Madden 11 Launch Campaign vs. Madden 10

Last year I covered the Madden 10 advertising blitz that took over ESPN and YouTube's homepage with slick, expanding units that interacted with the pages' content. I have always been impressed by ad units that disrupt a page's live content - but ultimately the units are built individually for each site and thus don't scale.... so it's no wonder that the Madden 11 advertising blitz is different: Madden 10 YouTube Takeover

Unsurprisingly, the Madden 11 ad units are quite different. In addition to being contained within their pixel real estate... the big focus is Facebook and social sharing.

Here is the primary unit on ESPN.com's homepage. The unit itself contracts after several seconds of viewership. Most interestingly, is the order of the ad's three call to action buttons:

1. Like This (on Facebook) 2. Buy it Now 3. Get the Demo

By getting the demo, you are able to view HD video content within the ad unit:

Notice that the Madden 11 campaign extended beyond ESPN's homepage... or even their NFL section. Here is a more aggressive takeover of the MLB Scores section. There is more Madden content above the fold than actual content:

And lastly, when you visit the Madden Facebook page - the focus again is to drive "Likes". Drew Brees points towards the Like button and the 'Get Started' button begins with driving Facebook fans:

Optimizing Call to Action Buttons

Smashing Magazine has a terrific guide to designing "call to action buttons." Design and optimization can increase conversions dramatically - just ask (and study!) these conversion-focused leaders: - Social gaming: RockYou, Slide, Zynga, etc - Flash Sales: Gilt Group, Rue La La - Couponing: Groupon, LivingSocial Smashing Magazine lists dozens of examples. I boil it down to the following:

- size and location: think of visiting a grocery store and what catches your eye in the aisle - color and 'clickability': does the button stand out? does it change on hover? - call to action and copy: what are you asking users to do? is it tempting? This dictates size and location...

With so many variables, the only way to optimize is thorough A/B testing. Cycle through messaging, placement, size... collect data and optimize upon that.

Looking for inspiration? Visit the companies listed above: they are industry leaders in funnel and conversion optimization. Here are two examples from LivingSocial & Groupon. Notice how each call to action has large & colorful buttons, clear messaging and conveys urgency:

Twitter's Who To Follow vs. Facebook's People You May Know

It was a long time coming, but Twitter released their "Who to Follow" tool... and it's terrific. It makes Twitter more navigable and more socially relevant: For me at least - this translates to richer content, more frequent usage and a deeper Twitter social graph. It is powerful because the "Who to Follow" recommendations are very, very good. I am not sure what the recommendations are based on - but they are highly relevant and have a high hit rate. Below each recommended user is a list of other Twitter users who are particularly relevant... they of course add valuable context. But perhaps the most compelling part is that Twitter includes a bio for each user. This is unique because:

1) Facebook doesn't have user bios, and 2) Twitter users work hard to craft < 140 character summaries of themselves... so they are compact, promotional and interesting

In contrast, Facebook's People You May Know tool lacks the same relevance and information (there is no user bio and you have to work to find friend's in common). More importantly, Facebook doesn't seem to have as powerful of a recommendation algorithm. Now users have plenty of ways to find other users of Facebook: their Friend Finder, the Facebook feed itself, the like graph, etc:

Promote Your Application Where, When it is Used (Huffington Post Example)

Applications now being built atop: - mobile web (html5, wap, etc) - mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, etc) - browser extensions (chrome, firefox, safari, etc) - desktop apps (ie adobe air) And with users accessing content in so many different ways, publishers must think about both development (cost, talent, scalabilty, etc) and distribution (how will users access the new products?).

Always at the cutting edge, Huffington Post has successful iPhone and iPad applications and one of the web's best Facebook integrations.

They also now have a Google Chrome extension... which they alert Chrome users to with each session. The webpage drops down a notice and allows users to install directly. It is a very targeted and powerful way for Huffington Post to alert users. It is also a proven lever for other publishers and sources - for instance, visit Yelp.com on your iPhone and you will notice a major iPhone App promotion.

