May I have your attention, please.  We’d like to offer up a round of applause to… our clients. At the Luxury Lab’s most recent L2 conference, held on October 12th,  several Morpheus clients received some much deserved limelight.

Morpheus Client Mentions:

• Louis Vuitton ranks number three, and remains a “Genius” brand on the Digital IQ Index.

• Marc Jacobs ranks 21, and lands in the “Gifted” class.  The brand is regarded as a “Geo-local pioneer with its ‘Fashion Victim’ Foursquare badge.” Marc Jacobs also received props for its iPad initiative: “September issue features designer and allows users to shop products from the latest campaign.”

• Bottega Veneta’s site re-launch “provided forward momentum.”

• Tag Heuer: “This high ranking watch brand is elevated by a commerce-centric site and its iPhone app for the Monaco V4.”

• David Yurman “scores points on site for top-notch customer service.”

Download L2’s Luxury 2010 Digital IQ Report (PDF)

Tomorrow night marks the return of New York City’s Fashion’s Night Out —Anna Wintour’s plan to revitalize retail sales with a night of eating, drinking, and of course, shopping.  Here at Morpheus, the excitement is palpable.  Of the 1,000 retailers participating in FNO’s this year (that’s 200 more than last year, by the way), twelve of them are Morpheus clients. And you best believe they’re going all out! From appearances by some of the hottest models, actors, and DJs to delicious takeaway treats like handmade crepes, and gigantic photographs, these are twelve spots not to be missed. 

Be sure to check if each event is public before you head over, some events are invite only. We hope to see you there!

Dior: In addition to a special Dior Couture exhibition from 7- 10pm, keep your eyes open for renowned fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier, Vogue editor Phyllis Posnick, and It-girl model Karlie Kloss.

Michael Kors: The Michael Kors New York flagship at 667 Madison Avenue will play host to TONY Award winner Idina Menzel, who will sing a few songs with Mr. Kors himself!

Donna Karan and Belvedere Vodka: Come after 9pm, when Donna Karan will be hanging out, sipping Belvedere cocktails as DJ Reborn and Leigh Lezark take turns spinning.  There’s also popcorn, pool, and exclusive access to the DKNY delicious Core Club.

Bergdorf Goodman:  Stroll beautiful Bergdorf Goodman like you’ve never seen it before. Enjoy tunes by DJs  AndrewAndrew, Becka Diamond, Johnny Dynell and T.C.Meggs & Gunnie.  Take a photo wearing clothes from your favorite designers.  Scout out personal appearances from Jason Wu, Tom Ford, Simon Spurr, Micheal Bastian, Victoria Beckham, Mary J. Blige, and Patrick McMullan. Maybe you’ll see one of them doing karaoke on the third floor!

Bottega Veneta:  Expect two delectable treats: the release of a special new bag and a guest appearance by Rosario Dawson!

Fendi- Behold a gorgeous picture exhibition by Karl Lagerfeld.

Juicy Couture -  Guest Designer Erin Fetherston will offer style tips followed by a special performance by Metric at 8:30pm.

Sephora – Meet Lancome video makeup artist Michelle Phan. Appearances by Josie Maran, Kat Von D, Tarina Tarantino. Hairstyling by Sultra.

BCBG – Enjoy Handmade Crepes prepared by Max and Lubov Azria, champagne and hors d’oeuvres while you shop the new collection. Plus, pay a special tribute to New York as Max and Lubov honor five women from the New York Police and Fire Widows’ and Children’s benefit fund.

Lord & Taylor: Complimentary makeovers (and new Facebook profile pictures!) for all.  Too many guest appearances to name, including some of today’s hottest models, designers, photographers, and matchmakers. Stud Your UGG event from 5-7.  Spend $100 and have your photon taken by noted fashion photographer Nigel Barker. And so much more!

Marc Jacobs- Have your picture taken next to the giant BANG bottle (just like Marc did for the ad campaign, only you don’t have to take your clothes off). Marc Jacobs and Jimmy Fallon will be at the Mercer store.

View Morpheus Media Fashion’s Night Out in a larger map

Congratulations team on receiving this prestigious award!

This past Saturday, April 24th, the New York Cares organization hosted one of its annual events, Hands On New York Day.  Hands On New York Day is a day where volunteers go out into the five boroughs and paint murals, plant trees and flowers, pick up trash and participate in other activities which enliven and beautify the local community.  Morpheus Media participated this year, sending out 6 volunteers to the Brooklyn Navy Shipyard in South Williamsburg where Morphites worked side by side with 7 other organizations and companies to paint over 750 feet of jersey barriers.  The barriers, which protect bikers and pedestrians from high traffic, now greet community members with pictures of nuts, bolts, navy ships, helmets and other tools, fusing the historic shipyard with the Williamsburg community.  Working together, the site was completed in a record 3 hours and passersby who saw the completed project were sure to thank all of the volunteers for their hard work.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

On Saturday, October 17^th, Morphites went to PS 59 school in Brooklyn to spend the day volunteering for New York Cares Day. The site, which was also led by a Morpheus volunteer, is a school that encourages students to participate in their community at-large, either through student government, community service programs or voting on decisions that affect the school community on a regular basis. Together with two other companies, Morpheus volunteers helped beautify the school and encourage active learning. We were very excited to contribute to this event and kept our spirits up despite the weather conditions and intensive labor. However, despite the fun we had, nothing was more satisfying as the look on some students’ faces as they saw the results. We are already looking forward to next year.

