Jaffe Juice

Infinity lives up to its name - endless clutter and endless crap

Open up this week's Ad Age (and no doubt every major trade pub) and you'll find wall to wall Infinity Broadcasting advertising - I counted 22 pages of roadblock advertising. 22 pages of "we're new" and "we're cool" and "there is life after Howard Stern" and "we're free, which is better than paid" and "a magician, washed up singer, perverted talk show host" et al means we're new, we've changed, we're better and we're going to win.

NO IT DOESN'T.

Your inferiority complex is so acute, you've had to litter an entire publication to convince yourselves (because you're not convincing us) that things are going to be ok. When the walls are crumbling and threatening to tumble down, you call in a new painter...instead of levelling the whole damn antiquated format and starting from scratch. This is just like GAP...celebrity doesn't work, call in a new one. Or in the case of Howard Stern's defection, change the lineup instead of changing yourselves.

FREE does not trump PAID, when the quality of PAID > the quality of FREE (just look towards HBO, you bunch of ninnies)

Start by reducing your 8-10 minute pods of irrelevent, untargeted and 100% pure drivel and work your way from there.

Where in this plethora of messaging was any sign that Infinity has changed for the better? The one call to a website or the invitation to join CEO, Joel Hollander on November 2nd, 12 noon EST for a webcast? GIVE ME A BREAK - appointment viewing is so yesterday...and while we're at it, if you're trying to swing for the fences with FREE FM, you've lost that one as well...it's called PODCASTING and it's way ahead of where you'll ever be.

This is just downright sad. Your 22 pages should have been about change....evolution and even revolution....not the triumphant return of David Lee Roth (???)

PS The whole bit about the censorship doesn't work either. You might think laughing at yourself is cool, but nobody else does, when you look like a bigger fool doing it.

PPS The Infinity website is a disgrace. The integration with the trade campaign is negligible. There is no clear link to the webcast invitation. The podcasting offering is a token olive branch at best.

ATS Episode 8 - Citizen Marketing in the house

A nonlinear conversation this week.

(length - 39:47; ( Download the mp3 )

Introduction/Podbits (00:18)
* Feedback from Brenda saying we nearly lost her
* How should we balance the banter with the real content
* Andrew Denny's feedback - which arrived on of all things, paper! Way to go Andrew!
* Other comments

What We're Blogging About and Winners/Losers  (10:17)
* Hart and Larson's Neil French stunt (Jaffe) - loser
* Minding the Conversation Gap (Steve)
* Steve: Rosa Parks (winner), David Lee Roth (loser)
* Scott Donaton - winner - for responding to Jaffe's Challenge (but the story is not finished yet!)

The branding trackback

Theme of the Week: Citizen Marketing (27:45)

Significant Mentions: Jason Calacanis, Andy Cooper, Merlin Mann's weekly review podcast, Martha Stewart's book, Seth Godin, Scott Donaton's comments, Howard Stern, Sirius, Steve Gillmor, Podshow, CNBC, Hacking Netflix, Jackie Huba/Ben McConnell, Jeff Jarvis, George Masters, Jaffe's Nike Ad, Steve Hall, Tom Hespos' post, Tracking Trader Joes, JetBlue, Vespa blogs.

Sad Sad Forbes

Mighty Mouse sounds off on CNBC last night and on his blog against the ridiculous cover story in Forbes titled, "Attack of the blogs" (extra points from Rubel for providing the bugmenot user name and password of "forbesdontbug" to bypass the registration procedure)

In this "cover" story, Daniel Lyons refers to bloggers/the blogosphere as "the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective." He also creates his own conspiracy theory by targeting Yahoo! and Google in this underground operation:

Their potent allies in this pursuit include Google and Yahoo...

The only viable conspiracy story here is the Mainstream Media's attack on an idea whose time has come. The attack on the blogosphere is an attack on consumers. It is a stunning example of the desperation of the old guard that is feeling so persecuted and paranoid, that they're now abusing their mouthpiece and platform to resort to childish and immature statements like, you're ugly and your mother dresses you funny.

This at a time of unprecendeted magazine circulation scandals and acknowledgement from the very top of the media food chain - from Murdoch to Sorrell - that times, they are a changin'.

Daniel - you blew it big time...and so did your magazine. The blogosphere is out for blood and you're looking like fresh meat right now. Oops, did I just reveal myself as a one of the vindictive, lie, libel and invective (don't even know what that means) spewing mobsters you so painfully described? Shucks, gawsh, (blush) silly ole me...

Chicken Little - starring Sir Martin Sorrell

Reuters article cites some pithy comments from WPP's Chief of Chiefs, Sir Martin Sorrell, on the rise of the Web and the demise of so-called traditional.

"There are major changes and we don't understand the speed and scale at which they're taking place."

I respectfully disagree with this statement. There really are quite a few people who do know the speed and scale at which they're taking place. Just read a few blogs or listen to a few podcasts to wet your appetite...

"I think there's a certain amount of panic among media owners. Most of these companies, ours included I suppose, are run by 50- or 60-year-olds who have trouble getting it, and who really don't want to see change on their watch."

