3 Examples Of Award-Winning Interactive Work

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People can be cranky about marketing awards. As in: “Well, we’re not doing this to win awards, you know.”

But I happen to think that awards serve a purpose. They encourage the competitive spirit that can lead to winning not just awards but business, they put a bounce in the step of the marketing teams and—most relevant for this post—they give the rest of us a glimpse of what others judge to be the best, even trend-setting work.
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Twitter: An Early Look At What’s Changed

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Twitter, the asset management industry’s favorite social network, made some sweeping changes today. While you can count on all of the usual suspect sites (and I say that with gratitude) to provide comprehensive coverage and analysis, I’ll weigh in here with a few comments for mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) marketers.

You could watch the video, too, although I got very little out of it besides a touch of vertigo.
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Some Encouragement To Keep Working On The New Stuff

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Inside your company, I know there’s lots of discussion about the rationale for the new social stuff. That’s good because outside, the drumbeat continues—for mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) marketers and for all marketers. The old stuff isn’t as impressive as it used to be.

I submit two pieces of content for your consideration today.

First, specific to the investment industry, is I’m Not A Financial Professional, But I Play One On TV, an I Heart Wall Street blog post published yesterday. The blogger is Scott Bell, a financial advisor who runs a California-based RIA but keeps his blogging and wealth managing separate. In aggregating six YouTube videos of celebrity commercials over time, the point of the post is to challenge the SEC’s position prohibiting the use of clients in testimonials.
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Are You Delighting Or Disappointing Mobile Users?

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How’s that mobile strategy coming along? Considering the growing mound of data reporting financial advisor and investor reliance on smartphones, there isn’t a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) firm today that isn’t giving some thought to mobile.

Assuming that’s the case, you and your team really need to spend at least 40 minutes watching this 76-minute video by Avinash Kaushik. Kaushik is the digital marketing evangelist for Google and Web analytics guru that I’ve mentioned a few times previously.

Kaushik's presentation packs a one-two punch. In the first-half, he offers some insights on the "profound" ways mobile can change marketing. The second half, while extremely valuable, is focused on measurement and likely to appeal to a subset of your team.
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What? FINRA Social Media Guidance Limits Co-Branding?

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As you likely know by now, FINRA yesterday published Regulatory Notice 11-39 Guidance on Social Networking Websites and Business Communications. This guidance updates Regulatory Notice 10-06 Guidance on Blogs and Social Networking Web Sites.

Many agree with The Wall Street Journal’s characterization that the guidance provides finer points on how firms and FINRA-regulated financial advisors use the site. The consensus is that it doesn’t change any of the already articulated rules.

I am the furthest thing from a Compliance expert. But for as long as I was inside a FINRA-regulated firm and definitely now that I’m out and trying to help FINRA-regulated firms communicate, the least I can do is know the rules.
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