You gotta love how the typical spokesperson has evolved over the years. Even the word has evolved from spokesman to spokesperson (gender neutral, thank you very much). Nowadays the successful spokeperson is no longer just an attractive face or a name in lights—it’s a person that embodies the brand. To ensure a perfect fit, the equities of the person’s brand must complement the equities of the product/service’s brand. So how does that happen?

A screening process or partnership evaluation is a great way to find a good match. Beyond budget and timing, there are five core components to consider: Brand Fit, Target Relevance, Awareness, Heat and Creative Potential. We could go into each of these deeper and craft a delicate ranking system, but remember, it’s Friday. Let’s keep it effortless and get into the fun stuff. With a simple “yay” or “nay,” let’s put the screens to the test by evaluating a couple of current partnerships.

Troy Polamalu and Head & Shoulders

Click here to view the embedded video.

Brand Fit: yay
Target Relevance: yay
Awareness: yay
Heat: yay
Creative Potential: yay
Success!

Patty Duke/George Takei and SocialSecurity.gov

Click here to view the embedded video.

Brand Fit: nay
Target Relevance: yay (maybe)
Awareness: nay
Heat: nay
Creative Potential: oh boy nay
Failure!

If a brand can’t find the perfect match in existence, well then, they can make one up! That way, the brand dictates the essence of the spokesperson (or puppet), ensuring that all essential brand characters line up for a successful fit!

Doug and Ford Focus

Click here to view the embedded video.

Brand Fit: yay
Target Relevance: yay
Awareness: yay
Heat: yay
Creative Potential: yay
Success!

Share your examples, whether they’re good, bad or just plain entertaining!

As a runner (and a marketer) I had several preconceived notions about the race—I won’t share them all, but here are a few that really struck me.

Firstly, I assumed live music would somehow be integrated into the actual run. With a tagline “The World’s Largest Music Festival just got a little more sole!” was I crazy to think so?

Hey Summerfest, you’ve developed a stellar brand. You’re noted around the Midwest for the best array of live music from all genres, all in one place. If you’re going to host a race, slap your name on the logo and email participants non-stop for 6 months with messaging focused around music, you have to know people are expecting some live tunes during the race. Silly me, I almost didn’t bring my iPod!

Now let’s pretend there was live music during the painstakingly long run over the Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge. Still wouldn’t have covered up the fact that the water stations shut down before any of the 10Kers had a chance to get a drink. That’s right, the water ran out! So my second preconceived notion: a sufficient water supply.

OK Summerfest, here’s the deal. Always learn from other people’s mistakes! No one will forget the 2007 Chicago Marathon and its water shortages, overwhelming runner dehydration and communication breakdowns, all because of a midday temperature reaching a record 87 degrees. That was October, not July. No excuses.

Guess what, I do have a compliment. The problems were addressed without finger-pointing. It’s a bummer when things go wrong, but it’s much appreciated when someone takes responsibility. Kudos to the Race Director for emailing a note of apology that very evening and a high-five to the President and CEO of Summerfest offering a refund for a portion of the registration fee a couple of days later. Thank you for addressing the chaos and taking responsibility!

Some fun thoughts for next year (if there is a next year).

Use the assets that are right at your fingertips. Round up local cover bands to play some peppy tunes every couple of miles. It’s a great opportunity for the bands and the race. There must be a huge waiting list of groups vying to perform for anything related to Summerfest.

Don’t overlook the meaning of your well-established brand. Summerfest stands for music almost as much as a music note itself. Be sure to use the brand properly because your messaging might mislead your target. It’s always useful to take a step back out of the “weeds” and get an outsider’s (or a runner’s) opinion. Nothing better than to get the thoughts of your audience—they’ll be truthful.

Best of luck next year. I’m kind of curious how things will pan out. I might even run it again, if you promise to offer live music (did you see that one coming?), change the course and drench the runners head to toe in water!

The video above is the latest installment in our Upshot Smartshot webinar series, and complements our recent Potty Posting that introduced the concept of marketers with Twitterphobia. This 15-minute episode goes a step further, assuaging marketers’ three biggest fears about the service:

• What should you say?
• What should you do?
• What should you make?

If you’ve missed any of our previous Smartshots, scoot on over to our YouTube playlist for the whole series. Of course, you wouldn’t have missed those if you’d just follow us on Twitter already, at twitter.com/upshotblog. Since you’ve now vanquished your Twitterphobia, you’ve got no excuse!

