SmallBusinessNewz

Here are several excerpts from an excellent article by Garrik Schmitt, VP of experience planning at Razorfish, Super Bowl Shuffle: Why Marketers Will Shift to ‘Platforms’.  For much more, be sure to check out the complete source article: 

Unlike a website, banner, Facebook application or 30-second (Super Bowl) spot, a platform is an always-on digital environment that allows brands to run specific or multiple programs. The goal is to meaningfully engage consumers on multiple levels. For some brands, that means creating an immersive experience with integrated commerce. For others, it means enabling consumers to connect with each other in valuable, unexpected ways.

But for marketers, the real winners this year will be the brands who have built these platforms to engage consumers well after this year’s Super Bowl becomes a distant memory — there are another 364 days to worry about after all. Here’s a look at some of the more interesting platforms in play today…

 Community Action Platforms: Perhaps the biggest, and most noteworthy, push into this space comes from PepsiCo, which opted to sit out the Super Bowl to tout it’s cause-marketing program, Refresh Everything. The platform, which is inspired by crowdsourced ventures like Kickstarter, enables Pepsi to award grant money to consumers who suggest various ideas and initiatives for their communities.

Crowdsourcing Platforms: While not exactly new, enough brands are finding success using crowd-sourcing platforms to generate insight and drive deeper consumer participation that we will surely see more this year. Starbuck’s MyStarbucksIdea.com is clearly the outsized success here with tens of thousands of ideas collected and a vibrant community.

Commerce Platforms: As more marketers move toward a platform model, clearly one of the benefits is allowing consumers to have a direct relationship with the brand that’s not dependent on an existing network like Facebook or Yahoo! or a publisher like the New York Times. A natural outcome is that more and more brands will want to sell direct to consumers. Procter & Gamble announced that it will go direct to consumers this month (challenging Amazon and Walmart online) with an “e-store.”

Brand Experience Platforms: Experiential platforms come in many different shapes and sizes.  Some of the most interesting efforts of late find brands using either making a connection directly with consumers via tactics like blogs or providing functionality that better connects consumers to their peers. Lufthansa’s MySkyStatus automatically sends flight updates to your peers via Twitter, Facebook and e-mail. Similarly, JetBlue allows consumers to vote on actual plane designs through its Jet Blue Tails program.

Social CRM Platforms: Both the most nascent and promising area for brands this year is in the emerging space of social CRM platforms, where customers rather than just company employees, provide support. Best Buy has made the most visible move here with Twelpforce. Consumers are encouraged to simply tweet tech-related questions to @Twelpforce for support from hundreds of its “Blue Shirts.”

These are just a few examples of the kinds of platform moves brand marketers will make in 2010. There will certainly be more — especially with the rise in mobile and emerging technologies such as “touch” and augmented reality. The big question, however, will be whether brand marketers look to extend or “distribute” across existing social and experiential platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and their ilk, or will they create their own platforms? The smart money should be on both. It’s one thing to “fish where the fish are” but quite another to create experiences that will sustain consumers once the hubbub of Super Bowl Sunday has faded way. Creating an always-on platform for consumers is a winning play for the Monday morning after.

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