With some support from other offices in the building (much thanks to the 10th floor) and a few publishers – shout out to X+1, Context Web, and Adconian! – we successfully gave 20 pints of blood to the New York Blood Center in their blood donation van parked across from the office. After re-cooperating with some pizza, cookies and juice, all was well. And now that everyone knows whether or not they are eligible (and that those British among us are not), we hope to have an even more successful drive on November 30th! Glad we have an extra excuse to load up on Thanksgiving turkey to keep our iron levels high!

I love product packaging; I’m actually obsessed with it.

In late February of this year I noticed a change in my favorite orange juice, it looked different, and not in a good way. So I did what any curious package design junkie would do, I Googled it. Low and behold the New York Times and about billion other people noticed this too.

The New York Times article titled “Tropicana Discovers Some Buyers Are Passionate About Packaging” sparked a conversion that spread like fire in the Advertising world as well as in the Foodie world. Package design junkies and consumers alike were taking their complaints to the web and posting their displeasure on blogs and other social media outlets like twitter and Facebook. They felt that the packaging was “ stupid”, “ugly”, “resembles a generic brand” and countless other unfavorable comments.

Normally, like any other large corporation (Tropicana is owned by PepsiCo) they would ignore such complaints, as they do not add up to even the smallest percentage of their consumers, but this time it was different. Neil Campbell, the President of Tropicana North America, said the following in an interview about the new packaging:

“We underestimated the deep emotional bond” they (consumers) had with the original packaging. “Those consumers are very important to us, so we responded.”

“The straw and orange have been there for a long time, but people have not necessarily had a huge connection to them.”

“What we didn’t get was the passion this very loyal small group of consumers have. That wasn’t something that came out in the research.”

After reading this article and peering through some of the numerous blogs I tried to think about what this means to Morpheus Media and its clients. Several important points came to mind.

- Social media will tell you things that standard focus groups and research will not, plus the feedback is boundless and instantaneous

- Consumer feedback or lack there of will help gauge where your brand is on the social scale

- Social media gives brands the opportunities to respond to consumer complaints and strengthen brand loyalty

Tropicana took the comments seriously and started to pull the new design and roll out the old one. Starting March 1^st the old packaging was back in stores along with new campaign ads.

Clipmarks goes beyond bookmarking and allows you to “clip” articles and even pieces of articles or pictures or videos. No more marking of the entire URL. Simply clip what you want and go. As a Mac user, in many ways clipmarks reminds me of the Grab application, only now you can aggregate all your snippets into a social media tool. You can make friends with other “clippers” and view your clips in a cool “clipcast”.

What I like best about clipmarks is that anything you clip can be shared cross social media platforms. What I like more about clipmarks is that they make sharing as simple as 1 click. Don’t have a blog or website supported by their system? No problem. Clipmarks will provide you with the code to embed every one of your clips. All of this can be done by simply adding the clipmarks widget to your toolbar. The only downside I can see is that it isn’t Safari compatible, but you can use it on Firefox.

As an avid tumblr user, simplicity is key for me, and clipmarks is a great new tool that makes it easy for me to organize the bits and pieces of the Internet that I like and want to revisit and share. As an interactive marketer, clipmarks is great because it’s another social media tool that evokes conversation. Users can comment on one another’s clips or even rate them with “pops” which is basically an online “thumbs-up.” I wouldn’t go as far as saying clipmarks is a clip version of digg.com, but it definitely allows people to share online content and have an open conversation about it.

I just graduated in May, and as an advertising major, interactive marketing was barely touched on in my 4 years of college. In a semester break down filled with print and TV, the syllabus usually set aside one class to discuss the internet. With professors who worked in the agency realm 30 years ago, we lectured on the wow factor of agencies like BBDO and Saatchi & Saatchi, with almost every class using the “Got milk?” ads to set the bar as a basis for comparison across the board. In our campaign projects, we would create an idea and carry it across different mediums…the mediums being magazine, newspapers, TV, radio, and direct mail. Even for my final project senior year, which was only 9 months ago, interactive was not a component.

Post graduation when all I wanted to do was get a job at an agency and move to NYC, two places I interviewed with that were at the top of my list were Morpheus and Digitas, both interactive agencies. It was/is exciting to be part of such a new, fast growing field, at a place that is ahead of the curve, and where everything was new and exciting to me.
For homework in college we would have to read articles from AdAge and, like in our classes, we would learn about print and TV. Now when you go to the AdAge homepage there is a whole section dedicated to digital with a “Search Fact Pack” for 2007 showing stats of what is going on in the SEM world and how big a part of advertising it has become. It shows the top searches and sites and interactive marketing agencies and much more. It is a good starting point for people trying to learn about digital advertising.

I hope that universities are making sure to stay on top of this trend and preparing their students for what the advertising world really is about in 2008, with widgets and wikis and mobile, as Morpheus has done for me.