Emma Brooks | Digital Media Enthusiast

I’ve been on Formspring for about 9 months now. Partially because I was curious as to what its role would be on the web and wanted to tinker around with it, and partially because I wanted to know what people would ask me if given the chance to, anonymously.

I’ve answered over 180 questions which is… shocking and a little shaming. Ha. The majority of them are your standard questions most have come across in a typical internet meme. You know the kind, the “25 Things About You” kind. There have been some odd ones, and some funny ones, and some dirty ones. There have been questions I haven’t published; ones I wouldn’t dare answer. Some have been spam. Some have been hurtful.

All in all, I would say I have yet to decide how I feel about my experience with Formspring. The spiteful/sexual/spam comments have generally canceled out any fun or interesting comments I’ve received. Which seems to be par for the course with this site.

A few months ago, a co-worker of mine passed along an interesting article from the New York Times, titled “Teenage Insults, Scrawled on Web, Not on Walls,” discussing Formspring and teens using it to bully peers. Upsetting, to say the least. And very interesting. A quote from the article:

“Nice stuff is not why you get it,” said Ariane Barrie-Stern, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in New York City. “I think it’s interesting to find out what people really think that they don’t have the guts to say to you. If it’s hurtful, you have to remind yourself that it doesn’t really mean anything.”

Ariane, who has more than 100 posts on her site, said she had not been terribly bothered by anything she has read so far, but she acknowledged that after one comment about a certain pair of leggings, she stopped wearing them.

I find it highly fascinating that teens would allow for this kind of internet bullying. However, a recent article from danah boyd | apophenia titled “Digital Self Harm and the Other Acts of Self-Harassment” has revealved something quite interesting: According to Sarahjane Sacchetti (Director of Communications at formspring.me), a number of teens are posting these hurtful questions to themselves. As quoted from the article:

In other words, there are teens out there who are self-harassing by “anonymously” writing mean questions to themselves and then publicly answering them.

So why is this happening? Danah has three theories:

• It’s a cry for help.
• They want to look cool.
• They’re trying to trigger compliments.

While I know some of the commenters didn’t agree with Danah’s use of the word “self-harm” to describe this phenomenon, I do think the reasons remain valid.

Thinking back to my teenage years, there were some very unhappy moments where I contemplated lashing out in some way, in order to get attention, any kind of attention. But back then, we didn’t have Facebook drama, or anonymous Q&A sites to allow for this kind of release. It seems that for many teens, Formspring offers yet another outlet for teens who are trying to figure themselves out in an increasingly digital world.

So what does a Digital Strategist do?

I’ve been asked this question, or variations of it, so many times in my short career of being one it is laughable. Laughable because even after almost a year in my new role at Publicis Modem, I’m still unsure how to really answer it.

At first I thought it was just me.

Maybe I was dumb.

Maybe it was because I wasn’t given a piece of paper with a check-list of my responsibilities when I got promoted.

Maybe I just didn’t “get” it.

Maybe I needed a sit down talking-to from someone senior explaining it.

Yes, I admit, I googled. Seriously. I googled my own job title to find out what it meant. And a funny thing happened… I couldn’t really find a concrete answer. It seemed like no one actually knew what a Digital Strategist does. Even Digital Strategists themselves.

And then, (I can’t for the life of me find it online right now but) I came across a document. A document that contained answers cultivated by someone who asked hundreds – if not thousands – of Digital Strategists, “Can you explain to me what you do?” The document was pages and pages long, filled with answers. Answers of every nature. Some long; some short. All different. I scrolled down and down, further down, and finally gave up after about 500 responses (there were many more to go).

Not one concise way to explain it.

So when my friend Jon Crowley, posted on his blog, Attention Industry, this afternoon, his thoughts on what a Digital Strategist does, I eagerly read it. And I think he may have nailed at least a core part of it:

I essentially have the same job as my father. He’s a transportation planner, and I work in digital strategy.

You can read the rest of this article, titled “Digital Strategy is Transportation Planning” here.

Thanks, Jon, for being ever-bright.

Advertising can be such a love and hate relationship – ask anyone in the business. There are some days where you just want to break down and cry, rip the ideas off the wall and crawl into bed.

