.

Hmm, what could they mean by 'heavy on . .. widgets'? Do they mean they will be making widgetized Disney content available (good) or that they have sort of constructed their site from multiple fragments of their own content (not so interesting)? Take a look at the image above. Are we looking at a fan site constructed with widgets, or are we looking at the Disney site with a bunch of widget-ettes in it? I know what I think. It may walk like a widget, it may quack like a widget, but is it still a widget? We will have to wait and see. As Rubel continues:

Unfortunately, at first glance, it may not go far enough. I will reserve final judgment until the site launches.

Disney is in an interesting situation. They certainly have an unprecedented cache of content; this is stuff that people - including yours truly - love. On the other hand, our attention is migrating to other sites where we can create content of our own. Sometimes, this includes unauthorized mashups and modifications of copyrighted content that Disney owns.

Media companies in Disney's position need to think about more than just how to get more people on their own properties. They should take a picture in picture approach. Give us stuff that we can integrate into our own worlds, no matter where we publish.

Disney has done this so well in the real world. They don't just have theme parks. They have a huge licensing division that earns billions by allowing people to express themselves through the purchase of character merchandise such as clothing. They need to port this same approach to the Web.

For example, Disney should take all of their characters and create Myspace themes. Or take some of their music and video library and make it freely available online so that we can integrate it into our own creations.

Organisations such as Disney  have to have the courage to let their content flow free. They have to understand how widgets work and how the revenues will flow back from this release. There are many ways that this will happen, and more possibilities come along most days. If a content leader like Disney were to take the plunge, most others would follow.

Go ahead, widget, make my day

Brian Phipps on widgets Brands raise the bar on widget performance.

The acid test: can this widget make my day?

At this point, my new widget acid test is to pose this question: can this widget make my day? If the answer is at least “maybe,” the widget has a chance.

Shape of Things to Come

Clearspring roll out a brand widget for the Indianapolis Colts. Hooman says:

The colts widget is a first test for the franchise. It is basically a modified slide show.  They are starting to dive into widget syndication and wanted to use our system to build, track, and deploy more rapidly.  This helped them get things done in a matter of a week, as opposed to weeks.

We will see a lot of these in the coming year. Clearspring are working hard on their widget production system, as are Musestorm and others. We will no doubt see clarification of and competition in the various parts of the widget value chain over the coming year. For the time being, its really time for innovation and rollout of ideas in the space. What I like about this widget (apart from the fact that it is almost a microsite in its own right) is that it carries its own distribution system within itself. The widget carries a 'Grab it!' link, which rotates the widget to show how to get your own copy. Lovely. You can see this widget live at the Clearspring blog.

Instant Pictures

You can make an instant 'badge' of any page on the internet by using Webshots new screenshot product. Just enter the address of any page and it gives you a bit of code which is a thumbnail and a link to the full sized screenshot.

Click to Call widget

Skype
Om Malik reports:

Skype’s Click-to-call allows you to click a hyperlink, and initiate a call to either a Skype user or use the Skype network to connect to a PSTN phone number. It has become quite popular with bloggers in particular, who embed the Skype Me button on their website.

Perish the thought! I never change my status, so this will say I'm online all through the day and night. If someone would invent an application that allowed me to automate this - or at least do it through a simple toolbar - maybe. Well, try me. I'm always happy to chat (about widgets and stuff).

Seriously, you can embed the Skype button like this, though I can't see I notice it much on blogs - and I've certainly never used it. I think we'll see a lot more of this, as does Om, with Google getting in on the act:

Skype, wants to leverage its 113 million registered users to become the defacto standard for “click to calls,” Don Albert, North America General Manager for Skype told us in an early morning chat. Skype/eBay had crafted a similar deal with Yahoo previously but that was focused on the US market alone. Skype’s push in this direction can have ramifications for many start-ups who are betting that SIP will be the defacto standard for click to call.

The use of click-to-call is particularly of interest to Google, which has been mucking around with this technology for a while. This deal reflects the slow progress that project. Google and others know that click to call will open up a new source of advertisers, those who don’t have a website but work mostly on the phone.

