Craig Ritchie is on a mission to Humanize Brands, Build Communities, Focus On The Customer, Unleash Experiences and Create Magic.
Craig Ritchie is a Senior Strategist at Organic, making Exceptional Experiences for world-class brands.
my latest twitter updates
Craig Ritchie is a Strategist focused on the new paradigms of the web.
Growing community around brands, products and ideas requires strategies built upon these 10 pillars:
| Ideas | Sales & Education | Business | Communities | Information Architecture | Design | Development | Tools | Measurement | Futurism |
Phil “PhotoPhilCro” Crozier’s Final Canvas
50 new Nissan Cubes are driving off Canadian cubes dealer lots this month. Each one’s being driven by a brand advocate you only wish you had hired to tout your brand.
The new cars are the reward for months of creation and promotion by these musicians, DJs, dancers, programmers, designers, bloggers, podcasters, poets, writers and artists, and all kinds of creative thinkers; the cream of the crop of 500 competing “auditions” broadcast online over the last three months via social channels. Nissan openly called The Hypercube a social media marketing experiment, choosing to invest only in this channel, and is now pleased to announce (or tweet, perhaps) the successful proof of their thesis.
Nissan Canada’s creative agency, Capital C, went beyond the boilerplate hey-make-us-a-video and please-retweet-our-propaganda “campaigns” that are all too common these days, by offering prizes on which creative minds could really envision spending time and effort.
The Contest
Of 7000 applicants, 500 elite were given Hypercube canvases to audition for the mass public, stumping for daily votes with photos and animation, video, poetry and song. Competitors even took their campaigning offline, including Telma “TSwizz” Costa, who created and distributed pins to drive traffic, and Sean “Cube Man” Williams who literally drove offline traffic in his homemade cardboard Cube costume.
The cream rose quickly, as canvasses brought out the best from these competitors. And believe me, if you followed or friended any of them, you were hearing about it.
Over the course of the contest, so much exceptional content was created, it’s difficult to “highlight” the best stuff. Here are pieces of just three of the intense and daily updated canvasses:
Tony “Tony Holiday” Elston’s final canvas
Brittany Jade “Gunandagirl” Hanson’s final canvas
Delphine “Delf Berg” Bergeron’s final canvas
You can view all of the winning canvasses at thehypercube.ca
The Platforms
The Hypercube site was just the town hall of this experience, though, as competitors created videos on YouTube…
Posted images to Flickr…
Tweeted (like crazy)…
built web pages and blogs, and invoked social graphs from their other communities. For example, contestant Andre Molnar looked to leverage the passionate Drupal community, by promising to create the “Drupliconcube,” a Nissan cube “decked out in Druplicons, spreading the Drupal love to the streets.
Deeper Interactions
More than just pleas for votes, these daily updates became meaningful interactions between the competitors. Williams sent out a YouTube dance-off challenge to his fellow participants, and created this mashup:
Some social media users voiced disapproval of the campaign, including Shawn Micallef, who questioned the quality of the engagement suggests a line had been crossed, from daily updates from friends and outright spam. I disagree, as social media users are constantly pushing out posts and tweets that may annoy some, but be useful to others. This is the very nature of Social Currency, and one can, in fact, “Unfollow.” Furthermore, this type of repetition occurs with non-marketing events even more than with campaigns. When Michael Jackson died, or during the Obama campaign, the tidal wave of repetitious posts seemed to drown most other conversation. The Hypercube campaign wasn’t perfect, but neither is Facebook, nor Twitter, themselves.
The Finale
Such a momentous story had to end with an explosive climax, and on June 24, it did just that. Contestants gathered with friends at events simulcast in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. (Small-town contestants got together on their own in other provinces, too.) Contestants performed live between DJ sets, mingled over drinks, and sat in the highly-coveted Cubes on display. Winners were announced across the country via big screen video and some tight computer graphics. The dance floor of CiRCA in Toronto was like a minefield as groups of friends exploded in cheers when the local winners were listed off. It seemed like an endless supply of car keys were handed out, and many of the winners were ironically rendered speechless.
