Advertising Ourselves to Death

Ok Go Leads The Rebellion

2010-03-05T10:54:35-06:00

Remember this video?

The band is Ok-Go, a quirky group of guys who create odd songs and even more eclectic videos. That one was viewed more than 50 million times after being posted on YouTube, mostly embedded on other sites. In fact 90% of the viewings came from the embedded YouTube player, not on YouTube.com according to the band.

Now, have you seen this? No? That’s the official music video for the band’s new song. It’s only been seen 940,000 times in just over a month. The bean counters at EMI, the band’s label, won’t let them share the video the same way. So if you want to see the video you have to go to YouTube.com. For a band that made it’s name with viral videos this sucked. And the band’s leader said so, in a New York Times Op-Ed piece.

“Viral content doesn’t spread just from primary sources like YouTube or Flickr. Blogs, Web sites and video aggregators serve as cultural curators, daily collecting the items that will interest their audiences the most. By ignoring the power of these tastemakers, our record company is cutting off its nose to spite its face.”

Enter an unlikely ally, State Farm Insurance. Like many companies it was looking for a way to connect with younger prospective customers. What if they sponsored a video, paying for production costs and the royalties lost through viral networking? And the idea for the video was much bigger than the label’s version, a warehouse-size Rube Goldberg machine, created by NASA and CalTech engineers. Which leads to this:

This is the second video of the same song, “This Too Shall Pass”, a particularly appropriate thought since this video is now wildly successful. There have been 3.4 million views in less than 72 hours. Two million times people have seen the video, State Farm’s logo on the little truck and a heartfelt thank you in the credits. There’s another 300,000 views of a series on how the video was made, all with State Farm branding.

It’s a brilliant strategy by the band and nimble action on the part of State Farm. While terms of the deal haven’t been released, it was the band that approached State Farm, and gave them a seat at the creative process in exchange for the sponsorship. The fact that the band has openly told EMI what to do with its policies and found away around them isn’t lost on State Farm’s target market.

Why State Farm? The band’s leader is a policy holder.

For more, here's a brief interview with the director. Can you imagine resetting for 60 takes?!

I am here. Do you care?

2010-02-15T10:36:00-06:00

Does anyone care where you are right now? Do they need to know exactly where you’re stopping for coffee, lunch or drinks? Apparently so, as we watch an explosion of tools coming online that let you make sure the world knows exactly where you are. (Remember when privacy was an issue?)

Today Google announced Google Buzz, which is part Facebook status, part Twitter and soon to be part Foursquare. It’s intended to let you use existing tools like Gmail and Google Maps to plug into your social networks. Like Facebook, you can use it to post your ponderings or witty comment. Like Yelp and Foursquare you will be able to track where you are and share that with those following you.

Earlier this month Apple acquired Quattro which does location-based marketing, then prohibited other companies from building location-based advertising into their apps (http://tcrn.ch/c5w8Va). Meanwhile Foursquare, which allows you to check in from locations and achieve status based on your frequency, is signing deals with content companies like Zagat (http://tcrn.ch/cDMrh7). That puts them in direct competition with review sites like Yelp, which recently added a check-in feature to its iPhone app.

Why do you care? Because marketing is about to get hyper local. Your phone is a beacon that will allow networks and technology-based advertisers to pop you ads based on where you are at that moment. The message can be time sensitive (good for the next 10 minutes) or based on social network input (stop in, 10 of your friends are already here).

There’s a big change coming in mobile marketing. The dominate player may not even be on our radar yet. But regardless we have to start thinking about how our clients will figure in to the evolution.

This Is Not A Blog Post

2009-07-20T10:27:08-05:00

Ok, well maybe it is. But I have to say I am drawing great inspiration from a campaign underway in the Atlanta market for Clear, a wireless internet provider.

The first piece of marketing I came across was a series of bright green balloons tied up outside a restaurant, with the Clear logo and the message "This is not a balloon." Unfortunately for the wireless company, this was the same day that Clear, the airport service for frequent travelers went under.

Despite the poor timing the guys at Clear have made a powerful entrance into the Atlanta market, not by talking bits and baud, or even speed. Rather they are making people rethink their world with a seemingly non-stop supply of message that recast park benches, restaurants, and even busses. ("This is not a bus. It is another place to watch streaming video.")

