Jaffe Juice

The cover story of this week's Ad Age documents (in my opinion) inarguably the dumbest moment in branding history...and a continuation of the worst branding moves ever made by one of the worst companies to date:

• AT&T will dump the Cingular brand name and replace it with...yes, you guessed it, "AT&T wireless"

Cingular is one of the branding success stories of our time (right up there with the Targets of the world) and how a monolithic, staid, lethargic and bureaucratic company like AT&T could ignore Cingular's swooping courting of a younger and more progressive consumer base, is beyond me.

This stinks of ego, close-mindedness and an out of touch mindset, which belongs in the Ark.

I for one will proudly trash my Cingular account in favor of anything other than A + T + & + T, which should be renamed F + U + C + K!

...they were eaten! (that was a line from an old Nando's commercial)

Peel Interactive sent me a heads up about their bovine promotion, aptly called Mootube.

Sitting somewhere between the boobtube and youtube, is this strangely compelling opportunity to see things from the perspective of a cow (hint: there's a lot of grass and I'm not talking about the good kind)

It's all part of PBS' promotion of their upcoming reality series, Texas Ranch House, which begins May 1st.

I don't know what exactly to make of this. I'm sorta impressed this came from PBS of all places. I guess I'd be more impressed if I saw some footage of a cow taking a dump or the view from the piece of steak on my plate, but hey I'll take the grass for now.

On a related note, Rupert Murdoch put in a bid of $800 million to purchase MooTube!

Ben Rowe posts that Mozilla's Firefox has announced its winners of the Firefox Flicks competition.

He makes a few really strong points about why Firefox trumped Tahoe, including:

• The existence of a Creative Brief
• Firefox is a great product
• ...with little negative downside (e.g. doesn't guzzle bandwidth)
• ...with an immensely passionate consumer base
• Creative control - which was handed carte blanche to the community

So the results are in....after I received my "come to the boardroom and while you're at it, how can I sell you a Chevy" e-mail from Ed Peper, Chevrolet's General Manager, I get another another mail to announce the winner (note the url string when you click on the first hyperlink...them crafty weasels are tracking our every move!)

Personally thought they were a big yawn, but at least they followed through and completed what they started.

Anyway, Steve on my blog expressed his outrage at the results. He took this seriously enough to bring to my attention that - with all the lengthy and contrived rules set out in this "competition" - the top 5 did not in fact abide by the terms & conditions laid out.

Ben Rowe asked if Chevy will use the winning ad for real. I'd be highly surprised if they did...for starters it would have to be a good ad to even think about using and in reality it's mediocre at best. But for the most part, I just don't give the architects of this mess the credit to see that far ahead of their noses.

Perhaps they'll prove me wrong.

Food for the brain...it's this week's episode of Across the Sound, with a top-class thinker in the driving seat, Ross Cairns from Erasmus Partners.

Link to the ala carte episode here.

Subscribe via iTunes here.

Shownotes:

I'm trying to be more dilligent in terms of trolling my bloglines RSS subscriptions on a more regular basis.

This morning, I stumbled upon adland and found a great tie-in between Coke and the company I started my career at, in South Africa - Nando's Chickenland. Nando's and Coke have had a long standing partnership and relationship and seeing it manifested like this brought a smile to my face...good memories.

Is there life after the 30-second Tahoe-spot? American Express seems to think so, except that they've shortened the time by half and they've appealed to sense and sensibility, with a less clunky and contrived brief AND Scorsese and M. Night as judges (and in Scorsese's case, probably jury and executioner!)

Clips asks consumers to to create a personal slice of their lives (their card)...and this authentic approach is in a much better camp than the infamous Tahoe attempt. This is CGC, as opposed to CGM.

In addition, the RSS feed of submissions is not only a nice touch, but it also puts the creations in the public domain. Implication? You'll find out if you're hot or not...and this will inevitably put a little more (constructive) pressure on submitters to take this seriously (if Martin and Night weren't incentive enough!)

Via MicroPersuasion

Mack Collier did a hybrid Alexa/Google ranking of top marketing blogs and Jaffe Juice came out 13th. Here's the full list. I originally was looking in the advertising list, but I'm pretty relieved I was put into the right camp :)

Via MediaPlannerBuyer, the unprecedented announcement of a different kind of sharing/simulcast: Opie & Anthony will be shared between XM (where they currently live) and CBS (where they will live in a neutered fashion as replacement for David Lee Roth who himself was a replacement for Howard Stern)

fyi - Opie and Anthony were the infamous "shock jocks" who were fired in 2002 after a sex stunt in St. Pats Cathedral

Will it work? Who knows..Opie + Anthony have history with Howard Stern and have proven their ability to be fired (twice) Their success (at the unenviable task of being a Howard Stern replacement) will probably end up being their demise (again)

You'll have to tune in to find out.

I had over 3,000 unread posts in my bloglines from only 30 feeds....finally gave up on being able to catch up, so I purged the whole damn thing and will start fresh today.

Thought 1: amazing testiment to CGC

Thought 2: we should do the same with our e-mail in-boxes. If it ain't read within x time, delete the whole damn thing (although Google Desktop might disagree with this reasoning)

Wall Street Journal invokes a tired meme about an exciting theme, namely validating the blogging "business model".

My 2c is very simple...if we're looking at blogs through a traditional (Reach/Frequency) lens, then the most exciting component is the fact Jason Calacanis made media buyers' lives easier by aggregating a bunch of blogs and therefore making it "easer to buy". If however, the lens is tweaked to filter in (or out) the disproportionate effects of non-linearity, influence, authority and communal credibility, then it's another ball of wax entirely.

Via Beyond Madison Avenue (really well said I might add...)