But, while the league is building up hype about these newcomers, some fans are getting themselves pumped up by sifting through the contest’s archives. The brothers behind Hoopism.com have a long history of being Driven by Data, using infographics and data visualization to communicate unique insights about the NBA, but their Slam Dunk collection adds some particularly useful functionality to their charting prowess. As shown in the image above, they’ve gathered YouTube clips of (almost) every dunk in the contest’s history, and organized them by year and score. Clicking on any of the orange balls brings up the corresponding YouTube clip, making it extremely easy for fans to get right to the videos of the best (and worst) slams from past competitions. Click here to give it a shot for yourself. (They’ve just added a similar setup for clips of the best shots in NBA history.) This setup is an intriguing, efficient twist on the YouTube playlist, and offers a compelling blueprint for brands to curate their own collections. Couldn’t you see a travel or hospitality brand linking up a world map with location-relevant videos? Or, a food brand organizing their recipe videos by ingredient? Or… well, you tell us.

Of course, the big boys aren’t exactly sitting idly by and letting the geeks steal this weekend’s thunder. Over the past few weeks, Nike’s been teasing a multi-platform campaign centered on Kobe Bryant, which will culminate in the unveiling of a Robert Rodriguez-directed short film in the vein of Grindhouse – catch the trailer below (and get yourself some Danny Trejo!). Like any good marketer seeking a viral hit, Nike didn’t just sit back and hope the hype would create itself. Rather, the brand created the “Unlock the Black Mamba” campaign specifically to drive conversations on Twitter. Nike dangled the prospect of free Kobe shoes for anyone who tweets with the hashtag #mambamoment, but also devised an ingenious twist on the communal tweeting we saw from Uniqlo. The site lets visitors builds customized tweets by clicking on a variety of scrolling adjectives behind the image of Kobe. After the tweets are sent, Nike tracks the number of tweets per hour that feature the various hashtags, and promises to unveil new pieces of exclusive content from the campaign whenever certain thresholds are surpassed. It’s an undoubtedly clever combination of being Driven by Data with the mechanics of our Game On! trend. Better yet, with word on the street suggesting that Twitter plans to hike the price of their Promoted Tweets, Nike’s effort demonstrates a pretty savvy workaround for brands who aren’t willing to buy their way into the conversation.

Nonetheless, Visa’s already pitting the two fanbases against each other on Twitter, sponsoring a site that aggregates tweets about the game. The site displays this data in a variety of formats, letting visitors filter the information by hot trending topics, geographic location, or which fan base is most actively tweeting (as shown in the image above – pick up the slack, Steeler nation). Wisely, Visa’s not sitting back and praying for a viral hit – they’re fueling the feuds with a series of trivia questions (hey, look, the Bears made that), contentious debates, and… well, mustache showdowns. On top of that, they’re featuring tweets from NFL players, sports media, and more in the sidebar. That’s a whole lot of content managed neatly in a single spot, which’ll become even more handy as the game progresses on Sunday. In other words, its a run right up the middle for our Driven by Data trend. If you can curate an enormous amount of data and present it in an organized (and visually compelling) manner, the numbers are bound to be on your side.

Visa isn’t the only big-name brand turning to Twitter in their Super Bowl buildup. If you ever needed proof that social media’s gaining legitimacy, mentioning that Mercedes-friggin’-Benz is running a promotion called The Tweet Race should do the trick. For the past week, they’ve had four teams across the country virtually making their way to Dallas fueled by the tweets of their fans. Observers can tweet about their favorite team (or retweet that team’s announcements) to help push the virtual cars towards Dallas, while a series of challenges give each team a chance to gain extra ground. (The teams are getting some help from Twitter-savvy celebrity “coaches” like Serena Williams and Pete Wentz.) The first team to make it to Dallas wins four distinctly non-virtual C-Class coupes. We ran a quick Radian6 search and found that the contest has generated over 12,500 tweets already.

While this is definitely a fun example of our Game On! trend, it’s not too far removed from the Uniqlo Lucky Counter campaign that we’ve previously raved about. But, there’s something else about the Mercedes campaign that really caught our eye. Considering the mechanics underpinning the race, Mercedes needed to ensure that they were getting participants who weren’t just savvy with social media; rather, these folks needed to be influential. So, Mercedes considered the Klout scores of each applicant, which measure the true reach of a given tweeter. (Hint: it’s more than just number of followers. Instead, how often do people retweet the things you’re sharing?) Our War on Whiners trend argued that marketers in 2011 would get smarter about who really matters on social networks, and this is exactly the kind of thing we’re talking about. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that when Mercedes throws their hat into the social media ring, they do it in the smartest way possible.