Each of the pieces is clean and simple. There's the setup line, one sentence to pay it off and the logo. No explanation of what Clear is, no pricing offer, no paragraphs of legalese. I can only imagine someone having to beat back efforts to make every piece tell the whole story.

In a nice change of pace, they use TV to do the heavy lifting, rather than just tease the consumer. The spots explain that Clear is an alternative to basic WIFI and even internet service from other cellular companies.

Here however, Clear was again snakebit. Check out their spot which features cupcakes and sprinkles to explain the service. See if it doesn't remind you of the much funnier Verizon Wireless spot using sprinkles to explain their Friends and Families service. Someone is selling a lot of sprinkles these days.

The work is apparently from a Los Angeles shop called Secret Weapon Marketing. And despite a few stumbles, beyond their control, the work is a great example of how the pieces can work together, if you plan accordingly.

Oddly, the one piece of marketing that doesn't measure up is Clear's web site. I'm willing to bet it was done in-house or by a separate firm. Because the tone is entirely different, with boring stock images and 1-2-3 process that is devoid of any excitement. Oh well, for want of a good digital strategist.

The 3-Second Lifespan Of A Web Site

2009-07-09T08:10:00-05:00

Great excerpt from the New York Times of a book called Startup 101. It talks about the intense competitive pressure on new sites trying to break through into the public mainstream. The logic is one of the most concise ways I've seen the often competing interests of usability and design put into perspective.

If you don't bother to read the rest of the excerpt, at least consider this:

Here is what an insanely great Web product looks like to the average user right now and through the next 3 years:

•30 seconds: "I get it."
•3 minutes: "I've used it and still get it, and it has not annoyed me yet."
•3 days: "I find this really useful or fun."
•3 weeks: "I am raving about this to other people."
•3 months: "I couldn't imagine not having this, and I'm boring my friends telling them about it."
•3 years: "How weird to see this on Oprah."

Of particular note are the three minutes and the three week marks. If we annoy users it is worse than never engaging them at all. And if they aren't telling their friends, then the ROI will be sharply suppressed. I'm not sure how I feel about any site I've worked on requiring three years to get on Oprah.

Then again, I don't know how I feel about Oprah doing justice to any site I've worked on.

Learning To Love The Change

2009-07-01T07:55:00-05:00

Yesterday I posted about the growing battle between Google and Facebook for the future of how you engage with the web. It's just one more example of the dynamic nature of the online world.

All to often people see the pace of change and lament that they can't keep up. Or they worry that they're missing out on something critical. And so they throw up their hands, and give up on keeping up.

Consider trying to get your head around Google Wave, a technology still in development that proposes to let users interact in real time across a multitude of sites. WTF? Even the demo leaves most people in the dark.

But start reading the coverage an you'll learn that you and your friends can interact with each other at any time, regardless what site you're on. So consider shopping for a car, where both you and friend can customize the options simultaneously. Or a creative review where parties from all over the country can add their feedback to the page, rather than watching a webex.

Lightbulbs going on?

Embracing change, and the pace of change is no longer optional for marketers, or agencies. What is happening online will dramatically all of our lives.

The role of focus groups will change dramatically, as we get more and more visibility into the daily lives of our customers.
The expectations of our customers will grow at the same time, as they create more connections with the brands they favor.

It also means that our clients will no longer have the luxury or challenge of deciding where and when to engage with social networks. They may will have outposts on the popular sites like Facebook. But even if they don't, the social networks will come to them. That means we will have to view all our projects as social networks.

Forrester goes so far as to predict that social networks will gain enough clout to demand traditional brands adapt their products to the wishes of the masses.

So what is the shell-shocked executive or agency veteran to do?

Start thinking beyond your friends list. Read status updates and news feeds on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter as if you’re sitting behind the glass of a focus group. Realize that you have insight in how dozens, or even hundreds of people are thinking.
Use every tool you can find. The era of social networks breaking through into the mainstream is over. If you’re still waiting for an engrave invitation, here it is. Play with every site that comes along. Use the ones you like, abandon the others.
Don’t get too comfy. Today’s status quo is tomorrow’s ancient history.
Be cautious, not paranoid. Certainly think about the information you are sharing and make sure you limit your exposure to invasions of privacy. But don't live in fear of hackers invading your life. Seriously, does telling people what TV shows you watch put you at risk of financial ruin?
Remember measurement. Ultimately we are about creating experiences that advance our clients’ business. It hasn’t been about clicks and page views for a long time. Look for new ways to quantify the experiences you have online. Is it an engagement metric (how often you update status)? Or should the measurement be reach (how many friends you have)? It won’t be the same for any two clients.

But most of all, enjoy. Consider the world at your fingertips today, and what's coming tomorrow. To paraphrase President Ronald Reagan -- Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Google vs. Facebook, Let The Battle Rage

2009-06-30T10:25:45-05:00

What’s your choice, people or computers? Anonymous or friends? Google or Facebook?

There is a growing awareness that the battle of the future isn’t Microsoft vs. Google. Rather it is Google vs. Facebook. And the winner will be determined in large part by how people want to organize, search and interact online.

There are two great synopses of the looming battle, Wired Magazine’s and a report by Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang. It’s worth taking the time to read them in that order. Wired does a great job of outlining Facebook’s battle plan. Owyang build a very compelling case for a Facebook victory.

If Google seems too big and too dominant to be challenged by something as whimsical as Facebook, then it’s time to think again. Consider the following:

Facebook has 200 million members, people who use their own names, real email addresses and rich profiles of varying depth. That’s one-fifth of the Internet population.
Those members spend an average of 20 minutes on the site, DAILY.

Google virtually owns the search world. But what does it know about its members. I have subscribed to almost all Google’s products, but it doesn’t know my real name. Nor does it have a clue what I like to do on weekends, or where my friends live.

There’s even a very strong privacy element in the mix. Search my name on Google and you find out whatever is publicly available. I have no say, nor is there context to what you find. Search my name on Facebook and I have to let you into my network before you learn anything. But, you will get a much richer picture of my life.

In media terms, Google can tell you what I search for, and offer text ads to capture my interest. Facebook can tell you what my interests are, and show me ads based on my lifestyle, demographics and anything else I’ve disclosed.

When I’m online considering a purchase Google can tell me how hundreds of others rate the experience of an online merchant I am considering. Facebook can let me ask hundreds of my friends if any of them have experience with a merchant, online or off line, I am considering.

That’s the key to Facebook’s battle plan, according to Wired. It breaks down the Facebook plan into four steps.

1. Build critical mass. In the eight months ending in April, Facebook has doubled in size to 200 million members, who contribute 4 billion pieces of info, 850 million photos, and 8 million videos every month. The result: a second Internet, one that includes users' most personal data and resides entirely on Facebook's servers.

2. Redefine search. Facebook thinks its members will turn to their friends—rather than Google's algorithms—to navigate the Web. It already drives an eyebrow-raising amount of traffic to outside sites, and that will only increase once Facebook Search allows users to easily explore one another's feeds.

3. Colonize the Web. Thanks to a pair of new initiatives—dubbed Facebook Connect and Open Stream—users don't have to log in to Facebook to communicate with their friends. Now they can access their network from any of 10,000 partner sites or apps, contributing even more valuable data to Facebook's servers every time they do it.

4. Sell targeted ads, everywhere. Facebook hopes to one day sell advertising across all of its partner sites and apps, not just on its own site. The company will be able to draw on the immense volume of personal data it owns to create extremely targeted messages. The challenge: not freaking out its users in the process.

Want a dose of irony? Facebook team members consider Google antiquated.

"Up until now all the advancements in technology have said information and data are the most important thing," says Dave Morin, Facebook's senior platform manager. "The most important thing to us is that there is a person sitting behind that keyboard. We think the Internet is about people."

One more thought. This isn’t just a battle for whose login and search engine you use. This is a battle that will affect how virtually every web site is developed and used.

Owyang’ research predicts that a new web standard will emerge that allows users on closed networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to talk to their friends on other networks. You see this already starting with programs like Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect.

