Kony is the biggest internet meme ever. Don’t know what a meme is? A meme is a word invented by Richard Dawkins 35 years ago to label all those cultural units that are at some point contagious between individuals. Urban legends, religions or sayings are memes. What’s different know is that with the Internet, this memes spread much easier and faster than before.

Okay, so Kony 2012 is the video campaign with the faster growth ever (it took much less time that Susan’s Boyle to reach 70 million views), and what’s more, it got 5 million dollars within its first 48 hours online; not to mention the whirlwind of opinions, for and against, that it has unleashed.

But beyond the opinions for and against the issue, I would like to analyze the key factors that I think that made that video go viral and grow in such a fast way.

#1. The most important thing is that the video tells the viewer something very impressive and moving that he or she does not know yet. It’s something so touching and unfair that makes him or her feel the urge to transfer it to other people so that they also know about this situation.

#2. It has a clear call to action and an expiry date that makes feel more important the fact that one really has to share the video with others, because time is running out, and something has to be done about it!

#3. There are celebrities in it.

#4. The video is explained in a very simple and understandable way, some would say sometimes simplistic, but I think it’s thought to transmit a very clear idea, and to make the viewer think that the solution can be simple. A more complex situation would always be more difficult to solve.

#5. There’s a cute kid very sad about the situation.

#6. This movie is thought to target a concrete part of the global audience: young people. It has cool music, cool logos, very cool effects and editing; and you can even buy your own cool Kony 2012 Action Kit with a bracelet you can give to a friend and everything!

#7. Did I mention the cool friendship bracelets?

#8. It’s a quite long movie. Not as long as a documentary, but 30 minutes is enough to make the viewer understand that’s not a commercial and that this issue is important.

So pay attention marketers, you could use all or some of those features to make your online campaigns go viral as easy as Kony did!

It is more and more common for anybody to go to a search engine website and look up for someone’s profile in social networks to know more about him or her. Imagine that you didn’t have to use a computer or any other device to do that. Imagine that you could see all the information available about objects and people surrounding you. That’s what Sixth Sense technology means. SixthSense’ is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

The first time I knew about this new technology I could not help start thinking about the possibilities of it. If you want to better understand what all this is about, you can watch a video about this new innovation at TED.

The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user’s hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

The SixthSense prototype implements several applications that demonstrate the usefulness, viability and flexibility of the system. The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed on a nearby surface using hand gestures, similar to gestures supported by Multi-Touch based systems, letting the user zoom in, zoom out or pan using intuitive hand movements. The drawing application lets the user draw on any surface by tracking the fingertip movements of the user’s index finger. SixthSense also recognizes user’s freehand gestures (postures). For example, the SixthSense system implements a gestural camera that takes photos of the scene the user is looking at by detecting the ‘framing’ gesture. The user can stop by any surface or wall and flick through the photos he/she has taken. SixthSense also lets the user draw icons or symbols in the air using the movement of the index finger and recognizes those symbols as interaction instructions. For example, drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map application or drawing an ‘@’ symbol lets the user check his mail. The SixthSense system also augments physical objects the user is interacting with by projecting more information about these objects projected on them. For example, a newspaper can show live video news or dynamic information can be provided on a regular piece of paper. The gesture of drawing a circle on the user’s wrist projects an analog watch.

The possibilities in terms of marketing and communication are endless, and a scene from Minority Report just came to my mind while watching this presentation. This science fiction situation could be real sooner than we think.

We are in the two-way conversation era. That time in which communication was broadcasted on just one direction by just a few fortunate people is now in the past. In this new age, we all are able to communicate with millions of people just with one click and we don’t hesitate about actively participating on conversations where we share our opinions with unknown people.

Nevertheless, that has a drawback: saturation. So here are 5 tips and recommendations to succeed when broadcasting and encouraging the creation of interesting content for the user:

1.    Carefully select the contents. You will need to choose interesting and relevant topics for your user. Find out which are the hottest trends. To do that, you can use some tools such as Google Insights.

2.    Transform your message into different sorts of content, so that youhave a different tool for each different case scenario or situation.

3.    Don’t forget to encourage your users to actively take part in your contents. Ask them their opinions; invite them to interact with you content and to share comments and suggestions. That’s easier if you have a motivation for them to participate and interact. Such as a useful application, a game or a promotion.

