ViKi.com, Singapore based startup, is making international TV and movies more accessible to world-wide audiences via crowd-sourced sub-titling - in approximately 160 languages. Yes, even Klingon.

ViKi acquires the rights to programs, uploads them to viki.com and then leverages the power of its translator community. These willing translators provide real-time subtitling of world TV and movies–from Japanese Anime to Spanish Novelas to Korean dramas to Egyptian movies to the latest from Bollywood as well as TV series from Hong Kong, Venezuela, Russia, Korea and the UK.

According to TechCrunch.com, ViKi is attracting around 8.5 million unique visitors with approximately 36 million visits per month, representing a four-fold increase over the past year.

Since coming out of Beta at the end of 2010, 150 million words have been subtitled in 160 languages by the ViKi community. The site features 5,000-plus hours of content with over 1 billion videos viewed.

ViKi leverages the power of its translator community who provide real-time subtitling of world TV and movies–from Japanese Anime to Spanish Novelas to Korean dramas to Egyptian movies and the latest from Bollywood as well as TV series from Hong Kong, Venezuela, Russia, Korea and the UK.

The company is working on adding more premium content, including a new licensing deal with BBC Worldwide. ViKi also launched an international TV series this year on Netflix with subtitles, and is expanding content on Hulu.

Translators subtitle shows into their native languages under a Creative Commons license agreement. This includes revision history and user-generated edits. The more popular programs show remarkable translation times. As CEO and founder Razmig Hovaghimian explained in a recent interview, popular shows can have up to 10 different language translations in the first few hours after the content is uploaded. The number of translations can double in the first 24 hours and increase up to 40 translations in three to four days from submission. Normally, around 500 people contribute to any given translation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The company is working on adding more premium content, including a new licensing deal with BBC Worldwide. ViKi also launched an international sub-titled TV series on Netflix and is expanding its content on Hulu. The company has also just debuted an iPhone app with an Android app soon to follow.

In an interview with the LA Times Caroline Hacker, a spokeswoman for ViKi, said ViKi’s current model is to license videos from producers and then share advertising revenue with them. There are plans to expand into fee-based video on demand in the near future.

Crowd-sourcing translation services such as ViKi means that language is not necessarily the barrier it once used to be for content creators. While those of us in the English-speaking world may be relatively unused to sub-titled content, it’s fair to say that many countries are not.

According to a press release from Viki, Playful Kiss, a Korean drama, reached US cable-sized audiences after an exclusive 10-day US run on ViKi, and then via Hulu.  ViKi licensed the content for other regions and the series was subtitled in over 40 languages – 20 of which were completed in the first 24 hours. “ViKi helped Playful Kiss find its audience” said Song Byung Joon, CEO of Group 8, the production studio behind the series.  “We’ve partnered with ViKi on several series, and are extremely happy to see how our old and new shows are generating significant new revenues for us from new markets.”

The appeal for content providers is obvious – they can leverage their product into markets all around the world creating new revenue streams at little to no extra cost.

The video streaming market is a crowded one. Everyone from individual content producers through to the large aggregators such itunes and youtube are looking to find ways to capture the largest share of the viewing public. For now, it seems that Viki may have found an interesting point of differentiation for itself – the ability to watch any program in your own language.

Investors seem to think this is a profitable leverage point for the company. In October 2011, ViKi announced $20m in new funding from investors around the world including SK Planet, a South Korean IT convergence platform provider, BBC Worldwide, and Greylock Partners a leading Silicon Valley private equity firm.

The question for the future is can Viki sustain its translation based competitive advantage? The key will be its ability to convince the leading content providers around the globe that it has a lock on a large translation community that will be loyal to its platform. Then it seems a no-brainer for producers seeking to leverage existing and new content into new markets at very little cost.

However, if the platform is easily replicable what’s to stop content providers or distributors from crowd-sourcing the translation themselves?

But perhaps crowd-sourcing translations on properly licensed content can help battle the video pirates and illegal down loader? At the very least, consumers should be more comfortable to stream or download free, high quality translated content without infringing on a producer’s copyright.

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Actually, what caught my eye first was “ooooooh–pretty bright colors.” It’s probably a good thing that I was already in the right category…

Click the image to see the large-format version

But this infographic is recent, and relevant, as well as being awesomely eye-catching. I love how the graphic uses Google-styled icons, colors, and fonts.

Also, the information is laid out in a way that makes sense, and teaches the reader a thing or two. The placement of the world’s smallest GDPs on the map drives home exactly where we are talking about, and makes more evident the shared geographical traits of have-not nations.

One glaring problem, though, is the collective time spent on Google segment: the math works out correctly, but the graphic takes 380 thousand, and displays it as 380 million. According to John Baez, that should more accurately be described as the beginning of the Hoxnian Interglatial stage, not the first vertebrate land mammals.

Someone needs a better copyeditor…

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“But wait, what about the elephant in the room?”

(blank stares)

“You know…monetization.”

(frustrated stares).

Oh, yeah, that.

Indeed, monetization is the question everyone is asking about regarding the future of journalism, and no one really seems to have an answer for yet either. How on earth are we as journalists supposed to earn money for our content when online advertising revenue is dropping and people are so used to getting news content for free?

I feel like the last few lines of this hilarious video sum it up quite nicely:

Click here to view the embedded video.

(To paraphrase: “I want to get a job working for The New York Times.” “Are you a subscriber?” “No, why would I subscribe? I can get it online for free.”)

Here are some avenues of revenue being tested right now in the media world and their measure of success:

#1 The Dreaded Paywall:

I admit, when The New York Times announced this variation of the “digital subscription” model I was skeptical. So…wait, let me see here: I can pay to subscribe to read more than twenty articles a month, or, just get all the articles I want for free through social media links? Fail.

The thing is, so far, it’s working. Here’s why I think it works: internet savvy and cheap people like me can find ways around the payroll- like the twitter feed with links to all the articles (that The NYT tried to take down). But there are enough people who maybe don’t quite know the social media landscape so well, are able and used to paying for quality content and trust the brand (like my mom), who will pay for the content.

And they do.

# 2  The Community-Centered Approach

Here’s a concept: let’s involve the community! Not just online. But, like, in real life. PRI’s This American Life did it successfully. WNYC also managed to bring in added revenue with their new Green Space built in 2009 (read about CEO Lauren Walker’s full strategy for the space here).  Putting on live shows, engaging in discussions, hosting public events, and then outputting the content from these events back into radio, video and the web is a self-sustaining cycle of beauty. It also has the added value of courting new members. Again, public radio seems to be leading the way on this approach, with cozy fundraising ‘listening rooms’ and even a RadioLab Singles night (imagine the combined lifetime pledges of two public radio fans who may have met there!).

# 3 Crowd Sourced Journalism

Two years ago Bay Area-based Spot.us came on the scene: a sort of Kickstarter for funding media and journalism projects. While it hasn’t exactly been a game changer, Spot.us is doing well, mostly by capitalizing on breaking stories and working with independent news organizations. Another variation of this method for a specific news outlet is to produce a feature story then have readers vote- through their pockets- for more in-depth coverage of the issue.

I’m not saying that any or all of these models might be the golden ticket to funding the new age of journalism. But these models do take the focus away from the troublesome advertising quandary- sometimes fraught with ethical dilemmas (like this example), when the editorial copy bleeds into marketing copy in the online link economy.

And in terms of sustainability, I do think that multiple small and diverse streams of revenue are the future. At least until some media-focused wizard genius can figure out an industry-wide solution for monetizing content and getting us all paid fairly.

Is that person you? Please call me; I have some investors I’d like you to meet.

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On October 13^th, the MIT Enterprise Forum Northwest hosted the program, “Pitch, Don’t Spin – How to Create Buzz Around your Start-up” featuring a panel of five seasoned news experts: John Cook, Co-founder, GeekWire, Brier Dudley, Technology Columnist, Seattle Times, Leslie Helm, Editor, Seattle Business Magazine, Mike Davidson, Vice President, Social News, msnbc.com and CEO, Newsvine and Curt Woodward, Senior Editor, Xconomy.

The panel shared personal insights and answered questions from a packed room of Seattle startups about creating buzz and the best way to get your story looked at and published by reporters and influential bloggers. You can watch the full event here recorded by Puget Sound Media.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To save you a few hours of play-pause-play-pause, I have consolidated the wealth of advice into the top 5 buzz strategies for success.

