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26 July 2010

Screenshot from the digital frontline: Your voice’s effect on search and mobile

Before you Go Somewhere New, Learn from Where you’ve Been

Ten years ago, who would have guessed that our lives would revolve around the Internet? Personally, I was thinking we’d be flying cars by now; but that’s beside the point. The bottom line is that our lives are digitally saturated. Of course, with everything humans create, there comes plenty of drama. As our Chief Buddy noted in the previous post, take the Adobe vs. Apple debate…not to be outdone by iPhone vs. Android…then there’s the Facebook privacy issues. The list goes on and on. Which leads us to the question: Where exactly are we going next? As one of the Associate Directors of Development at The Buddy Group, here’s a screenshot from the frontline:

Your Second Chance at Digital Marketing Success

The Internet as we know it is quite different than it was a few years ago or even six months ago. I mean, do you remember MySpace? Neither do I; but companies were chomping at the bit to find an agency that could create a marketable MySpace page. Many were able to use this online tool to catapult their brand. So what killed MySpace? Facebook and its little brother Twitter. These two sites are drastically changing the behavior of everyday Internet users and the way companies approach marketing. If you missed out on MySpace success, you now have a second chance at digital fame. Smart brands are using Facebook and Twitter to bring customers to the stores, online or off. Our team refers to the strategy of leveraging such platforms as Audience Engagement and as someone who implements and captures all the data tracking let me tell you…it’s working. Facebook, for example, has over 400 million active users. Twitter is highly successful, too, thanks to its fast pace and refreshing brevity. The widely used term “TL;DR” (which means Too Long, Didn’t Read) sums up Twitter perfectly and is an increasingly important part of the Audience Engagement mix. When used properly, Facebook and Twitter not only give its users a platform to speak, it gives your company a platform to listen. In the early days, we only had traffic numbers to rely on to let us know how our sites were performing; today we have near real-time data that lets us quickly address user feedback, sometimes within minutes. But it is not just the real-time benefit that has us excited. The long-term effect of apps, mobile pages and open platforms such as Twitter to your Search Engine Optimization Strategy (SEO) is becoming significant. There have been a series of major moves by Google and others to integrate Twitter results into search queries and brands who utilize the right keywords and voice can reap the reward with increased organic traffic and relevance. Now that there are so many different avenues to get to your brands content, it’s only a matter of deciding where your users will end up and providing the path to get them there; which takes us to mobile.

Mobile Web: Moving Faster than Ever

Not only are we consuming smaller bits of information but we’re consuming it with smaller devices. With the release of the iPhone, things have gotten interesting. All of a sudden there’s all these weird ‘apps’ that allow us to do stuff in different ways. Quick and easy one-touch features are the new user experience. And we love it. LOVE IT! One sticky point: The app market is quickly becoming over-saturated. As of this writing, there are over 200,000 apps in the Apple App Store. Unless your app does something completely unique or adds tremendous value to the end-user, don’t expect it to break the top 100 list. Sometimes, creating an app for your project may not be the best investment. It might make more sense to create a mobile version of your Website instead of clawing your way through Apple’s application approval process. The same holds for the exploding app market for Android and other mobile devices. You have to ask: Are we building apps just to jump on the Appwagon? Here are some really interesting numbers on market share for mobile phone operating systems. I think you might be surprised at who actually holds the top two spots. http://ow.ly/24j4W

Ask yourself if your brand will really benefit.

You Need to Know the Code

There was a time when icons appeared on Websites that said stuff like “Best viewed in Internet Explorer” or “Get Netscape now to enjoy this Website.” Thankfully, those days are long gone. When we code a Website, we no longer have to develop for every browser on the market. Sure, the current crop of browsers handle certain things differently, but all-in-all, it’s “write code once, deploy to all.” Flash came in and took it a step further in that there were no browser incompatibilities. It was truly one code-base that worked across all browsers. Web developers, no matter what language they use, have been trying to get to this Holy Grail for years. All we want to do is write our code one time and deploy it on IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, etc. Wouldn’t that be the life if we truly had full cross-platform usability? I think that AIR gets us really close, but there is one big sticking point… Apple. No one knows the real reasons behind the feud between Apple and Adobe, but the fact of the matter remains that Apple has chosen not to support Flash or AIR on their devices, including the iPad. So here we are back to the early days of developing our apps at least twice if we want them available on all platforms. Another interesting statistic is the actual number of developers that work on these platforms. It was a surprise to me to see that there are quite a bit more Android developers than iOS developers. This shows a significant shift in what developers are choosing as their ‘tool of choice’. Android is far more open with their technologies than Apple and they don’t require their developers to jump through endless hoops to get their app in the Android Marketplace (not to mention the possibility of getting your app pulled from the Apple App Store for any number of insignificant reasons). It also shows where the market is trending in the mobile sphere. Since we as developers are constantly on the search for the Holy Grail I mentioned above, we’re going to always start the budget and planning talk with the path of least resistance at least until compelling reasons can be presented outlining the short-term benefit of having multiple platform support. We usually start the conversation with Google’s mobile Operating System Android. With Android supporting Flash and AIR, it opens up endless possibilities of what we can produce for these devices. What’s really cool is that if we create an AIR application, it’s going to run flawlessly on your PC, Mac, Linux, and Android device. If we create an Apple app, it’s going to run on the iPhone and iPad…and that’s it. We understand that Apple has a very specific design approach and that they want all of their applications to look and function the same way across the board (maybe that should be across the “bored”), but limiting our design team’s creativity because of Apple’s desire to make everything uniform just doesn’t sit well with me at all. We should be free to create; we should be free to conceptualize new ideas, new navigation techniques, new ways of displaying content, but Apple seems to think they’ve nailed it so we must conform to their standards. This is stifling innovation at its worst. With Android, we’re free to decide what we want to do, not what we’re allowed to do, and this is innovation at its finest. With the market trending over to Android anyway, it’s pretty clear where we’re headed. While it may not even be Android or Apple that ends up ‘winning’, the eventual winner will no doubt be the one that allows us the most flexibility.

I’ve focused mostly on the mobile “app” world. There is a new debate happening that brings up a really interesting viewpoint. Since the app markets have become so saturated, it’s calling into question how long these app marketplaces will actually survive. Let’s say you have a website that services your customers really well. It gets a good amount of traffic, you get good feedback on your site and your sales numbers are increasing, but you really need a way for people to check something out while they’re on the go. Does it make sense to develop an app that requires your users to download and install it? Or does it make more sense to make your already successful website mobile smart? Making your website mobile smart not only keeps you out of the fluctuating and sometimes frustrating app business, it’s a cross-platform solution. No matter what device your users are using to view your site, they will get a nicely packaged and cleanly formatted version of it; and unlike an application, it has a specific URL that you can promote.

Luckily at The Buddy Group, we’re total geeks. We eat this stuff for breakfast, lunch, dinner—and sometimes a midnight snack (yes, we’ve been known to work through the night!). No matter what platform prevails, sleep well knowing we’ve got it covered! Looking forward to “Buddying Up” with your brand.

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Discover

14 July 2010

Stop being a “Clock Blocker” Apple!: So smart they even know when to fail

What if I told you that Apple failed? It wouldn’t be the first time a giant took a wrong step, right? Think about AOL, Netscape or even Palm; all fell from the cover of Time Magazine (no pun intended AOL) due to a series of bad choices. Except in the case of Apple’s decision to not play nicely with Adobe, the failure might actually be calculated. Apple claims this is a performance issue and that Adobe’s platforms are inferior to HTML 5. However, I see this as “Clock Blocking,” a tactic meant to preserve market position for as long as possible until enough time has elapsed and the inevitable happens.

In order to understand my position on this matter, it is important to understand how The Buddy Group and I spend our days. You can often find me in war rooms and corporate boardrooms working with brands, product innovators, media moguls, C-level types and others on their businesses. We (at The Buddy Group) specialize in helping brands connect with their audience using all forms of technology. A brand comes to us to develop a digital strategy, a product roadmap or marketing plan. We develop the plan, determine the platforms and tools most appropriate to the brand and goals, and develop the content as required. We are in the trenches. We are looking at what technology works, what is scalable and what technology is the best long-term investment for each tactic.

Times are tough and every dollar is scrutinized against KPI (Key Performance Indicators) like never before. Digital is one of the only mediums that provides real-time, measurable results. So you can imagine how it feels when it comes time to tell them that each piece of content, each application, each tool must be developed two if not three times, thereby increasing the cost of production and maintenance exponentially. Let’s just say, it doesn’t feel good especially when it is Apple’s strategy of “Clock Blocking” Flash that is the culprit.

