Wow!  You’ve got to check out what Graco is doing online.  Graco’s robust Social Networking presence is a great example of how businesses, especially businesses in highly regulated industries, can effectively surround their audience with a consistent online message.  What I really like is the consistency of their message.  They are amplifying their “Ready for the Road Ahead” campaign throughout.

Check out this post from Ignite Social Media (link).  And the following slide show from the Blog Council (Link).

Graco Blog:  http://blog.gracobaby.com/

Graco on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ReadyForTheRoadAhead

Graco on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gracogettogethers/

Graco on Twitter: http://twitter.com/GracoBaby

It’s interesting that Graco has no Facebook presence yet.  I would have thought this was a natural for them.

There are a lot of great insights here on how major brands can embrace Social Networking in a meaningful way that engages their target consumers.  We’ll keep an eye on Graco and see how they develop these strategies moving forward.

SpongeBob on the iPhone

Nickelodeon working with the development shop Mobui has launched a SpongeBob iPhone Ap.  More Nick character aps are in development.  Check out the press release here (link)  and a Mashable post here (link). This ap quickly rose to the top 10 iPhone ap list with over 3000 downloads per day.

I’ve been keeping an eye on iPhone aps mostly because I’d like to do one but haven’t found a way to justify it.  As iPhone sales continue to grow the users will start to include the target audience I’m after.  I’m wondering why Nick went with this — I’d guess that after 10 years on the air SpongeBob has a pretty large audience of 20 year old that are now carrying around iPhones.  But that doesn’t explain why Nick will soon be releasing Dora and iCarly aps. Another thought is that the dev shop was building Advergames for AddictingGames.com and Shockwave.com so why not tweak the code a bit and get an iPhone version.

The big picture here is that all phones will be iPhone or iPhone knock offs within 3 years.  Unfortunately, they will probably all have their own development code (unless Android takes off).  So there will be huge opportunities in reaching the mobile consumer through aps but they will be costly to develop across phone platforms.

Thoughts:

• As I’ve written before (post),  Mobile Aps as a marketing strategy will become HUGE!  Keep an eye on this space and consider the benefits of getting in early rather than waiting for the field to become very very crowded.
• Aps are great at connecting consumers with your brand in a very engaging way.  When developing these aps think about making them viral so fans of your brand can share their love with their friends.
• Also think about how the ap could drive to sales.  For example, could this SpongeBob Tickler ap tie into a physical product?

Here’s a great post from ReadWriteWeb (link here).  The jist is that hip agencies are creating viral content that appears to be fan produced.  But turns out it is produced as a marketing tool for the advertiser.

BMW's The Ramp

I don’t fully agree with the RWW post.  I can see that in some cases agencies can cross the line.  But I was a huge fan of The Ramp documentary supporting the introduction of a new BMW to the US market.  This was obviously a Fake Viral Video — so it might not be considered truly a fake.  But if I’m being sold a BMW I don’t mind also being entertained.

Walmart's iPhone Ap

For Valentine’s Day Walmart has launched an iPhone ap that allows users to blow the love of their life a kiss — and quickly find that perfect gift at Walmart.  With over 1MM iPhones in the US and thousand more sold each day expect to see more and more of these Promo-Aps.

Is the Promo-Ap the 30 Second spot of the future?   We’ll always have some form of the 30 second spot.  But the Promo-Ap is a strong contender for advertising dominance.  Why?  Because good aps add value that the consumer needs AND sells product. That combination can drive the entire buy cycle from awareness to direct purchase.

Here’s a freeby — want to make a kagillion dollars in 2025?  Start a development company that develops Promo-Aps for TV.

Mechanical Turk

The term “Mechanical Turk” comes from a 18th century chess board that appeared to be controlled by a mechanical device that looked like a Turk. In reality it was controlled by a very small and uncomfortable German.

Why is this important to Internet Marketing?  Because the term “Mechanical Turk” now means any online service that  is controlled by humans rather than servers.  The most interesting example of this is Amazon Mobile.  This new service from Amazon allows users to take a picture of any object and within a couple minutes the user will be able to buy the object directly from Amazon.

Amazon Mobile

I’ve tried this and it is amazing — we took pictures of a stapler, a Frisbee, a pen, and a bunch of other things and the only thing it did not specifically recognize was a Transformer figure from the 80s.

If you have an idea that needs humans over server power check out Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service — Amazon’s service takes care of all the details to get your mechanical turk up and running.

I just realized this sounded like an ad — it’s not. I’m just a big fan and think there are a bunch of business opportunities here.