My reaction to the new MorphMonkey marketing campaign on Facebook is… well awkward. It just makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Yet that’s the point.

A press release from the American Social Health Association explains the campaign:

“In an unusual creative move, a team at Duval Guillaume (DG) has agreed to spread an infectious disease by working with the American Social Health Association (ASHA). The aim is to… highlight the dangers of Chlamydia to young people during April, which is STD Awareness Month. …(The team) devised a Facebook application called MorphMonkey in which users are invited to “make a love child” by morphing pictures of their own faces with that of their friends.

The humor then takes a different turn. The infected user is notified that they have caught the infection from their friend and is prompted to discover more on the ASHA website: www.ashastd.org. The message is “Spread it here so we can beat it here”, according to all involved with the program.”

I learned about this new application from a post on TechCrunch. I find the comments below the post interesting to get the social buzz. The campaign is quite edgy in that the MorphMonkey application page on Facebook makes no mention of Chlamydia. Essentially participants… dare I say it… get caught with their pants down.

Here’s the MorphMonkey application page on Facebook.

Whether it’s Google’s fault or not, the web is getting smarter. The technology itself is moving toward a place where it understands more about who you are as a user, and what it’s showing you inside of your browser. Years from now these developments will have a profound effect on web experience for users, and it will have a profound effect on the economics of online influence for marketers. What will it all look like?

Search becomes Artificial Intelligence. Right now, search engines merely seek to show you something relevant to the keywords you typed in based on much-guarded, mysterious, and ever-changing algorithms. But these algorithms are limited because they are based on keywords, and as even Shakespeare lamented, words have their limitations. As the semantic web becomes a reality, search engine technology will break free of words and actually gain an essential understanding of what web pages ARE - beyond the words on them. This will make search engines more like a search “brain”, which will be able to synthesize the web to meet your needs - once it understands what those needs are.

Your identity unlocks your web. But even if next-generation search engines understand the web better than ever before, the understanding of what you need is still limited to the keywords you input, right? Well, there are big changes there as well. OpenID is the movement to unlock your identity from the websites where it is most established (think LinkedIn, Facebook, or MySpace profiles) and make it portable, such that when you arrive at a new website it will be able to know who you are. This goes beyond solving the inconvenience of managing a multitude of login profiles - it means that websites could understand your interests, your web usage, your shopping habits (provided you let them). The implications are sweeping. The web can then unfold itself to you in a way that it doesn’t for anyone else, and the gatekeepers for making that happen will be the next-generation search engine. Google and others will eventually know you, and know the web, such that it might at times seem as if it is reading your mind.

The web as one big social network. If you unlock your identity from any specific website, it follows that you will also be able to unlock your social connections in the same way. An unlocked set of connections that you have to other people is often referred to as your “social graph.” You may be thinking how nice it will be that you won’t have to put all that work in to “friend” people as much, you’ll only have to do it once and then you can take it with you. Actually, the way that is done will change too. Friending will cease to be the main means of establishing your social graph. You see, the communication technology you are using (for older folks it is email, for younger folks it is IM and texting) is listening. It’s learning who you communicate with and how often, and about the length and nature of that communication. It knows more about your true social graph than you probably do, and in the future it will be able to make that graph portable and attach it to your now-portable identity. Signs of this happening are already evident. Google’s OpenSocial platform and Social Graph API are great indicators.

The web experience in 2015 will be one where you take your identity and your network with you, and semantic search engines and websites will respond (if you let them) by showing you where your friends are and what content most meets your needs.

How does this affect online influence and marketing? Some of that is already being explored by the folks who are dealing with marketing in the insulated social networking environments that exist today. The successes and failures there are being well documented and adding to professional understanding of best and worst practices, so I won’t try to cover that ground here.

The key thing to understand about this 2015 vision is that in the future social networks won’t be a side attraction to the main flow of information on the Internet - they will be the Internet. Those who explore and begin to understand the dynamics of that new environment by playing in it today will be well-positioned to lead, while others may be left behind.

Roger von Oech’s classic “A Whack on the Side of the Head” just turned 25. I used this book a lot in college and at my first agency job. We’d do a few of the exercise to kick start our creative sessions. This led to numerous fresh ideas.

The 25th Anniversary Edition of this creative classic has just been released. It is updated and features many new exercises, puzzles and more. There’s a good interview with von Oech at Guy Kawasaki’s blog on Sun’s SMB site.