But it shouldn’t be like that. We should be able to create it once, have it live in one spot and be accessible by multiple platforms and Apple knows it. They know that by allowing Flash to play in their sandbox even just a little means that their iphone App , iPad App and iTunes as we know it is threatened because most of what we do in an Apple app can be done with an Adobe product (note: I said most). As I discussed today with a colleague (conversations on this topic are frequent and usually end in frustration) I believe that we have not seen the true revolution in the pad and mobile device space yet. This will come as Android, Chrome and other non-Apple OS come to market and welcome (with open arms) Adobe.

Take, for example, a Toy company. They have 40 years of experience producing their own Intellectual property and licensing blockbusters for the purpose of creating physical products that kids (and some adults) can enjoy. They invent a product, manufacture it and sell it in. While that might be an over simplification, what you don’t see me pointing out is the need to create a different product for each shelf that it sits on. Multiple SKUs are created for the purpose of creating differentiation, not to comply with the retail requirements themselves. Enter, digital. The same Toy company wants to take their IP online, extend their toy or game to an online audience. Today, if they want to be accessible to all audiences they have to develop their IP on multiple platforms. Each platform (Apple, Android, Web browser, Palm) requires a different build of the experience. Each experience might need to be different as well as each platform functions slightly different based on whom they are. The Toy Company in this scenario is lucky. They can afford to produce the content 3 times where as small businesses simply cannot. They produce it once (if lucky) and usually dumb down the experience to the lowest common denominator. Using the old adage, “you have one dollar to spend, where to do you spend it” we look to Apple’s iPhone as the first choice. But…what if you had HP, Sony, Google, Microsoft, Motorola and everyone else in the world supporting Adobe? Yup, you might just switch your priority, right?

What really bothers me is not the need to produce the content for multiple platforms so much as the shelf life of that effort. The window is debatable (as is the idea that someday Apple will support Adobe) but my guess is that we are looking at 12-18 months. I base this guess on the predicted success of non-apple tablets and the rapidly growing non-apple mobile device marketplace supporting Adobe. There are those that say content should be refreshed every 6 to 12 months anyway and I agree. But there is a big difference between updating campaign creative or key messaging and rebuilding a suite of apps already in the marketplace. It is going to be a welcome day when we, on behalf of brands, can create one piece of super high-quality content and know that it will be accessible by all important devices. When that happens, we will see more content, more tools and most important, something the U.S. needs right now, more small businesses leveling the playing field with their larger competitors.

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Discover

7 July 2010

The Buddy Group’s 8 Telly Awards

The results are in, and I’m proud to announce that The Buddy Group has won eight 2010 Telly awards! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Telly Awards, they honor the very best local, regional, and cable television commercials and programs, as well as the finest video and film productions, and work created for the Web.

Here’s how it works – The elusive Sliver Telly is the highest possible award, and isn’t given out very often. The second place award is the Bronze Telly.

Seven of our awards were awarded in the traditional process, where producers who have won Silver Tellys in the past are sent copies of the work and judge each individual video based on the category in which it was entered. The eighth award was for the VelociRaptor Product Trailer that we made for Western Digital and comes from an exciting new category – the People’s Telly, which was voted on by the general public via the Telly Awards YouTube channel.

Here’s the full breakdown of our eight 2010 Tellys:

WD My Passport Studio Trailer – Computers/Information Technology Category – SILVER

WD My Passport Studio Trailer – Use of Animation – SILVER

WD Velociraptor Product Trailer – Computers/Information Technology Category – BRONZE

WD Velociraptor Product Trailer – People’s Telly, Use of Animation – BRONZE

WD SmartWare Overview – Sales Category – BRONZE

WD SmartWare Overview – Visual Effects Category – BRONZE

Hot Wheels Custom Motors Interactive Video Experience on YouTube – Entertainment Category – BRONZE

DTS UltraPC Video – Miscellaneous Category – BRONZE

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Engage

1 July 2010

Our Camp is Growing

We can’t believe it’s already summer 2010! When it comes to our camp experience so far, there’s a lot to write home about! For starters, we partnered up with some new clients, including Mattel, Epson and Google’s YouTube. We also completed our first company-wide Foosball competition, enjoyed a special visit from the famous Korean BBQ Kogi Truck, ate lots of ice cream and worked really, really hard for our clients! We also asked a few new Buddies to come aboard. Please welcome and get to know Marc Anthony, Beth, Sheyda and Jennifer!

