This is about as good as it gets when telling the history behind a brand. Johnnie Walker and BBH London worked with Scottish actor Robert Carlisle to narrate the story (in one continuous take) while walking through the misty Scottish highlands.

“The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that makes the fire. The 2nd follower is a turning point: it’s proof the first has done well. Now it’s not a lone nut, and it’s not two nuts. Three is a crowd and a crowd is news.”

I’m wondering about times when I wanted to step in and join something that intrigued me, but there wasn’t enough momentum to make me comfortable enough.

Here are a couple of other good posts talking about the video.

Kirsten Olson on ‘Cooperative Catalyst‘ and Joe Bower on ‘For the Love of Learning.’

Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.

Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.

Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.

The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways:

1. Checking in for Good: If Gowalla and Foursquare have taught us anything, it’s that people respond to simple incentives. By offering badges, mayorships, and other intangible rewards, millions of people are checking in to the places they go. Apps like Whrrl take this a step further and enable like-minded “societies” to form on a local basis. The next step is for these apps to add greater purpose by encouraging more meaningful checkins and offering corresponding badges and stamps, thus mapping the cause universe. Or for a dedicated app to be developed that rewards conscious consumption, social responsibility, and civic engagement. Yes, the CauseWorld app features a cause element, but it’s not about cause-worthy places.

2. Eating Locally: Sustainability demands that we source our food as close to its point of production as possible. Many so-called locavores subscribe to the 100-mile diet, which requires that one “eat nothing—or almost nothing—but sustenance drawn from within 100 miles of their home.” Given the difficulty of accessing and verifying this information in order to live by this standard, there’s a geo-powered Locavore app. It gives you info on in-season foods, those coming in-season, farmer’s markets, and links to recipes. This rather simple app is clearly just the start. In time, location-aware apps will guide us not only to the grocery store or farmer’s market but through them. All the while identifying foods based on our particular diet or sensibility.

3. Political Organizing: In the next presidential election, politics will not only be local but location-enabled. We saw the power of social media in Obama’s 2008 landslide victory. In 2012, location-based apps and technologies will play a central role in how campaigns are organized, managed, and ultimately won. Much of this will be visible through mobile apps and location-aware browsers. Activists and volunteers will be more empowered. Voters will be more engaged in the moment, right down to casting their votes. Behind the scenes, though, we’ll see massive new sets of data available to campaigns for targeting, empowerment, and optimization. The party, candidate, and/or cause that has the best handle on geolocation will have a measurable advantage. (The Elections app will soon be updated for 2010.)

4. Finding Green Businesses: The web has effectively replaced the paper Yellow Pages as a way to find local businesses and services. However, this “stationary web” experience is quickly being supplanted by the mobile web and mobile applications, which give us access to this information when we most need it. The Yelp and Around Me apps are popular ways to find restaurants, coffee shops, or hotels wherever you are, but what about green-rated businesses? Greenopia has transformed its printed, local guides into a dynamic, nationwide mobile application that lets you find local, green-rated businesses in any category. No more paper and a much better experience. The Green Map app is another that facilitates discovery and connects us to local green environments.

5. Traveling More Efficiently: We’ve had access to GPS navigation systems and static traffic information for some time, but only now are we seeing the full potential of these technologies. With access to more detailed traffic information that is specific to your route and updated in real time, we can minimize congestion and maximize traffic flow (as much as physically possible). The new turn-by-turn MapQuest 4 Mobile app is a good start, as you can get traffic alerts specific to the route you program. However, user-generated information from apps like Trapster and Waze can crowdsource more specific details, such as whether to avoid an intersection due to a toxic chemical spill. Or, if you want to avoid automobiles altogether, Google Maps makes it easy to use public transportation and take a bike.

6. Scanning for Ethical Products: With online shopping, we’ve become accustomed to reading reviews and making comparisons before we buy. This can now be done in the physical world through games like MyTown and services like Stikybits. By scanning a product barcode using a smartphone camera, you can unlock a treasure of additional information (not to mention deals) that can help with your purchase. This might include where it was produced, how far it traveled, the reputation of the manufacturer, chemical contents, carbon footprint, or the full lifecycle analysis. Location-aware applications can also transform commerce itself by giving us better access to local inventories and locally-produced goods. Whether it’s fruits and vegetables or books and electronics, if something can be found within blocks of your current location, it makes no sense to ship it from afar.