"Check out our Google Chrome Extension. Get up to-the-minute reports, blogs and analysis with quick-view articles from all sections."

Dogpatch Labs' Grows: Our Newest Dogpatchers

I am excited to announce the newest members of Dogpatch Labs San Francisco. Residents are here for approximately six month rotations - so each month, folks move in and others graduate. You can see the entire roster of Dogpatchers at Dogpatchlabs.com, but here are the newest additions to San Francisco... and they join a collection of other terrific Dogpatchers (both present and past).

In total, this brings San Francisco to over 25 companies:

AllTrails is a member driven outdoor enthusiast community that gives you unlimited access to trails, maps, reviews, and photos for 22 different activities including hiking, mountain biking and rock climbing.



Bitlev is a personal search application for users to find files across different devices and services.


GroupStor is currently in stealth mode.


ChompOn is an open platform for businesses to run their own social flash sales. (TechCrunch coverage)


Health Central’s mission is to empower millions of people to improve and take control of their health and well-being.


Movity: Search geo-data, local comments, conversations, safety stats, demographics, noise … visualized on maps.


Social Times is a blog and content site featuring news and media regarding the social web.


Throwdown Hero is currently in stealth mode and coming soon.
WiseStamp empowers your email signature: easily customize Google Chrome html email signatures, Include IM & Social profiles, Automatically share your Blog posts, Quotes, News, Bookmarks and more. (Mashable coverage)

Facebook Questions' Profanity Filter is a Little too Sensitive...

Tonight I tried using Facebook Questions to ask the "best way to cook chicken breats"... I was specifically looking for advice on temperature and timing. I was not allowed to ask the question due to "profanity". Seems that their filter is a little too aggressive! A more important note, I have encountered several bugs since Questions rolled out: tagging, @ replies, auto-detection on URLs in status updates, etc. But this takes the cake:

Amazon Kindle: Buy Once, Read Anywhere

I have written before about Amazon's Kindle Ad Units - which are usually excellent. Here is the latest - and you will notice the similarity in prior units. Nevertheless, I love the tagline "Buy Once, Read Everywhere" because: 1. it sums up the Kindle's value proposition perfectly (they won't win on device, but portability is a big positive)

2. it leverages the success of other platforms - namely Apple (iPhone, iPad, Mac) and Android

3. it sums up so much of what consumers, publishers and developers alike are facing: the multi-platform conundrum (ie write once, read anyhwere)

Facebook Newsfeed Split Into: Status, Questions, Pictures & Links

As Facebook has rolled out their new Facebook Questions product - they have altered the core "news feed" posting tool.

Perhaps it is an effort to drive traffic to Questions by placing it "in the river" ... Or perhaps it is the natural expansion of "content types": status, questions, photos, and links. But it is a marked changed in posting behavior: users have to explicitly define the content type:

The striking experience for me was when I posted a link within the status update and it behaved differently: the link is no longer recognized (automatically grabbing the link, imagery and snippet). To share a link with commentary, you now must explicitly click "post link":

4 Keys to Facebook Page Marketing: Authenticity, Consistency, Regularity and Engagement

I apologize for posting hurriedly and therefore without much context / commentary... nevertheless, the Altimeter group release this report, "The 8 Success Criteria for Facebook Page Marketing." As if often the case with guiding principles, they are generally intuitive, clear and achievable (of course practice proves to be more challenging!). Altimeter boiled it down to 8 guiding principles (see below) and I would go a step further and get it down to 4: - Authenticity: this extends from being on brand to revealing content (images, insights, etc) from the company and its people.

- Consistency: be consistent in voice and presence

- Regularity: find the right rhythm with which to interact and engage. Too little is a non-starter but too much is equally painful.

- Engagement: more often than not, posts should be interactive and actionable... therefore giving fans and users their own voice

The full report: