I'm a web strategist and aspiring know-it-all with a passion for all things digital. I've worked in PR, advertising and not-for profit industries, and now I run a creative agency. These are the things I think about, and am sometimes compelled to write. More...

Things I learned while ego-surfing

Oct 26 2006
2

The first hit for “Ryan Anderson” is this site.

The second hit is my American namesake and guy who probably gets a lot of my email, Ryan Anderson.

The third hit tells me that one of the contestants on that insipid From the Ground Up show where Debbie Travis yells at jackass 20-year olds is named Ryan Anderson.  He got his girlfriend pregnant, and now he’s on a reality TV show.

The fourth is an article about a Ryan Anderson (a.k.a. Amir Tallah) who is a former US National Guardsman, and Al Qaeda sympathizer, now serving a life sentence for treason.  Perhaps this explains why I am constantly molested by customs when I travel to the US.

Kids today

Oct 25 2006
2

I recently did a guest lecture in the school of communications at Carleton University for an advertising class about the change in the mediascape and its impact on advertising.  Thing is, across all of the eras of advertising, media, tactics and tone never go away – they’re just replaced as the front runner.

This morning, a former colleague of mine (and the professor of that class) forwarded me an article from Advertising Age that said that young people aged 12 – 24 will never open a print newspaper, own a landline and think email is for their parents.  There’s nothing here that hasn’t been said before, and yet the message really goes against the grain.

We’re married to our media of choice.  Just as advertisers are married to the 30-second spot, PR people are married to the press release and journalists are married to the printed page, we as consumers are loathe to give up our media of choice, even for a better alternative. 

I have a cell phone, and no landline, and so do most of my friends.  My parents each have cell phones, a land line and a fax line, and I don’t see them going completely mobile anytime soon.

I’ve seen a number of magazines “transition to online-only formats” in the past six months.  Some of them major, some of them fly-by-night.  I have yet to see a newspaper make that transition, even though the Web surpasses print for news in every place that print used to rule.  Speed of breaking news, depth of coverage, breadth of coverage and portability are all rendered null by online media that has no limit to column depth, no limit to pages, no limit to circulation and for anyone with a web-enabled cell phone, can be accessed anywhere, anytime.  Yet, every journalist I know personally has a romantic notion of the printed page.  I probably do too.

The first local newpaper to make that transition will cause a major stir.

I think the reason that we are so hesitant to accept a change in the media is that we are comfortable with what we have, even if it’s inferior.  It’s the reason RSS adoption is low, it’s the reason that I still have colleagues who refer to blogs as “just another website,” and it’s the reason that many agencies still only think in terms of the 30-second spot.

As professionals, we can’t just jump on the bandwagon of every media trend that comes along, but it’s important to remember that those who accept change have the biggest successes and the biggest failures.  Mediocrity is rarely rewarded either way.

Character Blogging

Oct 24 2006
3

This seems to be where I disconnect from the blogger hive-mind.  I’ve been thinking about character blogging lately, and I instantly recognized that most bloggers would be against it.  A quick Google search confirmed this – character blogs are verbotten.

But why?

Granted, in some cases it’s incredibly lame, but I think it has a potential to be an interesting interactive work of fiction.  As long as it’s clear that it is a character blog, the content is interesting and it fits the campaign, why are we so against character blogs?

Then again, I still like LonelyGirl15.

Does anyone have any examples of character blogs that, in their opinion, worked?

Confessions of an Ottawa PR Guy

Oct 20 2006
3

About six months ago, I made the move from being a consultant at a PR agency a few blocks from Parliament Hill to heading public relations for an interactive agency in the same city.  I love everything about my job, but I must confess that there is one thing I miss – Canadian politics. 

I used to spend most of my day swimming in politics, keeping up to date with the political environment so that I could counsel my clients accordingly.  Now that I’m in the advertising industry, and a disproporationate number of my clients are now in New York and L.A., and have little to no interest in who will lead the next Liberal Party, I much admit that I am much less in touch with Canadian politics that I used to be.