7. Networking Neighborhoods: One of the hottest categories in geolocation is neighborhood networking. The vision for many of these apps is to strengthen the very fabric of our communities. With DeHood, you can keep track of what’s happening in your neighborhood, share your favorite places, and grease the wheels for actually meeting people. After all, if you’ve made contact through the app, it’s a lot easier to say “Hello” in the real world. Blasterous is another that lets you share information locally, whereas BlockChalk does this on an anonymous basis. Finally, NeighborGoods uses your street address to facilitate one-to-one borrowing and trading of useful stuff. In the end, making connections with your neighbors can lead to safer, more productive, and more sustainable communities.

8. Tracking Environmental Disasters: The size and scope of environmental disasters appears to be growing. In 2008, we had the Tennessee coal ash spill, which was billed as “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States.” And that was before we realized it was three times bigger than originally estimated. More recently, the BP oil spill set daily records for “largest environmental disaster in the U.S. ever.” In each case, geolocation technologies can be used by engaged citizens to monitor and track the effects. They can be used by response teams to coordinate containment and cleanup efforts. Ultimately, these technologies can be used to accurately measure the size and impact of a disaster in order to better understand its damages and costs.

9. Viewing the World Through an Eco Lens: Augmented reality (AR) follows geolocation as one of the hot trends in mobile technology. It enables you to view the world through a smartphone camera (or similar device) and see layers of geo-specific content or information. One of the most popular apps is Layar, an augmented reality browser/platform that lets you choose specific data layers or experiences. The potential for green- and cause-related content is tremendous. You might view green-rated businesses, LEED-certified buildings, or virtual GHG emissions as they enter the atmosphere. Combined with smart meter technology, you could see the most efficient and inefficient homes around you in real time. And for the cynics among us, you could view our mountains, forests, rivers, and oceans as they once were…before the effects of climate change and so many environmental disasters.

10. Capturing the Moment: Better access to information about what’s happening around us—right now—can dramatically improve quality of life. This sense of “geospatial awareness” is possible through today’s smartphones, whereby a piece of content or information—a moment—is captured and preserved based on the unique time and place in which it occurred. It is essentially to document spacetime. Protests, natural disasters, sporting events, parties, political crises…real-time information about anything happening anywhere at any time, as well as the history of what happened. This will take several years and a number of different applications to realize. In the end, though, it will revolutionize how we access and consume content. It will complete the democratization and decentralization of news and information…based on time and location.

Cautionary note: Privacy is the single biggest issue in the LBS industry. It’s important to understand what information you are sharing with regard to your location and with whom.

Author’s note: We’ll be hosting geolocation events for Social Media Week in Los Angeles this September. This is the third in Max Gladwell’s #10Ways series of distributed blog posts. It was published simultaneously on as many as 300 blogs.

Social Media Week is a “distributed global conference” with multiple events happening around Los Angeles and the world from September 20-24. The conference is a global platform to connect people, content and conversations around emerging trends in social and mobile media. Events are free, hosted at iconic locations and cover a broad spectrum of topics, industries, causes, etc. The previous conference in February 2010 took place across 6 cities, (Berlin, London, New York, San Francisco, Sao Paulo and Toronto). New York itself hosted over 80 events in one week with partners and sponsors such as the New York Times, iCrossing, Techvibes, Conde Nast, Wired, Sony Electronics, LinkedIn, Cisco, Time Inc, MoMA, Meebo, PepsiCo, Mashable, Fast Company, Razorfish, WholeFoods and MTV.

This fall, there will be five cities participating. In addition to LA, cities include Mexico City, Bogota, Milan and Buenos Aires. We are actively seeking partners and sponsors to be integral parts of the conference experience. There are a variety of ways for brands, organizations and individuals to be involved, including financial sponsorship, media partnerships and in-kind donations of venues and technology. In addition, anyone can host an approved event and benefit from the overall conference promotion. Financial sponsorships range from $5,000 to $150,000 and can be customized to meet the needs of the brands. Feel free to be in touch if you have any questions or interest.

After receiving this link by email (viral…), and looking into the campaign a little more closely, I’ve come to the big conclusion that it’s very clever…while at the same time they’re missing the boat with their Facebook strategy and execution and losing out on the opportunity to engage with all of the new potential fans who are coming their way.

