Happy New Year! And lucky you, 365 days to create something that will delight consumers, move your brand and yes, win you a Gold Lion at Cannes. With this in mind here are 5 golden opportunities ready for you to mine.
1. The Convergence of Screens
We all know that no one just watches TV anymore. No, if you’re watching, say, a football game you have an iPad on or laptop open to learn more about a player. Or buy a jersey. Or tweet a comment about a play. Plus, you might also have your smartphone nearby to txt. The brand that can do something to truly unify all of these simultaneous screens will strike gold.
2. SoLoMo
SoLoMo stands for “Social Location Mobile.” One of my followers on Twitter (@hazeliz, a great person to follow, by the way) reminded me of the power of platforms like Instagram. Instagram, which allows a user to share photography (and its location) in an artful way, is essentially a point of content. A brand can use Instagram to tell a story. And of course, it can activate fans of the brand to participate as well. There’s gold in them thar pixels.
3. Collaborative Product Creation
Other places to mine are the ever-growing co-collaborator-invention sites. My colleague (@brainpicker, another terrific person to follow) referred me to places like cloudfab.com and littlebits.cc. These sites create new products. Now, imagine not simply thinking about communicating a brand through media channels, but collaborating with all the talent that's out there to create a new product. Or if your brand stands for creativity or innovation there are some easy sponsorship opportunities to make happen.
4. #Hashtag Branding
On New Year's Day, I noticed Nike signing off a display ad with #makeitcount. I thought this was interesting as it was language other people were using on Facebook and in "Happy New Year" emails I was receiving. I then created a #makeitcount column on my Twitter feed and low and behold, Nike had “branded” the conversation. 2012 marks a good time to start using Twitter in an inventive and relevant way.
5. Story, Story, Story
Finally, there’s gold in simply telling a good story. You know the basics: a hero, a conflict, a resolution. Use film, use social, use the web, use packaging, use outbound email. But whatever you use, get crackin.’ After all, you only have 365 days left to create something golden.
Here's to a very creative 2012.