Marc Anthony “Party Animal” Barrette
I.T. Director

When we interviewed Marc Anthony, we were really impressed with his extensive experience that included holding such positions as Chief Technology Officer, I.T Director and Sr. Engineer. But, when he told us he worked on the animated film Barnyard: The Original Party Animals, we knew we had a winner who would fit right in.

As part of our employment interview, we asked him a few random questions, and then required him to put his responses in code. Okay, we didn’t do that…but that would have been funny. Anyway, here are some fun facts about Marc Anthony:

The Buddy Group: If you could be any animal for a day what would you be?

Marc Anthony: A dragon.

TBG: Good choice. We can use a built-in marshmallow roaster! So, what’s your favorite saying?

MA: If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

TBG: Words to live by, Marc Anthony. Okay, if you’re stranded on a deserted island–what are the three things you must have?

MA: A banana, my dog and a Swiss army knife.

TBG: Interesting. Somehow we think you’d be able to build a computer network out of those three things… without using your dog, of course! Okay, next question: What does your fortune cookie say?

MA: Energy, passion, wisdom–you have it all. Use it!

TBG: Now our final question…What does Buddy Up mean to you?

MA: Buddy Up + Collaborate = The Best of Both Worlds.

Thanks, Marc Anthony. Welcome aboard. We’re glad to have you!

Beth “Extra Mile” Steffen
Senior Account Executive

Beth’s a true pro. She’s always finding ways to make her clients shine in front of their customers—from developing strategic marketing plans for their brands to flawlessly executing events and projects on their behalf. A recent example…Beth attended a trade show for one of our clients (James Hardie). A customer came to the booth and wanted a giveaway bag. Even though the client was out of bags, Beth came to the rescue. She dove into the supply room and found the last reusable James Hardie bag. That’s Beth–always willing to go the extra mile. Here’s more about Beth:
The Buddy Group: If you could be any animal for a day what would you be and why?

Beth Steffen: A cheetah. Then I’d be able to run faster than a ten minute mile.

TBG: We like your competitive spirit! But don’t you already have a ‘cheetah’ named Tiki? (Beth has a feisty cat the size of a medium dog). Okay, so what’s your favorite joke?

B: I’m stumped. Do you have a good one?

TBG: We’ve never heard of “I’m stumped. Do you have a good one?” Someday after a few drinks, you’ll have to tell us how that one ends. Next question: You’re stranded on a deserted island…what are the three things you must have?

B: Good friends, good music and good fruity drinks.

TBG: Good answer. What does your fortune cookie say?

B: The good you put into the world comes back to you ten-fold.

TBG: Sounds like there’s a lot of “good” in your life! So what does Buddy Up mean to you?

B: Having each other’s back, mutual respect, sharing in each other’s success and picking each other up during challenges.

We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves. Welcome to The Buddy Group, Beth!

Sheyda “Flying High” Lale
Senior Account Executive

Before landing at The Buddy Group, Sheyda worked with a myriad of big-name clients from Gold’s Gym and Mattel to FX Network and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. And while she’s a seasoned Account Executive, what stands out is her personality. You can’t help but like her. Here are about a few facts about Sheyda to help you get to know her better:

The Buddy Group: If you could be any animal for a day what would you be and why?

Sheyda Lale: A bird, because I need to be able to fly high.

TBG: True! Plus, you could get into Disneyland for free! What’s your favorite joke?

SL: Shoot. It’s in Farsi, so I’d need a translator for that!

TBG: Drats…our Farsi translator just quit last week. Here’s an easier question: You’re stranded on a deserted island…what are the three things you must have?

SL: Fire, under eye concealer and faith.

TBG: Great choices. So what does your fortune cookie say?

SL: My future always looks bright, apparently.

TBG: Finally, what does Buddy Up mean to you?

SL: Bringing friendship to all things!

Thanks Sheyda. You’ve come to the right place to fly high!

