Click to Give Earthquake and Tsunami Relief

The monumental earthquake and tsunami that rocked Japan has been devastating to the country and it's people.

There are ways for us to help, even in our busy, over-scheduled, multi-tasking, planner-revolving lives.

Here are just a few of many:

1. Text to Donate: Text REDCROSS to 90999. Each text provides $10 towards Japan disaster-relief.

2. Facebook Donate: Login to Facebook and go to the Red Cross Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami cause. So far, $206,479 has been raised. You can donate between $10-$500 towards relief funds.

3. Virtual Goods: Zynga, who is the maker of Farmville, has partnered with Save the Children's Japan's Earthquake Tsunami Fund to get players of different Zynga games (FarmVille, FrontierVille, CityVille) to buy virtual goods while playing. 100% of the proceeds will go towards the fund.

4. "Like" a Page: Some pages are donating towards Japan for every "like" the page gets. One example is "Dog Bless You", which supports rescue dogs that aid in crisis like this.

5. Twitter: The following are a useful list of hashtags to use in your Twitter updates regarding the earthquake, especially if you have information about victims or family. These hashtags are often searched on Twitter.

• #Jishin: focuses around general earthquake information
• #Anpi: a hashtag for the confirmation of the safety of individuals or places
• #Hinan: Evacuation information
• #311care: a hashtag regarding medical information for the victims
• #PrayforJapan: A general hashtag for support and best wishes for victims of the crisis

6. Comment to Donate: The blog "Mom's Need to Know" has pledged to donate $1 for every comment they receive, up to $500, towards disaster relief in Japan. While that might not seem like much, there are other blogs doing the same thing, and they all add up.

7. iTunes Donation: Put your music-browsing habit towards a good cause on iTunes. They've developed a simple donation tool that allows you to donate between $5-$200.

Mind The Gap

In what seems to be one of the most bizarre brand interactions with the internet community at large, the Gap experienced a backlash so immense in regard to the introduction of its new logo, it had to tuck its tail and run back to square one.

Here's highlights of the game:
Gap unveils its new logo.
Nobody knew that they were planning to unveil a new logo.
Everybody and their dog loathes the logo. And makes their opinion known.
Gap tries embrace the chatter and create a dialogue with web mob.
Web mob doesn't know how to fix their logo. Only to reiterate that they hate it.
Gap goes back to old logo and retreats. Waits for the mob to disperse.

Lessons to be learned? It's doubtful that anyone foresaw this amount of unpleasantness and upheaval because of a logo design. Granted, the Gap did not "announce" its intentions of changing the logo, but brands don't need to ask permission. Or do they? It seems the fans of the Gap feel just as much ownership of the brand as the people that are on the Gap payroll. And that's not a bad thing. Such passion is reminiscent of when Coke changed their formula and there was a huge public outcry, with the outcome giving birth to New Coke and Coke Classic. (And some say that it was a conspiracy to draw even more marketshare and attention away from Pepsi, but we digress).





So having a dialogue with your patrons can feel like a bite on the hand sometimes, but it's got to be nice to know that your customers are there and they're paying attention. And in the end, it forces the brand to be better, even if it is something as benign as a logo design.



What's amazing is that in the course of a week, the Gap releases a new logo heading into the holiday shopping season, get thousands of negative comments on its Facebook page, becomes the butt of several spoof site jokes and turns a full 180 degrees. For anyone that's keeping score, that's months of corporate planning dismantled by the public in a matter of DAYS.

The power of the internet, indeed.

Some sites of note:

Make Your Own Crap Gap Logo
Biggest Marketing Blunder List
New logo has its own Twitter account

CNN's John D. Sutter
The Internet Kills Gap's New Logo

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Facebook Isn’t the Place for Collector’s Items

There’s a great article on AdAge.com by Chris Perry called “Are You Investing In Facebook Fans or Just Collecting Them?”, that offers some invaluable tips to brands wanting to either utilize or improve upon their social media exposure. The greatest advocates that brands have in the digital world are their online supporters – those people that consume and enjoy your goods and services in real life so much that online, they click “Like” when they see your brand on Facebook. So how do you get a Facebook user to become your very own Fan, and afterwards, what’s the next step?

Perry offers not one, but ten. Right off the bat, treat Facebook the way you would treat any other advertising or PR campaign. Clearly state your communication goals, and understand your target audience. You can utilize Facebook’s targeting mechanisms to better direct your message. The capabilities are there – use them! Do research too – it’s important to know what your competition is doing on Facebook. How can you improve upon their current tactics? What are they doing that you’re not? What’s working for them, and what isn’t?

After you’ve gathered a core base of fans, understand what it meant when they clicked “Like” by your brand. Check out a few profiles, and see if you can’t make some correlations among them. Realize that there is a small group among these numbers that are your true advocates – check out who is commenting the most on your brand. These are the fans that are spreading the word, dropping your brand-name in conversations, and ultimately garnering you more support and more online and real-time fans. But don’t simply admire your numbers as they grow, recognize their full potential. Perry explains, “Put those who like you to work by giving them reasons to interact with the brand and provide a platform where their enthusiastic support is amplified to their networks.” This means, make status updates that appeal to your core fans. Make relevant comments that start a conversation. Ask questions that gain enthusiastic responses.

