Jaffe Juice

Really interesting story about two corporations' takes/positions on keeping a free wi-fi service up and running in the New Orleans region. Following Hurrican Katrina, the govt/emergency wi-fi service was opened up as a free wi-fi service to individuals/companies who badly needed the connectivity.

Now BellSouth is in the eye of the storm from the perspective of trying down to shut down this service. They claim they've taken no such position.

Earthlink on the other hand, is taking a White Knight position in terms of trying to keep this up and running.

Via Digg (my first Digg submission)

I was recently interviewed on a piece about the KFC "hidden message" ad, which ABC so kindly nixed.

The interesting angle is that it was by Nation's Restaurant News (NRN) - a trade pub serving the QSR/Food Retail industry, which takes the dialogue from the marketing talking heads to the actual vertical rockface.

Also...any piece that interviews both myself and American Copywriter's John January can only be good, right?

Haven't really posted a lot on gaming lately...shame on me.

Considering I am here in Vegas for a Dunkin Brands (Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins) Convention, thought I would post about one of their first forays into the gaming space with Office Invaders.

Invoking a retro shout out to the Space Invaders era, the fairly addictive game isn't afraid to do a little bit of selling....which these days brands seem to be scared of doing with their online work (from Subservient Chicken onwards...branding is subtle or even...subservient) The idea is simple...Baskin Robbins' Cappuccino Blast give you an edge or boost in the workplace. Some might call that strategic.

The game launched on March 6th and to date has had over 400,000 plays. 400,001 including me.

And it also does a great job of reminding me why I have stayed out of the corporate world for as long as I have. "People are our most important asset." Riiiiiiiight.

Tom Hespos from Underscore Marketing (and a previous host of ATS) had these fine and kind words to say about podcasting and Across the Sound respectively in his Online Spin article.

Also, here are some thoughts from Tom from the OMMA conference in Hollywood. Interesting how at an Online media marketing and advertising event, he is picking up such a strange or perhaps disingenuous disconnect with respect to social media. Perhaps it's just the nature of the beast...and the inevitable return to greed, cluelessness, arrogance and opportunism.

Tom - for what it's worth - I can't tell you how often the same thing happens to me (i.e. the credit stealing or the epiphanies that occur some 3 years later) I just smile and ignore it now. It's all part of the deal.

...and judging by the readers of Jaffe Juice, I'm a friggen stud and genius

Join the Jaffe Juice community now!

Another CGC gem my friends...this is all genuine footage with a little post production thrown in for brand effect. Wrigley's are you listening?

This is sweet. It's the McNuggets' (w)rap and it's worth passing along...it was created without any hint of the grubby paws of advertising and I think it proves that authentic CGC is organic and cannot be controlled, incented, prodded or manipulated.

Now the million dollar question is what McDonalds does with this....Buehler, Buehler, Buehler?

Aaaargh....get this tune out of my head!

OK, finally got some time 33,993 feet in the air en route to Vegas to share with you my notes from the first half of the ANA TV Forum. I had to duck after lunch for a taping at CBS on Viral Videos (which if you think about it, is sublime)

My topline post is here and the rest of my notes are in the extended post including: Bob Liodice, TV Panel, co-chair commentary, Ian Beavis and Interactive Poll Questions...

Join the Jaffe Juice community by adding yourselves to my Frappr Map (www.frappr.com/jaffejuice)

I'll throw in a Starbucks gift card for $20 or a copy of Life after the 30-second spot to a random registered reader. Think of the Frapprccino's you'll be able to buy as you read my book.

Mediaweek article puts 36 million users watching video on their mobile phones by 2009 (eMarketer), however only 10 million will be paying for premium video. (This compares to 2006 figures of 3 million and 300-400K respectively)

Using my abacus, I deduce that 26 million humans will therefore be sold laundry detergent, feminine hygiene products and Detroit-manufactured automobiles in order to access that video.

It's part 1 of a 2-part ATS 3-way! Episode 25 of Across the Sound featuring an interview with Church of the Customer's Jackie Huba and Nielsen-Buzzmetrics' and consumergeneratedmedia's Pete Blackshaw.

Part 2 will follow in ATS #26 next week.

Subscribe on iTunes here.

Limited show notes below:

OK, so I finally did it...and set up my Frappr maps for Jaffe Juice and Across the Sound.

In my defense, I was blogging, podcasting, writing, speaking, flying, commuting and playing my PSP at the time.

I would love for you to add yourselves to my Jaffe Juice and ATS communities. I'm really excited to see where in the world you are and learn a little bit more about you.