While I appreciate the sentiment (and to my knowledge, this is a pretty damning indictment from someone so high on the totem pole), I'm a little concerned as to what this says about WPP (or any of their competitors, counterparts, clients or partners for that matter) If there is any bit of truth to this - and I think we all know there is - what does this say about the process? Are clients/shareholder best interests taking a back seat to job security and ego?

More specifically, what exactly should the companies Sorrell cites do about it? It's not good enough to acknowledge it; if these "media owners" and the like refuse to change...they need to be changed. Period.

"Rupert Murdoch, who I admire more than any other media executive ... has been willing to make (Internet) acquisitions almost willy-nilly"

Points for anyone in a reasonably senior position who can use the phrase willy-nilly in a sentance. But seriously, it's a little strange for a holding company to remark on a media company when it comes to acquisitions. Obviously there are concerns about valuations and validity, as well as deja vu all over again ala dot bombfest.

Time will tell whether Murdoch is worthy of Sorrell's praise or the new incarnation of The Brain

In the interim, Sir Martin...give the book I sent you a read and if you didn't get it or your Exec Assistant tossed it in fear of you having a panic attack, drop me a note and I'll send you another.

Rubel got it slightly wrong...

My ATS co-host, Steve Rubel, found a newspaper headline titled, "Pod casts aside Astros," which referenced Scott Podsednik's game-winning home run in Game 2 of the World Series. His post was titled, "Astros succumb to podcasters"

I doctored the headline to read, "podcasts aside Astros" to indicate that podcasts were a part of the whole consumption experience: case in point, this morning...my MLB Podcast was ready and waiting for me, with highlights/interviews from the winning players.

Although podcasting (Radio TiVo) is completely time-agnostic and on-demand, I was very impressed that the podcasters behind MLB's daily show had capitalized on this moment and had recorded a special show which was special, relevant and a bonus to me and my morning commute into the city.

Kudos to the guys over at MLB (Vinny Micucci in particular...considering the game ended around 12.15am EST and the interviews obviously were recorded in the hour or so that followed, it was a late night or early morning recording.) and of course, congrats to everyone in Chicago for reversing your curse. Go Cubs in 2006 (and beyond!)

30-second spot Invaders

Have you played the new game that's taking the nation by storm? It's called Ad Invaders (also known as 30-second spot Invaders) and is modelled on the classic arcade game, Space Invaders.

It's so cool. All you need are the thumbs up and down buttons on your TiVo remote.

Why fast forward or skip ads, when you can obliterate them from existence and prevent them from ever coming back to torment you. It's awesome. No more insulting creative, hyperbole or exaggeration. No more corny jokes. Banish bad ads forever and see if you can set a record or outscore your neighbor.

There are so many to choose from. You'll never be found search for new bad ads to choose from as they're practically lined up, waiting to get a crack at evading your defences and hopefully be deemed to be keepers (two-thumbs up)

And coming soon...branded entertainment invaders, where you can do the same to ads hiding in content...but be warned, some of those placements are pretty sneaky indeed.

PS Current record is held by Jonathan Adelstein who goes by the handle, FCC.

This is obviously not real...but it could be one day. Here's another look at a similar scenario.

Hart+Larsson - the agency of the past

Hart + Larsson - say it 1,000 times over; commit it to memory and then file it away under "agencies to NEVER do business with. EVER"

I invite you to go to their website where they have posted a recruitment ad where "only Neil French need apply"...let their counter ring off the charts. Demonstrate to them the power of viral marketing - except this time, working against them. Send them an e-mail to womendocrap@hartlarsson.com and tell them what a bunch of morons they are.

How absolutely ironic that this post immediately follows the tribute to Rosa Parks.

Sad. Hopeless. Clueless.

I'm done.

Rosa Parks: 1913 - 2005: A tribute via the blogosphere

This is one of those few times where the more things change (technology), the more they stay the same (humanity)

A cool idea for the Movie Biz

Here's a cool idea I came up with today, following a question about the importance of consumer reviews.

Many movie studios struggle to break away from the tried and tested/traditional media outlets. For example the full page or spread in the newspaper. In some cases, its a contractual committment and in others, it's a political hotbed.

So along the lines of using traditional mediums in surprising and unexpected/non-traditional ways, how about populating an upcoming page/spread with consumer reviews - real reviews from real people - who would be identified as such.

Perhaps tie-in with moviefone to assign the overal communal rating as well.

ROI/Branding Trackback

Just gave my "Branding Online: The Art and the Science - Part 2" presentation to a great crowd in Atlanta (thanks to Advertising.com for supporting this for the second year running)

In my presentation, I spoke about needing a Net Present Value for ROI (in other words the means to evaluate and quantify the long term effects of branding) and then it struck me....we can learn a lesson from blogs, can we not. What we need is a "branding trackback" mechanism.

It's so easy to implement and it would be really valuable to get a deeper understanding and insight into "deferred conversion" or whatever you'd like to call it.