Top 5 Strategies for Creating Buzz around Your Startup:

1. Create Great Content

Leslie Helm suggests creating two press releases, “one for niche trade pub, and another for people who don’t care about that specificity.” Leslie also reminds us to stick to the basics – “market size, competitors, key advantage” in four sentences or less. Unfortunately, many people don’t do that. As a consequence, Curt Woodward stated that “most pitches plain suck.” John Cook prefers to have potential sources “boil down news nuggets a few days in advance” with a few sentences, blog link, or press release so he can triage. Brier Dudley wants us to “talk about it the way you would talk to a friend or family member.” You should also take advantage of all of your digital resources including the about us page, pictures, bios, contact address of the company, etc.  Leslie highly recommends hiring a professional photographer or designer to create good art and make it super easy for reporters to show off you and your story

2.  Build Relationships

Curt challenges you to “make me want to write about it vs. thinking that I have to.” That is how you can have a relationship with people to help down the road. But even with a strong relationship, Curt shared this insightful tip regarding the timing of news releases. If you want to keep it under wraps, you have to use the magic words “Must have hold for release, do you agree?” The reporter doesn’t care about your product release schedule. Once you send the information without first getting confirmation that the reporter agrees, “it is public.”

“Chances are that they already know about your embargoed info,” said John. He also advises startups to “look at archives, number of posts, comments threads, etc.” for a specific reporter. John also prefers electronic communication over calls.

3.  Be Bold

Mike Davidson believes that “courage and the fact that you have nothing to lose is the number one tool you have as a startup.” Brier sounded a little more philosophical with his comment that “your best tool is your mind, being observant and knowing where you want to go.”

4.  Time Your Approach

Leslie reminded the group that timing isn’t always in your favor and that “if you don’t take the opportunities when they come, you may not get another chance later.” Brier added that everyone should “think about timing, gadget and holiday season” and encouraged startups to “stay away from big waves at industry events. Piggy back doesn’t really work.”

Mike commented on the changing face of networking, stating that “one link from anybody isn’t going to do anything, but a cluster makes the difference.” To build that cluster Brier suggests going local because it can “be easier to get picked up by regionals like the Seattle Times.” In fact, Brier shared the little secret that “big stories usually click back to a wire service or local story.” You can test this yourself by looking at the history of video propagation on YouTube views, noting which sources are picked up by their bigger peers.

5.  Tell Your Story

Curt believes that “the best stuff is human. News is what I am not supposed to know, the rest is just releases.” John suggested that you spend more time developing your story. “Everyone has an app,” he said, “but they also have a story.” For the story to work, Curt cautioned startups to “be real [and] be authentic.” He shared the story of when PopCap Games did their pre IPO roadshow. The CEO and Cofounder apparently sat down with reporters, but ended up providing insight about other game companies like Zynga. They could have pushed back and insisted on talking solely about their company, but by being flexible and providing a service to the reporter, they received great press coverage.

Because of those stories, Mike reminded the audience that “people follow people, not companies.” Brier emphasized that thought, indicating that “the most interesting thing about your company is you, more than your stuff. The person behind the company. The “who” is what makes your story interesting.” He stated that reporters “are always looking for the good human interest story. What is special about you?” He said that you should think about your idea or passion for something and talk about how it will change their lives, the community, or make other people’s lives easier.

Case Studies

So how do you bundle all that advice into real world examples?

John Cook related an example of packaging and presenting your story the right way. BigOven CEO Steve Murch took the time to create a story content package and deliver all of the essential reporting elements on a silver platter. Steve provided a link to his website, product images, headshots, a YouTube video and the personal human element from his own life to the story. “It was perfect,” said John. They did the entire interview via email. Read John’s post to see how he used the elements. John did say that he “wishes he would have had a little bit better art, but [it was] otherwise perfect.]

The next case study serves a dual purpose. Mike Davidson’s edgy anecdotal story both showcases how one presidential hopeful used digital media the wrong way and how Mike used the perfect pitch strategy and timing to propel his story to the national stage. At the time, Mike was CEO of startup newsvine.com. From Mike’s blog post we read, “John McCain’s people commandeered my world-renowned MySpace design template and did a few things wrong.”

It really is so easy to provide attribution to your sources, but apparently, the McCain camp not only forgot to provide credit, but they also used an image being served from Mike’s own server. Can you guess where this is going?  As Mike put it, “I figured it was time to play a little prank on Johnny Mac.”  If you are going to do something to a presidential candidate’s website, you might as well go big so Mike contacted Michael Arrington to provide the scoop and perfectly time the lesson in internet etiquette. You can still see a copy of the site change in Michael’s post.