Jennifer “Multitasking” Madrigal
Office Manager

When you meet Jennifer, one of the first things you notice about her is her easygoing, energetic personality. You’d never guess that outside of work, she’s also a mother to three young boys and she’s earning a Masters of Arts degree in Literature from California Polytechnic University, Pomona. We don’t know how she does it all, but we’re glad to have her at The Buddy Group!

Before joining us, Jennifer worked in the highly respectable academic environment as assistant to the Dean at Riverside Community College. Naturally, we had to ask her what she thought about our camping theme, bunk bed desks and Foosball table. According to Jennifer: “I looked around and thought, wow…this is like a grown man’s playground. How sick. No, I’m totally kidding. Actually, I thought it looked like a really fun place to work. When I was offered the job it was like winning the job lottery and I was SUPER excited to start!!”

To add to Jennifer’s long list of accomplishments, she also holds The Buddy Group’s record for the longest favorite joke. Here goes: “An airline captain was breaking in a new blonde stewardess. The route they were flying had a layover in another city. Upon their arrival, the captain showed the stewardess the best place for airline personnel to eat, shop and stay overnight. The next morning, as the pilot was preparing the crew for the day’s route, he noticed the new stewardess was missing. He knew which room she was in at the hotel and called her up wondering what happened. She answered the phone, crying, and said she couldn’t get out of her room.”You can’t get out of your room?” the captain asked, “Why not?” The stewardess replied: “There are only three doors in here,” she sobbed, “one is the bathroom, one is the closet, and one has a sign on it that says ‘Do Not Disturb’!”
That’s a good one, Jennifer! Keep the blonde jokes coming!

With even more happy campers on board and lots of exciting things in the works, we’re looking forward to a great 2010, Part 2 at The Buddy Group!!

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Build

5 May 2010

Western Digital’s VelociRaptor comes to life at The Buddy Group

Feeding PC enthusiasts’ voracious appetite for speed has never been easy. But Western Digital managed to outpace even the fastest SATA hard drives on the market (including its own 300GB VelociRaptor) with the new 450GB and 600GB VelociRaptor. Packing 10,000 RPMs and up to twice the capacity, WD once again dominates the market with the world’s fastest SATA drive.

As WD’s partner, The Buddy Group was lucky enough to be tasked with helping to promote this powerful beast online. Working at VelociRaptor speeds, we needed to produce an online digital presentation that would top everything and anything WD had done before. In essence, we needed to bring the VelociRaptor machine to life in a microsite and (2) 30-second videos (one to play on the microsite and another version for YouTube). All of the projects would need to integrate imagery of the original velociraptor–a 75 million-year-old carnivorous dinosaur. The micro site would be translated into 14 languages!

Needless to say, the videos had to be fast-paced and visually exciting–an experience that even the most hardened PC enthusiast could get, well, enthusiastic about. To top it off, in order to meet the aggressive VelociRaptor product launch date, we only had about a month from start to finish for a project that could easily require three months. Think of every digital production step imaginable, from ideation, storyboard presentation, client approvals, 3D animation and wireframe, more client approvals, sound mixing, review screenings and then final client approvals. Keep in mind that every second of animation can equal hours of digital production time; so even the smallest changes made during the process are a big production (no pun intended).

Luckily, we have a state-of-the-art video production studio, DotLot. We also have a crew of very talented animators, designers, production managers and motion graphics and sound specialists—plus an executive producer and account executive to keep it all on track.

Creatively, the idea behind the video was to bring viewers inside the VelociRaptor hard drive virtual world in a fast pace, 3D-Tron-inspired visual experience. Viewers would get a sneak peek at the machine’s impressive internal working mechanisms and boast-worthy specs. The microsite would feature a red-eyed VelociRaptor, eerily staring at you and following your movements as you scroll the mouse–waiting to pounce on its prey.

The reaction we got from the final video screening was in a word, killer… Actually, in our clients’ words, according to Jai Lozan, Western Digital Sr. Marketing Specialist, “This is unlike any video we have done before for a new product presentation.”

Catch the new WD VelociRaptor video on YouTube at http://ow.ly/1FiXZ and see it on the micro site at http://ow.ly/1w9iD.

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Engage

19 April 2010

Help Us Make Bottles And Cans Benefit A Charity Of Your Choice!

