Welcome to the House of Bamboo

As you might have noticed, it’s been a bit since we’ve posted.

Fear not, we are actually in the midst of a complete and kick ass redesign.
Couple that with the fact that we just picked up a few clients, things have been busy.

We’re looking to launch the beta of the new site by mid-August ish and are looking forward to hearing from you about it.

have a great summer
cheers
Z

Cause this dude is extremely dope.

enjoy…

I love the internet.
Currently, there is this subculture of rabid superfans that is shaping and driving pop-culture
today.  90% of blockbuster movies seem to be comic-based, sci-fi influenced
retellings of epic and much-loved stories that this sub-culture grew up with.
(editor’s note – I myself am from this subculture.  I label myself a nerd over a geek though).

It has created a market worth billions and is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Over the weekend, one of the members of this subculture released a trailer
they had made themselves.  This person is a fan who doesn’t work for any film studio,
(as far as I can tell).  This trailer  is a labour of love and was made for free and without
any prompting.

Here’s the thing, the trailer is made about the upcoming Green Latern movie which
was just only announced a few weeks ago and doesn’t even have a star attached yet.  This trailer
has quickly risen the ranks of the influencer blogs to gain a whole whack load of buzz.

This fan is making a great case for Nathan Fillion (a much-loved actor in the sci-fi subculture)
to become the Green Lantern.  That fan support concept in itself is not new.  How he is doing it is absolutely genius and all marketers and ad folks out there must take note.

While this particular superhero is not as well known as some of the others, the
comic has a very rabid, loyal and very discerning fanbase.  It has a core group of people
that make the content relevant.  While the character of the Green Lantern might not be as
well known as Batman or Superman, the Green Lantern movie now has the ability to really
become a great blockbuster because of the support of the influencer blogs.  Neophytes who
might not know, will now be interested because they are being influenced by one of their own.

The same thing happened with the recent reboot of Star Trek (minus the fan made trailer).
The inluencer blogs broke the story of the creation of the film early and just went with it.
I would venture to say that the film studio saved at least 30% of its marketing budget
because of this early consumer adoption.

As mentioned, there is a lot of hype and buzz around this trailer, mainly because it is being
generated by the consumer, in this case the film nerds.  Traditional media could  never
do that.  As a marketer, stop trying to convince people how to feel about a brand based on your
own personal beliefs. Nine times out of ten, you’ll fail.  Put the product in the hands of the
fans.  More importantly, focus on the influencers of that fan group so that you can save
money while getting the word to the most amount of people. You’ll be surprised just how versed
and educated about the brand they already are. And when possible, don’t put it there once
it’s already done. If the opportunity allows, put the concept of the product out there.
Maybe show them some initial designs or marketing thoughts around the brand.  This may
sound like crowdsourcing, it’s not.  To me, with crowdsourcing, the user makes the decisions from beginning to end.  What I am suggesting is that instead of going to a focus group that couldn’t really
care less about your brand, go to people who can’t imagine living without the brand. You’ll
not only receive information that is valuable, honest and accurate.  You will have planted
a seed for a very strong and relevant word of mouth campaign.

Here is the video

You need to visit this page.
This has to be quite literally, the best use of technology I have seen
in a very, very long time.

Extremely refreshing and very fun to be a part of. 

Recently, Saul Colt of Zoocasa.com was on CNBC.  
My editor’s note is that he is also a friend I have known in marketing circles for years. 

This interview turned quickly into a load of crap.
Saul is probably one out of a group of people, that I place myself into as well, that
truly gets and understands what Twitter is all about.  If anyone ever wanted 
to have a great dialogue about Twitter to get a sense of what is really going on,
he is a great guy for it. 

Too bad this interviewer  had no real intention of having a great dialogue.
He was arrogant, beligerent, not well-prepared and had his own agenda of proving that 
traditional media is still the number one way of dessiminating media.  He really
illustrated just how much of a moron he is by proclaiming “I only just started my 
Twitter on the weekend.”  Yeah, he was the ideal guy for this. 

To me this  interview perfectly illustrated the current fight between ‘old-media’
and the ‘new-media’ that Modern Marketing has created.

Basically, Old Media is the old, grumpy guy in the corner who talks about the “Glory Days’
of when they could reach three quarters of the country in a single swoop.  They are 
holding onto the past with all they have realizing that they are in the twilight of
their life and don’t have much longer to really be heard and respected. 

New Media on the other hand, is the dude that really knows what’s going. They surround
themselves with  great likeminded people and geniunely like to interact and share
with them. They realize that individuals and consumers are the  true sources of what  media
has become.

One of the Interviewer’s point was that Twitter is ‘kinda dumb’ and that it’s ‘a one-hit wonder’
that doesn’t hold any relevance. He’s big statement to back up his ‘argument’ came from
the recent study that said that “more than 60 percent of Twitter users stopped
using the free social networking site a month after joining”.  Now if this moron had any
kind of real journalistic skills, he would have found out that they study is extremely
skewed in that it did not include the flurry of apps and other methodologies that are being used
and are the main reason for Twitter’s meteoric adoption rate, ie- DestroyTwitter, TweetDeck and
TwitterFon. Using a study that isn’t really relevant and spinning it to make your point is typical
of  the way of Old Media.  

The fact of the matter is that Twitter’s main relevance is the immediacy and power of the types
of conversation and interaction that one can have. 

Case in point, the recent, unfortunate air crash in New York.  They story was not broken over 
traditional media first, but over Twitter.  The photo that was picked up by pretty much every major
Old Media outlet was taken not by a professional photographer, but by a dude on a ferry with an 
iPhone, who then uploaded it to Twitter.

