As the shimmering waters of Facebook, Twitter and other social spheres are opened, many marketers are diving in the shallow end head first and hoping that the API waterwings their social media guru has supplied will keep them afloat.

I blogged about a few of these examples here, listing some brands gasping for air as their Twitter API “strategy” gets pulled from their lungs, and others just treading water.

Enter Prototype-Experience.com, a console game site (the Mitch Buchanan of this metaphor), where users link the Prototype trailer with their social graph and assets via Facebook Connect.

This is an excerpt of a post… Read the rest of this post on Organic’s Threeminds Blog

Filed under: Flash, Ideas, Social Media, Twitter by Craig Ritchie
182No Comments »http://www.craigritchie.com/2009/06/threeminds-prototype-experience-pulls-your-facebook-data-pulls-you-in-deep/Threeminds%3A+The+Prototype+Experience+pulls+your+Facebook+data...+and+pulls+you+in+deep2009-06-25+16%3A14%3A04Craig+Ritchie

Tags: api, baywatch, bigstage, dr. awesome, Facebook, facebook connect, gaming, iphone, personalization, prototype, social graph, strategy, threeminds, trailer

Coca-cola and Wieden & Kennedy are expanding their “happiness” branding with a new spot featuring a world filled with gamers and social networkers ignoring each other while they are jacked in to their virtual worlds.

One lone “reality-lover” wades through the avatars on the way to enjoy a soda pop. When he finally gets to enjoy his soft drink among the wifi-ers, he meets a fellow cola enthusiast who learns that maybe socializing is better face-to-face, over a Coke.

There’s another story here, however. Assuming the spot wants to sell to teens, it misses the mark. The world has changed but social networking and gaming is the norm to millenials. They don’t see faces buried in mobile devices as a societal failure. They would prefer to broadcast their thoughts entire lives to many others than to enjoy a double malt with a stranger at the drug store.

The target will be watching this spot and, yes, will be intrigued by the plethora of mingling avatars, but they’ll be wondering what game each player is enjoying, not what tonic can save them from their 24/7 wired addiction. Coke should be asking, ‘How can we make ourselves the drink of choice for social networking?’ And, ‘Does our agency really understand the new paradigms of the digital-driven world?’

(Perhaps appropriately, you can view the non-embeddable spot at Creativity.)

Filed under: Brands, Futurism, Ideas, Marketing by Craig Ritchie
1121 Comment »http://www.craigritchie.com/2009/01/does-your-agency-understand-that-the-kids-are-alright/Does+your+agency+understand+that+the+kids+are+alright%3F2009-01-29+16%3A16%3A13Craig+Ritchie

Tags: advertising, agency, avatars, coke, commercial, creativity, digital, gaming, wieden & kennedy