And once you’re connected, you’ll be able to access your friends from any site, any time. Shopping for a father’s day gift? You can ask all the men on your friends list, or Twitter followers what they think. Considering a book on Amazon? Query your more literate friends to see if any of them have read it.
The experience doesn’t have to be limited to shared real-time experiences.

As you visit a site you will be able to leave behind comments that will pop up any time your friends come onto that site. No longer will you have to go to review sites, the reviews will come to your sites, and they’ll be from the people you know.

The expansion of social networks means you’ll also have a right to expect much more from the sites you visit. If you choose, pertinent details from your profile can be shared. Maybe you’re shopping for new tennis shoes, and your profile notes you’re training for a marathon. The store will need to customize on the fly to give you the most relevant choices first.

Do I care if Facebook or Google wins. Not at all. In the end I’ll get a much better, more intuitive web experience. I’ve got some ideas on how to get ready for all this.

But that’s another post.

The Long, Brief History of YouTube

2009-06-22T14:48:00-05:00

Famous last words:

"You aren't going to turn passive consumers into active trollers on the Internet." -- Stephen Weiswasser, EVP ABC News/President ABC Multimedia.

It's easy to forget that it wasn't very long ago that none of this was possible. In fact, 15 years ago many of us were either in school or blissfully ignorant of the Internet.

So it's all the more stunning to absorb what's been accomplished in so little time. This presentation to the Library of Congress last year is comprehensive (nearly an hour long). But the first few minutes are eye-opening.

Oh yeah, the same guy who blew off the importance of the Internet after a presentation at ABC News, also said it would be the "CB radio of the 90s." Today he's a lawyer at a high-dollar firm in Washington where, according to their web site, "Stephen Weiswasser provides legal and strategic assistance to companies in the rapidly changing media, telecommunications and new media industries."

Bing! The portal is back

2009-06-18T14:37:00-05:00

Microsoft has ventured into the search engine fray once again, revamping its Live Search and rebranding it Bing. With its vast resources, Microsoft is positioning Bing as a “decision engine” rather than a search engine, trying to convince users that search engines should do more than just deliver a bunch of links.

Clearly Microsoft has technology and marketing clout, but does Bing change the playing field?

Background

For the record, Bing is Microsoft’s third foray into the world of search engines. First, there was MSN search, and then came Live Search. Neither one managed to trump Yahoo! or, later on, Google. So while Microsoft may well be the 800-pound gorilla, its success is by no means certain. Then again, Microsoft has shown repeatedly that it will keep investing in key categories until it gets it right. For reference, take a look at the battle for browser supremacy, banking software and office software.

With billions invested, Microsoft is clearly hoping Bing becomes a verb just as Google has. But the site is about much more than just outdoing Google. The site itself is an attempt to reinvent the search engine experience.Users have gone from the highly organized, click-rich environment of Yahoo! to the sparse simplicity of Google in recent years. Yahoo! attempted to be everything you needed, a portal that gave you everything from search to news, music and more. In recent years, Google has added many features, all geared toward letting users customize their experiences through iGoogle and desktop widgets.

Bing appears to be navigating a path challenging both Yahoo! and Google.

At first glance, the interface is sparse like Google’s, just with a nice background image. But, in fact, the image is a map with rollovers to deliver information. This layered approach is more than just a cool touch, it represents Microsoft’s attempt to reframe search. Wherever possible, Bing wants users to satisfy their questions without leaving the site. Basic search results include a preview function for the sites returned.
The good news is that prospective visitors to our sites will have more than a sentence upon which to make their decision. The bad news, is that few sites are ready to be judged on the content Bing is pulling.

Deeper into Bing, the experience gets even more rich. Bing attempts to hold the attention of people searching the four most common categories of information: travel, health, shopping and local results.

The travel section is a full-on booking engine with results similar to Kayak.com, as well as a fare predictor. The shopping section attempts to deliver the best choice for your search, providing tools to refine your search based on the usual factors like price, but it also provides features specific to your topic. Like Yahoo!, it offers localized searches as well, which pulls information out of numerous other sites like Yelp and City Search. In many cases, this will eliminate the need for users to explore those popular sites.