But the story doesn’t stop there.  Mike knew he had “made it” when the story got incorporated into this Daily Show edition at the 2:30 mark.

If you found these tips and case studies helpful, start building your media relationships by taking a moment to send an email or tweet to your favorite reporter from the panel and say “thank you.”

I would love to hear some of your success or failure stories in creating buzz around your startups or other media projects.

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This week, I’ve selected a commercial video which has gone gangbusters. It was released only a month ago, and has seen more than ten million hits–and those are only the views on the primary YouTube upload. Wowzer.

Obviously, someone at Sony is doing something right. Not only are people watching this video, but they’re talking about it–arguing about it, even  (read the comments).  All this spells advertising gold.

Well played, Sony.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Online video syndication services have been around for several years and are helping many businesses, advertising agencies and producers transition from paid television ads to paid online video ads. While many of these services provide legitimate ways of attracting consumers to the videos, others have developed ways of short-cutting the process to quickly increase view counts and other forms of engagement.

Video view seeding has been around nearly as long as online video. With the newfound success of brands using online video for advertising, seeding video views has become much more popular. One of the primary reasons for doing this is search engine optimization or SEO. Videos with higher views and engagement rates rank much higher in search engine results. This in turn motivates marketers and producers to artificially increase these numbers in the beginning to earn more organic engagement over the long run

The snag with online video is sites like YouTube have millions of videos uploaded everyday ,so unless you pay to increase your view count, your video can get lost and go unviewed. By rapidly increasing the view count using various techniques, marketers and producers are able to get their video off the ground and give it a better chance of going “viral”.

The cost of buying video views, comments and likes
While doing a simple Google search you will likely find many fancy websites offering a wide range of syndication packages. One website, WebVideoPromoters.com, offers 100,000 views for $1,000 or 10,000 subscribers for $2,800 and provides dozens of examples of well known brands they’ve worked with. Another site, BuyYouTubeViews.net, advertises geolocation targeted views as well as volume pricing for agencies.

While these may seem like excellent deals, things break down when you view their FAQ section to find out how the service actually works:

“Its a combination of being your promotions manager, a little bit of magic, and a whole lotta of hustling… actually it’s pretty complex involving sharing it out to other YouTubers, server technology, and more. But in all honesty, its a trade secret but you’ll love the results!” (webvideopromoters.com)

It really doesn’t take much to uncover some shady practices disguised as “server technology” and “trade secrets” yet because there is little if any regulation, many marketers and producers are willing to look the other way if they are able to save a significant amount of money.

In some cases, the companies that provide very little information online are not actually hiding anything and in fact provide legitimate ways of promoting videos through influencer outreach campaigns and other well-known industry practices. These industry leaders provide multiple reporting metrics including how much of the video was viewed and where it was embedded. They also have the power to target very specific demographics.

What counts as a view? Is it changing?
In 2008 fans of Avril Lavigne attempted to bump her up to the top ranked YouTube video spot using an autoplaying and auto-refreshing embedded video player that added one pageview every 15 seconds. (Wired, 2008) Several weeks later YouTube stopped counting autoplays.

The table below provides a list of video hosting sites and what counts as a view:

Gaming the system
Currently there are at least three distinct methods being used to rapidly increase engagement stats. While all of these methods aren’t necessarily illegal, they do present ethical issues that should be addressed before they cause further harm to the industry.

Paid to view
Sites such as Paid2YouTube.com advertise services that allow YouTube videos to reach thousands of viewers. How do they work? Paid2YouTube pays 0.01 per view, 0.10 per comment, and 0.35 per subscription along with other referral based earning opportunities. Viewers surf through pages of embedded videos and are paid accordingly for each video they engage without ever leaving the Paid2YouTube site.

There are lots of sites offering automating computing scripts to game this method therefore viewers may not even be looking at their computer while these videos are playing. Not to mention that for advertisers, the idea that you’d pay people to watch your video runs counter to what you’re trying to do; you want them paying you!

Another potential way for viewers to be paid to view is through social games. According to an article in VideoNuze, a company called Jun Group has been a pioneer in this emerging space offering “virtual currency” in return for opt-in video views on major brands’ online video ads. (Richmond, 2011) Jun Group works with social game developers to offer targeted syndication that uses an embedded player. (Richmond, 2011) According to Jun Group’s CEO, gamers are responding positively with 90-95% completion rate and 3-5% engagement rates. Jun Group may actually be one of the more legitimate services as they promise “no auto-plays, pop-ups or other view-inflating tricks.” (Richmond, 2011) Depending on how these sites are run, there many be several related legal issues such as complying with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA).

