Archive
The Whale vs. The Snail (and an ice cream cone)
Earlier this week, Twitter went down for for some folks, including me. I couldn’t help notice that their design team updated the familiar “fail whale” with a new cartoon featuring a snail and ice cream cone. (there’s a making for a bad joke). Personally, I like the fail whale better, because, well, I’m used to it and like many I don’t always like change.
IMHO from a messaging perspective, the snail and ice cream cone do much better job conveying that Twitter is down or has a glitch vs. a while being suspended by struggling birds (read: we’re struggling over here).
Here’s to hoping we don’t see much of the snail and ice cream cone in 2014
Social Media and Going Viral
Every Monday I look forward to seeing the cartoon that Tom Fishburne comes up to start the week off. This weeks cartoon was another nail on the head for digital brand marketers everywhere.
Recently, I was working with a friend and she was asking about how to create a viral strategy for her product launch. My response – same as it always is when agencies or marketers ask this question – “Viral is not a strategy, it’s an outcome”.
Brands and their agencies spend a lot of time conjuring up “viral strategies” and on a good day about one percent actually go viral. And for the ones that do, it’s truly a combination of stellar creative, an excellent story and a payoff (for the consumer) that has a great and fun twist. And a many of the most successful viral campaigns are not what most brands would consider “brand safe”. For the brands that understand the differences between strategy vs. outcome and how to push the envelope of brand safety, the viral world is yours to enjoy!
Thunder House 