Off-line “detox” center cures internet addiction, one mouse-click at a time

Timing: August 2009

Do you know someone that’s addicted to the internet, video games or text-messaging? The reStart Internet Addiction Recovery Program seems to believe that there are tons online addicts who could use an old-fashioned detoxing to curb their interweb usage. It costs $14,500 for the 45-day program, which is located in the lush forests outside Seattle, Washington (and is coincidentally close to Microsoft’s headquarters). Besides the self-admitted addicts in the Disruptive Media team, your brand could easily support someone who needs help with a small investment…it costs just $14,500 to give an internet addict a fresh new start.

Timing: ASAP

Desley Getty made a mistake, and now it’s costing her $22,000. The New Jersey high school teacher made a 4 minute personal phone call during class and was caught on video by her students and paraded on YouTube for the world to see. Making personal calls during class time is prohibited by Getty’s school district, and the teacher has elected not to appeal the fine and face the music. While refreshing to see someone admit wrongdoing after being caught red-handed, a $22,000 fine is a hard pill to swallow, especially for an educator. Could your brand find it in their heart to help Getty pay off this fine?

Timing: ASAP

Opp: 33-year-old Clifton Williams may want to bring a cup of coffee the next time he visits the courthouse. While waiting to hear the sentence issued to his cousin for drug violations, Williams let out what court documents call a “yawn-like sound” during proceedings. Presiding Judge Daniel Rozak’s didn’t take kindly to the sleepy-time gesture, and sentenced Williams with the maximum penalty of 6 months’ time for contempt of court. Witnesses are divided in determining if the punishment was just or out of line…but it won’t be hard for your brand to put a stake in the ground! If your brand offers anything that could make Williams more attentive, courteous, awake, and respectful, send it to him in the boat-loads! So far, Williams has served 21 days of his sentence, and if he apologizes during a hearing with the judge tomorrow, he may be let out early. Let’s hope Williams gets plenty of sleep beforehand.

The director of the MI6, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, is usually shrouded in mystery much like  "M" from the James Bond films or the secret of  Rod Stewart's lasting appeal. Thanks to Facebook and the UK press, the shroud of mystery has been unveiled. I (and the rest of Britain) have now seen the incoming director of MI6 (code named "C" - seriously) in his Speedo.

The wife "C" (real name: Sir John Sawers) had a hard time navigating the social network's privacy settings, and had uploaded a number of pictures of the spy chief when some enterprising member of the media discovered her profile. The one that really set the press on fire was the one of C in his beach attire.

Speedo has gotten a ton of free press out of this - even Foreign Secretary David Milliband spoke directly about the brand during his press conference that was used for dozens of pull quotes and headlines. I know what I would do if I had a swimwear client.

As you know if you read Jon's post from a few weeks back, we're going to be giving away PR stunt ideas we can't use here on the Crowdsource. Since we don't have a swimwear client here in the UK, I'm casting this idea off into the vast Internet to find a home on its own. Godspeed little idea! Here it is:

If you've got a swimwear client, dispatch a half-dozen bathing suits with a letter explaining that now that his Speedos are a matter of public record, C's swimwear has been compromised and must be replaced in the interests of national security. Why not try Brand X, which are more comfortable by a fair margin than those Speedos looked to be, anyway?

If you're planning to market to the world in August (or any other month, for that matter), you'll be needing one of these - a predictive calendar of recurring events that have strong search histories.

Meaning, you can now know in advance what consumers will be searching for online in August -- and can program your marketing activities accordingly.  It's a very easy way to stay ahead of popular market trends.

Viewpoint: Purchasing Search Ads Can Help Influence Consumer Conversation

A key distinction between PR and advertising has always been that public relations is earned media rather than paid. But now, just as search engines have revolutionized the way consumers access information, search marketing is evolving public relations.

At Ketchum, some of our newest PR offerings involve buying ad space online -- literally paying for the ability to reach the public with our clients' stories.

If you think that's odd for a PR agency, consider this: Google -- with upward of 5 billion views a month in the U.S. alone -- is essentially the largest publication on the planet. Tie your brand to the right search terms and you can instantly advertise your online offerings to anyone searching for topics that contain those words. But don't count on any real consumer engagement. That's where PR comes in.

(more at AdAge)

About a month ago, Gareth Kay, a man much pithier and more eloquent than I, wrote a fantastic op-ed piece that perfectly sums up our approach to counseling brands on how to engage audiences on the interwebs.

He asks a crucial question: “rather than focusing on social media, shouldn’t we be focusing on social ideas?” That’s the question we had on our minds when we first started ISG a few years ago, and unfortunately, it represents a perspective that’s still exceedingly rare in the worlds of PR and advertising.

Misled by their agencies and the media, when most brands look at the internet, they see a toolkit..  Having identified their target demographic, they map out their messages and then select a delivery mechanism for those messages, picking and choosing from the online toolkit Silicon Valley has created for us over the years in the form of the various available social media channels. But focusing on the tools first means that most brands are missing the digital forest for its trees.

Here's the problem with using the social media toolkit as a foundation for planning communications campaigns...Web users aren’t flocking to different social media channels because they love the channels themselves—they’re using them because of the conversations and stories they enable. When seeking to engage web users through social media, however, in shockingly few cases do brands actually pause somewhere during this process to figure out what, exactly, that compelling conversation or story will be (hint: it’s not that you have a new product, or that your product is special in some way).

I spend a lot of time identifying (and enjoying) various online phenomena, and I thought it would be fun to test something out: how well do the most popular memes compare to the most popular marketing campaigns brands have to offer?

My personal blog is hosted on Typepad, a blogging service from the folks at Six Apart.

I had noticed a recurring problem with image-loading, so I tweeted this:

to which they responded by submitting a TypePad trouble ticket on my behalf, and sent me an email about it - that's slick.

Say what you want about the potential of Microsoft's new seach engine Bing -- and many are -- but a hidden story in all of the hoopla has got to be that a good portion of Microsoft's planned $80-$100 million ad budget could be going to chief rival, Google.  In fact, it already is (towards Google Sponsored Links).

Just worth noting...