Stream Fraud
According to Jim Louderback, an outspoken voice on this issue, Internet video has an ethics problem called “stream fraud” which he describes as a company reporting to an advertiser that a video was played when the video was not actually viewed. Louderback estimates in 2010 that stream fraud could have accounted for as much as 30% or more of paid views. (Louderback, 2010)

In some instances these videos can’t actually be stopped and play below the fold on the page with the sound turned off so the person viewing the page might not actually see or hear it at all.

Black pixel markets
Tod Sacerdoti, an author for Media Post’s Online Video Insider blog describes the syndicated black market as a “small number of video syndication firms, ad networks and tier-three publishers” that use invisible 1×1 pixel autoplayers hidden behind a banner ad with the sound turned off. (2010) This appears to be one of the most fraudulent of the three categories described.

Laws and Regulation
Many of the illegitimate practices associated with video syndication fall under case law and the U.S. Code. Similar to the current Google Adwords case, charging customers for video view impressions and using a group of incentivized viewers that regularly click on hundreds of videos to fill those impressions is fraudulent. While there may be some truth to the old adage – buyer beware, some of the companies such as Usocial use FAQs and terms of service agreements that are extremely hard to decipher.

There is nothing illegal about using a “vast network of partners”, but when you drill down and consider that these “partners” are likely incentivized for their actions and might view multiple ads simultaneously to earn more money, it becomes clear that conversion rates will remain low or nonexistent. What you’re really doing paying people to ignore your video, leave fake comments or to subscribe to your channel and then never watch it.

What should be done to stop this madness?
There will always be fly-by-night companies that bend and twist the rules to make a quick buck, whether it’s click fraud or cybersquatting, making it all the more important for legitimate companies to protect themselves. Creating strict industry standards and providing transparency around services and metrics is likely the best way for video syndication companies to avoid government oversight. In order to curtail fraudulent practices like stream fraud, marketers and producers need to educate themselves as to the risks of working with companies that hide under “trade secrets” and be willing to pay a fair price for a legitimate service.

We want to hear from you… Does your business pay for video syndication services? How do you decipher the legitimate services from the fraudulent ones? Is a video’s view count an important factor in determining whether or not you will share it?

This piece was originally written as a research paper for Theresa Simpson’s U.S. Digital Media Law and Policy course at the University of Washington.

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Last month, European digital music site Spotify arrived in the U.S. and has already made a large splash among early adopters. If you haven’t heard of it yet, Spotify allows users access to more than 15 million songs for free. Their ability to do this is supported mainly by audio and banner advertisements although the main goal is to get users to trade up for paid subscriptions. There’s a $5 per month computer-only version sans advertisements or a $10 per month package that can be used on mobile devices. If you are just tinkering around with it, there are a ton of upsides to Spotify.

Up until recently, the only drawbacks of the service seemed to be figuring out the interface or the pesky audio advertisements. However, over the last seven days, Spotify has come under fire for several reasons including a patent-infringement lawsuit filed against them several days ago and more recent news that they were caught using an indestructible cookie for the sake of tracking their users. I won’t be pedestrian and say that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, but it shouldn’t be shocking that Spotify has dirt on its shoes. It is a little surprising, however, that the dirt was discovered this early into its U.S. tenure.

Last week, San Diego-based software maker PacketVideo sued Spotify in both the United States and the Netherlands claiming that the Swedish-based music subscription site is violating a patent for a “device for the distribution of music in digital form.” Digital news site Electronista was first to report on the issue. That lawsuit will now have to play itself out in courts on two continents but it sure isn’t a welcome hello to America. There always seems to be intellectual property lawsuits with cloud music services these days so it’s not entirely shocking either.

Beyond that legal dust-up, just yesterday, news broke that researchers at UC Berkeley discovered Spotify was using a vicious cookie in its software that can’t be deleted no matter what the user does to disable it. The purpose of the cookie is to track users habits and, inevitably, to be used for marketing purposes. The ill-intentioned cookie is powered by tech company KISSmetrics and is the same one that Hulu was caught using as well. Spotify quickly suspended use of the cookie but one has to wonder why they wanted to start out playing dirty.

