Thinking outside the inbox

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Beyond email: widgets, sponsorships and content; oh my!
Of course not every brand can break through the email clutter, so it's important to stay up on new marketing opportunities to reach teens. The buzzword of 2007 has got to be "widgets." Our clients want to know more about them and whether or not they should utilize them now or in the future. The problem is most clients don't have the library of content necessary to push new stuff out to a widget every day or week. So the best option for them would be to sponsor or skin an existing widget. 

Wait a minute... back up... just what is a widget, anyway?
Wikipedia defines a web widget as "a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation. They are akin to plug-ins or extensions in desktop applications. Other terms used to describe a web widget include gadget, badge, module, capsule, snippet, mini and flake. Web widgets often but not always use Adobe Flash or JavaScript programming languages." Blah blah blah. Let's look at a picture instead.

(click to view)Because content is king in this digital age, social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook allow embedded widgets that bring relevant content to teens' profiles. On Facebook, a widget/application called "Food Fight" enables teens to buy virtual food and throw it at their friends' profiles. To earn money to buy food, they answer marketing research questions like "What kind of computer do you use as your primary computer?" and "Which of these new FOX TV shows are you going to watch this fall?"

Interesting, right? They answer questions to earn fake lunch money to buy virtual food to "throw" at other teens' profiles. Why? For fun. (By the way, in the Food Fight widget/application, I found out you can fling poo. Take that, Jane Goodall.)

Put on your thinking cap
Unfortunately, marketing in the post-email digital age isn't easy. There's no set media plan you can plug into (yet) and results are still difficult to quantify. But there's a bright side for marketers willing to put in the extra effort and try something new: You face less competition in the crowded digital media landscape and you might just be the first in your category to reach this fickle audience where they live.

That's great in theory, but what would be a specific marketer's opportunity in this new world of widgets? Let's brainstorm just a few quick, random solutions. Is your thinking cap on?

If your product is a food, why not talk to the creators of Food Fight and negotiate to have your food item added to that application? What if you market a cleaning product? Again, the positive brand interactions possible by associating Bounty paper towels or Mr. Clean with Food Fight are endless.

Or maybe you're selling kitty litter. BunnyHero Labs creates virtual pets that teens add to their MySpace profiles and send to friends. Sponsor the adoptable cat and feature your kitty litter in the virtual pet widget. Or create an original widget that's a kitty litter Zen rock garden.

At the very least, voluntarily add the logo of your product or service to the HotList application on Facebook. It's free and more than 1,120,194 users have already added it to their profiles, to list the products and services they like.

Thinking outside the inbox in a post-email world doesn't have to be scary. Just watch out for the flying food.

Tiffany Young is executive creative director at Smashing Ideas Inc. Read full bio.