A separate example:

My first thought is, “What the hell is going on here?” And then I see this:

So fans can interact with these characters (who I assume are being run by fellow fans) to create an interactive experience that goes beyond the 10p.m.-11p.m. time slot during which the show runs. Twitter gives these characters voices on an even playing field with fans.

This video by Ideo talks about the future of books. These folks believe that fiction literature will be interactive in much the same way as the “Mad Men” characters are living on Twitter. What’s the takeaway for entertainment marketers? Plan on making your content interactive in social spaces. If you don’t, your passionate fans will do it for you.

My question is do people always want to be active participants in everything? Is passive consumerism dead? Won’t there always be a small corner of humanity that just likes to curl up with a book and read? We’ll see.

Check out the rest of the “Mad Men” characters:

http://twitter.com/dondraperSCDP

http://twitter.com/Carla_Madmen

http://twitter.com/BethanyVanNuys

http://twitter.com/MisterDraper

http://twitter.com/HarryCraneSCDP

http://twitter.com/PeteCampbell_NY

http://twitter.com/_TrudyCampbell

http://twitter.com/The_Don_Draper

http://twitter.com/MsMeganSCDP

http://twitter.com/StanRizzo_SCDP

http://twitter.com/_BettyFrancis

…and I’m sure I’m missing a few.

The idea is not anything new.

Remember the viral video sensation of 2007? Two kids made a YouTube video of a glitch in an EA Sports Tiger Woods Pro Golf video game.

EA responded with a YouTube video that ran on television as an ad with a claim that there was no glitch; that Tiger Woods was actually was good enough to walk on water. The video received almost five times as many views as the user-generated parody:

Wheat Thins will hunt you down

Last month, Wheat Thins started hunting down Twitter users who comment about the the popular crunchy product. The Wheat Thins squad physically tracks down the people in their homes or when they’re out at a restaurant leaving one victim bewildered, glancing nervously at the cameras and wondering aloud, “Don’t I have to sign something?”

The Old Spice campaign is no doubt miles ahead of other viral marketing attempts. Take a look at Visible Measures’ statistics from the video series’ first few days:

To me, this campaign was really eye-opening. It signifies two major trends happening in the new media world right now:

1) A business-driven convergence of popular social media platforms.

Think back to 2009. Which two emerging trends went crazy that year? Twitter usage was the biggest upward trend. The other was online video, which, with the help of Hulu, took huge strides.

2) Advertising taking some control over social media

The Old Spice campaign was organized by Weiden + Kennedy, and it was an aggressive move from the advertising firm. Having graduated from Boston University with a PR degree, I’ve been told PR departments should control social media. Now, I’m being exposed to some different points of view. While I still think PR skills (notice I didn’t say “firms”) are best to handle day-to-day “conversation management,” I’m seeing advertising disciplines (again) taking the lead in creating social media campaigns.

If you want to read more about the Old Spice campaign, see the following articles:

http://mashable.com/2010/07/15/old-spice-stats/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1295266/Old-Spice-adverts-masculine-ever.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Here’s my talk on the future of careers:

In short, I see our work shifting toward

- more time spent managing technology

- flexible work environments and

- the continued rise of small businesses.

If you ever get a chance to attend a TEDx event, definitely go. This one was eye-opening, inspiring and a great way to refresh my mind. I learned a lot and will definitely be looking to attend more events like it in the future. Check out more TEDx Talks at their YouTube channel.

The Good

I’m a big fan of Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee), who made his big break hosting Wine Library TV. He’s now a branding and business development thought leader. His Ted talk pretty much sums up what he is all about. His book “Crush it” is all about doing what you love and hustling to make your dreams come true.

The Bad

Oy! This video made me cringe…and laugh a little. The video parody itself is great, but the concept highlights some major flaws in modern day public relations. PR pros need to learn the differences between new media outlets and traditional ones. Plus the whole “social media expert” thing has become a running joke on Twitter due to overuse, so let’s only use it in a joking context from now on.

The Goofy

…is also sometimes “The brilliant!” If you’re a “New Dork” like me, you’ll enjoy it.

Up until this week when I saw “Alice in Wonderland,” my 3D experience was limited to 10-minute theme park shows like the “Muppets 3D” in Disney’s MGM/Disney Studios park and “Honey I Shrunk the Audience” in Epcot Center.

Needless to say, the 3D in theaters today is far superior to the 90s technology in the Florida theme parks. The question has been burning in my mind: Will 3D become the norm for visual media?

When color television first arrived on the market, many people didn’t want to pay for the new color TVs and rationalized that they didn’t need to be shown what colors a baseball field was. Eventually, however, the price for color technology declined, and color television became the norm. Movies like the “Wizard of Oz” hinged on the color aspect. Think about how much more powerful and enjoyable that movie is in color versus what it would have been in only black and white.

I think we’ll see the same predictors for the future of 3D:

• Affordability – Right now it is much more expensive to watch a movie in 3D. Like all technology, however, those prices will decline.

• Dependability – By this term, I mean how much media content depends on the 3D feature. What will be the “Wizard of Oz” of 3D? Will directors and producers figure out how to make movies and television shows use 3D in a way that transcends the “cheap 3D tricks” we see today? Movies and TV need to depends on the 3D features

• Development of a norm - There’s a catch-22 here. The first two points depend on 3D becoming widely accepted not just as a fad, but as a norm. Consequently, the norming of 3D depends on affordability and dependability.

Where will we see 3D develop into a necessary feature? Horror movies and thrillers? Sports? Fantasy?
Perhaps we’ll just have to take the plunge down the 3D rabbit hole to see what happens next.

Here’s what some other rising PR stars thought:

“I thought SPINdustry or ‘Command PR’ basically made a mockery out of PR. Like Kell on Earth, it depicts the profession to be run by unassured incompetent people. PR is all about image, it irks me to think that these people don’t see what they are depicting about themselves, and about PR. The ownersor VP’s didn’t lift a finger during that episode. They had the “connections” but that was it.” – Yanique Shaw (@YaniquePR) is the president of Salem State University’s PRSSA Chapter and a good friend of mine from #PRSSANC in San Diego. Read her fashion and PR blog “YaniquePR – Everything.”

“SPINdustry shows PR professionals as materialistic and ditsy. I know I could never trust that staff. They do not seem competent. You would think as PR professionals, they could create an image for themselves that doesn’t promote stereotypes.” – Dan Chizzoniti (@DanChiz) a driven future PR star currently doing a lot of cool social media work at his internship for Schneider Associates. He blogs about all things pop culture, PR and entertainment on DanChiz.com.

Care to share your opinion? Comment below or email your reaction to me at EricLeist@gmail.com and I’ll post it here.

The 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team

The only class I’m taking this semester that really engages my interests is my Organizational Behavior course. We’re assigned to student teams for a semester-long project to study a local company or organization and how it functions.

A team, according to our course definition is “a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.”

We just read a white paper by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith, authors of The Wisdom of Teams. In it, they argue that teams should be selected on skill and skill potential and not on personality. I pride myself on being a Myers-Briggs personality type ISTJ because I like making decisions based on hard facts and objective viewpoints. But I disagree with Katzenbach and Smith. I think personality plays a huge role in how well a team functions an performs.

High-performing teams focus on personality. Individual personalities on a team have to fit delicately together like a jigsaw puzzle. Herb Brooks had the right idea when he coached the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team to a miracle gold medal. The winter Olympics are this week so I think the time is right to take a look at his team.

Brooks (played here by Kurt Russell in Disney’s 2004 film Miracle) made his players take personality tests before assigning them positions in his lineup. He defied the failed pattern of Olympic embarrassment by proclaiming that all-star teams fail because they rely solely on the skill of the individual. He wasn’t looking for the best players; he was looking for the right ones. Sure, he saw the “complementary skills” and “skill potential” Katzenbach and Smith mention, but he cared way more about individual personal dynamics than the two authors recommend.

Who’s right? Herb Brooks’ team won a gold medal. Just saying.

There have been only two experiences in my life when I literally couldn’t believe my eyes. The first incident happened when I was 3 years old and my parents took me to a 3-D nature show in Disney World. The second occurred last week when I saw the video of Kanye West stealing Taylor Swift’s spotlight moment on MTV’s website. I thought, “This can’t be real.”

The more I hear about this incident, the more I doubt it’s sincerity. Even now, I am a disbeliever, and my partially-trained PR mind is drawing the line between reality and publicity stunt.

First, understand that award shows are what one of my professors calls “pseudo-events.” They aren’t actual events. They only exist for the PR bonanza surrounding them. The Academy Awards only exist because in the 1930s, the Academy wanted to drive people to the movie theaters. Add in the hours of press coverage that go into these shows: the wardrobe designers, the red carpet parties, the advertising revenue, thousands of entertainers packed into a theater to honor each other. You have a pseudo-event.

The very fact that Kanye’s little stunt happen at a pseudo-event makes me doubt its validity.

Second, Viacom instantly shifted into profit mode as soon as Kanye gave that mic back to Miss Swift. Consumers started uploading the clips of the exchange to YouTube as quickly as Viacom ripped them off the videosharing site. Maybe Viacom is a fast-acting organization, but maybe they knew what was coming and were ready for it. The only place you can see the video is on mtv.com, surrounded by two fat advertising spaces.

Finally, look at the attention both artists have gained from their interaction. I’m sure iTunes sales for both artists shot up after the VMAs, perhaps for more reasons than this one. Attention. Attention. Attention. During the show, Kanye and Swift were both trending topics on Twitter.

Could it be that multiple parties take advantage of a highly publicized and controversial incident? Sure. But I believe it is also possible that one or more parties planned Kanye’s interruption and banked on reaping the benefits.

If you watch for a progression in Disney Channel shows over the past six or seven years…you won’t see one. The shows are variations of each other with similar sitcom-like situations played out in various environments. The characters in each show follow archetypal Disney formulas. Can you blame the writers, directors and producers? Kids and young teens love the Disney stars. They scream for Miley Cyrus concert tickets, wish to wave a wand on Waverly Place, and dream of being adopted as the fourth Jonas sibling. The formula works.

My question is, “For how long?” We saw record companies perfect a formula for selling CDs with the rise of the late-nineties boy band craze. That formula peaked when *NSYNC’s album No Strings Attached sold 2.4 million records in the first week. Internet-based peer-to-peer file sharing programs brought that industry to a screeching halt. Never again will so many CDs be sold so quickly.

The Long Tale author Chris Anderson says the marketing formula that sold the *NSYNC albums was extremely similar to the one that made Elvis so popular in the fifties: sell sexed-up young men to eager young women. So a change in demographic-tastes had nothing to do with the downfall of the CD industry; rather, technology made more variety and versatility available to music lovers.

So will the Disney formula last forever? If not, when will technology (or something else) force the Disney “Imagineers” to imagine something new?