And then there are some days where you feel so inspired, so excited with the endless possibilities, with the idea of doing amazing, wonderful, fan-freakin’-tastic work that you can’t even sit still or stop grinning.

This video captures this two-sided relationship so well.

Hate/Love from CRUSH on Vimeo.

Created for the 2010 Advertising and Design Club of Canada (ADCC) Awards. Original here.

Just wanted to let you know that a friend of mine, Michael Nus, posted a blog entry today featuring yours truly. We had a great time Sunday evening cooking up a storm at my apartment, despite my clumsy bread cutting skillz that resulted in blood and embarrassment.

You can read his entry and find the recipes we used, over at his blog post, Get tossed, Jamie Oliver #NusGourmet with @ejbrooks.

Photo credit: Food Thinkers on Flickr.

If you can very well tell from the title, I’m in a ranty mood. But I promise, seriously guys, cross my heart and hope to die, to try to keep the caps to a minimum.

A few weeks ago, I ordered a pair of on-sale sandals from Spring. Why, you may ask, did you ever order sandals at the end of summer? Because I like to plan ahead, ok? Gosh.

The sandals were low-cost enough that I put aside my hesitation of ordering from Spring aside. Now, for anyone who knows me, knows I order a lot online. I don’t normally hesitate about ordering online.

But I had already had a bad experience with Spring. (The plot thickens.) You see, a couple years ago I ordered some shoes online from Spring. I was excited. In fact my actual words, blogged the summer of 2008 were:

I love the camel colour – I don’t think I have any shoes in that colour. They were on sale from $59.99 to $34.98 and Spring Shoes has free shipping right now with easy in-store return. That’s pretty much the best thing ever.

So, I tracked my packaged religiously. Yay, shoes getting closer to me! But then one day noticed the package had been “accepted” by someone in Québec. WTF? I panicked and called the Customer Service number thinking someone accidentally received my shoes and accepted the package thinking, “All right! Free shoes!”

Oh. No. It turns out Purolator couldn’t deliver my shoes as no one was there to receive the package when they tried. So they were shipped back to Spring Shoes’ warehouse in Québec.

Wait, what? Why didn’t Purolator try to um… Contact me in any way? Isn’t that usually how it is? You leave a note or something saying you tried? And here’s the kicker: I lived in a building with a 24/7 doorman (who once asked me out in the most awkward elevator ride ever – but I digress, that is another story). There’s no way that no one was there to receive said package.

The Customer Service rep explained this to me on the phone and that I would be refunded. Please note: This was the first time I had heard that I was not getting my shoes. When I called. There was never any communication about trouble shipping my shoes before and I only knew this had happened because I was so enthusiastically tracking my package. I asked the rep if I could then re-order my shoes because I still wanted them. I was told I couldn’t, as they were now out of stock on that pair. Well, awesome.

Definitely not the great first experience with shopping Spring online.

This time around, I figured that more than two years had passed so surely they must have sorted their online shopping issues, right? Surely! It’s 2010. Online shopping isn’t that difficult!

But alas, it was not meant to be. Except this time I’m even more indignant about it!

Here’s where the #fails happened:

1. The website kept telling me my suite number was an invalid number. Canada Post told them so, so SURELY I must be wrong. I clearly don’t know where I work. I decided, eff it, I’m ordering them anyway and I’ll sort out the proper shipping address after.

2. I immediately went to their contact us page. Listed before their phone number is their email address. And I don’t feel like calling a call centre, like many of us feel so of course I’m going to email them to tell them to rectify the problem. I email them to let them know my shipping address on my order was incorrect and I would like them to fix the issue before it ships out. Never got an answer.

3. I then reached out to them on Facebook to let them know what a frustrating experience I had on their site. My exact post, and their reply:

Notice how they didn’t actually read my post at all. Fail!

4. 3 weeks pass and nothing. No email. No shoes. I finally get an email with the first line saying: “We’re sorry to hear that you have chosen to return your Spring online purchase.”

Uh. No. I didn’t decide to return my stupid shoes. You decided not to deliver them because your customer service channels are INCOMPETENT. I immediately email them back saying, essentially, that I did not chose to return my shoes, they had never arrived. I expressed how unhappy I was with ordering from their site, that I doubted I would order from them again, and to please rectify this.

I never got an answer.

