Apparently, Brazilians are adept at hacking technology to make something out of very little. I am not talking about software hacks per se. I am talking about not settling for what's in front of them and assembling solutions from the bits and pieces of available elements. Think Frankenstein meets the iPod.
It's such a common thing they have a name for it: Gambiarra or as Renata Saraiva from Ogilvy points out, "Fazer uma gambiarra."
Here's how media maven Marcelo Tas describes it during my interview with him:
He's a TV celebrity, internet pioneer, father of 3, overall good-guy and has more than 75K followers on Twitter. Marcelo Tas has been engaged with the Internet and television for well over a decade (I love meeting guys who have been around as long as I have). I had a great dinner with him in Sao Paulo last week.
He shared a bit about himself, his social media life and his insights in Brazilian social media - all while standing outside our restaurant on the street.
He has a hugely popular live TV show in Brazil. He will go live from April through December which makes me tired just thinking about it. Online he has his blog and his very popular Twitter feed. He is a brand and a very appealing one from where I sit. Essentially I see Marcelo as a creative entrepeneur. That means he has a natural curiosity that drives him to constantly try things and invent things, mostly media. He told me of his online shows via UOL where he challenged experts to unpack complex topics like university economist who had to explain the global economic meltdown to a taxi driver. So smart.
He regularly speaks to large brands about his experience and insights into digital culture. Here's an excerpt from my interview with him outside our restaurant in Sao Paulo. One thing is clear, Marcelo comes alive in a new way when you turn on the camera. I love his energy.
People like Michel Lent, Carla Meneghini, and Renata Saraiva at Ogilvy have developed a great integrated approach to social media marketing and digital influence programs. They live and work in Sao Paulo which I can only describe from my naive pov as the New York City of Brazil, if not of the overall region. It is a kick-ass city with more culture, food and commerce than any I have visited in a while. Traffic too, but that's another story.
We met with many brands last week. They are all taking social media very seriously. As in many markets there is a range of brand adoption behaviors including:
Brands who want to put listening programs in place to understand what consumers are saying about them in blogs, Orkut and Twitter
Brands fascinated with Twitter and ready to accept that platform as a microcosm of cgm chatter
Brands looking to a number of partners - small and big - for guidance and not always getting the best recomendations (In my opinion)
Brands looking to their traditional agencies and to new boutiques (there are a few new social media boutiques using simple cgm listening capabilities to build business)
Brands embracing the idea of new influencers and inviting them to interact with the brand
An emphisis on using social media without clear expectations around realistic measurement and impact
Brand marketers looking at social media as a channel (pitfall)
Communications execs trying to make the case at the C-suite level for the relevance and impact of social media marketing and communications
It's all good, essentially. Brazil is such a big and fast-growing market. The key to all of this is how fast the market is growing. With 197 million people and 68 million on the internet (35%), there is a critical mass of people and influencers that can drive marketing and communications.
There are always limits on infrastructure - how fast can we grow 35% to 50% by sheer "pipe" alone? How can we go from 6.8 million broadband users to 10 million? Still, just keep an eye on adoption curves - how fast Brazilians grabbed onto Orkut and Twitter - these tell a story of a market that will explode in a blink of an eye. And the marketing and communications professionals at the brands seem to know it.
I've been married for 18 years and missed the opportunity to use Internet dating services. From the sidelines, I am a big believer in the value of services that can match people's interests and affinities potentially leading towards meaningful relationships.
We need another service that essentially does the same thing for traveling families.Each year, we plan one or two vacations. Some are local-ish, driving vacations. Some involve flying. Historically, we have tried to go out of the country once and then maybe to the beach or a lake. Clearly, this year, we will be staying more local.
My kids are 11 and 14. We like to do certain things - as Popeye said, "I ams what I ams." or "we ares what we ares." When we take a week to go to the Outer Banks, let's say, how can we connect with a couple of families that we have enough affinity for who will be on the OBX at the same time? Or if we visit my dad on the Redneck Riviera, how do we find that family that wouldn't laugh at our Takoma Park values from the front seat of their Esplanade? We don't want to share a house so much as share a few experiences and most importantly, connect our kids with new friends and pals.
