The Shaq Effect: Just how influential is the Big Cactus?

So…the Oprah Effect. You’ve heard of it. How much she - and other celebrities - are affecting the social media realm. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing can be discussed in other places, but one thing’s for sure…it’s definitely a “thing” and it should not be ignored.

Take, for example, “The Shaq Effect.” The argument could be made, in fact, that the Shaq Effect served as the precursor to the Oprah Effect. His engagement with fans via Twitter and his Facebook Fan Page led to all kinds of buzz and excitement as his follower numbers skyrocketed and he enjoyed interacting with his adoring public.

But how can you really measure something like The Shaq Effect? Sure you could use detailed metrics of Twitter number increases and Fan Page fan statistics, but that’s way too boring and scientific. We’re going to go with something way cooler and more fun: screen shots and videos. Hooray!

Here’s the situation: At 10:40 p.m. CT, on the night of Tuesday, June 23^rd, Shaq tweeted this:

The video he’s tweeting about can be seen below. As the screen shot shows, it had about 340 views at the time of the tweet. That’s not bad. (Screenshot first, then video below that)

(Here's the video itself...)

Being the studious and curious thinker I am, I made a point to check back in at exactly 10:40 this morning. Here’s the number of views, exactly 12 hours after Shaq’s tweet:

And now, as of the time that this post was created, the view numbers are almost 35,000.

So…did the numbers spike so rapidly due to the video itself simply being awesome, or is it the fact that Shaq’s network of 1,372,200 people (at the time) rushed to view a video that inspired Shaq to want to play a guy in a game of horse for $1,000 (many of whom probably then shared it with THEIR networks)? Bearing in mind that the video had been posted since June 11 and only had 340 views in almost 2 weeks, I’m guessing Shaq had a bit to do with the view number increase of over 5,000% in a 12-hour span. Obviously there's more to this equation than page view numbers in the bottom corner of a YouTube screen, but this was simply meant to be an observation that happened to morph into a blog post.

Our question is this - Could any Twitter celebrity have made that happen or is it the sheer numbers behind the army of Shaq Twitter followers that made it happen? If Gary Vaynerchuk had thrown it out there to his 566,000+ followers, would the video views still have jumped to 20,000? If Chris Brogan had shared it with his almost 80,000 followers would his followers (and their networks) have gotten the video 20,000 views? On the flip side, would Ellen DeGeneres’s network of 2,100,000+ followers have taken the video to 40,000 views?

Or would simply landing on the front page of Digg have been all it needed to get there? Are you at all surprised that Shaq’s network didn’t get the video MORE than 20,000 views?

All of these many questions are questions that we’re currently debating in the office, so we figured we'd see what you have to say. We’d love to hear your thoughts, so fill us in on your views in the comments section below or on Twitter at @deepbench.

P.S. - We'd love to hear your favorite Shaqalicious nickname while you're at it, so let us know. Big Cactus, Big Diesel, Big Jabberwocky, Big Aristotle (my personal favorite) or one of the dozens of others?

UPDATE: As of a few hours after we posted this highly detailed analysis (around 6:00 on June 24th), it appears Shaq has been traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. According to TechCrunch, it's possible he found out about this trade via Twitter. On a side note, it is this writer's fear that, when Shaq gets to Cleveland, the potential combination of his HUGE personality combined with LeBron James' equally outgoing personality could cause the entire city of Cleveland to explode from a fun, passion, and excitement overload. Things could get crazy, folks.

Editor's note - This content was originally posted (by me) on my work blog at http://www.thedeepbench.com/.

Auto-Tune the News #5 (Trust me...it's brilliant...)

This makes me so glad that I was able to hang out with this crew (The Gregory Brothers) for a weekend. Because they are absolutely awesome.

Watch it. Love it. Share it. You know you want to. And while we're at it, watch my all-time favorite below.

Also, here's their website: www.thegregorybrothers.com

Real Life Street Fighter Car Destruction Bonus Round

Because, really...who didn't want to at least try this in real life after playing Super Street Fighter II?



Sorry if the embed doesn't show all the way. Just click the video and watch it on YouTube if that's the case. Hat tip to @RichGinter for the find on this one...

