Laz Marquez, an up-and-coming graphic artist and art director, is taking the web by storm with several groundswell projects. Marquez, on his latest blog initiative reimagined four iconic Hitchcock movie posters including the Vertigo one seen here on Cultura-Tech. On Face It, the artist posts images from everday life that serve as emoticons to express how he feels on any given day. And, the artist is an active Twitter user - sharing his thoughts on everything from art and design to cinema and music. No doubt, Laz Marquez is a social media maven and artist that we all need to follow. Next up - he's reimagining movie posters from classic Steven King films.
Over the last few months, I've talked about the power of social media especially amongst multicultural audiences. Social media goes beyond MySpace and Facebook, encompassing any place where groups can commune and share - YouTube, Flikr, etc. But what do companies do when consumers decide to share content they developed around a brand? And what happens if that content is a seemingly innocent prank that is potentially harmful to the brand?
Much has been written about the viral Diet Coke and Mentos experiment. Mentos shined while Diet Coke came down on the creators with a heavy-handed "cease & desist." This was rather harmless and if anything, helped both brands engage their base. In fact, Mentos launched an experiential marketing campaign around the premise and paid the creators to participate.
But today, Domino's is facing a much more daunting challenge. What does it do when two rogue employees upload a video to YouTube of themselves sticking cheese in their nose, waving salami behind their rear and place said items on a subway sandwich? The brand initially was cautious and tried not to feed the media frenzy. But just one day later, the video had been viewed over 1MM times and there was a warrant out for the arrest of the terminated employees. Heavy handed? Perhaps. But, web buzz metrics saw a steep decline in Domino's quality brand image in just one day. These types of precipitous drops are uncommon. Something they built over many years, erased in 24 hours.
The law is unclear on how to proceed. There are clear expectations of free speech on one side, and protection against defamation from the other. Only time will tell if legislators will move quickly enough to address the changing web landscape. One thing is clear, there are no easy answers and a lot of quivering brand managers out there.
The multicultural population in America is shaping its future and our collective success depends on two things: technology and people. No one doubts the power that technology possesses to transform our world. Yet we still do not fully comprehend how multicultural consumers use technology. The digital divide is not the distance between minorities and technology. It's a matter of debunking the myths that persist.
John-Paul Aguirre is a communications planning specialist with expertise in multicultural and international marketing. JP is VP, Communications Planning Director at Universal McCann. He completes his Masters in Strategic Communication at Columbia University in May 2010. He has a strong interest in diversity and technology, so this blog is about marrying those two passions.
