Thursday, July 31, 2008

Sachertorte Cake And Reindeer


A chocolate cake never goes lonely at Reindeer.

Today, Geoffrey brought in Sacher Chocolate Cake. It is only made at the Hotel Sacher in Vienna. A friend of his carried it all the way back on a flight.

Incredible... Hurry over if you want last bite.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

"Using" Social Tools. They Dont Give You Something To Say.

Yep, that's right. You still have to think of good ideas.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube provide distribution and the technology to link to people. It does not provide a brand with the magical idea.

Tips:

Study The Community
You are going to play in "their" territory. So spend more time thinking about whether you are "on value to them" and less about whether you are "on brand". Always be wary of people who say "on brand" all the time. They would rather something be boring and safe and rely on expensive repetitive advertising media to get a point across.

Constantly Ask Yourself This
"Will people reeeaally do this?" Ideas can sound good in a boardroom but remember that you need people to actively pass this idea on or adopt it in someway. Pass on and adoption are just not in the future of safe, easy and lazy ideas.

People Dont Really Care About Brands
There is a lot more interesting stuff going in people's lives than your product. Sure, they may use it. But they do not live for it. So just keep a check on reality when you say "People would love to pass around our commercial."

The takeaway ? You cannot fake this. You have to spend time in these communities. You actually have to be a funny or entertaining person or work with an agency or people who are.

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

See The New Reindeer Website As It Gets Built

We like to involve people in the process of building things. Involvement breeds commitment.

So, we are currently rebuilding our website and invite you to see the progress and then email us at talk@reindeercompany.com. We promise to bake in your thoughts somehow :) We are going to keep uploading updates in their raw form.

New Reindeer Site In Development

Talk, tell, speak... Would make our day :)

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Blogs About Blogs

In the music industry, when you take someone else’s song, and make it your own, it’s called a remix. In the movie industry, when you take an old film and create a new version of it, it’s called a remake. In the literary world, when you use someone else’s words in your own publication, it’s called plagiarism. However, on the internet, it’s called reblogging!

There’s an interesting economy in cyberspace, where the common currency is measured in page views. So usually any time a user is exposed to your content, regardless of the source, is looked at as a favorable thing. However, if we follow this same economy analogy whereby currency = page views, then credit = links back to the original source. Where reblogging varies from the more traditional plagiarism is the ability to give credit where credit is due.

In its more base form, reblogging is a great way to take what someone else has written, slap on a paragraph of ‘analysis’ about whether you agree or disagree with it, throw in a link back to the source, and call it your own. However, reblogging can also be a great tool for social analysis, pointing out inconsistencies in reporting, or journalistic bias. A web savvy group of friends can reblog each others’ entries about an event or experience they all shared, each giving his or her own perspective. Writers can garner a greater exposure of their work when other web sites reblog their content. In fact, we encourage it! So feel free to reblog this entry about reblogging. (But don’t forget to credit me.)

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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

How To Get Consumers to Voluntarily Watch Your Commercial (Or: YouTube)

Every now and then, a commercial comes along that manages to become a huge hit, resonating beyond target demographics and international boundaries. It becomes a topic of conversation. People seek it out so that they can be the one to say “Oh, I’ve seen that!”

It used to be the holy grail of commercials happened once a year. Superbowl halftime has been known to make or break brands. If your commercial aired during this most coveted time slot, it was guaranteed to be noticed, and even talked about, but that exposure came with a huge price. The wrong message or positioning at the wrong time could cause a dire return on investment. Superbowl commercial slots are notoriously expensive!

Well, that was then, and this is now: the paradigm for advertising has shifted. YouTube has changed the way people get information, and for the most part, edited commercials out of the media experience. So how do you get people to voluntarily watch your commercial?

Over the last few days, Reindeer have managed to secure over a million views for the latest SoBe Life Water TV Commercial. Our methodology was simple, and involved adapting the existing YouTube success models to our own needs. There is a pervasive culture on YouTube, and to achieve the best results, you have to speak to that culture. This is especially true if you want to ignite conversation, and have people continue to talk about your brand on their own free time.

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Thursday, July 17, 2008

Naomi Campbell Does It Again For SoBe!!

SoBe just gets summer so right!

Check out SoBe's new "Summer of Magic" featuring Naomi Campbell and Carlos Santana's famous and ultra groovy track, Black Magic Woman... and DONT miss the big kiss our Lee the Lizard gets from Naomi. Lucky little thing!

We love working with PepsiCo's SoBe team and keep on the lookout for more in the very near future!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Twitter me this...

Micro-blogging seems like the perfect compromise for a society with ever dwindling attention spans. Take a limited text count, say 140 letters, and try to fit as much information as possible while still retaining a semblance of context and voice. The finished product reads like a mixture between a LiveJournal entry and a Facebook status update. A soundbite of your life, if you will.

Ever increasingly, brands are starting to take advantage of this medium. Comcast made news when they introduced Comcast Cares, and shortly after grew it to become one of the top subscribed to Twitters ever created. Comcast has dedicated one of their customer service representatives to handle this form of support as a full time job. Tools like search.twitter.com allow for a quick reference to people who have Twittered about disputes with their cable or internet, allowing Comcast Cares to offer online assistance. They’re really quite efficient at addressing customer disputes!

Here at Reindeer, we’ve started a twitter for SoBe Life Water with the goal of transparency in mind. Our updates come from the point of view of the brand, and have been giving an inside look at what’s going on here at Reindeer, and with the campaign. SoBe is lucky to have a huge faction of superfans, and they’ve become a key part in the success of the campaign. So for us, Twitter is an indispensable tool in our Social Media arsenal. It allows us to produce a soundbite update, and communicate with users about thoughts and suggestions they have as well. This kind of interaction is a key part of the Reindeer plan, and what sets winning brands apart from the rest. Of course, like Comcast Cares, a successful Twitter requires constant attention and optimization in order to produce the best results. However, when brands allocate the resources needed to make it happen, the return on investment can be monumental. This makes Twitter a great way to reach that elusive demographic with an ever dwindling attention span.

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Thursday, July 10, 2008

One Of My Fave Online Shorts Ever: Young Artie Feldman