Date: Thursday, May 5, 2011
By: Michael Marot, AP Sports Writer
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — There's a Dump The Donald movement afoot at the Indy 500.
Race organizers selected real estate mogul Donald Trump as this year's celebrity pace car driver a month ago. Since then, the potential Republican presidential candidate has created a stir by questioning whether President Obama was born outside the United States and whether he was qualified to attend the Ivy League schools he did.
Race fans, local citizens and an Indiana state lawmaker want to force Trump out of his next celebrity apprenticeship: driving the pace car May 29 just before the centennial celebration of the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
"To me, when they first named Donald Trump, it just felt wrong," said Michael Wallack, who started a Facebook page in hopes of firing Trump. "He has no relationship to the track, to the race, to racing, to Indianapolis, and I think I would have been bothered anytime with something like that. But to do that on the 100th anniversary, it made no sense.
"Then when he started going off on the birther stuff," Wallack said, "that prompted me to do more and that's when I started the page."
Obama has publicly released his birth certificate from Hawaii, but members of the so-called "birther" movement are arguing in federal court that the document has been falsified.
Trump has taken credit for bringing the issue to the fore. And now Trump is firing back at critics of his pace car duties.
"The debate stems from unfounded, incorrect and malicious lies that Donald Trump has a racial bias toward the President," said Michael Cohen, executive vice president and special counsel to Trump. "Nothing could be further from the truth, as Donald Trump doesn't have a racist bone in his body.
"Mr. Trump's request for President Obama's birth certificate, school records and documents were predicated upon transparency, a major part of President Obama's 2008 platform," Cohen said. "If Mr. Trump should become the next president, he would provide these documents willingly."
Track spokesman Doug Boles said speedway officials are aware of Wallack's Facebook page, first reported Wednesday by The Indianapolis Star, and are monitoring the situation.
Changing the pace car driver might be a first.
"As far as I know, the speedway has not changed a pace car driver," Boles said. "But there's been a pace car since 1911, so I don't know if anybody could definitively say it's not been changed."
The speedway has a rich tradition of using celebrity pace car drivers from outside auto racing. Since 2000, the list includes actors Anthony Edwards, Jim Caviezel, Morgan Freeman and Josh Duhamel; seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong; supermodel Elaine Irwin-Mellencamp; and "Good Morning America" host Robin Roberts. One potential political candidate, retired Gen. Colin Powell, also drove the pace car in 2005.
The race's reputation has survived other brushes with controversy, including a split between the two major open-wheel series and Steven Tyler's rendition of the national anthem.
Trump, opponents contend, is more polarizing and might overshadow the race.
"The folks I have talked to indirectly have shared concern with the situation," said state Rep. Jeb Bardon, a Democrat who represents the area surrounding the racetrack. Bardon said he worries Trump's appearance will draw negative attention to this month's centennial celebration.
Wallack, a partner at an Indianapolis law firm and one-time Democratic candidate for office in Hamilton County, started the Facebook page and in less than a week had 11,700 followers.
The decision to change pace car drivers might not be left entirely to organizers. Chevrolet provides the pace car and could be involved in the discussions. Trump also has a signature tie collection through Macy's, a partner of Izod, the series' title sponsor.
Izod officials did not respond immediately to an interview request Wednesday.
Boles said the speedway received emails from both sides when it came to Trump's selection. Supporters have started their own Facebook page, too, but the louder voices are coming from the other side. Bardon even used a speech at the legislature last week to call for a driver change.
Wallack isn't sure where it will all lead.
"Forget the politics, he is a divisive guy," Wallack said. "My intent is not to boycott the race. With that said, I don't have to buy T-shirts and things at the speedway or other souvenirs, nor do I have to frequent or buy things from the sponsors."
Written by Michael Marot, AP Sports Writer
There were a few interesting apps demonstrated at the LA AppShow last night, but the one that most interested me was an app that Black Entertainment Television's Brandon Lucas showed off:the official app for the network's 106 & Park music video show. BET teamed up with developers Bottle Rocket to make it, and I don't think I've seen a more interesting combination of old school media (in this case, a popular cable network) and new school mobile programming.
106 & Park is a daily music video request/pop culture show. Lucas described it as the BET version of MTV's Total Request Live (which itself was the MTV version of Casey Kasem's radio countdown show). 106 & Park (named for the original studio location in Harlem) runs for two hours every weekday, and Lucas said his company wanted to design an app for their very mobile-aware viewers that could be used not only to promote the show, but also to drive engagement with the network at large and to "go for a whole new level of interactivity" with the way these things are done.
So what they decided to do was deep dive into how their viewers watched the show and interacted with each other. From that came a whole bunch of fascinating features, from some really surprising social media integration to even a "fame lottery," which allows their on-air personalities to directly connect with app users.
The app took one year to build, says Lucas, and once it was done, BET spent an unprecedented amount of airtime promoting and selling it to viewers -- the on-air personalities talked about and promoted the app for 30-60 minutes every day for a week during the 106 & Park programming.
People watching the show can, of course, vote for videos, but BET and Bottle Rocket took it a step beyond just pressing a button. Viewers who want to vote for videos are given a scratch turntable, and however many times they can scratch the table in a time limit is how much they're allowed to vote for their favorite music videos. In essence, the whole process is gamified, pushing engagement and encouraging users to come back the next day, not only to vote but also to try harder.
The app also works with various QR codes that are shown on the screen during music videos -- by holding their iPhones up to the screen and capturing the codes, users can be sent to web pages, other videos or anywhere in the app that BET wants them to go. "We wanted to be ahead of the game on this," says Lucas, and indeed, while QR codes are showing up in all kinds of places lately, BET's implementation is very impressive.
