From WTF to TFW – How a Blog Caused a Logo Change for Wisconsin

Earlier this year, one of my favorite blogs, Your Logo Makes Me Barf, wrote a post called WTF Wisconsin? that pointed out a glaring error made by the Wisconsin Tourism Federation.  If you don’t know what the acronym WTF stands for, I’ll tell you — “What the fu*k?”  Take a look at the logo below.

While it’s surprising that no one within or working with the Wisconsin Tourism Federation mentioned this problem to them, the more interesting point of the story comes from how they learned about it.  The power of the blogosphere is demonstrated once again with the WTF Wisconsin? post on Your Logo Makes Me Barf.  The Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel wrote about it on the same day in their Hubbub blog.

Perhaps the more unfortunate part of this story though is something mentioned on another of my favorite blogs — Brand New.  The organization took the time and invested the money to change their name after realizing the error (the new name is Tourism Federation of Wisconsin), but they just flipped the letters in the logo instead of creating a new one.  Now that’s a missed opportunity as this logo leaves a lot to be desired (see below).

Of course, the lesson to learn is — always make sure multiple people review your work.  You never know what you might miss.

United Breaks Guitars – YouTube to the Rescue

First the backstory –

In Spring 2008, musician Dave Carroll took a United Airlines flight heading toward Nebraska for a 1-week tour.  Due to carry-on bag restrictions, he had to check his $3,500 Taylor guitar.  While sitting on the tarmac, another passenger brought everyone’s attention to the United Airlines baggage handlers who were throwing Carroll’s guitar (among other things) into the plane in a manner that left little hope for survival.  After 9 months of phone calls and discussions with a myriad of United Airlines employees, Carroll was finally told that United Airlines would not compensate him for his loss.  You can read the full story here.

So what did Carroll do?  He turned to the power of the social web, namely YouTube, to share his story — and it worked!

Carroll wrote a song and filmed a video called “United Breaks Guitars” (which is very funny) and uploaded it to YouTube on July 9, 2009.  You can view it below (or watch it here).  As of today, not even two months since it’s release, the video has been viewed over 5.3 million times.

Word got out and the video became a big enough viral sensation that United had to respond.  They contacted Carroll and offered to compensate him for the damages done to his guitar, but Carroll declined the money and asked United to donate it to charity.  He uploaded a new video on July 10th in which he describes his discussion with United, which you can watch below (or view it here on YouTube).

On August 17, 2009, Carroll uploaded the second song and video in his 3-part United song series.  As of today, just two weeks later, already nearly 300,000 people have watched the video, shown below (or view it here).

Carroll is now writing the third and final song in his United series, which will be released on YouTube with a corresponding video soon.

There are two things marketers must learn from this story.  First, the social Web is a powerful tool with the potential to make or break a brand.  Make it work for you, not against you.  Second, United breaks guitars.

The Evolution of CONsumers to PROsumers

The term “prosumer” isn’t a new one.  It’s been around the marketing world for years, but in today’s world of the social web, it has taken on a new importance that marketers can’t ignore.

The term “prosumer” has transformed from “professional consumer” to “product and brand advocate”.  Rather than simply “consuming” products, people are becoming the voices of those products and significantly impacting the success or failure of companies, products, and brands, particularly thorugh their involvement on the social web.

In simplest terms, no longer are businesses completely in control of their products, brands and messages.  Today, consumers are in control.  The leaders of this shift are the members of the social web — bloggers, microbloggers, forum posters, social networking participants, and so on, who spread messages, influence people around the world, and drive demand.  Prosumers are the online influencers that marketers must not just identify but also acknowledge, respect and develop relationships with in order for their products and brands to thrive.  The high level steps to leveraging the power of prosumers are as follows:

1. Identify the key online influencers for your product, brand, business or industry (i.e., the prosumers).
2. Acknowledge those people (e.g., send product samples, ask opinions, etc.).
3. Join the online conversation where those people already spend time.
4. Develop relationships with those people by interacting with them, providing useful information, and being accessible and human.
5. Leverage the opportunities of the social web by creating your own branded destinations such as a blog, YouTube channel, Twitter profile, Facebook group or fan page, LinkedIn group, podcast, etc.

The bottom line to connecting with prosumers and to get them talking about and advocating your brand, products and business is to deliver content that adds value to their experience with your brand.  Then, don’t be afraid to let them take control and spread your messages.  That’s where the power of the social web and online influencers to drive word-of-mouth marketing farther than ever comes into the picture, and that’s the ultimate goal for marketers.

Top of the Muffin to You – from Seinfeld to Vitalicious

Somehow VitaTops muffin tops from Vitalicious have been on the market without a lot of buzz (at least not in my neck of the woods).  Today, I stumbled upon news that a new flavor (banana nut) was introduced.  How did I miss this gem?

What a great pop culture tribute that every Seinfeld fan would love to buzz about.  I think they’re missing a big opportunity to drive word of mouth on this one.  Or am I just looking for any excuse to post a Seinfeld clip (guilty as charged)? What do you think?