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Religion News Service (@ReligionNewsNow) reminds us that Handel's oratorio Messiah was first performed on this day in 1742. Back then, the Dublin Journal wrote a review (originating social buzz), saying, "Words are wanting to express the exquisite Delight it afforded to the admiring crouded Audience.”

If you’ll recall last Christmas season, as a way to promote Alphabet Photography, Inc., a flash mob performed the Hallelujah Chorus at Seaway Mall in Welland, ON. The video of that event has now enjoyed more than 32 million views on YouTube.

Remember what elements comprise a successful viral video? What viral video can Somersault help you produce?

By the way, be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard created especially for publishing and marketing professionals.

Takeover ads are a growing marketing tactic, particularly on major sites such as YouTube. Takeover ads take up all available ad space on the homepage or dedicated landing page of a designated site. They usually involve action or motion, and include an element of entertainment.

For example, Google Chrome’s takeover ad highlights the artists and themes it’s pushing to make the Web a little less grey. It takes you on a journey from a standard grey browser through to the Google Chrome themes. More examples are shown on BannerBlog (@bannerblog).

What do you think? Are takeover ads too intrusive? Are they a fad or will they become a standard? What strategic goal do they accomplish within a media schedule? Would you use them?

Today is the 57th anniversary of the most boring day in the last century (Sunday, April 11, 1954). A computer scientist used the search engine True Knowledge (@trueknowledge) to search 300 million compiled facts and determine this date had "the fewest significant births, significant deaths, or significant events" of any other day. A pretty innovative way to get social media buzz about the True Knowledge brand! Read about it. Also see NPR’s coverage.

You haven’t heard Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring like this before! The music is the centerpiece of an innovative viral video (2 million views) for NTT Docomo’s Touch Wood Phone. Adweek (@adweek) gets behind-the-scenes in this article. 

An article by bhatnaturally (@bhatnaturally) explains what makes a successful viral video:

When it comes to TV commercials, placing it on YouTube either before or after airing it has become a default option. Some videos are placed on YouTube with an express intent of making them viral. Unfortunately you cannot ‘make’ a viral video; you can only hope the video will ‘go’ viral. Going beyond mere hope, certain aspects about the ads can help it to go viral. Like in the Touch Wood ad.

·         At first pass, it’s riveting. You are intrigued to find out what’s going to happen next.

·         There are certain moments in the film which have repeat value -- for me it was when the balls go off the bridge and fall in to the ‘net’ on the sides.

·         There is a reward for the viewer’s attention and engagement in terms of a message.

·         It evokes a ‘wow, that’s cool’ reaction.

What viral video can Somersault help you produce?

Brandweek (@Brandweek) has an excerpt of the book Curation Nation: How to Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators  (@curationnation) by Steven Rosenbaum (@magnify). The book explains that “brands, both old and new, need to stop ignoring the emergence of consumer power and instead embrace it and accept it. They must channel it, and in turn change how they think about customers. Humans, formerly known as either consumers or couch potatoes, are now creators and thought leaders, passive no more.” Rosenbaum goes on to say

Brands begin with the need to lead, the expertise to tell their story, the skill to attract intent, and therefore the ability to be trusted within their communities. Because brands have access to both paid and earned media (advertising and public relations), as well as their own brand space, they are inherently publishers. The big change for the brands that have been built in the post-millennium world is that they are media, rather than buying media. For example, Starbucks sees such remarkable foot traffic and return visits through its doors that it doesn’t need to buy television advertising to reach its customers. Its stores, its signage, its window displays are all media that lets it tell its story to customers....

In order for brands to be present and participate in the new “social” world, they need to have a voice. And a voice that is more than a monologue. A dialogue. And that requires that they develop a curatorial context for the space they’re in — and a way to share ideas that come from their area of expertise, but not necessarily their own content creators....

[B]rands that ignore the need to embrace an editorial voice are bound to be unhappy when consumers use their newfound power to talk about them —whether they like it or not.

Read the full excerpt.

Let Somersault help you effectively communicate your brand using social media. And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard that features RSS feeds of articles on the topic of branding and links to services that will help you monitor the social media buzz swirling around your brand.

eMarketer (@eMarketer) reports that according to a survey of social media marketers, the most valuable aspects of social media brand fans go beyond anything with an immediate monetary value.

At the top of the list were the fan’s value as a source of insight and increased loyalty overall. Advocacy and engagement were also important to at least three-quarters of respondents.

Read this in full.

As you set your social media marketing strategy, are you focusing on long-term relational objectives or short-term sales goals?