5. Two days later, I called customer service (finally). They told me that yes, there was trouble delivering the package. I explained that their site was not functioning and I had emailed their customer service channels several times without reply. The customer service rep told me, “Yes, our emails are really backed up, that’s probably why you haven’t received an answer.”

Um, excuse me? I get that emails may be backed up but then you probably shouldn’t advertise it as an available customer service channel! That makes sense, right?! If you can’t answer customer problems via that channel, maybe you shouldn’t list it. It’s like telling a customer to call you at your 1-800 number and then just not answering the phones.

So this is the second time I’ve ordered from Spring and now the second time I’ve never received my shoes. As the saying goes: Once bitten, twice shy. The incompetency of them keeping my money is astounding. So suck it, Spring Shoes. You will never get my online dollars again.

PS: And for the record, Spring hadn’t actually refunded my purchase by the time I called. The rep assured me I would receive my refund but who knows, right? They clearly don’t know how to do business so I sincerely wonder if they can handle a simple refund.

Lately, I’ve been looking a lot at some of the Virgin brands around Toronto. Specifically, their mobile brand, Virgin Mobile, and their airline company, Virgin Airlines. Both brands embody traits youth crave to be a part of, no matter what generation they are from: young, sexy, provocative, original, exclusive.

It’s a great strategy to target youths and youth-wannabes. At the core of it is this whole idea of either being in this exclusive social group or not. Kind of like how Facebook aka The Social Network made its distinction, right?

Better to be a Member | Virgin Mobile

Virgin Mobile ads all proclaim it’s better to be a member. They are drawing the line in the sand: Either you’re with us or you’re against us. There is no grey area.

The new Virgin Airline ads does the exact same thing:

Tagline: Your airline’s either got it or it hasn’t.

Again, they are drawing the line in the sand. A very sexy, other-worldy line in the sand this time.

It diminished anyone who doesn’t buy into Virgin: You are not cool enough, not sexy enough, not young enough, not original enough to be a part of us. You are nothing. You are worthless. And we clamour to show we aren’t. That we are cool enough, sexy enough! We want to believe that in ourselves, we want desperately to be a part of the exclusive club, so we buy Virgin.

It’s solid. I love it.

Wednesday night, Diet Coke hosted a lovely pre-screen party for a TIFF movie, Irish Route at Hank’s on Church St.

I have to say, I was really impressed with the whole evening – the crowd was great (my one issue with the Smirnoff Exp), the set-up was lovely, all the little touches were there, and the Diet Coke was flowing! As I’ve said before, I’m a huge Diet Coke lover so I basked in all Diet Coke-related goodness. I enjoyed the mixed cocktails made with Diet Coke, had a lot of fun with the photobooth with both Jon Crowley and Randeep (funny how I must say Jon’s full name but not Deep’s!), and got treated to complimentary hair touch-ups.

After the prescreening event, we boarded a Diet Coke-branded hummer limousine (way awesome) to the Elgin theatre where we were given reserved seats in the mezzanine section which was great and watched the film. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d like Irish Route (not one for soldier films) but I really did enjoy it. It was heavy, but had unexpected moments of humour.

Thanks again Mosiac XM for the invite. I had a great evening – even if I was up until 2am thanks to all the caffeine coursing through me!

Here are some pictures – apologies for the low quality; I only had my iPhone 3G with me.

Jon Crowley and Deep

#DietCokeTIFFest

Michael Nus and Jon Crowley

Photobooth Photos

Bartender at the Diet Coke TIFFest - he had skills!

I tried writing this last night on my WordPress iPhone app and it ate it completely! Pah! What a waste of my time.

So last week I got a lovely package from Mosiac XM for their Diet Coke TiFFest event happening this Wednesday, September 15, 2010.

I haven’t had a chance to get to any TIFF events, so I was pretty excited to get an offer to go to a pre-screening party put on by Diet Coke and a screening of Route Irish. Not only that, but anyone that knows me knows that I love my Diet Coke. Man, do I! I once declared I would marry such a drink. It’s just perfect in every way and I barely go a day without a delicious sip or ten. So getting a package on behalf of Diet Coke was pretty, pretty high up there on “Things I Need in Life”.

I’ll be taking the infallible Jon Crowley as my +1 and am very much looking forward to it! Thanks Diet Coke!

