Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Case Studies, International Medical Corps, Members Project, american express, case study

International Medical CorpsCHALLENGE: This was a two week, high pressure campaign focused on getting International Medical Corps (IMC) into the final five of the American Express Members Project $2.5 million giveaway competition. 1,190 projects were nominated for participation in the competition, Amex cardholders could vote for their favorite project, and the top five projects receive a portion of the $2.5 million in grant money.

The challenge that Abraham Harrison faced was to take IMC, a relatively low-profile $100MM per year organization that gets all its money from government grants and had essentially no support base among the general public and activate a mass wave of support and votes for the organization - in two weeks.

International Medical Corps is a global, humanitarian, nonprofit dedicated to saving lives and relieving suffering through health care training, relief operations, and development programs.

Read more…

No Comments » Posted on October 14th, 2008 by Chris Abraham

Filed under: Aggregation, Blowback, Brand Promotion, Brand Protection, Case Studies, Citizen Generated Media, Content Filtering, Content Management Solution, Content Management System, Controversial Marketing, Copyright Issue, Copywriting, Corporate Responsibility, Crisis Management, Google, Google YouTube, Honesty, Information Technology, Integrity, Intellectual Property, Internet Culture, Internet Strategy, Legal Issues, New Media Strategy, New Technology, Online Brand Protection, Peer-to-Peer, Technology, Television, Video Over IP, Viral Advertising, Viral Marketing, Viral Media, Viral Propagation, Viral Videos, Web Strategy, YouTube, YouTube Marketing

The current legal battle between Viacom and Google/YouTube is going to have significant ramifications beyond today’s headlines.  It’s getting surprisingly little play amongst much of the social media digerati, but it’s something we all need to be aware of.

The lawsuit and the proceedings around it are truly a sign of the times.  It’s a direct outgrowth of what we’ve been emerging via the internet over the past several years.  Sites such as YouTube have essentially become free communicative vehicles to not only view, but  share and alter video productions of all types.  The concept of “share” is important because most of us use it.  But in reality, it is a nice way of saying “distribute”.  And from distribute comes distribution - a fundamental with tremendous legal ramifications.

Alter is a tough one too.  The “mash-ups” that many in social media and digital marketing talk of enthusiastically can be as problematic.  As, I guess, it should be.  At least in some cases.  An artist creates an original piece of work.  Then distributes it, usually netting some sort of financial gain.  Others take it, and now because of new tools can alter it and redistribute it.  Many times this new process leads to lost potential revenue for the original artist. Read more…

2 Comments » Posted on July 11th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Blowback, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Case Studies, Citizen Media, Content Filtering, Content Management System, Controversial Marketing, Copywriting, Corporate Partnering, Corporate Responsibility, Google, Google YouTube, Honesty, Industry Reputation, Influence, Information Technology, Intellectual Property, Invasion of Privacy, Legal Issues, News Organization, Online Applications, Online Brand Protection, Online Copywriting, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Video, Personal Privacy, Personal Responsibility, Privacy

U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton may have opened up a Pandora’s box.

Last year, Viacom, the owner of  such major cable networks as Black Entertainment Television, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon, sued YouTube and Google because YouTube, through it’s uploading system, was allowing it users to upload Viacom copyrighted videos.  YouTube was profiting from this as it increased its audience and, thus, advertising revenue.  Viacom was, in turn, losing online audience and potential revenue.  It saw itself, legitimately in my mind, as a content provider for YouTube, without receiving compensation.

YouTube immediately began scouring its databases and removing copyrighted video from Viacom. But considering the amount of videos that are uploaded - every hour on the clock, 780 hours of video are sent to YouTube’s servers - the task of finding and identifying copyrighted material is daunting.  A lot can get by the YouTube’s regulators, so to speak.

So the lawsuit stayed, with Viacom demanding access to YouTube’s database of user info.  The database is larger that that of the Library of Congress mind you.

YouTube’s database essentially contains four pieces of info:  the user’s unique login ID, their IP address, the time frame that the video was watched, and the video itself.  Usually, a login ID and an IP address can’t be used to identify an individual, but “usually” is a very inexact word.

Viacom is saying that they aren’t doing this to go after individuals.  They’re not doing this to nail someone who uploaded last night’s The Daily Show.  I believe them, at least for now.  But that doesn’t mean that they keep to that forever.

It makes no sense for them to try to use this data to sue people who have been uploading copyrighted videos at this juncture.  The ‘YouTube culture’ is one that has permitted this to happen and Viacom needs to work to change that culture over a year or two.