The next time you chug down a can of soda and toss it into your overflowing trashcan, think about this… America throws away enough un-recycled steel each year to build all the American cars in Detroit. Soda cans are aluminum and GM sales aren’t that great lately, but the point is—we waste way too much. And now it’s time to do OUR part to be green and help Mother Nature out a bit. It’s in that spirit, The Buddy Group launches our “Make Cans Count” Campaign.

Starting April 1^st (but this is no joke!), we’ll be cashing in our recycled bottles and cans and donating all the proceeds to a charity of your choice! This is how it will work: Each quarter, we’ll tally up all the Tweets and Facebook wall posts we receive to nominate charities. The charity with the most votes at the end of each quarter wins! Make sure to share our updates with your friends so they can vote for your charity, or recommend their own charity to benefit from our quarterly donation!

This is a great way to make a difference, while continue to consume junk food at an alarming rate. It goes without saying that TBG, with your help, has the drive to make this a huge success.

Spread the word and stay tuned for more news about our “Make Cans Count” campaign.

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Discover

29 March 2010

Challenge to charities:“Find a Brand and be their Muse”

By Pete Deutchsman, Chief Executive Officer

A week or so back, I had the pleasure of speaking and assisting in the presenting of grant funds to eight deserving charities as part of The Festival of Children Foundation’s The Possible Dream program. In this program, charities were challenged to submit their “dream” to a panel of philanthropists, business people and community minded individuals.

As it was recently posted on the Festival of Children Foundation website:

“ Nearly 100 children’s charities from across Orange County, CA submitted their ideas for ways to impact the lives of children in need. To celebrate the end of Orange County Register’s Season of Caring program, eight charities were granted their wishes this month, with funds to help make their dreams come true. The projects were identified through our grant-making program, The Possible Dream. “

I can tell you first hand, not only as an entrepreneur but as a Board member on two non-profits, the last few years have not been easy on anyone. The larger non-profits have had to lay-off and reduce overhead, grant funds have diminished and become exponentially more difficult to obtain due to the economic downturn (not to mention scandals- such as the Maddoff mess). Smaller non-profits have been hit hard too, as volunteers who otherwise would have donated their time and company resources have found themselves unemployed or otherwise unable to provide support.

You can imagine the feeling in the room as administrators from El Viento Foundation, Girls Inc. of Orange County, Kids Konnected, Laguna Beach Community Clinic, New Vista School, Orangewood Children’s Foundation, The Sierra Club Foundation and United Cerebral Palsy, emotionally accepted checks to help fund their dreams.

I was honored to be asked to speak with the administrators and challenge them on how to engage digitally with their supporters, their prospective supporters and the community at large. One of the topics I covered with the group of charity Directors, donors and board members was the importance of digital engagement and more to the point, the relationships they all should be fostering online. I shared a few case studies of brands I have worked with that are in search of the authenticity, authenticity that they as non-profits naturally possess. I challenged each of them to be a “Muse” to brands and foster a long-term relationships with companies searching for their authentic story. By defining their voice online, and aligning themselves with like minded brands and individuals, charities can establish loyal relationships with those who can help accomplish their long-term goals.

That wasn’t the only challenge I provided them with. On behalf of all of the Buddies working at The Buddy Group, we challenged the eight recipients to engage, be authentic and document their dream…digitally. We encouraged the use of blogs, twitter, facebook, linkedin and Youtube as a means of getting their story out there and building relationships with their friends…and their friend’s friends…and their friend’s friend’s friends.

Starting April 1^st, we will be closely monitoring all of the charities online. The charity who is the most authentic, documents their dream in the most dynamic and engaging manner and most importantly, creates relationships with those in their community, will receive a Digital Audience Engagement strategy workshop where we will help solidify the voice of the organization, a professionally produced “sizzle” video highlighting their “Possible Dream” and what it accomplished. We will be working with the Orange County Register to publish the video and make sure their story is seen by as many as possible in Orange County. As I said in the presentation, it feels really good to be able to support such deserving groups and give back to the community that my wife and I grew up in.

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Build

5 March 2010

Hot Wheels Custom Motors Starts Its Engines!

We have been dying to share this with you but until now, have been sworn to secrecy. But, we’ve been given the green flag, so off we go!

Mattel challenged us to create an interactive, choose your own adventure video experience for a new Hot Wheels product. The response was…well…to say we were excited would be a huge understatement.

