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This is the personal blog of John F. Morton. It's where I talk about the stuff that interests me. Primarily technology, marketing and pop culture. If you are looking for my portfolio of work, visit johnfmorton.com. Thanks for stopping by!

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Filtered by Category: Trends

Talking with Colmeia TV About Agencies, Advertising Failure & Geekery

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Eduardo Camargo from Colmeia. He, Vini Reis (a friend and former colleague of mine) and I had a great time hanging out and talking about the things that excite a geeks like us: technology, innovation, marketing and more. Eduardo taped it and put part of our conversation on Colmeia’s vlog which you can see below. You can also follow Eduardo and Vini on Twitter.

colmeia na gringa | @NYC | episodio 2 from eduardo camargo on Vimeo.

Digital Evangelists Roundtable, Round 1

This past Thursday night I was lucky to be part of group of people got together to talk about the state of digital advertising, technology and what the future holds for marketing in the digital age. John Haake, from Eyeblaster, was the host at ValBella.

The evening wasn’t presented as an Eyeblaster event though. No one talked about their technology or what they were selling. It was just a discussion amongst people who care about making progress in the way marketing is done in the ever-changing digital space. We’re in the middle of a full-on collision of forces shaping how products are created, designed, built, marketed and sold and each person at our little gathering brought a unique perspective on a piece of the action.

This first night’s gathering we spent a fair amount of time talking about what’s going right and wrong in the spending of media dollars. Although it may sound obvious, one comment really stood out to me on how the digital world of media differs from the “traditional” way media was bought. Before the digital revolution when a TV spot or magazine ad ran that marked the end of the media buyer’s job. The planning had happened; the buying had happened. What little work that was left was to make sure your spot ran or that the magazine reproduced the color of your ad properly.

In the digital age though, the moment your interactive pieces go live only marks the end of one stage of a multi-stage process. The beginning of the job was the initial planning and buying, similar to what was done traditionally, but because of the ability of digital to adapt to what you’re finding out in real time, there is a huge amount of work left to do to get the most out of your media spend. Ideally, that doesn’t mean just the media plan is adapted over time, but the creative executions as well. This concept is pretty easy to understand in terms of an online banner campaign where banners are rotated over time based on what’s being clicked on and how a banner’s click through rate changes the longer it is in market, but there is a much bigger scope of information that can be evaluated on a large digital buy and the complexity can lead to many opportunities being missed along the way. I’d love to explore this optimization topic more next time from the point of view of media, account, creative, and brand planning.

The word “widget” was mentioned approximately 112 times, but I lost count somewhere in the mid-60s. Why was “widget” talked about so much? It’s a buzz word of the moment that’s started to stick with people across the marketing industry. The term has stuck, but not a definition of what it means is pretty vague. One person’s widget is another person’s gadget is another person’s embedded video. Whatever you think it is, to get the most out of the widget concept means agreeing on a what you or your client is talking about. Again, here’s another topic that I think we can explore further. 

We’ve got the initial introductory meeting done. I think we’ve done well by getting to know each other a bit. We’re collectively trying to come to a decision on what to do next.  I think “optimization” and “widgets” will definitely be part of the next meeting. It should be fun.

See Ben Weisman, who invited me to the evening (thanks, Ben!), has also written about the night on his blog here. Check it out. Also thanks to Ben and Gefen Lamdan for the photos used above.

Who was there? Amy Auerbach from PHD, David Berkowitz from Marketer’s Studio, Matt Enos from Tribal DDB, Amaya Garbayo from Mindshare, John Haake from Eyeblaster, Liza Hausman from Gigya, Alex Jorissen from Eyeblaster, Lindsey Kollross from MEC, Gefen Lamdan from Eyeblaster, John Morton (me) from johnfmorton.com LLC, Linda Payson from Avenue A | Razorfish, David Pogue from The New York Timess, Adam Romero from Agency.com, Adam Shlachter from MEC, Troels Smit from Eyeblaster, Doug Stivers from Beyond Interactive, Persia Tatar from Media Post, and Ben Weisman from Eyeblaster, Digitas, Bucky Ben Consulting and Dogmatic. (Yes, Ben is a busy guy!).

The 3 Buzzword Takeaway of SXSWi 2008

I’m on a plane traveling back from my very first SXSWi. If you’re a geek, and there’s a chance you are if you’re reading SuperGeekery.com, there is a special place and time waiting for you down in Austin next year at SXSWi. Put simply, it’s dorks, nerds and geeks gathering in one place sharing/challenging ideas, rubbing shoulders the Internet famous, and going out drinking and partying like it’s pledge week at a college where the jocks are nowhere in sight.

I’ve had many people tell me this week that the scheduled SXSWi sessions are incidental reasons for attending; the people you meet and become friends with are what make this such a special experience. I feel like I met fewer people than the typical geek but I still managed to meet quite a few people that I hope to keep in touch with. If you’re one of them, thanks for stopping by! I’d love to hear from you, just shoot me an email.

If you didn’t attend though, I want to give you a 3 buzzword take-away of what I’m taking home with me, minus the networking and friend-making.

There's more to read. Click here for the rest. >>

Going to SXSW? Let’s say hello in Austin!

I’m really excited to be going to SXSW Interactive this year. It will be my first at the conference, but not my first trip to Austin. Are you going? If not, why not? Check out some of the interesting panel discussions here. There are also lots of interesting events in the evening. Send me an email if you’re going to be there.

Parody Ads Tell You A Lot About Your Brand

Last year Tom Ford released a fragrance for men that has received less than stellar reviews. A friend showed me the parody of the site. If you want to see them both, do so at your own risk. They are not what I’d call “safe for work”. Click here for the original site. Click here for the parody. I can see why someone did a parody of those Tom Ford ads. They are pretentious and stupid. I think the parody serves as fair warning for any brand with such crappy advertising.

But what happens when a brand listens to their customer and gives them what they want? I’ve got a couple example to share that show what happens when consumers really love a brand/product and take the marketing materials and make it their own. Yes, it’s an Apple example, a brand that almost seems unfair to compare any other to, but it’s worth the comparison if only to show how high the bar is set.

Witness “Hit Me With Your iPhone,” a song composed by a fan and with video remixed from a marketing video on Apple’s site:

Next, take that same video, remix it with a feature suggestion for an improvement to the iPhone. That ”I love you” at the end speaks volumes as to how this brand reaches people.

iPhone Copy and Paste

P.S. iPhone, I love you too.