Coke’s Happiness Ambassadors.

Now that the hype behind the world’s best job has died down, let’s welcome Coke’s Happiness Ambassadors. And these ambassadors are on a mission to find happiness in the 206 different countries that sell Coca-Cola products across the world. See the introductory video here. Participants in teams of 3 had to nominate themselves and go through some grueling rounds of voting to get to become the team to visit all the countries that sell Coke the world. The year long mission starts in Jan 2010. Visit the Expedition 206 site here. More here

Accenture’s Adchemy. Sharper, Better Targeting

New York Times reports that Accenture now believes that technology is finally getting good enough to deliver Web display ads tailored to consumers’ demographics and interests. And big companies, it says, are eager to shift more of their ad spending onto the Web. Last month Accenture announced that its new Interactive unit would be handling the technology and services on Procter & Gamble’s consumer web sites. More about Adchemy is here

Pulp Fiction Version Of Google Wave

Sharing Links. Spreading Love. Changing Search.

One of the most visible elements of a website these days. Tiny little icons that help visitors share the entire story or bits of it. From Facebook, Linked in, Meebo, Twitter, Digg, Reditt and more… Link sharing has become so big on the web just now that it beats traffic from search engines. Celebrity gossip site PerezHilton has more visitors coming to the site via Facebook, 15%, ahead of Google 9%. And chances are that the link your friend posted on her Facebook page would be more credible than anything an algorithm based search result, the thing that sites like Google did well with until now. But with more and more links being shared by real people on sites like Facebook and Twitter, a human curated web may well be on its way. From New York Times Also Clive Thompson writing on Wired: How the Real-Time Web Is Leaving Google Behind here.

From Brand Managers To Brand Advocates

Adage writes. The report, due out next week from Forrester, finally puts the onus on marketers to change their structures. The new "brand advocates," as Forrester suggests renaming the role, will be seemingly more powerful and consumer-centric, much nimbler, and more real-time-oriented. Forrester suggests "brand advocates" be responsible for rapid adaptations of global brand platforms and programs, charging centralized global brand strategists with ensuring what local managers do conforms with the brand equity and strategy. It also advocates ditching the formal annual budgeting process and upfront media-specific allocations in favor of frequently updated, on-the-fly plans that adapt quickly as conditions change and money earmarked upfront for initiatives, not specific media. Read it all here.

Levis Starts A New Gold Rush

W+K Portland is kicking off a new campaign for their client Levis. As part of their ongoing campaign for the denim brand is a promotion where $100,000 is buried somewhere in America. The online and offline treasure hunt that started lastweek will have multiple phases and will end in mid November. When a final challenge will be revealed to the 100 finalists who make it through the first three phases. The first of the 100 who figures out the last piece of the puzzle gets to dig up a steel box with the $100,000 inside. More here

World Of Warcraft, A New Kind Of Loyalty?

Online shooting games – are they a loyalty program? Josh Lovinson writing on Media Post thinks so. Sure there is a lot of stickiness about these games, but what can traditional brands learn from places like WOW or even short-lived phenomena like Farmville? Read this story to find out

Wonderful Little Banner We Spotted On Ny Times

The Future Of Direct Marketing From 1 To 1 Media

The Future Of Direct Marketing From 1 To 1 Media

What It Takes To Be A Social Media Agency?

We have been covering the thinking of Mullen’s Edward Boches quite often in this newsletter. And here are two posts that are actually one. On what it takes to be a social media agency. We think the simple answer is that you have to be three things. A traditional creative agency who understands brands and branding, a media agency who understands the media side of business, specially new media bits, and finally be a software company who is able to build small, but good looking applications that can work on the web, on phones and elsewhere. Edward (as corrected by the great man himself, see comments) however has a more specific list of 14. And it curiously starts with the more complex skills. Understanding and using professional listening tools: There is a new generation of companies like Radian6 who have built platforms for companies to hear and make sense of what consumers are saying about their brands and services. A social media agency will need to understand how this game is played. Presence Engineering. A bit jargony this one, is the ability to go into social media spaces like Facebook and Orkut and create ways to engage with people who are spending time here. Content creation. While agencies have been creating TV commercials and ads for over a century, there is a need to create new kinds of content that are not brand messages. Stuff that users will willingly access and pass around. New social agencies need to be bit PR companies as well. They need to have relationships with blogging community. This has proven tricky for many companies and will continue to stay this way. Employee Mobilisation: Help companies getting their own employees to believe in the things they do by creating employee engagement programs, and then let employees use belief to connect with people from the outside. Viral Mobilisation: understand the importance of building and nurturing memes. Help clients with crisis management, specially when the outbreak starts online and begins to spread. Building technology utilities and apps: for the web, the desktop and the phone. Having an understanding of search engine optimization. This is where the media planners come in to social media agencies. Knowing how search engines rank pages and finding ways to ensure that your pages come up tops when people search. Crowdsourcing: the whole point here is to engage with a group of creators and sustain their interest in the project. CPB recently did a crowdsourcing project that got into a bit of controversy. Web Development. Agencies, like it or not, will need to understand web development big time. Not just of the microsite kind, but deep engaging ones. Measurement and analytics, how to understand and engage with visitors online, who are the people coming, and why are they coming to our site. The ability to build alliances and partnerships. Here, Ed talks about the ability to work closely with partners in creating communication solutions mostly. Unlike the relationships agencies had in the past with production houses, there is a need to build long term alliances with companies and people who could almost be competing with the agency, at times. And of course the most important skill set that an agency already possesses. The need to go out and build experiences out there. Read the Edward Boches blog Creativity Unbound here