4.    Link your off-line activities with your on-line marketing strategy, so that your users or customers are aware of them. For example, if you participate in events or you organize events of any kind, you could let your followers know in real time on Twitter.

5.    Have fun. Provide your user some funny content. Of course there are businesses that seem to be more serious than others; but funny content, as far as is related with you activities, will be almost always well received by your audience.

These days the World Mobile Congress is being celebrated in Barcelona, Spain. The mobile phone and smartphone industry is one of the most dynamic and profitable. According to many experts, 2012 is going to be a key year concerning this industry development, so it’s possible to identify some trends as far as mobile marketing and advertising are concerned.

Firstly, there’s been a tablet boom during the last year. iPad has been the most popular present of the last Christmas campaign and Kindle Fire has open the door to more affordable devices. It is expected that by end 2012 the number of tablets worldwide increases by more than 100%.

Another important issue is the fact that rich media (or interactive content) has gone massive, offering the consumer a more attractive experience and better branding opportunities for the advertisers.

On the other hand, traditional advertising is being switched to mobile advertising. Due to the high penetration rate of smartphones, mobile phone use will continue growing and expanding to new moments of consumption throughout the day, as for instance, during TV show breaks. That could mean that tablets and smartphones are steadily being used instead of PC’s or laptops.

The gradual obsolescence of feature phones is also a major issue. Smartphones are more and more affordable to any consumer, and as a result, advertising agencies are focusing their strategies on both smartphones and tablets.

Whether Smartphone applications are going to beat mobile web is also being highly discussed currently. There are a great number of analysts claiming that applications are the preferred way for consumers to use internet on their mobile phone. It is likely that this debate continues in 2012 and that we can see players making important decisions concerning this issue.

Geo-location services popularity is also increasing. It is likely that advertising dealing with geo-location increases in 2012. This trend is basically influence by the United States, where most of the supply of those services is focused right now. Advertising agencies will see an increasing demand for more campaigns with the objective to make consumers go to specific stores, restaurants or other locations.

Finally, Facebook has been procrastinating the launching of its mobile phone advertising services. Nevertheless, with about 1000 million users online and 300 checking out their profiles on their phones, Facebook ismeant to be a key player in the smartphone advertising industry.

Social media’s incredible potential in terms of marketing makes this new platform very attractive for advertisers and companies willing to develop a community among its consumers both locally or globally.

 
It seems obvious that new possibilities are emerging every day, and that not everything has been done to seize the opportunities that social media offers as far as brand promotion is concerned. One example of this is lately being more and more discussed: the possibility of placing advertisements on user’s Facebook profile pages.

 
The new profile design seems perfect for this purpose. The main image occupies almost half of the screen space and it is situated in the best place in terms of usability and click actions.

 
Brands are part of people’s life, and there are a lot of people that right know have established a more or less intense relationship with brands in social networks. There are a lot of people that would not really mind to associate their personal brand with another one…

 
So why not taking advantage of it? Why not turning our profile page in an advertising space? Why not getting money for it? Why not getting bonuses for getting a minimum of “new fans” generating more views?

 
This is what Fan Marketing is about: getting brand awareness and seizing the huge potential that one fan with hundreds of friends can generate online.

As we all know, 2.0 techonologies are allowing companies to impact their consumers and get feedback, getting to know them better. Nevertheless, is not that simple to effectively manage social networks, since  interesting content needs to be developed to attract the consumer. Today I would like to talk about one company that just did a good job concernin e-marketing and social networking.

Heineken just launched a Valentine’s Day Facebook application whith which users can send funny customized love songs as an invitation to a date through its FanPage www.facebook.com/Heineken.

The app was developed by a Dutch agency based in Amsterdam, and consumers can create their own fully customized  “Serenades” within just 4 clicks.

Then the user can share this content on his o her “target’s” wall and just wait for a Yes or No response to the date proposal.

This is part of the worldwide “Open Your World” campaign and comes after the launching of the “The Date” TV ad, in which the main character tries to impress their girlfriend in a legendary date by dancing the catchy Bollywood song “Jaan Penechaan Ho”.

Moreover, next Thursday Feb 9th, Heineken presents “Serenade Live”, an 8 hour Youtube event during which people around the world will have the opportunity to express themselves by submitting their Serenades to be played in the concert. This event will can be followed worldwide through facebook.com/Heineken and Twitter: @Heineken (#Serenade, #SerenadeLive).