I realize that many families do group vacations - sharing houses and the full travel experience. We are quite a bit more independent than that. Our travel opportunities are precious and the excercise of matching affinities, budget, and vacation time with a neighbor or local friend is too daunting. Plus, I love meeting new people, and I want my kids to meet new people to.
Family Travel Matching It's simple really. Let's take the best of affinity matching - we like science fiction movies, swimming both at the beach and in a pool, weird local activities (next time in LA, I want to visit the Museum of Death - probably not with 11, though.)
And combine it with travel destination and timing: e.g. we will be in Assateague in the 3rd week of August
Our children's ages and interests
Some budget & taste information: we don't want to eat at McD's, abhor expensive brunches but kinda dig things like the Kill Devil Grill...
and some ideas of what we would consider fun...
We should be able ot find folks both traveling and native to our destination who also want to meet new people for some low-commitment diversions. The New York Times Travel section featured a service today that starts to get there: Tripsay.com.
Tripsay.com the new service seems more about aggregating traveler reviews and then allowing you to join groups - but it's a very high-level affinity like "passion on cultural nightlife" or "hiking." It's not family oriented and I am guessing matches more young people.
"What's your passion regarding travel? Join TripSay and create a group with others sharing that passion! TripSay groups are made up of people who share common interests or activities.
Build your traveler network using groups. You can share tips and places with your network and as the result you'll get their recommendations for your next trip!"
FamilyPosse.com
Time to start a Family travel matching Service. We could call it, FamilyPosse.com.
I realized that the World Economic Forum Davos conference was happening this past week when I read Michael Arrington's "spit post" last week. All week, I had been meaning to ap into the social media side of the event yet just didn't have time. Like last year, I was able to tap into their "Social Media" page and choose between their YouTube pages, their Twitter feed, Netvibes, Flickr, Qik, Mogulus, MySpace, Facebook page, their own video player page and more.
Need to Add "Guides"
With all of this availble content, I need a guide. I want to find all the content related to digital innovation. Could be a series of human guides that offer their 'playlist' of content. Could be a series of segmented tags that the crowd attending and creating content would use. Where's the Davos Delicious page? (I would have guessed "davos2009" as a good, all-purpose tag but there are only 12 tags there). Clearly there is a lot of traditoinal media coverage from FT.com and Time.com. I particularly like the page and coverage from the Huffington post. They serve as guides for the readers who have a close affinity for their editorial focus. I am particularly interested in sessions and discussions about the impact and trends of "digital."
I am confident that I could piece this together and create a "guide" to digital-related issues/sessions/content. Since the WEC has done such a great job with getting digital content up there, the next step could be creating these effective "guides" - tools, people, data - that makes teh experience more naigable and relevant to more people.
Good Digital Session: The Next Digital Experience
Here is a decent session hosted by Michael Arrington with some of the usual "young founders" talking at first about mobile and then wandering around the innovations brought about by YouTube, Facebook, and, finally issues like privacy. Participants: Hamid Akhavan, Eric K. Clemons, Chad Hurley, Craig Mundie, Shantanu Narayen, Mark Zuckerberg. The session runs like a standard panel - they don't dip into questions from online, Twitter, et al. Good stuff in there and worth having on in the background.
tidbits:
Mark Zuckerberg - "People are becoming more and more comfortable sharing more..."
Eric K. Clemons (Wharton) - "My good friend, Jason Lanier, who pioneered virtual reality says that is so "last year." What we want is augmented reality..." where we get more information layered in on our lives.
Eric K. Clemons - "...Us, old guys, we are not hiding from data we are hiding from push...which is a big problem for (marketers)..."
This year's event will bring together some of the biggest brands practicing Word of Mouth marketing today including Dell, Kraft, Hershey's, HP, and more. I am personally involved so I am biased but the reason that I am so involved is that I believe so strongly in the discipline and in a broad-based group like WOMMA to push it forward.
One of the most important outputs of the November SUMMIT will be the latest on measurement and ROI. Nothing could be more important as the economy tightens and marketers must demand more efficient (i.e. "provable") programs. If you have an approach or need a measurement model to support you programs - come to learn and share!
