Meme of the Year Part I: What's a Meme?
Memes are something that have been around since the beginnings of communication. Although they were only recently conceived and defined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomenon.
A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. It identifies ideas or beliefs that are transmitted from one person or group of people to another. The word is a blend of "gene" and the Greek word mimetismos meaning "something imitated".
The name comes from an analogy: as genes transmit biological information, memes can be said to transmit idea and belief information. Early memes were likely used to communicate the presence of predators or the need for food among early life on Earth. Examples of memes include melodies, catch-phrases, fashion and urban legends.
 |
 |
| by: Christopher Harrison used under Creative Commons. |
Indeed the two rainbows can be seen to have spread across the sky and represent a rare occurrence. Although not something totally unheard of (as seen by the photo above from a search on Flickr). The video below tells the story of how Jimmy Kimmel's viewing and tweeting of the video helped it go from 800 views having being online for 6 months to a whopping 23 million views in the next 6 months. On January 9th the original video will have been online for one year.
What made this video go viral was a combination of the man's reaction and the discovery of the video by the Jimmy Kimmel Show. What makes this video's rise to fame most interesting is that until it was picked up and tweeted by Jimmy Kimmel it was unheard of. What happened over the next few months few expected and none could have predicted...
 |
| note the flatline initially |
The Double Rainbow guy (affectionately known as "Bear" or "HungryBear9562" his YouTube channel name) has since appeared on television for interviews and a commercial for one windows product and another. He also has his own iPhone App complete with an ad; a lark which for a dollar will overlay a double rainbow on any photo you take. This meme birthed so many different products, but most of all showed that for a video on the web to truly hit the big time it needs help from the mainstream media.
This is my personal favourite riff on the meme partly because I have a soft spot for 'sandwiches' made entirely from breaded deep fried chicken, bacon and cheese but also because someone replicated the original video in such great juxtaposition to fast food:
See you soon for Part II of Meme of the year.
Tracking a new media artifact
How was I paid by British taxpayers to be in an ad for an American bank?
 |
| Dave Olson's podcasting talk, Fresh Media Conference 2009. |
Digital photography will ultimately change childhood as photography had previously. Now instead of a few shots of us as babies and kids; parents, relatives and the internet will already have a thorough record of our early days. When generations change their practices somethings are forgotten only to be repeated.
 |
| photo by: iciskaye. used under creative commons license. |
This is the same neighborhood. Note the square building in the lower center of both photos.
Economic devastation runs deep these. So how did this happen? Think of globalization and international trade as the ultimate long term equalizer. As much as the emptiness of Detroit is a tragedy, somewhere else in the world auto workers are making cars and creating prosperous cities to support those efforts as Detroit once did.
What happened? How did this occur? We hear a lot of different things about Credit Default Swaps and Collateral Debt Obligations. If you seek answers to these questions this video is a well done explanation of the current financial situation.
Early this year I received a strange call from a representative of Charter One Bank requesting my approval for them to re-air an ad from 6 years ago, a smart and cost saving tactic. Thanks to Google I was the first one she found. I waited a few months for them to contact the others from the video and decide whether or not to proceed with re-airing the commercial. I was happy to receive a cheque in the mail for three times the amount I had originally been paid in 2004. Catch me in the blue jacket and green hat at 8 seconds.
I was part of this commercial because at the time I was a volunteer with the VON's Meals on Wheels a program that produces and delivers healthy meals. The commercial was made in Canada but for a bank in the US. The video is meant to highlight the ways the bank helps in their community as each program is something that the bank contributes to.
The commercial was created when Cleveland-based Charter One Bank* was taken over in 2004 by Citizens Financial which has been owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) since 1988. In 2010 when I received that phone call the British Government was a majority stakeholder in RBS due to bailouts in late 2008*.
Billions of pounds of “toxic” sub-prime mortgages were bought by Royal Bank of Scotland traders in a spree that was not disclosed to the bank’s board. -March 2009, The Telegraph*.Charter One was one of many banks born from the US banking system*. The realities in a 50 state nation meant that system evolved as was necessary to enable a balance between competition and stability. The Free Banking* era in the mid 1800s and the deregulation of the 1980s have helped lead to today's situation. This deregulation was dangerous in a nation where barriers to entry were low and the market increasingly unregulated.
Critics have pointed out that the federal government's attempts at deregulation granted easy credit to federally insured financial institutions, encouraging them to overextend themselves and fail. -Wikipedia*.As the British government is a majority stakeholder in the Royal Bank of Scotland which owns Citizen Financial Group which is represented by Charter One Bank it can be inferred that I was paid by British taxpayers to appear in a commercial for an American bank. Did I really get paid by the British taxpayers to promote an American bank?
No the cheque said Charter One Bank on it. Tracking a media artifact can lead down interesting paths and should be done more often. Digital scrap-booking? What's that? It's exactly what we do everyday we use or input information into anything digital. Now the real challenge is what's better than a blog to organize that content? How will we curate our digital content? How will we allow access to it? What are your thoughts?
Facebook Ad Rates are the Cheapest. Here's Why.
Thanks to one of my favourite e-newsletters. The Silicon Valley Insider Chart O' D' Day -or in less irish terms "of the". Today's chart confirm something I've suspected all along: Facebook might serve up more display ads than anyone else, but they are the cheapest. The next cheapest? Email.
Thanks to a chance phone call from Richard at the Goodline Group I was reminded of the power of permission marketing. Beyond permission marketing is a strong strategy for the customer focused businesses of the future. Today organizations are clamouring just to get people to see them in a world full of marketing and advertising.
photo by: Doug Wheller. Remixed under creative commons licence.
That means getting a chance to have eyeballs see your brand, product or services and hopefully click a few things can be costly. See the chart below to see the most expensive and least expensive types of sites to advertise on. The rates are in CPM or cost per thousand impressions. That means about 2000 eyeballs had the chance to see an ad. It doesn't even mean that they saw the ad. It may cost you significantly less on Facebook than on any other site to get the chance to be seen but low prices reflect users likelihood to ignore your advertisement.
Some users ignore them entirely. Some users click them all the time with no intention of taking any further action. Some users are playing games when they click an ad and really just want to back to their game. Some users are doing research on your use of the ads and where you direct them with that ad. Some users genuinely connect with your brand. It's challenging but at this time and when used right represents strong current and better future marketing value.
photo by: Penny Higgins. Remixed under creative commons licence.
On the bright side some users read ads and don't click, raising awareness. Using a strong brand image can help to build familiarity of that brand and cut through the generic ads. You get great metrics, but have to draw some of your own conclusions.It was announced today during Zuckerberg's Web 2.0 interview that 250 million facebook users are daily users. 50% of users come back everyday. Last I hear the average user spends almost an hour on facebook each day. I like Facebook advertising and I advocate it for many reasons; especially targeting and related brand awareness. For more on this please see Facebook Advertising: Beyond the Click. Below I have embedded Zuckerberg's 60 minute 'interview' at web 2.0 today.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