Publicis Lion likes Diet Coke too:

Making a video go “viral” is always a tough request to hear, as anyone in digital knows. This request is generally not possible because getting a video noticed online in the mass array of noise is always a combination of a stroke of luck and a strong enough idea.

A recent Wired article, titled, “Screw Viral Videos. You Heard Me. Pass It On.” seems to back this up. As Jim Louderbac writes, “By its nature, viral videos are designed to surprise, titillate and entertain. They are, by nature, unique; the 27th keyboard cat, or the 12th dancing baby is just plain boring.”

And this is so very, very true. “Socially shared” videos (my new term for viral videos – it may not be good but I can’t stand the term viral anymore and anything is better) posses some of the three fundamental pieces that help them succeed:

• 1. They are unnaturally funny.
• 2. They are shocking.
• 3. They are completely different than anything seen before.

A good video will posses one of these three things. A great video: two. I’m can’t think off the top of my head of one that contains all three – but if you can, please leave a comment.

The latest public service announcement for City of Toronto fills one of the above. No, not that it is unnaturally funny – it is quite funny but not astoundingly so – but for a PSA from the City of Toronto, this is something completely different than any citizen has seen before.

And therein lies its success. So far this video has generated over 17,000 views and is one of the most popular videos on their uploads list, where most of their video views range from 8 – 1,000 views. It has been featured on CBC National, National Post, many local news stations, and now, CNN. A huge accomplishment, for sure – especially when a tiny PSA for Toronto is being played alongside a video made by Proctor and Gamble in the US, that is a mini-movie unto itself (at 4 minutes) and made specifically for online.

So, congratulations, City of Toronto, for doing well and getting noticed in the mess of “viral” videos.

Full disclosure: My agency, Publicis, created and produced this PSA for the City of Toronto. I’ve been helping them with the digital strategy on this.

Hey ladies!

You know what I wish I had?! A date with an absolutely flawless man who talk to me in a completely condescending way about something they will NEVER GET – literally and figuratively: Periods!

Yes, you’re a man, Brad, Ryan and Trevor. And only men can be the experts on feminine hygiene, according to BBDO Toronto. Because us women? Well, according to these ads, we’re mute and dumb! We don’t get complicated things like menstrual products. It’s just too HARD to understand what products we use every month and you never do. My brain hurts! All I want to do is watch you take off your shirt and educate me on what it’s like to be a woman.

Let me show you what I mean:

Oh yes, and there’s two more ads like these that are JUST as creepy, ladies. Yaaaay.

First of all: What the fuck were the planners thinking on this one? Did Stayfree even GET planners for this account? Let’s be clear about this: This strategy? This direction? Completely missed their target. Like, you missed this SO hard that I’m surprised you even know what a man is and a woman is. If you’re not sure, they are COMPLETELY SEPARATE GENDERS. OK? OK!

BBDO Toronto, I ask you seriously: Did a man come up with this (creative) strategy? Because it reeks of man.

This infuriates me. It creeps me out. I’m bored! And I’m not even angry I’m bored at these terrible, terrible ads and that you wasted 7.5 minutes of my life because I’m too pissed off at everything else about these commercials!!

Look: I’m a woman. I try really fucking hard some times to be everything society tells me to be. I try to be cute. I try hard to keep my weight down (because apparently I love “thinness”). I try hard to be a great cook (and succeed! I make a mean pasta dish, seriously). I try to volunteer and then feel guilty about not giving enough time or money. I can’t even try to like chores.

To have a man come onto my TV screen, look me in the eye and outshines me in every way does not make me want to date him. I don’t even want to be near him. I certainly don’t want to listen to him tell me about how great Stayfree’s panty liners are in a “just smile and nod, darling” way.

Here’s a better idea for Stayfree: Get to know your target. OK? You’ll find out some interesting things! Like, we’re not fucking dumb! And we don’t look to men to tell us what to buy! I KNOW! DID NOT SEE THAT ONE COMING!

Just to clarify this for you, this is your target:

Now that we have our target, let’s write a strategy!

“Stayfree’s feminine products work just as hard as I do.”

Stayfree? Call me.

Thanks to my mom for passing this along to me. As you asked, here are my thoughts about it!