One can’t argue the level of quality and vastly disparate creative skillsets with which the Cube brand has been aligned.
The Outcome
Now, Nissan Canada has tons of authentic content to work with, generated by skilled creatives at a low cost. The winners are required to update their canvasses twice a month for the next year, but the brand will get a lot more than that, I predict, as these content generators are eager to share their experiences on the road. And they’ve also got promises to keep with their fans. Singer/Cube-winner Curtis Santiago promised to drive to a voter’s house in his cube, anywhere in Canada, to play a house party. No doubt he’ll be blogging and vlogging the whole trip.
I’ll admit, at first glance, I assumed Nissan Canada and Capital C’s campaign was a huge gamble. All too often, big brands create deep connections with new communities, but then drop these connections as soon as their campaign is over. Nissan has demonstrated how to think and plan long term; find–no, create passionate advocates who themselves created a plethora of content and awareness; and build a brand in partnership with their customers.
The Community
Moreover, this campaign was just the spark, a great success already, but the story of the Nissan Cube and the CubeCommunity is just beginning. Cubecommunity.ca teases us with a “coming soon” page, but the long-term strategy is obvious, as the community has all of the core requirements, starting with deeply invested and passionate community leaders. I look forward to following this community, and, in many ways, the hard work for Nissan and Capital C has just begun.
I’m happy to admit, the bar’s just been raised for “social media marketing.”
16 Responses to “The Hypercube: Buzz, Content and Brand Community Building”
Leave a Reply
Categories
- Brands (18)
- Building Communities (1)
- Business (5)
- CMS (2)
- Communities (1)
- Community (7)
- Creating Magic (2)
- Design (4)
- Development (1)
- Drupal (3)
- Facebook (3)
- Flash (4)
- Focusing On The Customer (2)
- Future (4)
- Futurism (2)
- Humanizing Brands (3)
- Ideas (10)
- Information Architecture (4)
- Marketing (20)
- Measurement (2)
- Mobile (3)
- Sales & Education (2)
- Social Media (22)
- Social Networking (8)
- Tools (2)
- Twitter (10)
- Uncategorized (6)
- Usability (8)
- User Experience (12)
- User-generated Content (7)
- Web (3)
- Web 2.0 (13)
- Web Strategy (14)
Archives
Blogroll
- Buzz Canuck
- Church Of The Customer
- Community Guy
- Conceptology
- Digital Disruption
- Groundswell
- Logic + Emotion
- Mobile Marketer
- Open Mode
- Print Zombie
- Rob Frankel – Branding Expert
- Seth’s Blog
- Six Pixels Of Separation
- The Crow
- The Haze
- The Lowelife
- ThreeMinds
- Web Analytics Blog
- Web Strategy by Jeremiah
Social
- Craig Ritchie On Blogged
- Craig Ritchie On BlueHaze
- Craig Ritchie on LinkedIn
- Craig Ritchie On Technorati
- Craig Ritchie’s Facebook Page
- Craig Ritchie’s FriendFeed
- Craig Ritchie’s MyBlogLog
- Craig Ritchie’s Netvibes Universe
- Craig Ritchie’s Squidoo Page
- Follow me on Twitter
- My Fast Company Stuff
bit of a consumer backlash on this wiki page: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Hypercube
A success? Can you honestly say this was a success? You’ve obviously haven’t read http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Hypercube, and if you have, you’re just like them.
While I appreciate your post, it is all too bright and shiny a read for someone who was a part of this contest. You write about all of the “good” things about the contest but have you done any reading on all of the bad things about it? For example, allegations that friends and the boyfriend of one of the judges winning cars? People who didn’t even follow the rules winning cars? Check out this website http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Hypercube and http://www.cubeless.ca and then see how your above post relates. Talking about this contest as if it was the best thing ever is getting old and annoying.
It was an interesting campaign to be sure, but unfortunately there were some issues that raise some pretty damning questions about the integrity of the contest. Encyclopaedia Dramatica does a pretty good job of summing it up, but there were definitely some questionable ethics and choices involved with the whole thing. You can check out their story at http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Hypercube
Simply put, while I have no doubt the majority of hypercube winners are wildly creative, active in social media, and dedicated to building a great community around the product, a number of the choices are pretty questionable, with some winners having pretty clearly violated the contest rules, and others having seemingly little to no interest in the community aspects of the competition.
