Some say it was Roy Rogers. Others credit Gladiola Montana. Whoever it was let us off the hook when s/he said, “If you’ve done it, it ain’t braggin’.”
So, shamelessly, we’re going to share with you a few key learnings about how to make waves in a new media sea, and we’re going to couch it in a story about a recent success we are celebrating as this post is being written.
Not long ago, our very own Carl posted about a project called Beeri. Long story short, the post covered, in detail, how a few programmers got together and created somewhat of a digital Rube Goldberg machine that uses the iPhone 4s as a catalyst for a series of events that involves a remote controlled car, a bungee cord, a steel wall and a magnetic steel spike and results in a pint glass (half full) of a grain based elixir most of us affectionately refer to as beer.
One week after the birth of Beeri, we’re proud to say that Beeri helped us achieve a long-time goal of being featured on the home page of Mashable and Creativity. Beeri was also picked up by a news cast in Minnesota and featured on CNET. The video has been viewed as many as 250,000 times in less than a week. And these are just the highlights. Suffice it to say that this little bit of irreverent “geeking” around with some key developer tools and the latest in voice recognition technology has made our little agency’s dot on the map just a little bit bigger.
Beeri made a lot of people sit up and pay attention. Why? Because Beeri, among many things, was…
Timely
The creators of Beeri seized an opportunity to take a brand new technology and do something with it. And while most people were either green with envy over the new iPhone’s digital personal assistant or coming up with unreasonable requests for her, this team was putting her to work.
Polarizing
Not surprisingly, there are two types of people out there. People who get the Beeri joke and people who forget to laugh and feel compelled to point out how “impractical” Beeri actually is. Ergo, Beeri started a conversation, even if it was argumentative in nature.
Promoted
Much of the world believes that “viral” videos get that way on their own. When, in fact, it takes a pro-active approach. Beeri was sent to anyone and everyone we could think of. Which doesn’t guarantee virility. But certainly helps.
The net effect of Beeri is that it increased awareness of our brand in all the right channels. It conveys who we are. It’s an authentic example of how we flex our creative muscle. It’s also a representation of our non-aversion to risk. Oh, and how much we like to drink beer.
The first step in marketing is not to give a sales pitch to as many people as possible. It’s simply to get people’s attention. Once you have it, then you can begin extolling the virtues of the goods and services you offer.
Beeri had all the right stuff and is still blazing a trail down the information super highway, turning heads wherever she goes.