Still it is too early to say how the click to call business is going to play out. Albert admitted that it is a new behavior and people’s habits will have to change. “Folks are used to clicking on Google and eBay, while Skypers are used to making calls, so I think we have a good shot at making it happen.”

A widget business model

I just wrote a comment to an excellent post by David Beisel, Genuine VC, where he asks the question 'What are the business models for the services that enable and create these badges? Or are they just another marketing tactic for services as opposed to something to develop a business around? Are they a means to an end or an end in and of themselves?' David's post is part of a developing conversation around widgets and the widgetsphere, with commentary such as ' badges are a unique combination of marketing and technology, like interactive stickers for the web. They are becoming another method for self-expression in and of themselves.  Bumper stickers for the internet generation to communicate to others in “traffic.”'  I liked my contribution, so I thought I'd post it here for the record.

A widget can be anything. There won't be any centralised production method or certification system, that would miss the point. Any bit of code that can be inserted into a site and which does something is a widget.
In the widgetsphere, there are three issues and they apply to all widgets. Value and Distribution.
Value is the value of the widget to the person who has to make a decision to insert that widget into their (limited) site real estate. The value can be direct (AdSense), indirect (gets traffic, subscribers) or emotional (esteem, kudos)or a mixture of these. Without value a widget will not get installed anywhere.
Distribution is how it actually gets installed, i.e. cut and paste, auto-insertion, walled-garden drag and drop.
So you can be in the Value business or you can be in the Distribution business (or both).
The value business is really the realm of marketing and/or advertising folk and I expect to see marketing companies jump on this big time. How do you create a widget that carries value, that will get big time adoption and that gives a ROI. This already is a specialist field without any specialists in it, but it looks very interesting.
Distribution is something different, how do you reach everyone who may want to insert your widget? How do you make it easy for them - not only to insert it, but to remove it again. Can you automate this process. How about widgets that auto delete. How about widgets that only show in response to certain conditions, or to certain visitors. This is a distribution issue. This is wehere Snipperoo is operating.
There is another issue, where several companies are operating, but its a red herring. That's the area around 'how do you make a widget'. As I said, a widget can be anything that will run in a web site. There are millions of people in the world who can build them using whatever technologies the like. Anthing that cramps this resource will not fly. That's why Snipperoo are technology agnostic. We are the universal widget.

Marketing Widget - Woo!

This is interesting. Cameron Olthius is blogging at Postbubble about a marketing widget called CreamAid (terrible name).

CREAMaid is a conversation management tool that helps companies extend and manage their customer relationships.  The easy-to-create widget is meant to help carry on conversations with bloggers. Once a conversation starts any blogger can join in to give his/her opinions. All the blogs that participate in the conversation will become connected through the widget and all contributions are viewable anywhere the widget is used. There’s a catch, posts must be selected by the conversation starter in order to be brought into the conversation. This is to prevent spam and of course anything bad that is said about the company.

A strange beast it is too. It's confusing to use because Cream Aid have put up a pretend 'Cream Aid drink' site and inserted the widget into it, so you get a sort of loop of self-reference, making it hard to understand what is going on. The widget does seem to be prepared to pay cash for contributing to the conversation and for carrying the widget - although in this version the cash available is set at $0.

But the widget itself is fascinating on another level - it's the first pure marketing widget I've seen that attempts to step outside the simple advert or content widgets that we've seen up to now. Cameron concludes:

There is a clear need for tools that will help companies manage conversations about their brand but I don’t see this one being very effective. I do not see anything here other then a widget that companies can use to control the message.

This iteration may or may not be perceived as an attempt to slip a widget into the mainstream that allows the company to control the message. But this will be the first of many approaches to widgetised message distribution - or widgetised marketing. Cameron says, 'This sounds a lot like regular blogging doesn’t it?'. Well, it does look like the first stirrings of a blog platform in a widget. Rudimentary, but it's there. We will see a lot more of this over the next few years.