A story on CBC radio this morning as I made my breakfast smoothie reminded me of why I love Canadian politics so much.  So, with apologies for veering off my usual course of posting, I present to you a recounting of a scene yesterday in the House of Commons.  (Nota bene: this helps if you picture a kindergarten classroom, and all of the characters as L’il Rascals.)

So, it seems as though the Conservatives, who are now in a minority leadership position, introduced a bill reducing greenhouse emissions by, oh, say, sometime mid-century.  During a debate on the effects of such a policy on the environment, Liberal MP David McGuinty asked Foreign Affairs minister and ladykiller Peter MacKay the rhetorical question, “what about your dog?”

In response, MacKay allegedly gestured toward ex-girlfriend and conservative-turned-liberal Belinda Stronach and replied “you already have her.”

The Speaker of the House subsequently raised his hands in a snapping motion and exclaimed, “OH NO YOU DID NOT!  You did NOT just go there!”

Then, in one of Canadian politics’ proudest moments, Liberal MP Mark Holland raised a point of order and ratted on MacKay for daring such Oscar-Wildesque wit in the House.

“It’s completely unacceptable to call a woman a dog and to point over to her is completely disgusting,” said Holland, addressing the house, and raising the question, “so… one or the other would have been fine, then?”

In turn, conservative hottie Rona Ambrose (pictured at right, wanting me) responded by finking on Liberal MP Denis Coderre for saying something to the effect of her being “a potted plant,” whatever the hell that means, and demanding an apology from him.  That THAT, Mr. Tattlepants.

At the time of publication, neither party were available for comment, as they were down for their napsy-doodle.

The original comment referred to a heartfelt staged media stunt held by MacKay after Belinda kicked him to tha curb.  Interviewed on his parent’s farm, petting a dog and explaining that “his heart was banged up a bit.”  He added, “dogs are loyal.”  The dog belonged to his neighbour.

The CBC news article on the site goes on to speculate that Peter MacKay is probably doin’ it with Condoleeza Rice.  There’s got to be a joke about softwood lumber in there somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I’m going digging for it.

Who is into social media?

Oct 18 2006
5

So, I’m writing a document for a client about the culture of social media, and I realize that while I understand the trends and the ethos behind it, I don’t know much about the individuals.  I’m now very intrigued by the idea, and I’d love to hear if anyone has any research on the “types” of people who are adopting RSS, who are blogging, who are commenting, social bookmarking, etc.

My gut feeling, not based on anything in particular, is that the demographic skews male, university educated, working in an office environment, likely a “knowledge worker.”  Most are not executive or C-Level, but are likely management level.  A disproportionate amount are entrepreneurs or intrepreneurs.  Most are well-organized, and are very comfortable with technology and consider themselves more intelligent than average.  In general, most are competent writers, and consider themselves creative people in one way or another.

I think that applies to business bloggers, but there are also personal bloggers, profile bloggers (those who use MySpace or MSN Spaces).

I’m going to be doing some research over the next few weeks, which I’ll share here.  My goal will be to create an understanding of the dominant personality types who are heavy social media users.  If anyone wants to contribute to helping me build the social media personas, feel free to drop me a line – my first name at ryananderson.ca, or leave a comment here.

Why Steve Rubel is wrong about engagement

Oct 12 2006
0

Steve Rubel thinks engagement is a myth. “Don’t bother searching for it,” he suggests to marketers. I’m usually on board with most of what Steve writes, but this I can’t buy even for a second. Since most of what I talk about when I do presentations on marketing and PR is related to engagement, I feel the need to clarify a few things.

He talks about what he calls a “systemic issue in the marketing community . . . to create buzzwords to describe new marketing methods.” Well, that one I have to give him. Advertising is full of buzzwords, to the point where it’s almost ridiculous. The word engagement has fallen prey to this tendency, and as a result, a very important piece of solving the advertising puzzle has been neutered and rendered meaningless, right alongside “viral,” “branding,” and so many others.

Ask any ad industry reporter, and they’ll tell you about the countless press releases they get from agencies who “launched a viral this morning.” Just like we’ve overused that word to the point that it is now often used to describe any commercial online, we’ve started talking about engagement as if every ad is by definition engaging.