Considerations

Is all of this enough to dethrone Google? Probably not. Certainly not immediately. But there are some sizeable changes afoot for search engines, and Bing represents the most aggressive effort yet. It pushes new user-centric tools to the forefront, and it reasserts the role of a search portal where users spend far more than the seven seconds it takes them to remember how to spell their search term.

Search overload. Specifically, it would appear the day of the “Results 1-10 of about 8,130,000” is nearing an end. Not that anyone ever scanned more than the first page or two of results. But now Bing attempts to cut away the chaff and even provide you tools to look at the sites before you click the link. Much of what Bing is doing for users is hidden away in the search engine, scoring and filtering results. But you can be sure that Google is not just absorbing body blows. Expect their response to be disproportional to the challenge.

Concierge service. Forrester dubs Bing’s rich results as concierge-like – not a bad description. In this arena, the battle is between Yahoo! and Bing. Yahoo! has been all about categorizing results and adding on features to keep users on their sites longer. What it hasn’t done is aggressively try to help users make a decision or push the edge with tools to help in that process. It’s telling that Forrester reports 42% of those with Yahoo! as their homepage actually use Google when it comes time to search the Web.

New Web 2.0 tactics. Bing's use of content by pulling it out of the site it’s in and incorporating it in the results will lead to re-thinking how content is structured and tagged in a web site. What text should show up on the preview? Which images do we want incorporated? Do we want all the videos incorporated into search results?We’ve considered for several years how content from a web site will be embraced by users, then played forward either in an email or embedded into a page. Now we have to add search engines to that calculus. An already complex exercise is going to require an even higher level of planning.

So much more than the web. Microsoft has been very vocal that it developed Bing to be much more than an online search tool. In the coming months, you can expect it will try to extend the brand’s footprint into emerging platforms like mobile and, when the time is right, television. Consumers will be the winners, but for those of us developing web sites, WAP sites, and marketing campaigns, we will be reminded once again what a tumultuous environment we have to accommodate.

Newspapers, you want my ad dollars? I want some changes!

2009-02-19T09:29:30-06:00

I never thought I’d actually watch the death of modern newspapers. But the bell is tolling.

Actually it’s a freight train whistle that’s been sounding for many years; it’s just getting louder with the economic Doppler Effect. And advertising is playing the role of Snidely Whiplash, tying newspapers to the tracks.

So here’s a modest plan to save daily journalism. Yes, I know Walter Issacson recently offered his plan on the cover of Time magazine. But telling people they need to pay for content is a sad and tired plea emanating from the land of desperation.It sounds an awful lot like the silliness I heard years ago about Internet users having “social contract” to engage with banner ads if we want web sites to be free. I must have missed the negotiations part where I agreed to that.

But we’re talking about newspapers, not web sites, kind of, so here’s my four point plan.

Follow the lead of Gillette and Verizon
Tell me why, not what
Get hyper local
Personalize, personalize, personalize

Lets start with a splash of reality. Advertisers would rather spend their money just about anywhere but the local newspaper. I have been at the table as millions and millions of advertising dollars are divided up. And not once, never have planners said “This is a powerful plan that really keys off local newspapers.”

So lets take a look at my harebrained idea.

Stop selling dead trees.
Papers can’t tell me how many people read today’s edition, how long they spent with it, what pages they looked at or how many people shared that copy.
Newspapers have to embrace technology at their most fundamental level, the printing press. Get rid of it. Just as Gillette and Verizon have learned to give away razors and cell phones in order to sell the razor blades or data plans, newspapers have to move beyond ink on dead trees. Newspapers have to give every reader an electronic device like the Kindle, then sell them the daily refill of content.

Currently the Kindle sells for $359. Let’s pretend newspapers are too inept to negotiate a bulk discount. If a metropolitan paper, say my old paper The Dallas Morning News, were to give away a half million that’s a $179.5 million dollar investment. Shuttering and selling off its massive presses will more than offset the investment.

Look, that phone Verizon gives you for free costs several hundred dollars. There’s a reason you sign a two-year contract in exchange. Newspapers will have to learn the same model.

