The story of a boy which opened his own arcade from carton boxes, lot’s of scotch and some calculators, despite the financial situation of his parents, is inspiring. As presents he’s giving away his old toys.

He was dreaming of how it will be if people would come to play at his arcade. Fortunately he got lucky when a producer came to his dad shop and directed a movie about the arcade. He created also for Cane a Facebook Page and managed to gather people to come and play Caine’s Arcade.

I was looking also on the website and I saw that there is a foundation that helps other young entrepreneurs like Cain.

Watching the movie I came to some conclusions that I want to share with you:
1. I remembered about my Advertising agency and how difficult it was to start that journey just after I finished university. What amazing feeling I had after my first customer (pics here).

2. I encourage everyone to have a first entrepreneurship experience. I had this experience and it worked for a while. Even though this experience is over now, I will not abandon my BIG dream.

3. I must admit that the story is a little bit like the “American Dream”. All great businesses started in a garage. I like how American society is sticking together for a crazy idea. In my opinion, you will see this less in Europe.

4. I like Caine’s dad for one simple reason: he’s giving to his son the freedom of dreaming, working, trying and failing from a young age. This is also my philosophy, that good parents are the ones that encourage their children to express their creativity.

I have one questions for you this time: do you think that unconventional ideas are common in European business model?

Well, I said before that the campaign is interesting, but I’m asking how efficient? How would you feel, as a car owner, if you come and you see your car covered? Will you think that, “wow, this is a nice campaign!” or “what happened with my car, i hope that nothing is broken or stolen?”.

I strongly believe that guerrilla marketing is the key this days, especially that TV, Radio cost so much and not all the time is effective. Guerrilla marketing, can go viral and you always reach your target. But you have to be careful how you do it. I believe that you have to follow some directions:
1. Don’t be aggressive – your costumers wouldn’t like if you push them, try to transmit positive emotions;
2. Define your goals – yes, guerrilla marketing is creative, but you still need to know what to do, where to do it and what you want from it;
3. Permissions – try not to do something that is against the law;
4. Create the element of surprise – guerrilla marketing is about surprise, if you create the element of surprise you are going to achieve the objectives.

How would you feel if you came back to your car to see it has been covered?

The latest sensation in viral marketing and when I mean latest, I’m saying since yesterday (11/04/2012), is the Telenet campaign: Drama button. Over 4 million views in only 1 day.
Telenet, is a Belgium provider of  TV/Internet/Telephone that released TNT channel. In a flemish square of a certain Flemish town, they put the sign “Push to add drama” and a red button. You can see what happened below:

The campaign had from the beginning all the elements of becoming viral:
- element of surprise
- good script
- people watching = word of mouth
- naked chick on a motorcycle (i don’t know if this is one, but got me surprised twice)
- good copy in the end
- distribution through social-media

Also for me what really counted about this campaign is that they made an act according to the product. Is not about singing, dancing and so on, is about drama and that is what the channel is all about. I’m tired to see more and more campaigns that think they can go viral with a dance/signing equal flashmob.

Would you push the button?

For the ones of you that doesn’t know what is a flashmob, you have the definition bellow:

A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression. Flash mobs are organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.

Source: Wikipedia

But I was surprised when I saw this following clip. The campaign took place in Amsterdam in the most crowded place in Amsterdam: Red Light District. Advertising agency Duval Guillaume made ??a campaign called “Stop the Traffik” against human trafficking and involuntary prostitution.

I must admit that this flashmob is really well design, the element of surprise is present, you have the impact in the end, it is original and it stands for a good cause. It went a bit viral with 393,453 views and I saw it also on Twitter.

Do you know similar social campaigns?

- Google April Fools: 8-Bit Google Map: video promoting 8-Bit Google Maps for Nintendo, but they actually build the system in the website

- Toshiba is introducing Shapes: tablets designed to match your personality and style in different shapes – round, heart and so on

- YouTube, DVD collection: you can have all the videos from Youtube in one DVD. I want to buy one

- Sony, Vaio Q – The world’s smallest ultrabook: size 0.75″ x 1.25 and also powerful 8 GB Ram

- Skype for String: for me was the most funny and simple, all you need is 2 cups+string and you have the result

So this are my favorites and I’m sure that you can find others online. So which was your favorite April 1st fool?