But it's the social integration of the app that's most astounding. BET's viewers are heavily into Twitter, and during the show each day, the hosts actually call out a special hashtag for that day's tweets. That hashtag is integrated into the app itself, so anyone tweeting from the app gets BET's hashtag on their tweets. And Bottle Rocket also built a really amazing in-app Twitter wall; it shows users what tweets are out there in real-time, and it also matches the show's on-air presentation. It all works smoothly, and the design is great.
And finally, BET also built in a location-based social service that allows users to see an in-app heatmap of where their fellow app users are at any given time. And even better, the hosts on TV have access to that heatmap, and can even "zoom in" on it to see specific users on screen. From there, they can directly connect to certain users via phone, as in the on-air hosts randomly choose a user on the heatmap, and then the user's phone rings and connects to the on-air studio. Lucas called it a "fame lottery" -- app users who are watching the show might get a call and get pulled into an on-air conversation with a music video star.
I asked Lucas if BET had only released the app on the iPhone, and he said that, yes, while the version out now is iOS, the company has plans to bring it out for Android. In fact, since the demographic is seeing huge growth in other smartphones lately, Lucas said that Android would have been a higher priority if development on the app started right now. He also says there's not a big call for an iPad version of the app yet, even though that's a platform that television has been pushing as a "secondary" engagement device.
It was a very cool presentation for a very cool app. While the app obviously has a limited appeal to anyone who doesn't watch 106 & Park, the implementations with various social networking services and iOS technologies are really impressive, and the whole setup is a great example for anyone trying to figure out how to use Apple's platform to promote other media.
Harris Diamond is CEO of
Weber Shandwick, a global
public relations firm in New York.
The world has entered a new place where people interact with brands pretty much anywhere and everywhere. We are seeing every day how social media allows people and, in some cases, whole companies to have a real dialogue around products and services. How people value a brand today has vastly expanded to include their perceptions and interaction with brands and products, and it comes unvarnished and from every angle. Companies need to focus on better socializing their brands so they can resonate with influential online communities. To market a socialized brand today you need to think about how to speak directly to consumers’ needs and satisfy them fully on an emotional level. The following are some guidelines to effectively create and manage socialized brands:
• Create a community of advocates. Today’s brand community is a place where people get to share their thoughts or feelings about a brand and product. Dialogue is now wide open and inclusive. It can happen on your site, your Facebook page, your Smartphone or anywhere your customers are talking with each other, such as a mom community or fan site. These spaces welcome dialogue and ignore one-way messages that are directed at them by companies or brands. Sometimes these communities also are built in person such as at events, trade shows, in-store demonstrations, retail counters or even Meetup groups. With today’s channel agnostic consumers, the best communications must focus on reaching the right people online or offline, and encourage them to join your network of advocates.
• Move beyond “Likes.” Increasingly, Facebook is not just a destination for consumers but a part of a larger fabric of the Internet. The “Like” button shows up on content from news sources to product pages. Company Facebook pages are rapidly changing from a secondary to primary source of interaction with consumers, with the company website still relevant and important, but oft en less current. However, “Like” is similar to a free admission to the carnival—people will walk past the uninteresting booths and won’t play. Getting large numbers of people to “Like” your page is not the end goal; it is the starting point. If you can get customers past the equivalent of “Like” and engage them, you will create affection, affinity and ultimately advocacy for your brand and products. One-to-one engagement that can be scaled easily is a mandate for any company hoping to build and manage a successful socialized brand.
• Protect your brand’s reputation. We’ve all seen the challenges presented when a brand reputation is damaged online. The negative stories in major media that start from blogs, Tweets and user-generated videos can overwhelm the steadiest of brands. Companies need to be more proactive about monitoring their online reputations and be prepared to act quickly and strategically to the viral spread of rumors, misinformation and hear say that can erupt overnight. Online crisis simulation before you need it, as Weber Shandwick developed in our product FireBell, can help mitigate these types of crises and activate your dedicated community of advocates ready to go to your defense.
• Socialize your C-suite. More executives now recognize that the Internet has swept through corporate corridors and boardrooms, transforming the media landscape. A growing number of them at all levels are starting to consider taking advantage of these newer social channels to tell their company and brand stories. As storytellers and narrators of their brand promises, C-suite executives will gradually become more socialized and willingly participate in video on their websites, Facebook and YouTube company-sponsored channels and will demand that their speeches and interviews get repurposed through the many channels now available online.
• Be relevant. Make sure the campaign being created is relevant to your audiences and that expectations are based on achievable goals. Compound the interest in your brand and products by not only repurposing existing content, but by adding value to your communities of interest wherever they may be. Creativity moves people, and focusing on delivering creative ways to engage your customer can have a tremendous impact on people’s perceptions and behaviors when it comes to your brand and products. Work to find as many ways as possible to add value first and be confident that an engaged base of customers will follow. This core will allow you to build a bigger base over time.
Even by following all of the above, your customers today will still always be more connected, spread out and unified than your brand can possibly be. The key is to give them better access to relevant information, timely answers to the questions they ask and the means to protect reputation at all times. If you create engaged communities and give customers a place to congregate and interact, you will mitigate challenges that arise in real time. Your advocates can help you; they’ll answer questions of other customers and ease your load in trying to manage millions of peer-to-peer interactions. That’s the real social savvy we all aspire to.
BY HARRIS DIAMOND
hdiamond@webershandwick.com
Five Rules for Socializing Your Brand