I’m in total agreement with you that it was a bold campaign for Capital C to suggest, and for all it’s worth I think it eventually will pay dividends for Nissan, but it was not the success it could have and should have been, and I think a number of people ended up with a sour taste in their mouth. Moreover, I disagree with your assertion that “social media users are constantly pushing out posts and tweets that may annoy some, but be useful to others.” While I agree that not everything a person tweets is going to be of value to me, I can acknowledge that it has value to others. Self-promotion to win yourself a car doesn’t meet that test. Who else benefits if you win a car?
Would be a great article if true but the contest was a dud and has probably damaged Nissan’s reputation more then anything. People who didn’t win are being labeled sore losers, I was one who lost and would have probably lost anyway since there was more talent out there then I had (to that I can lose with grace) but the friends of judges, preconceived winners batch and more prove the contest was never that, it was just a sad attempt at Nissan trying to seem trendy when they really aren’t themselves because they believe in stereotypes and favoritism. Anyway, may I just point out that the losers of this contest were promised a participatory prize for their efforts, but as yet Nissan has failed to deliver.
Craig. I’m noticing a huge trend crowdsourcing talent and skills from customers. IKEA started by trusting that their customers could build furniture (and I say this half tongue in cheek), Threadless did it with T-Shirts and now Nissan is doing this.
I wonder what other areas companies can source talent for?
@reuben – No, I haven’t read this. Thanks.
@Jack – And now I have.
The Encyclopedia Dramatica piece seems like a very long-winded rant by one or a few who didn’t win the contest. It’s an unfortunate list of personal flames that I have a hard time taking seriously.
There are a few legal accusations too, that I can’t and won’t address — it’s very much not my place. As for the questions of creativity and merit, I think the winners produced exceptional work, and there are always debates like this when this type of a contest occurs.
When the contest was first announced, it occurred to me that this would be quite a commitment for entrants. But, there were many entries, and these contestants new what they were getting in to. It’s up to Nissan Canada and Capital C to mitigate any bad feelings around the contest. They may have created a monster, but, assuming the contest was legally sound, I doubt it.
@Brian Alkerton – Perhaps “constantly” and “annoy” are too strong, but I would say that on Facebook and Twitter, whether you’re following just close family and friends or 3000+ there’s noise. Quite a bit of it, that you skip without interaction.
I think the “self-promotion” aspect of this contest falls into the same category as any self-promotion. It is up to the individual user to manage their social currency and impact on their social sphere. If the mechanisms of the contest were anti-social in any way, then the contest and the brand would (or perhaps will) suffer.
@C.P. – I guess we disagree that it was a dud. While I don’t think it was flawless, I do think it was much better than the social media interruption marketing and gimmickry that most brands are rolling out these days.
As for the participatory prize, I know that many times contest prizes, even for winners, sometimes take months to process. It’s an unfortunate aspect of this type of marketing that I’m sure will progressively get better as corporations become more accountable. That said, I don’t know anything specifically about this secondary prize from this contest.
I like that you put the effort into looking into this contest, and kudos for that…
Now, time for my little bit of honesty. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find your writing a little wordy. It could be just the fact that I have a different writing style than you, but whatever, that’s besides the point.
Regarding the contest, you have to look at stuff beyond just the face value. There have been a lot of issues with this contest as well. As a result of those issues, I do not believe that “the bar’s just been raised for ’social media marketing’”. In fact I believe that they have done a very good job of showing what you should not do in this new marketing realm.
I agree that they did a lot of things right! They did a really great job right from the beginning, however, that quality drastically decreased by the end of the contest, culminating in many “undeserving” winners. Not all winners were “undeserving”, I wouldn’t even say that a majority were undeserving. However, there were many that were. I have read allegations that one of the Judges had been promoting 4 of her employees who were in the contest (supposedly one of which was an ex-boyfriend, and another a current boyfriend), and 3 of those 4 people won cubes. Now I hope that this is not true, but if it is, then there is a serious issue of conflict of interest. A judge for one thing should not be ‘helping’ a contestant whom she knows, and whom she will also be deciding whether to award a car to or not. Regardless, my point is that there were many people that should not have won cars.