Stop trying to tell me what happened.
“I can get all my news free online,” you say. True, this is why newsrooms have to invest in quality journalists, not just the cheapest trained typist they can hire from J-School. If a story can’t answer why, or what the implications are, then it is no better than the 30-second sound bite on the local TV news. Go deep and make it meaningful.

With the instant delivery capabilities given to subscribers via our free reader, newspapers have to define their place in the food chain. Don’t fight to be the bottom feeder. Let TV stations, their websites and blogs break the news.

Stories that take a step back from the insanity and provide depth and perspective have a much longer shelf life.

Get local, really local.
Define whatever your circulation target is, then saturate it with coverage. Use your reporters to cover the most important things, but then open the doors for anyone to contribute coverage of news in their neighborhood.

The difference between a blog and my newspaper are the standards of journalism. But that doesn’t mean you have to be a trained journalist to report back on the park board meeting.

Encourage bloggers to submit their stories, offer micro payments based on readership. But then subject those pieces to editing and fact checking. In the process you’ll elevate the craft of citizen journalism.

Give me what I want, whatever it is.
You have put a powerful device in my hands. Use your expertise in editing to make it exactly what I want. I love hockey, but could care less about basketball. My sports section is ordered accordingly.

Ask me what neighborhood I live in and you can prioritize coverage. If I tell you want street I live on you can focus coverage like a laser beam.

Let’s say I want to know whats happening in my former hometowns of Peoria, Knoxville and Pittsburgh. For a nominal fee you’ll be happy to add syndicated feeds from those publications.

And if you do all that, publishers you now have a priority place at the table with advertisers. If a national advertiser wants run of press, you’ll be happy to accept their money for a fixed number of exposures, and not a single exposure more.

If the cleaners down the street wants to advertise, you’ll be able to define street by street which readers will get that ad. Of course that precision will cost more.

And then there’s the Valhalla of advertising. If you get me to share what I am shopping for, well you get the idea.

Publishers you can scoff if you want. But all of this is going to happen, you can lead the way or watch it all from the empty corridors of your failed empires.

Louis Vuitton's bag of stupidity

2008-05-05T17:11:31-05:00

[by Todd] Seriously, there are some folks at Louis Vuitton that need to be unemployed.

Last fall Danish artist Nadia Plesner started selling the t-shirt shown here on her site to raise money for victims of genocide in Darfur. She calls it a Simple Living t-shirt. And offers this explanation:
My illustration Simple Living is an idea inspired by the medias constant cover of completely meaningless things. My thought was: Since doing nothing but wearing designer bags and small ugly dogs apparently is enough to get you on a magazine cover, maybe it is worth a try for people who actually deserves and needs attention.
Perhaps not the most pointed of commentaries, but the shirt makes a nice statement about pop culture and desperation of Darfur's victims. The shirt existed in relative obscurity for five months, that is until the folks at Louis Vuitton got stupid.

In February, the Intellectual Property Director decided this was the perfect time to flex some muscle and throw down a cease and desist letter, complete with patronizing comments. (Here's a PDF of the letter.)
“Although we applaud your efforts to raise awareness and funds to help Darfur, a most worthy cause, we cannot help noticing that the design of the Simple Living Products includes the reproduction of a bag infringing on Louis Vuitton’s Intellectual Property Rights, in particular the Louis Vuitton Monogram Multicolore Trademark to which it is confusingly similar. We are surprised of such a promotion of a counterfeit bag.”

“As an artist yourself, we hope that you regognize the need to respect other artists’ rights and Louis Vuitton’s Intellectual Property Rights which include the Louis Vuitton Monogram Multicolore trademark.”
What pray tell could have possibly led anyone, with any modicum of authority, to think this was a good idea? How did they think for one moment that sending a threat would play out well for them? To her credit, the artist wrote back and tried to give them a graceful way out, pointing out that the bag was a generic reference to all such accessories. (Here's her response.)
"However, I must inform You, that the bag in my drawing is inspired by - and refers to - designers bags in general – not a Louis Vuitton bag. If you take a closer look, you will also notice, that the pattern in my drawing is not the pattern which is used in the design of a Loius Vuitton bag. The name Louis Vuitton is in no way mentioned or referred to, neither in my drawing, nor in the campaign as such.”
Correction, the company's name wasn't mentioned, until now. To add insult to stupidity the designer brand, which has invested millions to cultivate its image, is pissing it away by now filing suit against the artist. Go ahead and set a Google News filter on this one, and watch for it on the network morning shows.