Here's the Virgin map for Jaffe Juice (and ATS link is here)

Found out recently that iTunes now ranks podcasts by popularity and looked up Across the Sound, which I'm proud to say is the 15th most popular business/marketing podcast. What makes this even more special is the fact that when you take out/discount the MSM publishers like TIME or Ad Age, the corporate ones like Delloite and the less targeted (poorly categrorized) ones like 30 minutes of personal finance, ATS is well within the top 5.

I am also humbled and privileged to have 7x 5-star reviews on iTunes.

In addition, a great article from The Diffusion Group sheds new light on Podcasting, with the following insight:

According to a recent consumer survey conducted by Bridge Data, the relevance of portability to podcast usage has been vastly overstated. In fact, more 80% of podcast downloads never make it to a portable player or another device - they are consumed on the PC

The gist of the article relates to the very definition and meaning of the word, Podcasting as in iPod as in portable device and wonders whether we need perhaps to recast the word based on listening habits.

My takeaway is that the current numbers of listenership could very well be understated by a factor of 4-5x based on the ala carte downloaders versus RSS subscribers (which is the metric currently being used...at least by myself). And that's really what it comes down to: on one hand the innovator/early adopter, more tech-savvy audience (using RSS/iPods/iTunes etc) and on the other hand the rest of the world (using their PC's)

I can tell you anecdotally that the number of people I bump into periodically who listen to ATS is way too high to be only representative of the subset of subscribers as indicated in the Feedburner stats. Given the global representation as a proxy or percentage of total listeners, I can only imagine that the number is way higher...

Hat tips to MicroPersuasion

Still trying to get my fangs (or is it fans) around this, but bottom line is a pretty unique promotion for NewLine Cinema's "Snakes on a Plane", using Tagworld Community and the opportunity for an artist to have their music featured in the actual movie.

It's all pretty simple really...which is why it's so brilliant.

A few piques of nuggets for you today:

1) Stink Kong: Download-to-own movies, starting at $35. Please tell me this an April Fool's joke. Why is it that companies get so greedy when it comes to using online as a distribution channel? (Thanks, JK)

2) Consumers are spending more time with media, but have less patience for ads. That's the headline from a newly released media engagement study from OMD. It underscores the need for us to be very clear about (and even separate) content from commercials. The two are not one and the same and indeed, are oil and water.

3) Office online is not a joint venture between NBC and MSN, but perhaps it should be. Right now, the series - The Office - is enjoying a new lease on life on iTunes, which is both a blessing and a curse for NBC. How so? Hint: 30-second spot.

After a busy week in NYC x 2, Chicago and DC (and incredibly beaten up and under the weather), I'm back in Westport and ready to have one normal day in the office before I head on the road for 2 1/2 solid weeks.

I'll be in Vegas next week (Monday thru Wednesday) at a client engagement and also the Interactive Promotion Summit. Do drop me an e-mail if you're in Vegas and would like to meet. Remember...what happens in Vegas, gets published on my blog :)

Also...a webcast of my talk at the Kaiser Foundation's Re-powering the Public Interest: New Media and the Future of Public Service Advertising in DC is here if you'd like to watch me in action.

I spoke at FIT tonight and thanks to all who turned out to hear me.

In particular, I want to shout out to Thomas in Denmark, who is a regular reader of Jaffe Juice and a listener of Across the Sound.

How cool is this...Thomas (in Denmark) hear/sees that I'll be speaking at FIT and he Skypes a friend of his in NYC and tells her to come and hear me, which she did.

The power of our community is so much stronger than we think and it's moments like these that make it so worthwhile.

So I’m here at the ANA TV Conference and so far, I’ve been on my best behavior and avoided any (cough) bullshit (cough) heckles.

I’m the only blogger here btw

I had hoped to blog live, but unfortunately I couldn’t get a $%^%$#@ wireless connection in the room (some things never change), so now I’ve uploaded from a glorious T-Mobile wi-fi connection in Starbucks.

Last year’s mood/atmosphere was electric (Julie Roehm played a pretty big part in it with her challenging remarks on moving the Upfront to a Stock Market based methodology)

This year, I have to admit that it’s all a little surreal. The best word I would use to describe today is numb. There’s a numbness in the room…shock perhaps. It’s almost as if people have – en masse – come to terms that a new day has dawned.

Think about the movie, “The Perfect Storm,” where the characters have all come to terms with their imminent demise and euphemistically joke around and ignore what is yet to come….OK, perhaps that’s a little overly dramatic (just a tad), but I do think the mood is similar, if perhaps the tidal wave that is on the horizon may not be as “Oh Lord, you are so huge”

People seem to be – unconvincingly I might add – doggedly and stubbornly singing the praises of the 30-second spot and TV advertising in general; throwing out a lot of rhetoric as in “it’s not going away” and “it’s still the most important” etc

Ad Age just reported on the conference and I was a little surprised by their headline, Marketers lose confidence in TV Advertising, which draws from the Forrester research (see below)

Every year, I seem to pick up a new big idea. In 2004, it was the DVR; in 2005 it was the Web; In 2006 it seems to be (I’ll use the American Express term, rolling video stock.

Let me explain….I call it (and have referred to it before as) interconsumptability i.e. interoperability for media consumption. What we’re seeing here is a broad-based awakening that content is content; and what we are witnessing is the explosion of that content across a multitude of delivery vehicles and distribution platforms (iPod, VOD, Web, PSP etc)

On the back page of the New York Times for example, is an ad for ABC News demonstrating its availability across an unprecedented variety of platforms (tangent – TV advertising in Newspaper; perhaps the NAA campaign is working better than we thought)

Now that said, I do believe there is still a monstrous elephant in the room…people talk about TV, but are they talking about content or commercials? It is the former. No one disputes the power of TV (or rolling video stock), although arguably the quality of content has declined, along with fragmented viewership and therefore less ad dollars to support overpaid celebrities. Indeed, considering the average American household is exposed now to 96.4 channels (2005 data), there is more content than every before – targeted, precise and self-selected content.

As my friend, Kia’s Ian Beavis said in his unusually tame address (for him), stop bragging about increased rates in light of decreased viewership, because it brings the CFO into the room and you don’t want the CFO in the room.

I’ll blog (using extended posts) some of the morning panels/presentations in more detail shortly. Some of the highlights include:

-         New Forrester research on DVR’s amongst leading national advertisers

o       One of the conclusions was that 78% say they have less confidence in the effectiveness of TV advertising compared to 2 years ago…

-         Interactive polling of audience (interesting results)

-         Case studies/examples of Converse Gallery, Amex M Night long form content, Audi Art of the Heist

Here are a few more poignant takeaways:

-         Only 58% of the audience here has a DVR in their homes; seriously, the other 42% should be fired. Unacceptable. Blatantly unacceptable given your responsibility to watch over so much money/budget

-         First mention of engagement was at 9.53am by Amex’s Hedleston

-         Stephen Berkoff at Audi spoke about rejecting a culture of fear; he also mentioned that we have become somewhat incestuous and inward facing in terms of how we do business…and he is right

-         Dave Poltrack embraced the Web, but “attacked” search as a) finite, b) direct marketing and c) “people will eventually run out of things to search” (you got me on this one)

-         I asked a question as to whether M Night was an American Express customer before the commercial. The answer was yes. And in fact, this was a criteria in the process i.e. someone who used the brand, understood the brand AND the brand campaign (my life, my card) – good stuff

-         Ian mentioned a few great points such as:

o       Find a balance between quantitative and qualitative i.e. don’t be so obsessed with ROI to a fault

o       Walk the talk (to marketers) – stop bitching and moaning and start acting and doing

-         Discovery Channel sponsored the lunch talk and unlike last year’s tremendous gift of a USB kit (mouse, extension, expansion etc), this year there was no gift…times must be tough

More later.

Note to Tom Cruise: You live in a bubble within a bubble (that would be Scientology within Celebrityville) In your bubble, you might call the shots and exercise your version of control, but outside of the bubble is reality central. THAT'S the world your fans live in...and THAT's why your bubble has to be burst.

[context: Cruise bullies Comedy Central to pull an episode of South Park with a Scientology theme; How? Viacom owns both CC and Paramount, which produced Mission Impossible and Cruise refused to promote his movie...er isn't that biting off one's nose to spite one's face?]

Over 243,000 people have already viewed this (entire) episode and on a separate note, it will be interesting to see if more people view this (web)isode than the actual episode on Comedy Central.

(ta to Agent Ripa)

Gotta support my peeps here...

