Using a Viral Contest to create Buzz in the Developer Community

StreamBase Systems is running a slick viral marketing campaign to get developers, programmers and business users to test drive its complex event processing software. The Quest for the Da Vinci Coder” is a peer-to-peer competition to build the most creative, complete and real-world StreamBase applications www.thedavincicoder.com. On the line are a $10,000 USD Grand Tournament prize and the title of “The Da Vinci Coder.”

StreamBase began building buzz for the contest in early July. Playing off the early summer “The Da Vinci Code” movie buzz, StreamBase rolled out a three-minute video parody of the film that offers a truly funny portrayal of the challenges facing skilled software programmers, who typically write custom-code to address rapidly changing business demands.

To get people further involved, the company staged seven weekly jousts, which pitted participants in a series of mystery challenges using the StreamBase Developer Edition. Winners bagged righteous swag including an iPod ultimate collection bundle, $1,000 REI gift certificates and a Bose Home Theatre System.

Grand Tournament competition will close Sept. 18, and five finalists will be selected by a panel of judges. Sustaining the viral buzz, Da Vinci Coder registrants will then have an opportunity to rate the finalist submissions online in a “Stream Idol” voting process starting September 25. “The Da Vinci Coder” will be publicly crowned at the www.thedavincicoder.com site on Oct. 2.

The winner can cash in the $10,000 prize with a whirlwind tour of London and Paris, an amazing zero-gravity experience, a “take the money & run” option, or generously donating the full prize dollar amount to a charity of choice.

How is the Buzz working? StreamBase says that in less than 60 days it received more than 500,000 web hits, and over 25,000 downloads of the Da Vinci Coder parody video and it’s StreamBase Developer Edition – not bad for a few months of Buzz!

 

Mobile ads are coming – so where’s the Buzz?

Just about everyone expects mobile ads to be the next wave of advertising innovation. So let’s see if we can uncover some Buzz around this new selling medium.

Advertisers are undoubtedly eyeing the new, mobile channel. In a MarketingSherpa survey of ad-tech cognoscenti earlier this year, mobile advertising tied with video for the top spot on a list of tactics advertisers would like to experiment with if they had an extra $100,000 to spend.

Mobile and video both garnered 9.6% of the tally. That's ahead of RSS, blogs and podcasting, which were third, fourth and fifth respectively on advertisers' wish lists of experimental tactics. Ok. But how do you harness this new channel?

Some ad agencies are starting their own ventures around mobile advertising. And new companies continue to populate the mobile landscape.

For something buzz worthy -- Check out Mozes Inc, which is offering a text advertising service it hopes will take off in several BtoC ways but one of B2B ways is the conference and exhibition industry. Instead of stuffing product or service brochures in their tchotchke bag, meeting attendees could text a keyword to Mozes, and the message triggers a unique URL with additional details about the product.

Could this make “Hey, let me scan your badge” at the tradeshow obsolete? Sure, but I think there is more to Mozes than just that ... See if you agree.

 

The Best of Ideas from the Best of Company

The proverb says that a man is known by the company he keeps. If that’s true, you can understand my excitement at being one of 11 authors in the just released e-book The One Piece of Advice You Can’t Sell Without, a compilation of ideas for selling professional services.

The e-book is published by RainToday.com, the premier online source for insight, advice and tools for service business rainmakers, marketers and leaders. You can download it at http://www.raintoday.com/onepieceofadvice_dunay.cfm.

My contribution is entitled “Do You Really Care About Your Client? No, Really.” In it, I share thoughts on my long-held belief that to build real trust with clients – a widely acknowledged prerequisite to successful services selling – you have to be truly interested in their success. Said another way, the foundation for a truly trusting relationship is to care about whether people succeed because of what it means for them, not for you.

I’m honored to be in the company of some sales and marketing luminaries in the e-book. Seth Godin is the bestselling author of seven books on marketing, management and ideas, including the recently published Small Is the New Big. Keith Ferrazzi wrote Never Eat Alone, the bible on networking and building relationships. And Michael W. McLaughlin, co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants.

The rest of the lineup also swing big bats when it comes to selling services. You can share their company too by checking out The One Piece of Advice You Can’t Sell Without

 

Why advertise when your competitors do it for you?

SanDisk is trying to chip away at Apple’s hip customer base with its “iDon’t” campaign. Drawing creatively from Apple’s original iPod ads, the iDon’t campaign features ads attacking the iPod’s image (see photo).

But however much these ads end up boosting sales of its competing Sansa music player, SanDisk appears to be a victim of the law of unintended consequences. The ads continue to create even more buzz for Apple despite the negative overtone!

And there’s even more chatter in the land of earbuds. Microsoft is reportedly readying an “iPod killer” that matches Redmond’s sleek gadget with its own integrated music service.
Another challenge is the Gremlin MG-1000, a gizmo equipped with Wi-Fi so that it connects wirelessly to the content store of device maker MusicGremlin. That’s a trick Apple’s iPods and Motorola’s iTunes-equipped phones haven’t mastered.

And while competitors continue trying to replicate the iPod’s magic, government agencies and music associations have hinted they may work to enact laws requiring iTunes compatibility with all players.

Apple is clearly the standard here. As such, it should consider heeding the golden rule of standards today: The more open standards are, the more valuable they become! So opening the iTunes platform to all new MP3 players might actually be a smart move for Apple. They have the market mover advantage, the product with the most Buzz, and a significant advantage in branding and mind share – especially when you have competitors paying for all your advertising!

 

Get some Buzz with Google’s online video ads

Google recently introduced "click-to-play" video ads. The ads will run based on the Google AdWords bidding model and can be targeted contextually or to specific sites. Both approaches support a geographical targeting overlay, to a city level. Pricing for the ads can be either cost-per-impression (CPM) or cost-per-click (CPC).

Google keeps the process simple. An advertiser can upload a video file up to two minutes long, and Google does the rest. Click-to-play video ads will appear on all Google content network sites supporting image-based ads. Advertisers – and best of all publishers – don’t incur hosting or serving fees!

Here’s what’s interesting: Google will not give preference to video ads, so there is no way to "game" the system with a low CPC or CPM and get priority placement. But the system does provide some differentiation and branding that typical text links do not. With competition for some search terms fierce, this approach could give you a leg up over the competition.

How will you use Google’s video ads?