Brainify.com Blog

Recently, I was part of a project team that introduced Brainify.com, an all-new academic bookmarking and social networking site at a Sauder School of Business industry tradeshow.

Apart from being an excellent learning experience, the event allowed MBA students to showcase their ingenuity to industry, colleagues, academic staff, and a variety of guests from diverse backgrounds. The turnout was fantastic, and I hope that the school will encourage this event as part of the curriculum for next year.

Our display was quite proficient; simple but "techy", we employed an iphone demonstration (no "iLightr" involved) and a live demo of our product, which will be launched soon at www.brainify.com.

We also included some great traditional marketing collateral, including small, coloured bookmarks (it's a bookmarking site =D), a double-sided flier, and three great reps that knew how to pitch like the pros.

I guess my only nervous moment was when Murray (the creator of the site and the great mind behind WebCT) visited the booth and checked out my "pitching" abilities. He was great - enthusiastic, friendly, complimentary, and encouraging - but I could not help but think of how much I must have been botching the product's features in his eyes!

Below are the images of the show. Eventually, I may also post some samples of the distribution materials we used, but then again I might hide them for selfish reasons.....

Thanks again to all those that came out and visited the tradeshow!

Brainify.com Tradeshow (Images)

Some Photos from our tradeshow presentation:

The Pitch:

The snazzy display:

Generating some Buzz on the way in:

Our Mascot Fred brings light to academic researchers abroad:

E-Marketplace - eBay Creates Brand Evangelists?

eBay has become ubiquitous in the market for lightly used goods. Upon browsing for some used furniture (before you think it: relax, I was doing it for a blog topic, if I actually want to buy I'll go to Craigslist blah blah) I typed in IKEA and examined the results. What did I find? Well, about 3000 IKEA products, as expected. What else did I find? About 3000 auctioneers singing the praises of IKEA in the hope of generating a sale. Long ago, this type of brand advocacy was only dreamt about. Now, we see it on a regular basis, through blogs, auction sites, and user-generated viral content.

Does re-sale value lay the foundation for brand advocacy? It seems to be the case for cars and other long-term personal purchases.

BTW: Has anyone else notice that if IKEA gets disassembled and/or moved it turns into melted cheese? Yet still they can count on re-sellers..........

Viral Marketing: 2-Way Street?

Link: http://video.google.ca/videosearch?hl=en&q=cloverfield&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#hl=en&q=cloverfield&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv&start=20

The recent release of the film "Cloverfield" involved a veritable ton of viral marketing and vague foreshadowing. Despite being an otherwise unremarkable film, it generated a lot of attention because of its cliffhanger preview and use of the internet for promotion.

It also resulted in numerous parodies of what the mysterious "monster" in fact was. For those of you familiar with the hilarity of http://www.homestarruner.com/ , the spoof above uses the infamous "Trogdor," the web's favourite piecemeal "burninating" dragon.

The old saying is "no press is bad press," and I wonder if user-generated spoofs fit into this line of thought. In the case of Cloverfield, it certainly seems to have worked.

Exemplar Blog: Hockey Buzz

Link: http://www.hockeybuzz.com/

I have been a regular follower of hockeybuzz.com and its infamous anonymous creator "Eklund" for about a year now. Even for those of us that are not avid NHL pundits, I think there are some notable lessons to be learned from this resident blogger's marketing model.

Offering rumours on trades, activity, and commentary on daily NHL events for hockey fans and site subscribers, this site is true to its name and maintains a buzz on a daily basis. It also employs a set of "support bloggers" that have a more narrow scope - specific teams, issues, etc.

Despite recent backlash from subscribers for the alleged fabrication or recycling of hockey rumours, a recent "quick vid" on this site made it to 1,000,000 views, and the comments continue to pour in on each and every blog.

For those interested in developing high traffic blogs, there are some definite lessons to be taken from hockeybuzz.com.

Google Ads - Following my thoughts!

The primacy of google has and, in the minds of most marketers, will continue to mold the outcomes provided by online promotional initiatives. As an avid user of gmail, I have begun to notice the small text ads that unobtrusively appear at the top of the screen. They are not flashy, they are not detailed, but they are always related to the topic at hand.

For example, I was discussing an assignment known as RCCL, and gmail automatically posted a link to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines - RCCL. I then mentioned (in the same email) an "e-business module" and was automatically offered a link to online technical training at UBC.

I find the enormity of the potential here baffling - where once we cast out ads as bait and hoped for customers to "bite", we can now provide them a la carte bait that is targeted purely to those who mentioned it. It still needs improvement, but I think the possibilities are astounding.

What the Hell is an iLightr?

Well, we all know that the iPhone has been ravenously ingesting market share in the mobile phone market. Their buzz factor is off the deep end, all because of the most marvelously useless but captivating stuff you have ever seen:

- A tilting lighter (rock lighter, seen here)
- Lightsabers that swing and make the buzzing sound

- A fish pond where you can freak out digitally generated fish by poking the "water" with your finger, and so on.

There are a number of variations on the "lightr" including a zippo and a "burner" which allows you to see how many other users are burning across the globe, and where they are burning.

Initial response? Who, exactly, has time for this crap? Response: just about everyone and their second cousin. Not only are these apps flying off the iTunes "shelf", the vast majority of them are user-generated.

Question: is the value proposition becoming obsolete? Do people care what you can offer them, or do they care what they can offer themselves?