Today, Podshow announced their first Podshow Podcast Network Sponsorship with GoDaddy.com

The PPNS will involve "coordinated web, audio and video spots produced by GoDaddy.com, as well as more than 50 original audio and video host endorsements from PodShow Podcast Network's most popular shows"

Podshow CEO Ron Bloom had a few very good nuggets in his prepared remarks:

"...a coordinated campaign involving multiple show hosts in multiple genres -- each in their own voice -- simultaneously endorsing one brand while integrating the offer directly into the networks' signup"

"...the power of one brand, many voices"

This is pretty signficant for a bunch of reasons...buyers need scale for sure, but they also need to aggregate that scale as seemlessly and efficiently as possible. As an aggregator and portal to the fragmented podcasting masses, this kind of network deal (not unlike Weblogs or any other network in existence...just this time, a podcasting first) helps on both fronts.

I am in the process of setting up an interview with Ron and Adam on the marketing/advertising side of podcasting. I'll double-back with you when it's done...in the interim, question for Ron/Adam et al: What reach are you offering through this aggregated/network deal?

Ladies and gentlefolk, boys and girls…please take your seats. Silence please. The announcement is about to be made. Drumroll please. Fanfare if you will. Spotlight on center stage…..10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1……….The definition of Engagement is:

“Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context.”

Huh? You’re shitting me.

According to Ad Age, this working definition was supposed to help turn a buzzword into an industry-wide measurement standard.

But after this definition, I’d personally prefer a return to the mystified buzzword.

Here are my working definitions of engagement:

1. Engagement is doing our damn jobs properly (for a start)

2. Engagement is our mea culpa that our entire metrics, measurements and standards are built and based on antiquated, irrelevant and outdated methodologies, assumptions and constructs

3. Engagement is the ability to demonstrate to our clients that our ads were seen, understood, internalized, remembered and able to be acted on.

It’s not rocket science. It’s just common sense.

Snap! Oh no, you didn't! I can see David Cohen's quote being inserted all over the MySpace/News Corp Media Kits even as we speak.

But seriously, in a panel of agency and marketer influentials, including UM's Cohen, Pepsi's Dawn Hudson, Campbell Soup's Paul Alexander, Subway's Tony Pace and Mickey D's Giovanni Fabrice, it is fairly telling when the sum total of their collective brands' presence on a social media giant like MySpace is the chirping of a cricket.

Why are brands so afraid? At a time where experimentation and risk-taking is not one way....but arguably the only way to the future, why are we so petrified to carve out bold new pathways in unexplored territories.

If it's because of sexual predactors/related crime horror stories, then of course I understand and agree. But shying away because of Consumer Generated Content? That's just plain silly.

Ultimately this underscores a rather large obstacle for the MySpace's of the world to overcome and also demonstrates a) if you build it, they (the brands) may not necessarily come and b) that once again, this is not about quantity, but quality of audience.

That said...never look a gifthorse in the mouth my friends. Or if you do choose to turn away, there's always the other guy on the panel, NBC Uni's Randy Falco who'll surely take your calls.

Hat tip to the Kelly Ripa to my Regis, Mitch Joel for this article on Slivercasting.

Slivercasting is essentially the ability to create and share content to a 100% composition audience. It's about purity. It's about integrity. It's about community. It's about zero wastage.

In this case, it's about sail.tv, and signifies the triumph of quality over quantity. Ultimately, in a world where the long tail wags strong, it could also be RocketBoom or even Across the Sound.

It also signifies a hyperfragmentation explosion that will make the 500 digital cable stations available today look like the 3 networks of I Love Lucy days.

The new marketing headache is about to turn into a migraine.

Pete Blackshaw writes a great piece (which surely must set a record for number of links) titled, "Can marketers control CGM? Should they?"

He'll be guesting, along with COTC's Jackie Huba on next week's ATS.

It's easy. Want to know who's getting real desperate? Just look at who's advertising in the trades for your 100% accurate litmus test to reveal who's desperate and who's not.

Remember our friends at Howard Stern's old radio station? They found the need to own every single page in the trades to cry (weakly and pathetically) that FREE FM was the way to go...that there was Life after the 30-second Howard. Ratings certainly demonstrated how right they were - to advertise (thou dideth protestest too muchest) in the first place and also the integrity and accuracy behind the message

Then there was our dear brethren at the Magazine Publishers' Association (yes, the same association that loves getting bitch-slapped by overpriced celebrities like Jon Stewart instead...but I digress) So the MPA enlisted Fallon I believe to convince us that many things will change in the future...including bathtubs that double-up as hovercrafts or trash that disintegrates on impact...and yet (drumroll please), people will still read magazines just the way they did it back in the familiar 20th Century. They'll giggle with joy as they find their me-time; their quiet place on the crapper as they seek out advertisements...especially those pharmaceutical ones with 50,000 disclaimers on the back of them. And if they get REAL lucky, they'll get a scratch 'n sniff or 3-D commercial.

