Masses go mad for Meerkat author....

A month ago, in yet another spot-on-the-money execution in this now long running campaign, Compare the Meerkat's Aleksandr Orlov launched his new book. Ad character turns DJ (podcasts), turns movie star (3 long form pseudo-movie releases), turns author, what will the meerkat entrepreneur do next?

(Be-warned long post, but my blog is also my car park for useful stuff remember!).

As one has come to expect from this aristocratic meerkat, this was not just another book launch:

First came the Facebook updates talking about a forthcoming book (16th Sept),  and linking to Amazon:

 Then emails from Amazon (as well as CTM)  inviting pre-order in what was clearly a smart piece of targeting.

In the run up to the launch Facebook posts enticed and teased, and pushed to YouTube:

Then a series of Facebook posts / tweets went on to moot a publishing launch in what proved to be a very much a la mode for 2 days only Pop-up shop on London's Regent Street.

Followed by an event (again showing how smartly the team behind this campaign are at mirroring general Facebook users behaviour with Aleksandr's), which no doubt helped them gauge the number of copies they needed to stock.

As ever with this incredibly smart campaign, the shop itself was executed beautifully, as was the surrounding communication which covered Facebook, Twitter, emails and of course the comparethemeerkat.com website.

The shop, on the edge of an arcade was beautifully on-theme & full when I dashed in after work one evening:

Downstairs was a "life and times" of Aleksandr and his family taking a museum theme,

...whilst upstairs was decked out mini-cinema style, showing his longer form mini-movies and of course selling his "signed" books.

The PR machine was as ever well oiled too, and I spotted pieces in the Evening Standard on the day of the shop launch:

And with the book topping the Amazon topsellers too, this article in the literary section of The Independent:

Three days after the launch (29th October), Aleksandr's book was at no 2 in the Amazon Topsellers list:

A week later (4th Nov), Aleksandr told his 769.5k Facebook fans, & 42k Twitter followers of the audiobook launch on iTunes: (It's also available on Audible.co.uk, so multi-platforms covered off).

3 weeks later still and how do things stand?

Well today (26th November), less than a month before Christmas,  a quick dig around some of the e-stores revealed this picture:

Aleksandr Orlov: A Simples Life stands at:

#3 in the Amazon most wished for book charts
#2 in the Amazon most gifted book charts
#3 in the Amazon best sellers (now with 66 days in the top 100 (incl. prelaunch))

Nor is it just an Amazon/iTunes distribution deal...
#2 in the Play.com bestsellers & today featured as editor's choice on the books homepage

#4 in the W H Smith books best sellers list

#16 in the Waterstones best sellers list, #36 in Tesco.com and #30 in iTunes audiobook chart.

Not bad for a meerkat of Russian shopkeeping origins!

And there was I about to hit "post" when the following tweet burbled onto my screen inviting Aleksandr's fans to vote via Facebook for which TV execution they should run at Christmas.

Spot on again, engage, invite participation, listen to what the people say.

And yes obviously I bought a signed copy of the book ;-)

Coca Cola Light encourage participation in Spain

Lovely example a friend just shared with me of Coke creating a framework for celebration of brand loyalty, participation and advocacy.  Yet another brand that shows that it understands that the cumulative effect of lots of small gestures can create a lot of noise.  Propagation planning nicely done.  I think too many brands get hung up on terms like participation and advocacy and think about them as if they were these giant beasts that have to be executed in CAPITALS, momentous things like creating a super swanky cinema ad, but the reality is that it is far from true.

The only way is UP(loading)

The march of multi-media is unstoppable.  We are all consuming more and more video content, when it suits us, (on demand), across more and more devices.  We're also creating more and more of it too, and being long gone  the days of films languishing in drawers undeveloped, what are we doing with all this video content? Sharing it. Uploading it to Facebook, to Dailymotion, to Flickr, to YouTube as the dominant hub of all things video.

YouTube announced today that they've now reached a mind-boggling 35 hours of content being uploaded per minute. Apparently that works out at " 2,100 hours uploaded every 60 minutes, or 50,400 hours uploaded to YouTube every day".

I've doctored the chart they published with some of the other stats they've published over the last year or so, to make the rampant growth of video over short time frames clearer:

Cartoon Musical Fun

I'm bonkers busy at the moment. The list of posts I intend to write gets longer, but time is short, so look out for my coming soon musings on the launch of the Alexander Orlov book, complete with Pop Up Shop, my first impressions of the Samsung Galaxy Tablet which launched last week, and increasing irritations with some mobile apps. In the meantime here's a piece I wrote recently on Microsoft Kinect and how we need to design more physical forms of interaction into our brand experiences, and there's some fun bits and pieces I've posted recently over on my Posterous.

Meanwhile, here's a musical cartoon medley I found on YouTube. Maybe it's my background working in animation, but listen carefully to the lyrics. How many cartoons can you spot that you recognise?  I love the fact that there are people out there that have the time and the talent to do this stuff. Fun, original, and made my smile. It's a great recipe for sharing.

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Take note: Storytelling doesn't have to use Powerpoint

Over time I've sat through a lot of long dull company satisfaction survey presentations or webinars. Yawn.
I've probably been for my fair share of interviews too. Only last week I wrote a piece about using data in compelling ways.

Confused? Lost about where I am going with this one?

Well I've just spotted this nice example of a slightly tongue in cheek recruitment video that is designed to attract candidates to UK ad agency Dare whilst saying something about the company. It combines the output of a company survey (of sorts),  has taken the data and created a series of infographics, and combined them to form a short film which I think you'll admit is much more appealing than a dull presentation or a load of facts on a website.


This is Dare. Are you? from thisisdare on Vimeo.

How could you interrogate the data you have around a given topic to create something similar?  I came across Gartner's notion of Pattern Based Strategy earlier today and it really resonated: the notion not of purely copying something but learning from the principles or core ingredients to create something repeatable and scaleable. Now that's smart.

Challenging category norms with creativity

In days gone by I worked on the yellow fats and dairy category (that's butter, milk & yoghurt in normal non marketing lingo). I found it hugely ironic at the time, given that I'm allergic to dairy products and don't even really regularly walk down the aisle in the supermarket.

However, I did work on it for long enough to know that unless there was a cow and some broad lush green landscapes in the creative, clients would shout and complain about the lack of wholesome, freshness cues. The category has been stuck in creative stereotypes for years. Yawn.

So absolutely full marks to Yeo Valley for taking a fresh approach. Sure, lots of dairy products are traditionally targetted  at the stereotypical housewives with children, women 25-54 blah blah, but watch this on YeoTube (pun clearly intended) and then decide for yourself whether an edgy approach might have just as much if not more appeal to that audience by taking a different angle.

I might just lead your views a smudge by sharing this tweet....

Love it! Made my Monday morning, even if I can't eat the product.



Nice also to see the loop being closed with some specific brand term created search featured at the end of the video.

Good looking website too, albeit flash heavy, with recipes, games, ringtones to download, the predictable product stuff and some social media signposting.

Google Doodle gets video for John Lennon's Would-be 70th

Look carefully at the Google doodle today and you'll notice a "play" icon...

Which being permanently curious I obviously clicked on...to find a short animation to the soundtrack of "Imagine"

First time I've seen video embedding / linking with a Google Doodle. Quirky & fun.