Join Hellmann’s Run For Real Food

What do Amy Longlegs, Margery Strides and Elvira Flash have in common? Well aside from being Canadian free-run hens, they’re also competing in Hellmann’s Run For Real Food. Coincidence? Not quite. Serendipitous? You bet.

What better way to launch Hellmann’s ½ the Fat now made with Canadian free-run eggs, then running free-run hens across the Internet. In the first race of it’s kind, users get to select their hen, suit her up and train her for the big day. From running on a farm-grade treadmill to yoga stretches, these hens sweat it up with hopes of winning free groceries for a year. And when they’re not working out, they’re posing on Facebook. With the photo-bombing tool, you can add your hen to all of your pics.

To date, 20,000 hens have entered the Run. Come June 23rd there’s going to be a lot of birds clucking around the Internet. Check Yahoo and MSN for all the action. Follow along from site to site as these ladies make history.

Talking Shop with RedCanary – Interactive Leaders Q&A

I was recently asked by the people behind RedCanary to answer a few questions for part of their blog called “Shop Talk” 

A few of us talked about these subjects before I submitted my answers so it’s worth sharing our responses here.  Please check out the Red Canary blog to see how a couple of other digital agency heads felt about the same subject.

What drove you to start or join your company and what has made you successful?

I joined Dashboard as a partner about 2 ½ years ago.  I had reconnected with Barry Hillier (the founder of Dashboard) on Facebook after not seeing him for about 10 years.  Barry had started this fantastic shop and was looking for a partner to help get it to the next stage.  I was smitten from my first introduction.  Dashboard is a mosaic of the most creative, innovative, and ingenious people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.  I feel lucky every day to be part of this team, they’ve raised my game.

I think the main reason we’re successful is our collaboration, both with the Client and internally across the team.  We’re very integrated and push each other to drive the thinking as far as we can and most of our Clients want that kind of relationship.  We are all very serious about the quality of the user experience and getting a Wow.

Buzz words like “New Media” and “Digital” are getting old.  What would you call a bundle that includes Social Marketing, Video, and ON-line and Mobile?

I’ve resisted trying to define new channels, I don’t think that kind of terminology helps. It might even be a trap into old styles of silo media thinking.  We think more in terms of engagement.  What we know for sure is that consumers are in the driver’s seat more than ever.  They’re increasingly nomadic, choosing where and how to get their news and information, and they’re contributing to the conversation about brands.  We need to know where and how to create the most compelling experience to advance our Client’s objectives and that can easily change from one season to the next.

Our mantra is “Powerful Engagement for Powerful Consumers”.   That’s the best definition of what we do.

How do you see your company’s approach to branding evolving, and what does that mean to your clients?

Our strategic approach to brands has two imperatives.  No matter what else we’re doing, we pursue brand immersion and we pursue brand interaction.   We like to surround the consumer with the brand by making them feel part of it and we like to get them to act or respond in a meaningful way.  There is a lot more to it, but fundamentally, that’s what we’re doing for brands.

What traits do you look for in new Clients?

Our best Clients are the ones with the highest standards, and the highest regard for their consumers.  We get along great with them.

What are the challenges of managing partnerships with traditional agencies and delivering your interactive services to the client?

We have worked with a lot of agencies.  Most we love, some we don’t.  If they bring us in early, respect what we bring to the table and collaborate, we do great work and everyone has a good time.  I’m happy to say that these relationships are not hard to find.

Agencies win awards for their interactive look and feel, but clients are driven by ROI.  What KPIs matter to you?

I don’t see a discrepancy between our goals and our Clients.  What matters to us is doing great work that rewards the consumer and advances the Client’s objectives.  You can’t drive ROI by boring consumers or treating them without respect, but if you ignore the goals of the brand, you’re just being irresponsible.

What are your thoughts on the future of video and mobile (and their successes) as a branding vehicle?

Both are really means to an end.  They can be amazing tools for engagement and creating that immersive brand experience.  Both can profoundly impact the way we reach out to and recruit consumers.  The challenge in Canada is that the mobile marketplace isn’t priced or regulated to facilitate the kind of usage we see in other countries.  We’d love to see that change.

To Contact Us Please Answer: (square root(64) x 14) / 2

I recently came across an interesting post from Rethink. The aptly titled “Five more reasons your website stinks” post had a great little tidbit (reason #10a) about uber long forms complete with CAPTCHA’s that actually deter people from contacting you. I found myself asking, “Why are we still using them, in the first place?”. In today’s landscape of instant communication, the contact form just feels archaic – inconvenient and not very user-friendly. The entire process of completing a typical form takes way too long and often requires the user to surrender too much irrelevant information.

So why do we use forms in the first place? SPAM. Evil SPAM bots have forced regular old mailto links off the page altogether. The bots easily spider page content searching for @ and .com/.ca/.net/.everything combinations. Embedding the recipient address in a form worked until bots were programmed to automate the entry process and compromise the form. Enter the CAPTCHA, an undecipherable, accessibility-hindering, annoying little samurai sent to halt the nasty bots from entering Form Kingdom… and in the process upping your abandonment rates to record levels. So why do we still use forms for simple contact?

Well we shouldn’t, period. Or, at the very least, we should give users some options. Why not adopt the communication technologies and channels of your end users? At this moment these are based around social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Think about the difference in user experience between offering nearly real-time interaction or expecting someone to wait over an indiscriminate amount of time for a response to a submission (assuming one actually arrives at all). Which scenario better represents your company’s value proposition?

Yes, we already know you’re worried about resources… but don’t you already have a resource assigned to reply to those form submissions? Have those same individuals monitor the newly-minted contact channels as well. Chances are these team members are already well-versed in company policy, legal, and brand positioning and should be able to easily adapt to the new technology. It’s really about improving user experience and engagement by removing barriers between the user and the brand or company.

I guess the one thing to remember about all of this… We don’t build websites for ourselves, we build them for users. So try and give them what they want, and always what they need.

So wanna talk? Tweet me here @mrbrain or here @dashboarddotca or leave me a comment using the form below (CAPTCHA FREE!).

p.s. the answer is 56.

FWA Public Shortlist For Drive in Another Dimension!

A big thank you is in order for all those who voted for our work on theFWA.com. Our work has now made it to the public shortlist! Great work by the Dashboard and Rubber Pixel teams on this one, and a special thanks to the Ontartio Toyota Dealers for being an awesome client.