The latter situation seems worse than their problem with PacketVideo. At the core, the allegation is that Spotify intends to spy on its own users. That’s clearly no good and consumers are consistently pushing back against measures like these. Spotify was smart to halt using the cookie. But we’ll see if the bruise to the music streaming site’s reputation has lingering damages.

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The second annual Integrated Marketing Communications Conference is taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 6-7, 2011.  Presenting the latest trends in global media and innovative marketing to industry leaders this conference is where South Africa’s leading communication voices are.

Over 200 people from various fields including public relations, digital media, marketing, advertising and communications are gathering in a Sandton hotel to figure out ways brands can develop an open ear to its consumers.  The opening keynote speaker was Vice President of Africa for InMobi, Isis N’yongo the world’s largest mobile advertising network spoke about the rapid growth of mobile technology on the African continent.  With 489 million mobile phone subscribers Africa is without a doubt a market segment that can no longer be ignored. “This continent has the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world.  If you combine this with the fact that more Africans access the Internet from mobiles than any other platform, it means the market for mobile advertising is set for strong levels of growth.”

The follow up speaker was marketing specialist Walter Pike who spoke about the importance of brands creating a “social object” in their communication that consumers can relate and share.  Using zen-like presentation slides Pike explained the days of one-way broadcasting are over in the digital age with consumers controlling the conversations on multiple platforms.  One slide simply said “the herd will be heard” rather than controlling your market you have to be organic and start thinking like artist. “Social media didn’t create the Egyptian revolution, but gave people the space to talk about things, share and coordinate things – that is the essence of this world we are living in” said Pike. He even discussed how certain crowd participations online can go viral giving the example by doing a “planking” demonstration on stage and in a matter of minutes photos were uploaded and shared on Twitter before he left the stage.

The conference is hosted by South African event marketing firm Living Your Brand which is a multimedia agency which focuses on high-end corporate events and diverse branding strategy development.  Staying true to their tech savvy approach after every keynote speaker the attendees would receive a text message survey opting them to rate the speaker in hopes to win a sponsored prize.

Workshops were lead by InMobi, RealmDigital, Native, Microsoft and Acceleration Media informing the delegates on how digital media and marketing are interconnected.  Transparent engagement and creative content were keywords floating throughout the conference.  Examples were given how brands must adapt to their consumers online behaviors in order to connect their products to larger audiences.  Quoting one Proctor & Gamble executive traditional methods of advertising once relied on their brands “telling and selling”  their products and services, but in order to survive in the consumer control environment they must “listen” more than ever before.  Native CEO Jason Xenopoulos showed an example of a rock band asking their fans to help produce music on their latest album by crowd participation.  Another example was the Johnny Cash project which instead of producing a normal music video over 250,000 fans joined together creating a collage of animations that eventually became Johnny Cash’s last video.  The conference speakers spoke about social engagement is not just setting up a facebook fan page or tweeting what your brand is doing.  Its about using creative ways to involve the user in a new experience that will spark their interest and inspire them to share with their friends.

Midday in the conference there was an interactive panel discussion about offline media’s role in marketing campaigns.  With the decline of print media Gisele Wertheim Aymes, publisher of Longevity Magazine said that “magazines are a social object in which people connect with” and their digital versions on tablets or mobile devices must be more of an experience than just the same articles from the printed version. Is print media dead? Not really because everyday one million newspapers are printed in Johannesburg which is why Walter Pike tweeted “Newspapers don’t have a news problem they have a paper problem we still want the content.”

The last two keynote speakers of day one were Nikki Cockcroft, CEO of Primedia Online and Heidi Brauer from Kuluala.com.  Cockcroft spoke about capturing your audiences since each marketer has an average of three seconds online to get your attention.  Working with major clients she said that marketers can no “longer just broadcast their messages instead they need to persuade the consumers into conversations and genuine engagement.”

Heidi gave two examples of how Kulula Airlines designed guerrilla marketing tactics to grab the attention of the British royal couple Prince William and Catherine before their wedding. By offering the royal couple a South African traditional custom of offering the bride 27 cows, Kulula gained unpaid mainstream media exposure across the globe.

Day one of the conference was informative with loads of examples of how new marketing can either become a success that captivates its audience and become a failure that didn’t reach its goals.  You can follow the conference twitter feed at #IMCC

Alvin Singh – Follow me on Twitter @Bookido

You can see photos from the conference here on Flickr

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