And of course the letters and lawsuit have helped the artist's cause. I asked her by email if sales were up. I got a response in 20 minutes.
Yes, all the writing about the story has definitely helped the sales! My lawyer has advised me not to give any numbers just yet, but as soon as I can, I will let you know.
Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised to see the design licensed and on sale in a civic-minded shop near you soon. Which means others will follow suit, and soon Louis Vuitton will need a pad of C&D letters to keep up with demand.

Now that's brand stewardship.

It seemed like such a good idea

2008-05-01T06:55:00-05:00

[by Todd] Sure social networking is a big, powerful idea. But sometimes it's worth thinking about just how odd these new concepts are, especially if taken out of context.
Tell me again how all 711 of those people are really your friends.

The real lack of diversity that's killing advertising

2008-04-29T20:40:41-05:00

[by Todd] Time for some exercise. Pick a client's issue you're trying to crack. Got it? Now, stand up, walk around whatever passes for an office where you work and talk to four people about it. Come on back when you're done, I'll wait.

Back already? Of the four people you talked to how many have professional experience outside the advertising or marketing industry? If your answer is two or more then I'll bet you work for an interactive agency.

Less than that, my money says you work for a brand agency. And further more, I'll hazard a guess your company is scared witless about the future.

Advertising has become an incestuous industry that crafts young talent in the image of old hands and mines for talent in the competitor's break room. The result is that agencies lack the diversity of experiences to tackle the challenges they face today.

Yet clients keep throwing challenges on the table and ask advertising agencies to think differently about the solutions. Of course they come back with subtle variations of the tried and true, that's what the collective braintrust knows. Over at Forrester, Mary Beth Kemp (my new favorite source of thought starters) calls it The Conflict of Interest of Change.
Hence the conflict of interest. The challenge to agencies is assuring current operations while building the future. Or, perhaps in some cases, just getting the most out of current operations.
This isn't a conflict of interest, it's a systematic inbred lack of situational awareness. The people who need to lead the change have no point of reference, no varied experiences, no diversity of background.

Just over a decade ago I was cranking out stories about cops, crime and national disasters to hit three deadlines daily for The Dallas Morning News. The guy sitting next to me wore a flight suit in the Marine Corps before considering the exciting world of account service. Our ECD used to work in television production. And the rest of the team is just as random. (The eastern european heavy metal singer probably sets the grading curve.)

So what? When we sit down to ponder a business challenge there is a massive range of experiences at the table. Each of us comes at problem from not just a different approach, but an entirely different direction. And the resulting discussion isn't just splitting hairs.

To be fair, interactive agencies have an unfair advantage. We're new.

All of us came from some other industry, even those who jumped over from advertising agencies. We came here by reinventing ourselves. There was no defined career path that said your next step is to leave behind what you know and jump into a new industry.

But I worry our industry is working hard to give up that huge advantage. Think about the slots you have open today. If someone applied for a mid- or senior-level position and didn't have any interactive experience would you even give them an interview? If not you're killing us.

The interactive business has grown explosively because we made it up as we went, trying stuff because no one knew better. What we DID know was that there HAD to be a better way to do business. If we don't fight like hell to keep that edge then a few decades from now an upstart industry will bemoan our inability to recognize the need for change.

Media is messing it up, all over again

2008-04-25T09:43:50-05:00

[by Todd] Here we go, again.

Media agencies have decided they need to be in the content collection business. Witness Mindshare's fragmentation into four units, one of which will "invent content" for benefit of their clients. And with it we see yet again the agency world skipping merrily down the roads of foolishness traveled so many times before.

There isn't much I remember from my college course, and even less from those on advertising. But, if memory serves, here's the history of advertising agencies in a nutshell.

Agencies created to buy ads in newspapers for clients.

Started units to create ads, that it could then place in newspapers.

Created radio shows, where actors read the ads that people were no longer reading in newspapers.