This video is one of a series. It’s gotten the most play (over 3 million views as of this post). Jody Hill teamed up with them to pull off a solid web series. The campaign integration is pretty straightforward.  They have a destination site, ToyotaSwaggerWagon.com, which seems to be an embedded YouTube channel. The featured video (and any video you watch) has a long tail…after you watch it, you can click on the YouTube video itself to choose from a menu of other episodes…all with the same characters introduced in, “Meet the Parents.”  The YouTube channel is here:  http://www.youtube.com/user/Sienna

Although it’s always cool to see a brand making quality entertainment, I’m most interested in how Toyota has introduced characters who are actually the absurd caricatures of their ‘target demographic.’ They are inoffensively poking fun at minivan parents; amplifying the defining characteristics of the Toyota Sienna’s ‘customer profile.’ Are they making fun of their customer? I don’t think so. They are actually having fun with their own brand marketing process, making it transparent with a kind of self-deprecation.  Reminiscent of how geek culture has become cool by embracing and celebrating its nerdiness, Toyota is coming off looking more real and authentic by exposing the hopelessness of using marketing to make minivans cool. I can picture the creatives convincing the marketers…”No, we’re making fun of marketing itself. We’re going to expose the way brands try to manipulate us emotionally by shining a light on the aspirational qualities themselves. We’ll do it in a fun way and people will trust us more!” And they’re right. As a minivan parent, I actually feel cooler when I’m laughing about the absurdity of trying to be cool.  I like this interaction with the Toyota brand. I don’t know how long it will last (the Facebook page dampened my enthusiasm immediately), but I still feel like I’m sharing a joke with the brand.  I like the brand more. I like that they were willing to take the risk of launching this campaign. In the broader context of Toyota ‘repairing’ their image from the pedal deaths, this content and brand strategy takes us to a different plane, far away from the seriousness of the problems of the (distant) past.

These videos are getting tremendous exposure and their agency should be proud. Whoever is managing the Sienna Facebook page needs to wake up. Their missing a tremendous opportunity with all of the attention and traffic. The page sucks and is out of date. The YouTube channel subtly introduces info about the minivan while the the FB page clumsily mixes the fun of the campaign with ‘real’ information about the minivan. Nobody is coming to the page for information about torque.  Provide me a link that says something like ‘click here for really useful information about the Sienna.’ That’s it. That’s all I need.

Also on the Facebook page is an application that allows you to choose a stuffed animal over which you superimpose a photo of you or your kid that you upload. It’s a cute idea and I tried it, but the (m)animals look really creepy…even the example they show you looks creepy. Get rid of it or make it better. And keep going with the parents…and avoid the temptation to bring in more info about the damn minivan. Less is more.

With that song, Stanley won a 2002 Grammy award.

O, Death
O, Death
Won’t you spare me over til another year
Well what is this that I can’t see
With ice cold hands takin’ hold of me
Well I am death, none can excel
I’ll open the door to heaven or hell
Whoa, death someone would pray
Could you wait to call me another day
The children prayed, the preacher preached
Time and mercy is out of your reach
I’ll fix your feet til you cant walk
I’ll lock your jaw til you cant talk
I’ll close your eyes so you can’t see
This very air, come and go with me
I’m death I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold
To draw up the flesh off of the frame
Dirt and worm both have a claim
O, Death
O, Death
Won’t you spare me over til another year
My mother came to my bed
Placed a cold towel upon my head
My head is warm my feet are cold
Death is a-movin upon my soul
Oh, death how you’re treatin’ me
You’ve close my eyes so I can’t see
Well you’re hurtin’ my body
You make me cold
You run my life right outta my soul
Oh death please consider my age
Please don’t take me at this stage
My wealth is all at your command
If you will move your icy hand
Oh the young, the rich or poor
Hunger like me you know
No wealth, no ruin, no silver no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul
O, death
O, death
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year
Wont you spare me over til another year

Here’s the video he shot explaining his experiment:

I was thinking that I should try to usurp some of the attention by taking out a Google adword with his name, but his former writing partner and purported friend beat me to it. I would have copied Alec and, still may, but I’m loathe to copy someone who copied Alec.

Because I’m sure Alec has Google Alerts set to his name, it’s important that I use this opportunity to write, “Alec Brownstein” explicitly.  In addition, this Google ad thing is a devious ploy to use a celebrity platform to try to convince the world that our last name is pronounced Brown-stine, when in fact, it’s pronounced Brown-steen, (just ask our Grandmother).