But is social media educating? I was reading today on Mashbale that a guy from UK was convicted for racist tweets against the football player Fabrice Muamba. The conclusion is simple: be responsible for what you do on social media. But, that’s a another story.

I’ve saw a nice campaign that took place in Brazil. Radio Mix FM, an important radio station, with a target mainly of young people decided to educate young people of the importance in preventing AIDS. They created 2 videos with sexy appeal and they posted them on Facebook.
They went a step forward by exploiting a bug from Facebook. Surfers clicked on the video and were surprised by a message at the end: “With HIV is like that: you get distracted, get the virus and shares without even realizing it. Take a look to your wall. Prevent always, December 1, World Day to Combat AIDS.”. The idea was automated shared on the surfers Facebook profile.
The campaign went viral and in only 6 hours had more than 6000 views and over one million people affected.

In February 2012, Facebook had more than 845 million active users. In a world that is suffering by hunger, war, disease and so on, social media can bring people closer. I would personally love to see more campaigns like this. Another example of a similar campaign you can find here.
So what do you think: how can we make a better world through social media?

In my years of experience, I have had the chance to create marketing communication towards retailers and consumers. Major part of my role was also to supervise and brief the advertising agencies in order to create the Brand aligned materials.

Apart from this, one of my major focuses in my professional career is also Online Social Media Campaign, planning and developing Advertising campaigns for different clients.

At the moment I’m self-employed, but currently looking for a company where I can maximize my creativity and marketing/social media/event management/advertising experience.
You can contact me via:
- E-mail: danifeld@gmail.com
- Phone: 0032.484.307.924
- Skype: ionut.danifeld
- Linkedin: http://be.linkedin.com/in/ionutdanifeld

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Apparently Microsoft decided to make fun of this perception and they launched a new campaign called: browseryoulovedtohate.com. They created even a funny spot to promote better the campaign and you can see it below:

Have you ever told your parents they had to stop using Internet Explorer? Well, with a better browser and a cute cat, maybe it is time to reconsider.

As I said, the campaign is funny, the tone of voice is different than other initiatives from Microsoft, but I will not change my perception regarding IE.

So, how do you like the spot?

I’m passionate about advertising, guerrilla marketing and social media. Probably this will be my focus from now on this blog. I hope you will enjoy my thoughts regarding this topics. End of introduction!

I finished a couple days ago a really good book about social media: The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Kabani.

A couple of words about Shama Kabani: Shama Kabani (born April 25, 1985) is a businessperson, technology entrepreneur, best-selling author, international public speaker, and web and television personality. She is chief executive officer of The Marketing Zen Group, a full-service web marketing agency she founded in 2009 when she was 24 years old.
@Source: Wikipedia

When I started to read the book I was thinking that is a book full with theories about social media. The perception changed fast because this book presents a lot of case studies and illustrations to understand better different concepts.

So what’s the book about? It explains how to use the most important social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube. In case you have a business, it gives you good inputs on how to make your business grow and also increase the visibility. It’s explaining how to stay connected with your costumers and also how to find new ones.
Also social media marketing isn’t like traditional marketing-and treating it that way only leads to frustration. Another big point for the book are the case studies: different businesses that managed to grow thanks to the social media and also how.

Some ideas extracted from the book:
- The ACT Methodology: Attract(get attention/standout), Convert(when you turn a stranger into costumer or client) and Transform(transform your past and present into attraction)

- A website must: educate, market and sell
- Five elements of a great website: Design, structure, content(blogs, podcast, video), optimization, maintenance
- How to get followers on Twitter: find likeminded individuals or niches, join and create conversations, bring people to your blog/site
- Youtube videos: maximum length of video 2 minutes, keep things moving and transparency
- Monitor your social media (http://www.trackur.com/)

I recommend this book also for the ones that are making the first steps in social media, but also for the professionals. You can find it on Amazon and it cost $11.32.
Also you can visit Shama blog and you can find videos/articles with the author.

What other books did you read about social media, advertising, guerrilla marketing or personal branding?

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