And now, comes our sisters from the Newspaper Association of America, with their delightful Monty-Pythonesque campaign which just broke trade-wide.

With punchlines like: "What made freedom of the press so important to its founders? Maybe it was the coupons", can there be any doubt where you should be heaping all of your ad dollars?

Their tagline is "Newspaper advertising: A Destination, not a distraction" and while newspaper advertising is certainly less intrusive than television advertising, the only destination that resonates with newspapers is the trash can they end up in after the morning speed-reading commute.

I go back to my industry-wide challenge, "Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?" The solution is going to involve adapting to a changing consumer. Instead of going the route of creative 101, why not tell us about what you're doing with respect to blogging and podcasting? Why not advertise on blogs for that matter? Part of the problem here is the very traditional route you've chosen to go to market...it's predictable and it's reaching the lowest hanging fruit that arguably are fine and dandy doing things the way they've been doing them for the past 20-30 years.

You can even "view the ads" (print) on their minisite and when you do, you'll see pithy lines about people being as interested in jewelry advertising as political commentary, or automotive advertising above editorial. Of course that's true - but a) it's relative to only those who are celebrating anniversaries or looking to buy a car which is not all of us, and b) it ignores the fact that people are talking to one-another (word of mouth) and doing all their research online anyway and in doing so c) it insults the intelligence of everyone reading the ads in the first damn place.

I can hardly wait for the next trade campaign to break in the trades. Proceed at your own risk my friends.

Now if we find out Apple commissioned this one, then we have a game on our hands!

Full Dis-Clothes-ure Warning...not suitable for minors or prudes (if you didn't already figure that out from the screenshot)

Hat 'er...tip (hmmmm) to Adrants

Who is Kevin McCormick and why is he a better marketer than you?

Well, he's an ordinary guy (a consumer, if you will) who has realized an extraordinary accomplishment in the form of a website called dresskevin, with a succint and simple tagline, "I didn't know what to wear, so I made a website." Indeed. A Website that has been featured on CNN, Good Morning America and CBS's Early Show!

Kevin put a website together based on the simple insight that he - like millions of other clueless males (especially the ones without wives with taste) - wasn't all that good at the tough decisions in live, like...you know, dressing to impress and dressing for success.

So long story short, every day he turns to a community to make the decision for him and he wears the clothes that have been selected for him.

It has shades of million dollar homepage all over it, from a voyeuristic perspective.

And now the million dollar question....where are the brands? Where is Banana Republic? Where is J Crew? Where Golden Palace? At a time where spontaneous and opportunistic trumps linear and predictable every time, it is this kind of 15 minutes of fame that can give brands the kind of staying power they need to stay above the fold.

I'll be speaking at a Thirdway Brand Trainers event this Thursday night on Life after the 30-second spot. This event series is a regular occurence, which is attended by industry professisonals and marketing/advertising students alike. Past/future speakers include Donny Deutsch, Phil Dusenberry et al.

I'm delighted to be able to offer a comp pass (valued at $50) to any Across the Sound listeners or Jaffe Juice readers who'd like to attend and will be in the NYC-area on Thursday evening.

Here are the particulars and registration details:

Where: Reeves Great Hall, Fashion Institute of Technology, 27th Street @ 7th Avenue, "D" Building

When: Thursday, March 23rd from 7-9pm

How: Send an e-mail to offers@brandtrainers.com, with your name/title/company and "Jaffe Juice" in the subject line. Or just quote "Jaffe Juice" at the door.

What: A passionate and interactive speech, followed by tequila shooters and random destruction of property

Feel free to abuse this comp and pass along to as many interested parties as possible. Let's show the full muscle of the blogosphere shall we....!

A jam-packed episode of Across the Sound with MWW Group's, Ad Jab's, The Media Drop's, Open the Dialogue's Tom Biro.

We discuss NCAA's streaming on CBS Sportsline, product placement on The Sopranos and winners and losers include Starbucks, Microsoft, Rocketboom, the World Baseball Classic, C.C. Chapman and Account Management

Full show notes below:

So NBC releases new research that the whole DVR threat is overblown. Take for example, the drop in commercial effectiveness in DVR homes compared to non-DVR homes at 3% versus 7% respectively.

I can just imagine the moment that Alan Wurtzell, President of NBC Universal Television Research and Media Development (MAN - that's a long title), admitted to a room filled with media execs that more people essentially skip or gloss over ads in non-DVR homes compared to their DVR counterparts.