We have been producing interactive, non-linear videos for a while now. Heck, we even worked with Pointroll back in 2005 to create an industry nomenclature for interactive video: Pause-to-Play; Relational Hotspotting; Choose Your Interactive Adventure; and, of course, Green Screen Overlay (see it here ). However, the Hot Wheels challenge was different. We set out to produce this entire experience using stop motion photography. Best of all, the video was produced to live on YouTube’s Annotation Platform (NOTE: YouTube is also a client).

The experience has been nothing short of phenomenal.

Filmed on location in our DotLot studios, we produced the videos using three cameras, capturing more than 9,000 still frames, used 85 pounds of sugar (how else can we make it snow on Whiteout Mountain?!) and 100 pounds of sand. Our motion graphics team created explosions, avalanches and crashes that all help feed play-time imaginations. The custom sound design enhances the users’ immersion into the thrilling racing experience.

The video showcases the new line of Hot Wheels Custom Motors toys by enticing users into a series of Custom Motors Cup racing circuits. Players compete as Pit Crew Chief and race three courses in a chase for the Cup. After selecting one of two cool new Custom Motors vehicles, the key to victory then lies in choosing the right vehicle configuration for each of the three different tracks. The tracks start with a traditional racetrack and then progress to more treacherous off-road tracks. The game’s many permutations make it fun and challenging, so users want to play again and again in an effort to lead their team to victory.

We couldn’t be more proud of the end result. And because we know you are probably just as geeky about the “how to” as we are, look for a making-of video in the coming weeks to see how it all came together.

To get hooked on the Hot Wheels Custom Motors Cup game, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/HOTWHEELS.

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Create

26 February 2010

Adding Science To The Art Of Viral Videos

by Bryan Boettger, Chief Creative Officer

Increasingly, businesses and corporations are seeking to create viral videos. However, true viral videos are not typically “created,” rather they “happen.” So, in order to better “create” a viral video, we sought to better understand how these videos in fact “happened.” The outcome was The Buddy Group’s Viral Barometer, a tool to help gauge a video’s viral potential. In this post, we break down the Viral Barometer’s methodology so you can better understand and use the tool.

(You might wish to visit the Viral Barometer at ViralBarometer.com before continuing.)

SOURCES
In order to reverse engineer viral videos, we first needed a set of viral videos to analyze. Searching online for Top Online Videos and Top Viral Videos lists, two rose to the top as both comprehensive and somewhat objective in their selection process:
• Mashable’s Top YouTube Videos All Time — May 25, 2009
• Videogum’s Top Videos 2009 — Dec. 25, 2009

These two lists provided a total of 39 videos from which to gain insights. After (re)watching, analyzing, breaking down and comparing the 39 videos, a combination of 10 traits emerged as indicators for a video’s viral potential. These 10 traits fuel the calculations for the Viral Barometer.

BEFORE YOU START
There are four important facts that are imperative for properly using the Viral Barometer.

1) Accurate assessments require divesting yourself from the video.
It takes a personal investment of passion and energy to make a compelling video, but it takes a personal divestment to properly assess the video. Think of it like home movies of your kids — you find them so amazing you can watch for hours, but an honest assessment tells you your neighbors are likely to gnaw a limb off to escape more than 15 minutes.

2) Like a true virus, viral videos need good hosts to spread.
You might have the funniest, most unique video in the world. But, if it only sits on your own blog and you don’t actively share the video, get others to share the video and put it on sites where people can discover it… (more…)

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Engage

23 February 2010

The Buddy Group is now more famous-er.

We’re so happy to be loved for our content. And this month, when REELZCHANNEL approached us wanting to buy the rights to one of our digital productions, we couldn’t be more proud. Another one of our babies has made it! HollywoodPressTV.com has arrived!

When we developed HollywoodPressTV.com with our client in 2007, the idea was to create a unique comedic and satirical site for Hollywood movies, TV and events. The host, Steve Patterson, would interview A-list celebrities on the red carpet and on-location. The result is entertaining; the spots are unique—and needless to say, HollywoodPressTV.com has become a hot ticket item, drawing a huge and growing fan base of more than 2 million followers.

At the end of the day, we couldn’t be happier about getting our clients’ content to the masses. We’ve got a lot more “big” projects in the works. Stay tuned for more news about The Buddy Group digital productions.

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