The truth about engagement is that no one can define it because it’s a myth. It’s sort of like a magical marketing unicorn or Bigfoot.

Steve Rubel

This kind of flippant analysis of the state of engagement is hardly the kind of commentary I would expect from someone who has made his reputation as a blogger by raging against the status quo. While it’s true that we as an industry have yet to agree on a standard definition, it is far from undefinable. Where most people fail to understand engagement is by thinking about it as a tactic rather than an outcome of doing things right.

There’s no doubt that we’re moving toward an on-demand culture. As consumers, we have a million-channel universe available to us at the click of a mouse. As technology progresses to a point where more of the media we consume is on-demand, the more consumers of media DEMAND on-demand. The time where we can put out a commercial message and “reach eyeballs” is fading fast. We have more noise competing for our attention than ever before in history, and we have more technology to play the role of electronic gatekeeper than ever. Most of the eyeballs we’re reaching are now focused on their laptop during commercial breaks, or only seeing a tenth of the message as it is fast-forwarded on their PVR.

This is where the importance of engagement comes in.

If I can make my marketing message part of the signal rather than the noise, then my message is being consumed, not just seen. The customer’s attention is turned on because they have self-identified to receive this commercial message. Most of the time, that commercial message comes packaged as entertainment or information, and allows the consumer to become more than just a passive receptor of the message, and to actually interact with that message or brand.

Engagement is the state of being turned on to and focused on a message or brand such that it penetrates the consumers personal and technological filters and has a lasting effect on recall.

How you do that is a whole other ball of wax. I work for a company that focuses on branded entertainment, and I believe very strongly that this concept and philosophy of advertising (when done well) is the best way to have the members of your tribe self-select and pull the message to them rather than foisting it upon them.

As the ANA blog points out, Steve does seem to understand the essence of engagement underneath all of the glibness. He ends the article by saying:

If you want to see engagement, find the right communities, build programs that empower people to connect, then get out of the way.

I think this is a form of engagement, but I don’t think it is the only one – that’s what Mentos did with the YouTube contest. If I’m playing an entertaining advergame or interacting with something truly entertaining that is a part of your brand or product (the Satan’s VCR section of the Pick of Destiny website comes to mind) then my attention is turned on, focused and receptive.

Without engagement, there is only noise. Sometimes it gets through with enough repetition, but most of the time, it gets filtered out before it even reaches the intended recipient.

Movember in the News

Oct 11 2006
1

Looks like we’ve started to get some ink!  We got our first proper media hit this week in the Medical Post, a national medical journal.  I honestly expected that we’d get more traction from a pop culture angle than a straight health angle, but apparently, I was wrong.

You can read the article at the Medical Post website.  Be sure to pass it around!

We also have a story coming out in the University of Florida student newspaper next week.  The interesting thing is that they found us solely because of the blog.  This whole interweb thing never ceases to amaze me.

The Social Media is the Message

Oct 11 2006
0

As a student of communications, I was, of course, inundated with Marshall McLuhan for all of my scholastic years. I was recently talking to a friend of mine who teaches a course in media, and he reminded me of a quote from McLuhan that really speaks to the internet, and social media’s place within it. I can’t find the exact quote, because I can’t remember where exactly it is from, but I’ll try to find the exact citation and quote. To paraphrase, he said this:

A new technology will not reach its full potential until it is fully in the hands of the next generation.

As much as I’d like to think of myself as the next generation, I’m probably on the other side of that. I’ve had a computer since I was 4, a PC since I was 7. I made my first webpage when I was 16, for a comedy band I had in highschool. However, I can still remember a time where the Internet was not part of my everyday life.

Once the 15 and 16 year olds of today, the ones who have no concept of card catalogues or losing touch with friends when they move, are the academics and PR pros of tomorrow, the internet will be in the hands of the next generation. We haven’t seen a fraction of how the internet will change our society at this point. As young and hip as we are (or would like to think we are) we’re still old dogs learning new tricks.