Created TV shows, to place ads that were no longer performing in radio or newspapers.

Break free from the ad agencies they'd created, because not everyone wanted to pay big bucks to make ads that media units could then place in newspapers, radio or television.

Spun off interactive media groups, because buying ads online wasn't as clean and easy as buying ads in newspapers, radio and television.

Realized they'd made a mistake and are now trying to become all things to all people, again.

I may be missing some interim steps, but then again AdPrin was at 8:40 in the morning, and many days that just seemed to be an unreasonable hour to be awake. (God, I miss college.)

At every turn agencies first try to take on responsibility for creating something, then they ultimately spin off that discipline. That's because creating content, albeit ads, shows or events, is fundamentally different from buying and measuring the impact of spending the client's money. If you need any validation for that just compared notes of what a creative director thinks is cool versus a media director.

So now Mindshare has Déjà vu all over again and will start cranking out content for benefit of their clients. The announcement came just in time for a report from Forrester, Content Consumers Want. But the news for Mindshare isn't good. It isn't enough to know which consumers your brand wants to connect with, you have to understand what content people are willing to accept from your brand.

Over on one of the Forrester blogs Mary Beth Kemp makes the point like this:
Content is just an excuse to interact and build a relationship with consumers. If the content is not connected with deep consumer intelligence and individualized data, media agencies are missing half the opportunity.
Is it just me, or does that sound like the job of account planners, analytic teams and strategists. How many of those have you seen sitting among the media planners?

But this isn't just a folly of media units. It is another symptom of the demise of brand agencies. Wake up idiots. Your own media partners, formerly your in-house colleagues, think you're too dumb/slow/indifferent to learn new tactics. While you continue to have dozens of creatives concepting bigger and more more expensive commercials, clients are looking for nimble, more efficient and measurable ideas.

So here we go again. Take note of the date, because five to seven years from now all these "invention" groups, as Mindshare will call it's effort, will be spun off into new agencies. And 40 years from now we'll go through the exercise all over again.

This just in... Who cares?

2008-04-23T14:41:52-05:00

[by Todd] Can someone tell me, in 30 minutes or less, why I should care at all about Twitter? Seriously, I'd love to figure this out. According to Leigh companies need to have their ear to Twitter in order to get the first glimpse of brand nightmares headed their way.

But, try as I might, I fail to see Twitter as anything more than a curiosity among a precious few nerds.

Hang on. Let me back up my rant and try this again.

Leigh is right, every company on the face of the planet should have a plan for responding to consumer outcry. And no plan should be complete without incorporating listening to and responding in the UGC world. But deciding just when and how to respond is the truly tricky part.

Way back in News 105 (a.k.a learning how to write a news story) we were told that key elements of newsworthiness were timeliness, proximity and impact. So that two-car crash that tied up rush hour traffic for you is a big story at home, but not likely to matter much to people a couple hundred miles away.

Of course all this was long before anyone created a blog, or "twittered" (damn, that just sounds wrong). Suddenly geography isn't the easy calculation it once was. And timeliness has been sliced down to nano seconds compared to what it once was. But impact, that remains the gold standard. Which brings me back to my rant.

Companies need to keep a keen focus on asking "Who cares?" whenever an issue pops up on the radar. If person X, blogging on a site with five links raises an issue, then I care a lot less than if it is on a site frequently cited on 100s of other sites.

Double ditto with Twitter. Yes, I want to know what's being said. But I can't imagine ever pulling a play book off the shelf and initiating a disaster response program based on a Twitter. All too often it's just a handful of like-minded technophiles whispering among themselves.

The critical skill required is an ability to understand what makes news. Shame on any public relations agency or brand agency that isn't studying daily how stories move between the user generated world and mainstream media. But never let three executives talking among themselves about something they found on Twitter trigger a full-scale response.

So I would add the following to Leigh's game plan. Call on professionals. Either keep a public relations firm on retainer, or have one in your Rolodex. Then, when you hear a whisper on Twitter, or see your brand on Technorati, call on a pro and ask them to help evaluate the risk.

After all, there's nothing worse than a company taking a spark of unrest and pouring fuel on it to create a full-blown conflagration.