Are YouTube videos the website of the future?

As firm believers in an innovation-focused approach when it comes to projects and campaigns, we were thoroughly impressed when we stumbled across the new BooneOakley website. Why? Because they are clearly bold enough to take a game-changing approach as far as corporate websites go. For the record, by website, we mean, YouTube video...website…thing. If you want to see what we’re talking about, take a look at the embedded video below and then read up on what this means for the future of websites and interactively engaging your audience.

It’s not easy to be one of the first to embrace a new effort. But based on some of their ad campaigns, it’s obvious that BooneOakley lives in the realm of telling stories through video. So why not embrace that medium with a website dedicated to telling a story through video? It’s a prime example of understanding where your talents lie and taking them to the next level.

Although there will definitely be people who A) Don’t understand this “website” and B) Don’t like this “website,” we definitely expect to see more and more of this type of effort in the future from other companies and agencies.

According to our Head Coach Hugh Weber, “You can go through a hundred agency sites and see 99 of them that are exactly the same. It’s another unique approach to ‘What is a website?’ A website doesn't have to be static HTML, it’s whatever you want it to be. I love that level of interactivity.”

Our question is this: what are your thoughts? Were you impressed with this new approach to an interactive “website?” Did you find it to be confusing or too different from the norm, or did you really enjoy it the same way we did? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below or hit us up on Twitter at @deepbench.

(Editors note: This post, written by me, was originally featured on my work blog over at http://www.thedeepbench.com/. Just so you know.)

So you can execute...but what's your strategy?

A few days ago, I came across this great post from Valeria Maltoni on her blog, Conversation Agent. The post discusses the importance of execution. In fact, her intro sentence pretty much summarizes the post perfectly: “There's no amount of marketing budgets or number of social media networks you can throw at a product if what you're doing is executed poorly.” I absolutely agree with that sentiment.

But here’s my question. What if what you’re executing – the campaign itself – really isn’t that great in the first place? As PR-Squared mentioned in their recent “Uncampaigning” post, “even if you enjoyed their clever launch into the Social Media sphere, when was the last time you visited skittles.com?” Sure you can execute something and execute it well, but what if, in the long run, your lack of strategy does nothing more than create some momentary excitement.

Enter Seth Godin.

Although his post “Challenging convention” isn’t solely focused on this exact topic, an applicable assessment from him regarding the reason behind changing something just to change it is this: “Sure, you could invent a new kind of handshake or a new pricing structure. But if it catches on, do you win? Is it at the core of your business model?”

In my mind, that’s a great example of execution without strategy. Sure you can execute a plan. But what is the purpose of that plan? Why invest the hours in an attention-grabbing effort if the eventual results aren’t a part of your campaign’s core focus? If you aren’t utilizing a strategy, how do you even know what that core focus is in the first place?

To conclude, I’ll leave you with this example of execution without strategy…

In a recent Wired.com article titled “Homebrewed CPU Is a Beautiful Mess of Wires," they share the story of a man who, over an 18-month period of time, custom-designed and built his own 8-bit computer (think early Atari level capabilities) by meticulously connecting 1,253 pieces of wire to a wire-wrap board. It makes for a fun story and his creation will be featured at a “do-it-yourself technology” expo, but after putting all that work into this project (think "campaign" if it makes more sense), this is his closing thought:

“Why did I do all this?” he says. “I don’t know. But it has been a lot of fun.”

Although it may be ok for a guy working on a fun project in his spare time, it’s not ok to take that approach with clients who are paying you to execute with a strategy in mind (maybe along the lines of that aforementioned Skittles.com 2-day campaign). So make sure that when your next big idea or concept pops into your head, you take some time to plan a strategy around it before you execute. Your clients will thank you.

What do you think? Is execution the key to success? Is strategy the only way to make sure things are done right? If you think it’s a combination of the two, which brands or companies do you feel have done a good job of making both of them work in conjunction? Share your thoughts in the comments section below (preferably with a strategy behind them) or hit me up on Twitter at @mikebilleter.

(Editors note: This post, written by me, was originally featured on my work blog over at http://www.thedeepbench.com/. Just so you know.)