[By the way, for everyone on foursquare, be sure to check-in to the "promoted Superbowl venue" and get your badge. Oh, don't worry, we'll get to that little bombshell in a subsequent post.]

Well, this kind of blows my old Super Nintendo soccer game out of the water.

Check out the trailer above for I AM PLAYR, a game that’s currently in development, but slated for a beta release this year.

There’s a lot happening here, but we’ll try to give you the gist. The game is a first person narrative of a football player (the soccer kind) who’s just getting started, and has to face numerous challenges on and off the field. While you develop your skill set and compete in matches, you’re also tasked with managing your teammates, your social life, and… well… your more “intimate” fans.

While that’s certainly an interesting storyline, it’s also only the first chapter. As players navigate their character through the game, they compete against a global audience of other players to see who can develop the top-ranked star. Moreover, the game takes a page from alternate-reality gaming (you remember our coverage of ARGs, right?) and lets the elements of the game seep into the player’s everyday lives. Characters from the game communicate with the player by text and video, radio broadcasts cover the happenings from around the league, and even the tabloids are (reportedly) willing to dedicate headlines to the events that transpire within the game.

Admit it. You’re impressed.

While we could keep raving about how cool this will be, we do need to bring this back to marketing, right? Easy enough. It’s not especially surprising to see Nike jump all over this opportunity, snagging a principal sponsorship that will see them integrated into the storyline and game experience. And, while the game itself is free to play, players will have numerous opportunities to purchase (branded) virtual products that will improve their performance. (Considering the nightlife angle, it will be interesting to see just how risque those partnerships get.)

But, even if this particular game isn’t an appropriate fit for your brand, there are many lessons to be learned from this ambitious project. While there’s a literal connection to our Game On! trend, the more compelling angle is seeing how the creators have brought Life in the OOC to life. Thanks to the game’s multi-platform media integration, and the fact that competitions on the virtual field feed into the leaderboard against other human competitors, there is no clear line where the game ends and the player’s “real life” begins. Even though your average marketing campaign isn’t quite this fun (okay, it’s a LOT less fun), it should still be this seamlessly integrated across a variety of touchpoints. Notice that the creators aren’t hand-wringing over whether they need a mobile strategy or an above-the-line component or an online element. Instead, they’re pulling together an arsenal (yeah, pun intended) of high-tech and low-tech touchpoints to communicate a common story, and letting the players (i.e. the consumers) decide which formats work best for themselves.

I AM PLAYR, I am impressed. (For anyone who wants to read more, head this way.)

Since it’s Friday, and since we just filled your head with a TON of content in our 2011 Trends Smartshot webinar, we’ll stick with the shiny stuff for now.

Enjoy the video above, which equips skateboarders with the tools to go all Tron on a halfpipe (yes, with support from Disney).

While it certainly recalls Red Bull’s interactive projection snowboard ramp from a couple of months ago, the Tron execution takes a slightly different approach. While the Red Bull project used infrared cameras to track the riders’ movements, the Tron version provided each skater with an iPod Touch that featured a specially designed app, and used that device to measure how long each rider was in the air, where they were on the ramp, and the like. In other words, the resulting designs on the ramp were definitely Driven by Data. It’s a mesmerizing trend, ain’t it?

See you next week, assuming our offices aren’t torn asunder over this Bears-Packers game. Seriously, it’s getting tense ’round here.

What’s better than spending an epic day carving up fresh powder on the mountainside? How about turning that mountainside into a networked, interactive, social playground?

And what’s better than nailing one of our 2011 trends? How about showing how four of those trends can play nice together?

Looks like the EpicMix service from Vail Resorts is making everything just a little bit more… uh… epic. As demonstrated in the video above, the application does a fantastic job bringing to life our Find Your Place, Driven by Data, Game On!, and Life in the OOC trends. In the process, they’ve managed to create an undeniably unique experience that vastly separates their resorts from those of their competitors.

So what’s this look like on the ground? The foundation of the system is the RFID tag embedded in each guest’s season pass, which gets scanned whenever guests board a chairlift. If guests opt-in to EpicMix, their whereabouts are automatically tabulated by the system, providing participants with all the benefits of Find Your Place without requiring them to check-in on a mobile device. That means spending more time on the slopes and less time muttering about your poor signal at 10,000 feet.

Speaking of vertical feet, what are the odds that you’ve been calculating your aggregate altitude over the course of the season? Yeah, that’s what we thought. Fortunately, EpicMix crunches the data generated by the RFID checkins and creates a report of your activities, maps your favorite runs, and calculates the vertical distance you’ve ridden. By seasons’ end, these folks will have a personalized record of how they’ve spent their winter, and it’s all thanks to Driven by Data.