Even our event must be essential to make it worth all of our time, and this year's program is just that...essential:
"Reaching the Word of Mouth Tipping Point
Word of Mouth Marketing has grown up. Major brands and organizations integrate WOMM into global marketing and communications programs every day. Have we reached the tipping point yet where WOMM programs flood the landscape? What will it take to get there?
Hear from the most important brands using WOMM today – how they measure, deploy best-practice programs, and how they sell-in programs.
Each year, the WOMM industry convenes to take a comprehensive look at the changes that have taken place in the fast-changing, ever-beta, word of mouth marketing world, and to look forward at what’s on the horizon, including tactical trends, best practices, game-changing ideas, and more.
Whether you live and breathe word of mouth or have seen firsthand the impact of WOMM and want to learn more, WOMMA’s annual Word of Mouth Marketing Summit is the place to be.
On the dockets for Summit 2008:
Keynotes and case studies from the top brands in the WOMM world:
Hear from Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos about their explosive business
Cases from HP, Yahoo, Pepsi, Hershey, Cadbury Schweppes, Intercontinental Hotels and more
All of the WOMM industry leaders in one place
Networking opportunities with people who live in the WOMM trenches
WOMM as a recession marketing tactic
Aligning your online and offline efforts
Introducing WOM in your integrated campaign
Details:
November 12-14 in LasVegas at the Rio
500 Marketers from major brands, agencies and WOM specialists
Four "youths" were on stage at WeMedia 08 which has been dominated by media, business and marketing leaders (adults). It's refreshing to hear from those who are not caught up in the professions. Each is deeply engaged with social media. Some are even celebrities. When Cumbio entered the auditorium, the Twitter stream exclaimed "Cumbio is in the house!"
They are here to share their digital lives. Cumbio sounds like a regular teen.I love that she leads real-world meet-ups at the mall. Milton runs a popular blog. Pablo brought his own PowerPoint presentatuion of teens and social media.
Myths and Reality
Each has a perfectly normal sounding life with lots of digital sprinkled in throughout the day. They are not on the computer all day. That is clearly a myth for these people. They weave it in with tremendous facility. Cumbio can post a half dozen images on her photo log in less than an hour (and recieves 100,000 visits (a day?). I am certian that I am online far more hours than any of them (and have no more to show for it, I think)
Pablo: "TV is only used for movies, I like...TV s not my favorite medium"
At least two of them don't understand the appeal of Facebook. The audience of adults cheer that one on.
Cumbio's pretty sober about the difference between core friends - 5-10 - and the extended network of aquaintances that the Facebook software chooses to call "friends."
Cumbio champions a new kind of media literacy - how to best use Fotolog and retain your privacy. very smart.
As usual, an eclectic mix of media, bloggers, marketers and business people came together at MALBA in Buenos Aires to talk about how media is changing at WeMediaBuenas Aires. There is a fair amount of tension between the traditional media folks onstage and the social media natives in the audience. For every newspapaer journalist who comments from the stage about their discovery of blogging, there is a Tweet about their "newness" to the medium. This tension is not unusual. I am with the Twitterers on this one. many of the journalists are going through the motions but have not really embraced social media.
My Theory: the traditional media companies feel confident in their leadership position due to the 'reach'they command at the head of the tail. When they look at social media, they see technology. they adopt technology and expect they have changed. Change is more constant. media companies did not just temporarily lose their monolithic status in our society. Those days are gone forever.
Newspapers Transform Everywhere Roberto Roja (sp?) from Clarin.com (large media company in Argentina) launched the conference by sharing about the violent disruption for print media (their foundation is built on their newspaper but they own TV, internet connectivity and more). Five years ago, they introduced color to the disbelief of the newspaper purists.
They added an online "version" of the paper to reach new audiences. He feels very bullish not just about newspaper readership but also about the leadership of newspaper Web sites. Users of their sites have doubled since 2003. The big questions are how to grow print readership and increase online revenues.
He certainly seems like a man who sees the writing on the wall while dragging a traditional print-based media company to its obvious future. I wonder if he is more optimistic about the future of the print paper than is warranted.
Eduardo Hauser CEO of Dailyme.com - His 6 Trends Dailyme.com offers personalized news in a crowded market.