Five steps to starting a successful blog

Oct 09 2006
23

I’ve had a lot of colleagues of mine ask how to go about starting a blog. After helping a few of them get started with varying results, I would have to say that these are the five most important things to keep in mind when starting a blog:

Get your feet wet. I equate becoming a blogger to moving to another country. While in this country you can speak whatever language you like, there is a very specific culture that you have to understand (though, not necessarily follow) in order to be successful. Once you start reading blogs regularly, and more importantly, commenting, you’ll better understand the ethos of the blogging culture, you’ll have an easier time fitting in and becoming part of the conversation.

Worry more about being good than getting traffic. While the blogosphere isn’t exactly a meritocracy, it’s very difficult to be popular without being good. Don’t try to get Seth Godin to link to your site before you get your second post up. Start slow, and build a depth of quality posts before you start aiming for link exchanges. If you’re good, people will recognize you.

Start with success in mind. Okay… this one sounds like self-help pop psychology, but it’s important. Social media is simultaneously easy and virtually impossible to measure. Google Analytics is free, and will give you a depth of stats that would make an economist nervous. For the same reason, it’s very difficult to know if your blog is successful unless you know what success is going to look like from the outset. Is 1,000 visitors a month good? Is 100 RSS subscriptions your goal? Are you trying to move a product, get a job, establish yourself as an expert? Decide that from the beginning, and the rest gets easier.

Write for your audience. The obvious thing to keep in mind is that you need to start a blog with a purpose. If you’re just writing about yourself, then “success” is fairly irrelevant. If you’re writing about your business, your industry, your band, or your upcoming film, you need to decide from the outset the type of content you are going to write about, how often you’re going to write and the voice you’re going to take. If those things are inconsistent or incongruent, you’ll lose your reader, you’ll lose recommendations and your blog will be less successful. Audiences want some level of predictability. If you write about advertising almost exclusively and then start writing about your cat, people will get confused and annoyed. Confused and annoyed readers do not stay around long.

Don’t write cheques your ass can’t cash. A former colleague of mine who works in government relations (code for “lobbyist”) put it best when he said to me, “a blog is like a bird feeder. It might seem like a great idea, but if you can’t keep it maintained, you’re doing more harm than good.” If you’re going to leave the blog sitting static for a month at a time, don’t bother starting it. Blog success is based on momentum. Traffic in motion tends to stay in motion, and once it is at rest, it’s hard to get it going again. Call it the first law of blogging physics, if you like.

These have all been said before my much smarter people than me. Anyone else have anything they’d like to add for neophyte bloggers?

A Wee Brag

Oct 09 2006
0

As many of you know, I work for an interactive agency called Fuel Industries. I don’t talk about it much on this blog for reasons of objectivity, but I will make an exception in this case.

Every year, Marketing Magazine, a canadian marketing trade publication, hosts the Digital Marketing Awards. This is our chance to really show off the kind of cutting-edge games and branded entertainment that is being created in the great white north. The awards ceremony is on November 2, but prior to that is the DMA Consumer’s Choice Award for best branded game of the year. Marketing Magazine and Canwest take the best advergame entries from that year, and publish them for the public to vote on their favourite. I’m happy to say that of the 16 projects featured, 7 of them are Fuel Industries projects.

If you’ve got a few minutes, check out the voting site (registration required) and vote for your favourites. Of course, I would never suggest that you vote for a Fuel Industries project simply because of who made it, but, if you want to show your nepotism, the following projects are ours:

- American Dad vs. Family Guy Kung Fu
- Hershey’s Take 5
- Teletoon’s B’s Stunt Track
- Oh Henry Snowboard Challenge
- FedEx TeeOff 2006
- Andy Roddick vs. Pong
- Pog Super Slammers

Also, while we’re on the subject, we’re in the midst up updating our entire website (cobbler’s children, etc.) and our corporate blog is going to be a big focus of the revamp. If any of you would like to check out what we have so far and make some suggestions on what you would like to see in terms of content, features, or what have you, feel free to drop me a line or a comment with your suggestions. I have a lot of ideas for how it is going to change, but I always appreciate input from my blogging cohorts.

The link is http://www.fuelgames.com/blog and my email is my first name at ryananderson.ca.

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