Do not get me wrong, I am not saying that I deserved to win. I merely feel that this contest could have been something great, had they stuck with what they initially stated. The moral of this story is that the great thing about social media is that word of mouth is free for the advertiser, and that it is a great way of spreading news, and often to a very specified target market. On the other hand, social media can be extremely detrimental to a companies brand image, and customer loyalty if they start to do things that many involved view as unfair. As we all know, bad news travels quickly!
@John Haydon – Crowdsourcing and developing brands with customers is an inevitability.
Some of my favourite examples of this are:
1. Dell Ideastorm
2. Goldcorp’s gold mining
3. MyFootballClub.co.uk
4. The YouTube Symphony
When customers are passionate about the brand, they contribute regardless of the call to action from the brand. Brands have to decide how to use this for their own and their consumers’ benefit.
By the way, thanks for the comments everyone. Great discussion.
@Cube Contestant – Thanks for the suggestions about my blog and writing.
Again, I’m not going to address the legal questions, other than to say that yes, if there are issues, than this may turn in to a very negative branding exercise. But, until then…
I don’t agree that word-of-mouth is free. This is the most challenging kind of marketing — anyone can create and buy space for ads. Creating deep brands that consumers connect with, engage with, become loyal to and recommend is much more difficult.
@Craig Ritchie
Fair enough, I see the thought process that you used to arrive at that. I was thinking in it’s most basic form, word of mouth is free. Nissan does not HAVE to give a cent out to anyone, but they still talk about the Nissan Cube on twitter etc.
Thanks for the reply.
From my perspective that I feel & believe like all the other contestants may feel is…
Like the 50 winners, this was something we (450) all participated in, dreamed and talked to people about. We created, we shared and we followed. Doing what we could do to win.
Why did I spend 122 hours in 1.5 months on a contest while I worked full time? Because I felt that I really had a legitimate chance to win!
Then to wait to find out we had to wait?
Funny thing was I never received any notification if I won and who else won. I chose not to attend the “party”. Perhaps there are some people who felt (like myself) it not necessary to drive/fly/hotel and time off work to find out if they won a car.
I am not willing to spend more money including the many hours I spent to discover the results considering I felt 95% sure I won.
I sent an email to the company 2 days after the announcement suggesting it would be a classy thing to do by sending out a thank you and a notification of the winners etc…
Response? We are too busy and we’ll get around to it.. blah blah. (still nothing- 3 weeks later)
If you had the time to type that.. you have the time to say “Thank you for participating. Without all of you this wouldn’t have taken off as it has… ” cc. everyone…
I don’t recall the cost involved in an email- Free?
The value of 450 and the traffic that they brought to the site is underestimated and not appreciated and has been clearly indicated as such.
It is now verging on to late for a Thank You. Now it should be an apology for the blunder and perhaps this would appease those of us who feel under appreciated for the hard work put forth to bring awareness to the Nissan brand.
just my two cubicle cents.
Love your article.
Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. -Abraham Lincoln
Plash brother, you are way too smart for such vacuous wind chime solipsism as Lincoln’s “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be”
There are historical contexts that situate our emotions. For example, if Lincoln really believed that, he would have just let the slaves be.
The context of the Cube contest is fascinating and dirty. You won and deserved to win, for sure. But judge’s BF’s and stuff? This ain’t sore losers. It’s dirty Tony’s dirty advertising deed.
I’d just like to say that, amusing as the Encyclopedia Dramatica article might be, it is more fiction than fact. As the writers acknowledge, it is “for lulz” and not journalism by even the loosest definition.
They may have been shortcomings with the campaign-contest-thing, but putting forward an Encyclopedia Dramatica link to support your point is on par with supporting your theology with pictures of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Xenu.
Consider the source, people.