Fragmentation: Records (aka "albums") vs. iTunes
Atemporal (time-shifted): cable box vs. TIVO - growth of new advertising models including a 3:00 segment
Form of Payment: micropayment a la the $1.99 song on iTunes
User Participation: Election 08 Twitter feed
Distributed Experiences: he uses an example of DailyMe which aggregates content from everywhere including Clarin.
More Devices: iPhones and Blackberries and Kindles, Oh My! The Kindle is a platform that you pay a regular fee (subscription) - this represents a new business model.
Mariano Martino: Blogger vs. Journalist vs. Both Blogging since 2001, Mariano and I spoke before the conference. He is outspoken and spends his time bridging traditional media and advertisers with social media. He is running a panel of journalist bloggers incuding
Leandro Zanoni from tercerclick.com is giving a simple overview of social media including Facebook, wikipedia and the slide with all of the Web2.0 logos. He is teeing up the premise that I will cover tomorrow when I speak about my version of "perpetual beta" - test, try and train and allow for failure.
Ernesto Tenembaum, journalist and blogger
Daniel Fernandez Caneda, journliast and editor
Working with Blogs
Lilian Beriro, Development Manager for Telecom portals - Brands create stories so that they remember us and choose us. She is championing "listening" - we listen to how consumers "react." She shared three examples of ad agency created video programs - funny, fake videos. The question remains is embracing the vocabulary of social media as powerful as actually engaging with social media (and the people amidst it)?
Esteban Panzeri/Lenovo - Esteban worked with us on the Lenovo Olympics. He is a smart guy and is actually sharing something of substance. He talks about the needs and wants of the consumer. First time today that we are talking about what the consumer needs vs. what journalists need or what advertisers need.
While in Moscow, I have had the opportunity to meet some very smart people who understand the marketplace here as well as the culture. Some work at Ogilvy. There are some others who are connected to SUP, the new media company that now owns LiveJournal. I will post my video interviews soon with Edward Shenderovich, a sharp internet businessman and Andrew Paulson, the serial entrepeneur who started SUP, and has guided the growth of the company including it's outright purchase of Live Journal from SixApart in 2007.
Here are some quick factoids and POVs on social media in Russia
Live Journal, the blog platform has about 30m unique users which is roughly half of the connected population (60M) and represents about 20-25% of the entire population (140m)
Andrew is a firm believer in the content focus of LiveJournal and its user and business value. (I love believers)
Andrew also built a small digital agency inside SUP to not just create client solutions that include LiveJournal and Championt.ru, a sports media property but to be agreat digital agency in a market that needd it
Social Networks are starting to catch on with some Facebook clones hitting the market
Both Edward and Andrew see the rise of blogger/journalists on the horizon but also see the dilution of the value of online cpms with th egrowth of low-value social network pages
Many of the other internet companies have a mix of Web 1.0 properties like Rambler's Mama.ru and are dependent on the value of advertising (and the vagaries of that market) to drive revenue
Yandex is the favored search engine in the market. There is a slice of the service that specifically searches blogs. In 2004, Yandex sales increased to $17M, which was 10 times greater than the company's revenue just 2 years earlier. In June of 2006, the weekly revenue of Yandex.Direct context ads system exceeded $1M
Oh, and Red Square closes at night so I had to peer through the bars to be able to "experience" it
What does the future look like? Look for the videos in teh next few days and you can hear from teh experts in-market.
Once in a while there is an interesting digital event in DC. We have more than our fair share of social media enthusiasts and experts, digital marketers and user experience affiicionados. But like a lot of us, I am burned out on blogging summits. My interests are about integration, creativity, crosspollination...
While I will be speaking there, my main reason to attend is to meet some of the very cool eclectic players who will be on site. We have:
Creatives like Jakob Trollback, Nick Law, David Carson, Hillman Curtis
Social media thinkers like Kelly Goto, Brian Solis
Marketers like Andrew Elliot Smith, Rohit Bhargava (okay, I know him)
Business leaders like Ted Leonsis, Albert Wegner
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of other folks who bring interesting perspectives none of who you would find at a regular digital conference:
Joanna Champagne from the National Gallery of Art
Michael Chasen from Blackboard
Hoofman Radfar from ClearSpring
So, if you are looking to meet some of the top digital thinkers and do-ers in the country, join us in DC. And want a different, thought-provoking event - Register for the event.
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