Check out Roger von Oech’s Creative Think blog. My favorite part is his online creative whack. Just click on Roger’s photo at the top of the page and a new creative exercise comes up. A few of my favorites include Avoid Arrogance, Imagine You’re the Idea and Slay a Dragon.

Whether you’re working on an online community, creating original content or writing for a blog – these brain teasers will help you stay on your creative toes.

“Brand Building 2.0” is the manner marketers use to effectively reach and relate to their audience in today’s world. This method employs more than just digital media, such as the Internet and mobile devices. It requires consumer empowerment. This was the topic at last week’s ANA Conference at the Hard Rock Café Times Square in New York.

Presentations were made by such respected brands as American Express, P&G and Ford. Of these, Claire Bennett’s discussion on “How new media has enhanced the American Express brand” was the most compelling. “It takes risk” was her summation about creating online marketing programs. Courage was the word she pin-pointed as the important take away.

It also takes time, explained Bennett. Her experience has shown that program ROI can not be realistically expected in the first year. A web site needs an opportunity to build momentum through trial and error, refinement, cross media promotion and WOMM. American Express strives to create marketing programs that “surprise and delight.” AMEX had only two such web sites in 2004, but now has eight successful ones, including MembersKnow and OpenForum.

The most interesting presentation at the conference was made by Tony Hsieh. He is the CEO of Zappos “a service company that happens to sell shoes.” The business is steadfastly focused on culture and service. The vast majority of their marketing budget goes into improving the customer experience. This includes stocking millions of shoes in their warehouse, providing exceptional and untimed call center support and surprise overnight shipping upgrades. Items not normally found in a marketing mix.

The goal is to create as many “wow moments” as possible. This creates loyalty and referral business. The approach is working. Zappos was started in 1999 and is expected to achieve over a billion in sales this year.

The Zappos culture is shaped by passion, fun, values and humility. Their core values are published on their web site. And a Zappos Culture Book is published each year featuring entries by all employees of the company – even negative comments. This radical transparency and humility seems present throughout Zappos.

I find the Zappos brand refreshing and empowering – so much so that I placed an order at Zappos this morning. In addition to the cool Paul Frank monkey shirt I bought for my son, I ordered the Zappos 2007 Culture Book. I paid $15 for it despite the fact that Tony Hsieh said he would send me one free if I emailed him. I just felt compelled to support the Zappos brand, culture and employees. Now that’s brand innovation.

Flight cancellations from American Airlines created a lot of news coverage and consumer angst this week. The result of wiring problems on MD-80 airplanes, this situation got me thinking about how the involved communications teams are responding.
Are they holding cards close to the vest or communicating openly?
Are they leveraging the Internet and social media?
How are consumers reacting online?
 
American Airlines’ customers have been highly inconvenienced, with over 2500 flights cancelled. Their home page had a single line: “ADVISORY: AIRCRAFT INSPECTIONS AFFECT SOME AA TRAVEL.” This linked to a simple page of text summarizing the situation. It was not all that helpful.
 
American Airlines’ chairman Gerard Arpey’s press conference today is already up on YouTube (uploaded by a consumer, not American Airlines). In the video, he personally accepts responsibility and apologizes for the problems. Other videos tagged with “American Airlines” posted on YouTube.com this week have been viewed over 20,000 times.

In the blogosphere, Greta van Susteren’s post on the subject has created a good amount of consumer conversation with nearly 50 responses since 11am this morning.

These events show how consumer conversations take place in real time online. Communication professionals need to account for this in crisis communications plans. We need to monitor, analyze and interact with the blogosphere and UGC communities before, during and after such events.
 
As advisors in social media, we have a responsibility to encourage and facilitate a more open conversation in the market. This is even more important in difficult times.

Powered recently updated our web site. This update includes a series of videos detailing things such as social commerce, consumer engagement and the gratitude effect. These videos can be viewed on the Powered web site or at the Powered page on YouTube.

Here’s a sample video about the Gratitude Effect.
Learn what the gratitude effect is, where it originated, and how Powered has implemented it into its social commerce programs.

The South by Southwest Interactive festival is starting up in Austin today and continuing for the next few days, with a host of keynotes and panels that will appeal to web designers, developers, and businesspeople alike.

