Jaffe Juice

I hate to say "I told you so" ...

...but I told you so.

Stunning tumble for NBC's 'The Office' Tuesday
Tuesday night’s episode of the new NBC comedy "The Office" managed just a 2.7 rating among 18-49s, slipping 10 percent from already weak lead-in “Scrubs,” which posted just a 3.0. “Office” also slipped 10 percent versus the 3.0 “Committed” had averaged in that exact timeslot, and was down 46 percent versus last week’s premiere episode. It averaged a mere 5.9 million total viewers.

Play ball!

MLB Advanced Media, the new media division of Major League Baseball, said on Wednesday that it has now sold over 10 million tickets online for the 2005 season, up from the 4.6 million tickets it has sold by this time last year.

It's an interesting proxy...certainly for the skeptics that think growth (adoption) of the Web might be slowing down, activity on the Web is doing anything but.

Another "twist" in the Pepsi story...

Not really a twist, but just some non-scientific speculation.

First of all, Chairman-CEO of PepsiCo Beverages and Foods North America, Gary Rodkin has resigned (insert cough here) and has been replaced by Dawn Hudson + John Compton. Dawn and John are rockstars and represent the "next generation" (punny) of new marketing thinkers and visionaries.

To me, this isn't a coincidence and we need only go back to the announcement earlier this month that Pepsi had gone on a celebrity and TV-free diet to connect the dots. Bottom line is that change is hard and along the way, there will be casualties....inevitable resistence will result in obliteration.

Straight from the Ministery of Silly names and ideas...

"Euclid of Alexandria (born 325 BC; died 265 BC) is the most prominent mathematician of antiquity best known for his treatise on mathematics The Elements."

At no point in his career did he work in an Advertising Agency, nor did he assume the title of "Creative Director."

I have to say that I always get nervous when anything is done to the already precarious state of creativity...to make it less art and more science, so when I heard mOne had come up with something called mEuclid, which essentially optimizes creative rotation/weighting etc. in order to boost response rates, I was (and still am) a little nervous.

Does G.M. stand for Generic Motors?

"How Can General Motors Remake Itself?" asks Stuart Elliot from the New York Times today. I'm glad he asked (me)...my response, caveated by Stuart's warning that free advice is sometimes worth what it cost:

The most important step General Motors can take is "to reverse-engineer its marketing strategy," said Joseph Jaffe, president of Jaffe, a new-marketing consulting company in Westport, Conn., "from a top-down approach to a bottom-up approach."

"General Motors has forgotten who drives its cars," he added. "It all starts with one consumer, and you build from there."

To accomplish that, G.M. must accelerate a shift from its traditional "mass-market, one-size-fits-all approach," Mr. Jaffe said, as epitomized by broad-based television commercials and print advertisements, and more ardently embrace unconventional tactics. Among them, he listed producing video games that double as advertising; running ads in video games; inviting consumers to create their own ads, on Web sites; and making use of branded entertainment, embedding ads in television programs and movies.

...what are your thoughts?

Here ebay, gone tomorrow...

So eBay fired its agency Goodby, Silverstein and Partners (only one of the THE most creative agencies in the modern era of advertising) - Jeff Goodby, Rich Silverstein legends (I've never met Partners, but I hear she's silent, but violent)

So many red flags on this that it looks like an invariable minefield. According to eBay spokeperson, Chris Donlay, "our policy is not to comment on vendor relations." - after 6 years and millions of dollars later, you think of your agency as a vendor? Don't you think that's part of the problem???

Second flag is the reliance on the 30-second spot/mass marketing. I don't care how creative you are, it's just not possible to capture the essence of eBay - logical, rational, emotional, animal, vegetable or mineral in 30-seconds.

Newsflash: Boobs and Super Bowl don't mix

Despite the buxom breasted antics of a hardly controversial Super Bowl commercial that seemed to declare GoDaddy the winner of the 2005 Yawnfest (by default), it appears that relevance and utility trump entertainment...or put differently, persuasion and intent win over pure awareness.

GoDaddy will not be extending their contract with the Ad Store, and lo and behold are opting for a more direct approach instead. Even more surprising is the fact CEO, Bob Parsons, did not report this on his blog...although he did mention that GoDaddy has its own radio show (starting 3/30) on Sirius and XM.

The 2-minute quickie...a.k.a. premature media consumption

After a 2-episode test, the "Two Minute Television Network" will produce a full series of 26 episodes of their 2 minute reality series, Genius on a Shoestring (release is below)

It would appear that what I call M.D.D. (media deficit disorder) is indeeed a reality - pun not intended.

Two Minute Television Network's first series airs on nearly 200 TV outlets, 114 major websites and one cellphone network.

The future of the 30-second spot (and other popular oxymorons)

The times, they are a changin'. This past weekend's front page of the New York Times Business section carried a lead piece titled, "The Future of the 30-second spot"

The article referenced companies such as Navic, Invidi,Visible World and Open TV; the promise of "addressable advertising" and the inevitable challenges - headed up by privacy, but also including question marks surrounding the willingness of consumers to interact (at all)

Moonvessing the Audience...

At last week's ANA TV Conference, I must admit that I was relishing hearing the might Les speak. Now that I have heard him, I'm not sure whether to say I was pleased or disappointed.

I suppose that part of the experience is to revel in who he is, rather than what he says. He is a powerful man and he controls a boatload of media. That being said, I couldn't help but wonder who controls his strings....his responses revealed no more than a seasoned and somewhat grizzled sales veteran.