www.lionsdailynews.com friday, june 24 , 2011

4 NEWS
Egyptian filmmaker and Arab Spring uprising protester Amr Salama: “we shall tweet”
Will people-power force
brands to be more
responsible?
AMR SALAMA, the Egyptian
filmmaker who almost lost his
life during the Arab Spring
uprising earlier this year, had
a stark message for global marketers
yesterday: “People are
now smart. If a corporation is
selling something that we don’t
need, it will be busted one day.”
Salama, who took part in the
Egyptian protests that overthrew
the Egyptian dictator
Hosni Mubarak, was speaking
during the JWT session The
Power Of The People Is Greater
Than The People In Power.
When asked about the lessons
to learn from the use of social
media to end tyrants’ reign, he
added: “Some corporations are
using the same brainwashing
techniques that those governments
used to sell their bureaucracy
and propaganda. Social
media is going to get them
because we shall tweet about
it and write about it. That is
the power of the people.”
American-born but Kuwaitiraised
Jehane Noujaim warned
brand-owners to select their
good causes with care. She cited
a Gillette campaign that featured
an Arab protester who
had lost an eye standing near
a Gillette poster.
“You have to put yourself in the
position of people who have
lost friends,” she said. “To use
the revolution for branding is
tricky.”
Winning people’s trust is crucial
to a brand’s longevity,
added US documentary filmmaker/actor
Fisher Stevens.
“If a company is polluting the
environment while posting ads
with ‘green’ messages, I would
say that is not friendly,” he
said.^
DR NATHANIEL Kohn and Tom Reichert (far
right) have spent the week in Cannes with 23
students from the University Of Georgia. The
students are on a Study Abroad Programme
as part of their bachelor’s degree in
journalism and mass communication. During
the visit, the students have attended
seminars and workshops, as well as hearing
from key agency figures
FRIDAY, JUNE 24,2011
It pays marketers to try
every trick in Facebook
Facebook’s Carolyn Everson
CREATIVITY and original storytelling
are crucial when it
comes to getting the most out
of marketing on Facebook, the
world’s biggest social-media
network, according to Carolyn
Everson, vice-president of global
marketing solutions.
Speaking at Facebook’s Social
By Design seminar, Everson
advised brand-owners and
agencies to exploit the sharing,
connecting, motivating and
community-building enabled
by the Facebook format. And
she invited the Festival’s delegates
to take advantage of Facebook’s
Sponsored Story format
as the most effective way of
reaching the relevant communities
among its 500 millionplus
registered users.
“This is the biggest opportunity
for marketers,” Everson
said. “You can put consumers
at the centre of your message,
regardless of the screen. We
call that ‘social by design’.”
This strategy can kick off with
the brand-owner generating
a number of “Likes” on its Facebook
page, followed by selling
the advertising space on that
page.
With the Sponsored Story, the
same marketer posts anecdotes
of experiences that its fans want
to share and, according to Everson,
this is when Facebook
comes into its own. “You can
get two to seven times the
engagement you get from ads
from Sponsored Stories,
because the user cares about
what their friends are doing.”
Everson also quoted some figures
portraying Facebook’s rapidly
growing reach into people’s
lives: worldwide and daily,
15 million people connect with
Friends, the site records 50 million
page Likes and more than
100 million photographs are
uploaded. ^
Technology hits the right note
TECHNOLOGY is helping to
drive an explosion of creativity
across a number of areas, and
especially in music, delegates
heard at McCann Worldgroup
& MRM Worldwide’s seminar,
Technology And Its Transformation
Of Creativity.
Producer, entertainer and technology
advocate will.i.am said
that since the tool he uses to
make music is the computer, his
relationship with technology is
a natural one. “The same chip
that allows me to make music
also allows me to send it out,”
he said.
The musician has a partnership
with Intel. “Knowing what
will.i.am thinks really helps engineers
in devising technology that
will serve his creativity,” said
Johan Jervøe, Intel Corporation’s
vice-president of sales and mar-
will.i.am: “natural relationship” with technology
keting group, and director of
creative services and digital marketing.
Composer, inventor and educator
Tod Machover said tools
on computers were so powerful
a driver to creativity that it
was almost best to begin working
with ideas away from the
computer. “Take your idea for
a walk around the block,” he said.
He added: “Music synchronises
different parts of the brain
and we have found that we can
design music that helps us. The
last thing that Alzheimer’s
patients recognise often is music.
We believe ultimately we will
be able to customise music to
reshape our lives.” ^