But what if you’re tracking your progress on the mountain and you realize, “Y’know, I’ve spend the entire month of January on the bunny slopes. I wonder if there’s anything more challenging out here?” In other words, maybe you need a little nudge to explore other runs in the area, or to try out some more difficult terrain, or to get higher on the mountain than you’ve ever been before (in terms of altitude, you hippie)? Sounds like a job for Game On! EpicMix integrates gaming mechanisms to give users a little extra motivation to get around the mountain, including a variety of individual pins (a.k.a. badges) and a national leaderboard that compares guests across their nationwide resort network. We know these gaming mechanisms always lead to someone rolling their eyes, but if you’ll focus your pupils back on the screen, we’ll point you to a number of guests setting up (unofficial) gatherings where skiers and boarders can rack up badges together. The point: give consumers fun ways to keep their experiences fresh, and you’ll be rewarded by their own ingenuity as they create new social experiences.

Of course, the social experience is the real key to this whole application. Anyone with the season pass gets a taste of Life in the OOC (online-offline convergence for our new readers) in a seamless, device-agnostic manner. But, for those guests who also use the mobile EpicMix app, they’ll be able to see when their friends have checked in at particular ski lifts. So, next time they promise that they just wanted to sneak in one last run before you met up, you’ll have all the proof you need to call them on their crap (not that I’m speaking from experience or anything).

While each of our 2011 trends are fully capable of standing on their own, more often than not you’ll find them playing well together. EpicMix is an epic case of this kind of convergence, and it definitely makes us want to head for the hills. Like, right now.

Thanks to Adam Stipanuk for the tip on the EpicMix app!

Apparently, the message is getting through, as we’re seeing a caravan’s-worth of mobile trucks hawking all sorts of products. Many are following Nike’s lead and using the mobile vehicles to sell clothing items, including designer Cynthia Rowley. Her “Shop on Wheels” has been touring the country for most of the year, showing off her collections and offering private fittings (for more info, courtesy of an incredibly vapid reporter, click here). Meanwhile, the Wanderlust trailer, pictured above, sells handmade goods in addition to vintage clothes. Since their chief consumers tend to be the frequently-mobile “urban pioneers” who move into pre-gentrified areas, Wanderlust’s strategy gives them the flexibility to be on-site right when under-the-radar neighborhoods start showing signs of life, without having to continuously uproot brick and mortar locations.

But this trend has gone way beyond threads and tchotchkes. A truck for the (appropriately-named) Heavenly resort in Lake Tahoe featured ski and snowboard films, sold season passes, and even gave out free snow cones (get it?  get it???) to folks in the San Francisco Bay Area. More information about that campaign is available in this New York Times article, which also calls out a number of other great examples. The author shares event marketing applications, such as HSBC’s activation of their sponsorship of the recent New Yorker festival. HSBC wrapped up six food trucks with ads, and used them to feature six different dishes (ranging from duck dumplings to pumpkin ice cream) created especially for the festival. Others have used the tactic for new product launches, such as Heinz’s Dip & Squeeze Ketchup. The brand sent a souped-up food truck on a “Heinz Ketchup Road Trip,” where they gave away free fries (with the new ketchup packages, of course) and t-shirts. They’ve got a few clips from the trip on their Youtube channel.

So, what have we learned? Just as restaurants are aware of the threat posed by food trucks, brick and mortar retailers are bound to notice once mobile shops park at their front door (and divert their customers). Likewise, these trucks allow cutting-edge brands to hit up neighborhoods years before traditional retailers can get a foothold (as well as move on before big boys can get out). These trucks even threaten the cottage industry that’s been built up around pop-up shops, as mobile trucks offer steeper discounts on overhead and real estate. The food truck fad may fade (or not?), but the mobile vendor invasion is only just beginning.

As much as we love projections here at The Awesome Blog, we would’ve shared this “Off the Planet” exhibition from Red Bull simply because we haven’t previously passed along a projection on snow (although we have seen just about everything else, from projecting on cars to projecting via slingshots).

But, as they’re wont to do, Red Bull decided that wasn’t quite extreme enough. So, they added infrared cameras that could track the snowboarders’ movements, and used this info to make the projections interact with the athletes’ aerial acrobatics. The results are absolutely awesome. (Thanks to the folks at Three Billion for the tip!)

And, speaking of awesomeness, check out the madness happening in the projection mapping example shown below (called “Envision”). Y’know, we’re a few more projections away from just changing this blog to The Awesome Projection Blog. Anyone have a problem with that?