Powered will be rolling out some folks that fit in all of those various categories to attend the proceedings, but here are just a few good panel picks just for marketers relevant to the social space. Keep in mind that they are producing audio recordings of every keynote and panel, and these will be available after it’s all over.

The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Campaigns of 2007 - 3.8 @ 11:30
Likely to serve up some valuable lessons in terms of what not to do

The Art of Speed: Conversations with Monster Makers - 3.8 @ 3:30
A take on viral and social marketing from web pioneers

Social Marketing Strategies Metrics: Where Are They? - 3.8 @ 5:00
Marketing thought leaders get “real” when it comes to investing in social initiatives

Social Strategies for Revolutionaries - 3.9 @ 11:30
“You’ll need to combine a radical’s spirit with a strategic framework to get your company to act.”

Sunday Keynote Speaker - Mark Zuckerberg - 3.9 @ 2:00
This young CEO and his company Facebook are challenging for social dominance

Social Networking and Your Brand - 3.10 @ 11:30
Understanding this relationship has been the genesis of social commerce

This classic 2005 article on the Creating Passionate Users blog contains some great thoughts about how marketing has changed and how “education has become the killer app in a newer, more ethical approach to marketing.” It also contains a lot of good links, trackbacks, and comments to good educational marketing resources to explore. Worth a careful read.

Of course, despite the forward-thinking wisdom in this article and many of the others linked to it, traditional marketing (Out-spend instead of Out-teach) still has a very strong toehold. And even though it won’t make people “passionate” about your brand, outspending still works. My experience in marketing states that the “consumer education” message hasn’t been quite compelling enough to break that toehold.

Instead, the disruption necessary to really change marketers’ minds, and open them up to the importance of consumer learning and research, is coming with the advent of Social Networking and User-Generated Content. The content users weren’t getting from brands, they now seek from each other. Marketers who have been sitting on the sidelines watching this happen are suddenly getting this nagging feeling that if they don’t understand this new social world and figure out how to be a part of it . . . well, they might have to find something else to do for a living. When you say “social,” marketers are ready to listen.

At its root, Social Commerce is about education: brands teaching consumers and consumers teaching each other. Learning is key to the buying process, and even more broadly it is key to making consumers care (or become passionate) about your brand.

Steve Rubel defines Social Commerce as “utilizing the power of many to help us find and buy products and services. It involves the creation of new collaboration technologies that shrink the research and purchasing cycle.”

Voice 1: The People’s Voice

Steve is talking about the fact that online collaborative tools now allow us the ability to bring online the typically offline job of consulting knowledgeable, trustworthy peers before we buy something big and complex like a flat screen tv, washer/dryer combo, or engagement ring. Not only can we now access those people in the comfort of our own home wireless network - with the web we can now also access a lot more people and be even better informed than we were in the past.

Voice 2: The Brand’s Voice

But is that all we need when we are considering a product purchase? Other people like us, while more trusted, might not be able to equal a brand’s ability to produce formal, expert content that will educate us on things to a high degree of depth and quality. Isn’t there still a place for that educated, dedicated sales person who is getting paid to respond to our needs?

Good Social Commerce is about bringing appropriate, rich, educational content from the Brand into the consideration and research process along with advisory, objective content from peers. It’s about balancing the two voices that you need when you are getting ready to buy, and making sure that they complement and build on each other.

OK, so I’m not – nor do I want to be – Alan Greenspan. But when he coined the term “irrational exuberance” in that 1996 speech, it was forever burned in my brain.

And it recently got me thinking…are marketers experiencing irrational exuberance over video? Yes, I’ve seen the stats on broadband penetration. Yes, I’ve seen the numbers on how many users say they watch them. And yes, I’ve seen the numbers on the desirable actions and attitudes video watchers have about the brand associated with said video.

But it’s got me thinking – are marketers jumping in the video game (and I’m not talking about advergaming here) because they have concocted a well constructed, value to the consumer-based approach? Or are they following the herd? I’ve heard David Klein refer to this dynamic as “soccer ball marketing” at MarketingProfs.com. Maybe it applies here.

Video supply is tight. CPMs are up. And there is a LOT of crap out there that is nowhere near brand quality. So ask yourself: Are you doing video because it’s right for the consumer (and therefore right for your brand)? Or are you doing it because everyone else is? And please – be honest.