Viacom is saying that it wants to gauge the popularity of its copyrighted material.  Again, that makes sense.  We are talking revenue generating material that, while on YouTube, ins not directly generating measurable video.

There is some good news here.  Google, while not appealing, has asked Viacom to give them time to erase user names and IP addresses.  Viacom is open to the idea.

That’s great.  But that’s only this case.   You can be that this is opening a can of worms.

I’ll be investigating this further.  Stay tuned.

No Comments » Posted on July 6th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Authenticity, Blog Messaging, Blog of Personality, Blogger Code of Conduct, Blogger Effect, Blogging, Case Studies, Community Service, Social Meda, Social Networking

Blogger, Twitter friend, and runner Dave Fleet done good:

I’m a fanatical runner. I’m not particularly talented, but my dedication to my training enabled me to qualify for the 2008 Boston Marathon on April 21, 2008.The Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest annual marathon and one of the world’s most prestigious road racing events. Besides the Olympic trials and the Olympic marathons, Boston is the only major American marathon that requires a qualifying time.

Exactly two months before the race I announced that I would use social media and the Boston Marathon to raise money for cancer research.

Objectives

Reaching the top of Heartbreak Hill in the Boston Marathon The objective for this was simple:

  • Raise $3,000 for the world-class Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, based in Toronto (a somewhat arbitrary goal)
  • Raise awareness of my fundraising effort using social media, to see if these tactics would work for a promotional effort

Tactics

I threw my PR knowledge largely out the window for this effort. I’d decided up-front that I would use entirely online tactics to see how effective they could be.

The tools I chose to use:

When I announced the initiative, this blog had 278 subscribers. My running site had very few. I had around 500 Twitter followers (Twitterholic’s stats only go back to March 1) and my Utterz account had just a few subscribers.

I wrote seven posts on my PR blog:

I wrote three posts on my running blog:

I also wrote dozens of Twitter messages over the two months, updating people on my progress and providing information on how to donate. Lastly, I recorded frequent posts through Utterz. The posts were a mix of video, audio, text and pictures about my training for the race. I posted all of the recordings to my running site - along with the route maps from my runs, these 31 posts formed the ongoing record of my training through this effort.

Results

Output

While my running blog continued to receive negligible traffic, several posts to my PR blog received more:

  • Using Social Media To Support Cancer Research - 643 views
  • Another Social Media Miracle? - 285 views
  • Auction - 217 views

Over these two months, this blog grew to over 500 subscribers. How much of that is due to this fundraising effort, I can’t say. I’m pretty sure it didn’t hurt, though. Meanwhile, my running blog subscribers remained relatively static, while my Twitter contacts grew to roughly 825.

My announcement of the fundraising effort also spawned a mini-fundraiser with Keith Burtis and Tommy Vallier, who generously volunteered their time and effort to set up an online auction to raise additional funds.

The effort generated some healthy interest on Twitter. Unfortunately, Twitter’s historical search is far from comprehensive, but you can see some recent posts here (for now).

Outcome

  • Raised $2,315 for Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation
  • I can trace 59% of the donations to people who only (or primarily) know me through my online presence
  • Oh, and I finished the marathon in 3:18:30

No Comments » Posted on April 24th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Advertisements, Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Brand Promotion, Business 2.0, Case Studies, Defensive SEO

This is a follow up on my last Post about Otto, but this time in English!

Before I start complaining again, I will give you a brief summary of my last post.

The “Otto Versand” is the major German Mail-Order Company. But once again there is a huge gap between American and European Online Business. I guess Otto hasn’t realized the importance of the Internet yet. They still focus on rural stay-at-home Mums who order by old-school mail and this is supported by their Online Marketing practices. They use long cryptic URL s on their Web Pages, have no innovative Affiliate Programs like the “Amazon Wishlist,” and when you try to Google them, you have to assume that they have never heard of search engine optimization (SEO). Otto operates the second largest market in the world, but their web appearance is from ages ago!

Those were my thoughts two months ago and, to be honest, not a lot has changed in the meantime! The URLs are still cryptic, there is no new Affiliate Program, and the one they still use doesn’t have a good reputation at all! However, all of a sudden they do appear in Google’s top search results about nearly any consumer good! Bravo!

Listen up Otto, this was a start, but if you want to catch up, there is a lot of work that needs to be done! Go Otto Go!

No Comments » Posted on December 12th, 2007 by Lasse Manthei

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