TIME magazine (@TIME) reports about a British company that successfully discovers new markets — and innovates new applications — for its product:

Hainsworth (@AWHainsworth), a 225-year-old, family-run wool mill in West Yorkshire, England, has developed niche uses for wool. Its product range includes the uniforms worn by the Royal Guards at Buckingham Palace, the felt lining inside Steinway pianos and the interior headlining used in Rolls-Royce and Bentley automobiles. But it is one of Hainsworth's most recent, and most unique, new products that's making the company's competitors look sheepish: woolen coffins....

The idea for woolen coffins came about thanks to a bit of sheer luck. A marketing student who was interning for Adam Hainsworth discovered that in 1667, Parliament — hoping to bolster the textile industry — passed a law requiring all corpses be buried in a woolen shroud. Good idea, Hainsworth thought, though clearly in this day and age something sturdier would be required. So with the help of a funeral director he knew, he built a prototype casket — bulked up with recycled cardboard — and took it to JC Atkinson, the UK's largest manufacturer and distributor of coffins. The company liked the idea and agreed to help shepherd further development and act as distributor. Six months later, at a June 2009 trade show, Hainsworth took the wraps off the woolen coffin.

Read the article in full.

Let Somersault help you identify blue ocean strategies for your brand. And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

The matrix barcode known as QR (Quick Response) code that’s scanned by QR readers in smartphones to take users to websites for more information may be on its way out. Bizmology reports the change could be coming because Google has decided to support another technology.

Until recently, Google widely supported QR codes, using them in its Google Places service to allow people to use their smartphones to find business addresses, URLs, hours of operations, and more. Businesses listed on Places would often put Google-supplied decals printed with QR codes in their windows for customers to scan. Google quietly stopped using the code last month, however, in favor of a new and dynamic technology known as Near Field Communication (NFC). If the technology takes off as Google predicts, NFC may quickly supplant QR codes as advertisement vehicles and send them to the technology graveyard just as fast as they hit US shores.

So what exactly is NFC? It’s is a new type of chip that can be embedded in 2-D items like posters or cards. Similar to QR codes, NFC chips can contain product information and other data. The chips can take the form of tags, stickers, or cards. A person with a NFC-enabled smartphone could wave their phone near a poster with a NFC tag to upload the information embedded in the tag.

Read this in full.

This is an interesting development, especially in light of the recent research that US consumers like QR codes.

What will this mean for publishers who have begun using QR codes in marketing material as well as individual products?

Ken Featherstone of OgilvyAction Global (@ogilvyaction) says times have changed and brand managers should no longer consider men to be a marketing afterthought:

A recent Yahoo! study finds that about six in 10 fathers consider themselves to be the primary household decision-maker in packaged goods, health, pet and clothing purchases. It doesn’t stop at the household trip: Men are spending more time on their own personal needs. Eighty-four percent of men said they purchased their own clothes (up from 65% in 2001), as reported by BusinessWeek.

Nearly one in three principal household shoppers are men, up from 14% two decades ago, according to Neilsen. Statistics from Black Friday, Back-to-School, and Winter Holidays consistently show men spending more than women on big-ticket items.

Read the article in full.

How should this influence book cover design and in-store merchandising kits?

Trendwatching.com (@trendwatching) has identified 11 key consumer trends that will have a global impact on marketers this year:

1. Random acts of kindness: From brands randomly picking up a consumer’s tab to sending a surprise gift.
2. Urbanization: Urban consumers tend to be more daring, more liberal, more tolerant, more experienced, more prone to trying out new products and services.
3. Pricing Pandemonium: Brands should target consumers with offers and features such as instant mobile coupons and discounts, online group discounts, flash sales, and dynamic pricing based on real-time supply and demand.
4. Made for China/Emerging Economies: Growth in consumer spending in emerging markets far outpaces consumer spending in developed markets, and Western brands are favored more than local brands in emerging markets.
5. Online Status Symbols: Brands should supply consumers with any kind of symbol, virtual or ‘real world,’ that helps them display to peers their online contributions, interestingness, creations, or popularity.
6. ‘Wellthy:’ Consumers are expecting health products and services to prevent misery if not improve their quality of life, rather than merely treating illnesses and ailments.
7. ‘Twin-sumers’ and ‘Social-lites:’ Key to WOM recommendations. Twin-sumers are consumers with similar consumer patterns, likes and dislikes. Social-lites are consumers who consistently broadcast information to a wide range of associates online.
8. Emerging Generosity: Brands and wealthy individuals from emerging markets (especially China) who will increasingly be expected to give, donate, care and sympathize, as opposed to just sell and take.
9. Planned Spontaneity: Fragmented lifestyles, dense urban environments with multiple options, and cell/smartphones have created a generation who have little experience in making (or sticking to) rigid plans.
10. Eco-Superior: Products that are not only eco-friendly, but superior to polluting incumbents in every possible way.
11. Owner-less: For many consumers, access is better than ownership.

Read these observations in full.

Leave your comments below as to which one resonates with your brand and how you will take advantage of it.