If this interviewer would take his head out of his ass long enough, he would realize that Twitter
is not going to take away his job, it is just another way of sharing information. The value that
Twitter provides is that it keeps reporters like him honest.  I am writing this editorial that
you are reading and he can say or do nothing about.  It is an honest, unfiltered opinion
that is sure to merit some discussion.  Kinda like what Journalism was originally intended to be.
I will be disseminating this only through Twitter. When I do tweet, it will be with the same honest,
unfiltered opinion that always merits some discussion.  The difference is that I will receive 
feedback almost immediately and that feedback will lead to more dialogue which will lead to more
and more dialogue.

Sometimes this dialogue will include me sending my followers the latest info
on the going-ons in pop-culture, (as I do through my @jarodvhale account), sometimes
it will feature the latest info and news in the world of Modern Marketing, (as we do with our
@houseofbamboo account), sometimes I will need some help and will pose the question
to my followers, who are more than happy to help, and yes Mr.Moron Journalist, sometimes
I will tweet about the fact that I was buying wings at Pizza Pizza across from MuchMusic
at 12.30 at night.  

And you know what?  There is absolutely nothing that he or anyone else can do to stop me.

It is for this reason that Twitter is not going anywhere as we move further into the world of 
Modern Marketing where we as consumers and users further define who we create, consume
and disseminate media.

So here is the video of the interview.

So on Marketing Mag’s blog the other day, they mentioned a nice little commercial
that Taxi is using for their latest campaign. 

I actually really like this particular commercial.
The daughter’s look just sells it for me and I laughed out loud the first time I saw it.

The best  little nugget is Marketing Mag’s little nugget about the  name of the dog.
It seems that they named it after a former employee/self-appointed rockstar of marketing.

It smacks of the billboard that Cossette put up at the high volume corner of Avenue and Eglinton
(across from where I used to live no less) wishing the recently departed Sr. VP the ‘best of luck’.

Could there be a little residual resentment going on here?

Gawd I hope so cause a little Haterade in Canada’s otherwise boring ass
marketing landscape is never a bad thing. I’ve had my fair share and fully believe
it is sometimes needed and good for creativity. 

btw…I wonder if this is the right spelling of Haterade?

Fox has been running a really cool campaign across a bunch of its properties.
It is actually quite #genius.  The show is extremely addictive (I can’t stop watching),
and has quite the fanbase.

The season finale is quickly coming up and it promises to be the mindf*ck that
JJ Abrams seems to be able to deliver on a constant basis.

This campaign screams of his influence and begs the question,
why aren’t more marketers using more ‘non-marketing’ people in the
strategy portion of their planning?

Here are the promos…

Ok…So I have been crushing on a great TV campaign that Lincoln is
currently executing.   Such a smart use of colour, mood and music.
My favourite one is the first one that uses the  cover version of
“Major  Tom” by the Shiny Toy Guns is #genius.
(thanks to @davidcrow for finding out the band for me).

The positioning of the car with a space ship is very smartly done
and quite frankly makes me want to buy one.  The Lincoln’s are
not bad cars and have been through a bit of a redesign lately
(driven by the recent hip-hop fueled success of the Lincoln Navigator)
and have become quite the desirable vehicle to own.  If I wasn’t so in
love with the Infiniti FX35, I would definitely look at getting the MKZ.

Anyways, enjoy.

I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day and I was surprised that they agreed with me on my thoughts on all of these so-called “Social-Media Experts”.  We both have the mindset that a true social media expert does not go around proclaiming such a title. This conversation came about from the recent Twitter’s explosion and the emergence of these so-called “Social Media experts’.  You see the funny thing is that most of these people were SEO experts 5 minutes ago and have no real clue on what Social Media truly is. Really what they are doing is attempting to capitalize on the interest by consumers and ad agencies in Social Media and then monetize this interest.

Social Media is just another way of communicating.  Marshall McLuhan predicted in his book “Understanding Media”  David Ogilvy’s book “Ogilvy on Advertising’ provides a great foundation in how to  correctly communicate with consumes that can be easily translated across the social media landscape.  

The emergence of Social Media is one of the main pillars in what I’ve designated “Modern Marketing.’  To understand what this newly coined term means, we must look at what the definition of Modernism is :

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The term encompasses the activities and output of those who felt the “traditional” forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life were becoming outdated in the new economic, social and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world.

Some commentators approach Modernism as an overall socially progressive trend of thought, that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of practical experimentation, scientific knowledge or technology.

From this perspective, Modernism encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was ‘holding back’ progress, and replacing it with new ways of reaching the same end.

- from Wikipedia

Using the following phrase as its foundation :  ” the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of practical experimentation, scientific knowledge or technology.”  the term Modern Marketing refers to the the empowerment that everday consumers now possess through recent technological advancements and the the ideology that Marketing in its conventional (and now outdated way) is no longer effective.

In the same way that technological advancements created the modernist cultural age, the recent technological advancements in the online world have created a new movement of activities and outputs that have empowered consumers into content creators reshaping the foundation of how marketing moves and is shaped.

From the agency model to the types of media now available, it is the everday consumer that is now formulating how things are done.

It seems that the Twitter monkeys/self-proclaimed media experts aren’t the only ones who are trying to capitalize and make money of the recent emergence (or depending on how you to talk to – reemergence) of social media.  A University in England has decided that they have what it takes to teach a Degree program in the ever-changing  not quite there world of Social Media.  I wonder if one of the courses is going to be called : “We have no idea what the next wave of social media  is going to be, but here is the class anyways” 101.

Click here for the link