Perhaps most importantly, add value to your fan’s digital experiences. Give them a reason to visit your page every now and then, but stay realistic. Almost every brand has a Facebook page these days, so consumers are constantly facing opportunities to “Like” a brand with every click they make. Realize that your social media exposure is an investment on your part, and like any investment, it takes time to reach it’s full potential.

And finally, LISTEN. Your fans are saying something about themselves every day – that’s the best part about Facebook – people utilize it for the sheer purpose of sharing information about their daily lives.

For more information on this article, visit http://adage.com/digitalnext/post?article_id=144980, and keep your fan-base close!

The Joys and Frustrations of e-Couponing

e-Coupons are a great idea, especially if you want to reach a wide audience without the costs associated with FSI's and mailers. But as T.G.I. Friday's recently found out, no matter how hard you try to pull off a nice, care-free e-couponing campaign, there are going to be some wrinkles and headaches.

Woody, the T.G.I. Friday's "spokesperson" has been encouraging people to become a fan on the TGIF Facebook page. And those that help them reach their goal of half a million, get a FREE Jack Daniel's burger.


I thought it was a nice offer, so I signed up! I registered. I was directed to a page online to print a coupon. I hit "print" and watched a neat little animation that said my coupon was printing.

But it didn't print. And it refused to let me try again.

This scenario is more common than most retailers would like to hear. A Java-based in-browser coupon print utility does indeed help track coupon dispensing AND prevent fraud but when your coupon doesn't print, you're asking for a customer service nightmare.

A lot of people complained and T.G.I. Friday's made good on those complaints. Instead of going high-tech, they went lo-fi by setting up a new campaign using HTML emails with unique codes embedded in the coupon. Much easier for everyone involved. But in the long run, it may have cost a few extra dollars to implement "Plan B".


BELOW: T.G.I. Friday's tries it again. This time, through HTML email:


Which begs the question: are we too worried about preventing coupon fraud? How do you weigh the concerns of coupon fraud vs. customer frustration?

T.G.I. Friday's wrestled with those obstacles using style, wit and humor. My opinion of this franchise is higher than ever before and I applaud the way they treat their customers. Both in or out of the restaurant.

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Facebook and Twitter Available on Xbox Live

This month Xbox has announced a partnership with Facebook and Twitter. This will entail having instant access to one's Facebook or Twitter accounts right from their Xbox live Dashboard. Xbox has done a lot of work to create a Facebook and Twitter experience designed specifically for the living room. Full access will be available to Xbox live gamers this fall.

MySpace to move away from Social Networking (?)

Did facebook win the social networking war? 

MySpace went through some rapid changes this last week with the addition of 3 executives:

Owen Van Natta (from facebook) now CEO

Michael Jones (from Time Warner Inc.'s AOL) now COO

and Jason Hirschhorn (from MTV Networks) now chief digital officer

News Corp's Jon Miller supposedly is going to use News Corp's assets and logistics to turn MySpace into a "content portal".  

I guess this is a case of pick and choose your battles, and MySpace doesn't want to fight facebook. And if they're focusing on content - maybe, uh, music would be a good place to start?

Should be a very interesting year for MySpace.

Silicon Alley Insider has more...

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Facebook Prepares Yet Another Format Change

And with change will come much complaining, as with the last time Facebook did this. But that is to be expected as people who have become accustomed to the Facebook features and layout will be jolted once more. There will always be a small learning curve for every new version of any publication or software but what is more important is WHY Facebook is doing this.

Short answer: Twitter

Whether you knew it or not, Facebook currently does not have real-time updates for user's status reports (currently it's a 10 minute refresh queue). Twitter does.

Facebook limits your friends network to 5,000. Twitter doesn't.

Twitter has lately been the new-found darling of many companies worldwide as they realize the convenience and power of communicating quickly and efficiently to its constituents.

Facebook wants some of that love.



As a company that enjoys Facebook, we'll wait and see what happens to the Company Pages, as Facebook promises to tear down some walls between how company profiles and individual profile pages behave. It will supposedly allow more freedom and features as well as continued support for 3rd party apps. It sounds good. Now we wait.

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Life Imitates Art (or Advertising)

A flashmob, organized through Facebook, sent thousands upon thousands to descend on Liverpool Street Station in London. The flashmob was so large, it effectively shut down the operation of the station temporarily.


The idea of the flashmob was most likely inspired by a T-Mobile commercial where train travelers "spontaneously" break out into a choreographed dance.



Flashmobs grew in popularity a couple of years ago and had seemed to have waned a bit. Now, with this stunt and the ease of coordination through Facebook (most flashmobs were coordinated by text messaging friends and then "passing it on") it looks like we'll be seeing more of these. Whether or not they're based off of commercials will remain to be seen, but if you're T-Mobile you GOTTA be happy with the free publicity.