According to Ad Age:

Around 10% of U.S. households have a DVR, a figure that is expected to rise to 35% by 2009-10, according to NBC Universal projections. According to Nielsen Media Research, 12% of U.S. households have a DVR, and Nielsen expects that to increase to 18% by the end of the year.

Clearly all NBC (and its network brethren) has to do is to purchase TiVo's for their customers, right?

As our good friend, Homer J would say, "D'oh!"

I gave the "Ad Management" (their words) Folk at Chevy/Campbell-Ewald enough time to review and approve my spot, which was well within the rules set out by them.

So here's my attempt, which I crudely captured myself. (PS - Where the ^%$@# is the URL?) Update: 255 views and a 1 star rating (which is appropriate I might add)

Also here's Jackie Huba's version. Also check out her post and consumer generated media's post on the same subject.

I think there are 3 themes here:

1) What is "Consumer Generated Media" and what is the difference between CGM and CGC (Consumer Generated Content), which is what I call it? I would argue that Chevy Tahoe's attempt is exactly CGM as per Pete Blackshaw (iCGM), COTC or CGM.com. Media as in Advertising as in ADS. By purposely using the word, "CONTENT", I am separating credible, believable and authentic creation and expression from contrived and controlled, puppeteered ads. Personally, I would hope the industry STOPS using CGM as a term or at least separates the wheat from the chaff.

2) Could we be seeing an underground or against the current trend here and elsewhere, where consumers will buck the system and create an anti-ad, with social and poignant commentary (or not) - for example, Jackie talks about Gas Guzzling, whereas I just poke fun at the hype/hyperbole/disconnect between what we see in ads and what is real e.g. the supermarket versus snowy peaks. To compound this thought, could we argue that this is exactly what Chevy hoped for and if so, would this be called a success (buzz etc)?

3) Speaking of which, I gotta ask the question...is this going to sell cars? What are the mechanism in place to convert this interest (or even, gulp...engagement) into leads and sales? Let's not forget why we're (over)paid the big bucks by our clients shall we?

Come on. Try hard. Try harder. It's damn near impossible to spot the subtle nuances between Apple and Microsoft's packaging. I stared at them both for hours until I was seeing quadruple and STILL couldn't see any differences.

This is the story of a spoof ad which parodies Microsoft's attempt at packaging the i-pod. As it turns out, Microsoft commissioned this video claiming it was for internal purposes only.

"It was an internal-only video clip commissioned by our packaging [team] to humorously highlight the challenges we have faced RE: packaging and to educate marketers here about the pitfalls of packaging/branding," says a Microsoft spokesperson.

YEAH RIGHT. What else could he say...but the bottom line is that this works. Obviously, MSFT created, leaked and allowed the web to spread the video like wildfire. Self-deprecating as it is, it's equally irreverent and even endearing.

I like it a lo.

A while ago, I launched UNM2PNM (Use New Marketing 2 Prove New Marketing), whereby I offered a free copy of my book, "Life after the 30-second spot" to any marketing/advertising/business blogger or podcaster who agreed to review it. There were no terms/conditions i.e. strings attached regarding the kind of review.

Hell, I didn't even stipulate that participants had to review the book at all...although through the honor system, I was not concerned.

When all was said and done, I believe I received close to 100 requests from around the world.

Then I took my foot off the gas to allow people the time to read and review the book.

My last post was in December of 2005

...and now it's time to put foot back on the accelerator. So to anyone who participated, please send me links to your reviews (you can check the Dec update to see if you are accounted for) It is possible that you sent me your link already, and if so I appreciate you re-sending it. If you're still aiming to review the book, please don't forget to provide this Amazon link.

Also, if you'd like to "pay it forward", please send the book back to me when you're done and I will share it with those who are still waiting for copies.

Of course, if you'd still like to participate, please let me know...

I am immensely proud of this exercise, very grateful for the support in getting behind the initiative AND very humbled by the positive reviews.

While the ultimate proxy of success is book sales, I look back at this new marketing program as proof enough of concept.

I lectured some time ago at Ithaca College and so I was thrilled to get an e-mail from a Sophomore studying Integrated Marketing Communications, who alerted me to a project they're doing. Over a 5 week period, each student will blog about a certain topic of interest relating to media, marketing and communications.

Besides being a great window into these students' wonderfully talented minds, it's also a direct line to hiring them or at least an internship.

Congratulations guys...and whatever you do, don't stop blogging after the 5-week mark!