Blogs are NOT a selling tool. They don't help you sell products, they help you change your culture. Being detached from your community is no longer a viable business model, and blogs are a great mechanism for increasing interaction with your community members. When you interact with your community, you better understand them, which, naturally, means you better serve them. The 'big deal' about blogs is that they help make companies a part of the same community as the members they are selling to, which means that they more closely align the wants and needs of the company, with those of the community they are serving.

Adrants echos the results of the buzzword face-off: Behavioral Targeting versus Contextual Marketing.

And the winner is (ta-daaaaa)....Behavioral (shout out to Jaffe Juice sponsor: Revenue Science)

...study on an Internet advertising campaign (using Tacoda's network) for Panasonic found behavioral targeting identified and reached 50.3 percent more imminent buyers of Panasonic plasma TV's than contextual targeting

The results are pretty overwhelmingly in favor of BT...and for those not in the know, what we're talking about here is the difference between a pure technology solution versus one which builds in elements of humanity (registration, permission) on top of the technology component.

The substantial delta/differential could be baded on the registration variable, or it could be based on (ironically) context...in terms of the ability to serve up messaging in more familiar/recognizable/visible real estate. Interesting nonethless.

OK, so I received this e-mail from Ed Peper (any relation to Jeremy?) from Chevy, which begins with the following words:

You put in the effort. You made the most capable, most responsible, and most refined commercial you could for the 2007 Tahoe.

Indeed I did. Except that I never got to see my most capable, most responsible and most refined commercial, because it never got most approved or at least I never got the ability to most forward it to a most friend or most view it myself (except on YouTube that is)

On the bright side, I do like the idea of a boardroom chatroom to discuss and announce the winners (although I'm not holding my breath about being a winner)

ATS #29 (link to file here) Ironically uploaded in an elucubrated Starbucks!

Content summary: About the FI R/ATS Mashup Edition; FIR listener survey update; new FIR Speakers & Speeches podcast online; does Philips have a PR crisis over a patent application?; Castroil’s venture into RSS advertising and podcasting; a special report on new media in The Economist this week; revisiting the Chevy Tahoe story; listeners’ comments discussion; Winners & Losers (JJ Winner: Chris Clarke, JJ Loser: Starbucks; FIR Winner: TV Guide, FIR Loser: Apple); the music, and more.

Welcome to the FIR/ATS Mashup Edition

This is a joint FIR: The Hobson & Holtz Report and Across the Sound 94-minute podcast recorded live on April 24, 2006, with Neville Hobson (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Shel Holtz (Concord, California, USA) and Joseph Jaffe (Westport, Connecticut, USA).

You can also sign up for the RSS feeds to get it and future FIR and ATS shows automatically:

• RSS: For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report
• RSS: Across The Sound

Over the past 4-5 weeks, I've left a series of Easter Eggs in Across the Sound.

Over the past 4-5 weeks, most of my listeners "passed over" the Easter Eggs...until Chris Clarke uncovered the first one.

• Who is Chris Clarke?
• What and where were the Easter Eggs?
• What was the prize?

You'll just have to "tune-in" to ATS #29 (the mashcast with FIR) which will be recorded  about 30 minutes from now and should be uploaded by tonight at the very latest.

April Fool's came late this year…and by the looks of it, Philips Electronics is the prize fool.

Tim from Germany alerted me to a patent filed by Philips for – get this – a set top box that prevents consumers from changing the channel during an ad break. According to a spokesperson from the company, this was done because “too many people skip ads”

Here’s the abstract:

An apparatus (270) and method is disclosed for preventing a viewer from switching from a channel when an advertisement is being displayed on the channel. The apparatus (270) and method comprises an advertisement controller (270) in a video playback device (150) that (1) prevents a viewer of a direct (non-recorded) broadcast from switching channels when an advertisement is displayed, and (2) prevents a viewer of a recorded program from fast forwarding the recorded program in order to skip past advertisements that were recorded with the program. A viewer may either watch the advertisements or pay a fee in order to be able to change channels or fast forward when the advertisements are being displayed.

Could this be true? How could a TV manufacturer influence programming (content or commercials) above the networks themselves or the cable or satellite provider? Why would they even care?

And in the alternative of “paying a fee”, are we not talking about plain and simple extortion? I’m no legal eagle, but I’d be curious to get your thoughts on the verbiage/description in the patent filing record.

In Tim’s e-mail to me, he states that just finding out about this has soured his entire outlook and impression of the brand – so much so that he was in the market to purchases a flat-screen TV and was looking at Philips, but now no longer is interested.

I wonder whether a consumer-wide mutiny would be the product if such a Big Brother meets Matrix scenario would ever come to pass. Would consumers fold like a house of cards or call the bluff of the bullies who have dominated and monopolized our leisure time for too long?

Update: I originally wrote this post on the plane to Atlanta and it sat on my computer for 2 days. Now it seems that Philips has attempted a damage control 180.

"We developed a system where the viewer can choose, at the beginning of a movie, to either watch the movie without ads, or watch the movie with ads. It is up to the viewer to take this decision, and up to the broadcaster to offer the various services," the company said.

What is unclear is how the story broke...which would no doubt dictate the extent and tone of Philipspin (mash-up synonym) That said, the statement above does give some interesting insights into where this could be heading...and it's not as ominous as it once seemed.

It's kind of like the Ultramercial model. Or like ABC choosing to sell Lost for $2 ad free on iTunes or for free...but with ads...and NO SKIPPING ALLOWED!

I wrote in my book that consumers will elect to pay with their time or money for value. What remains to be seen is how much time and how much money they'll pay for how much value. Where's eBay when you need them?

...and there's also the little niggly thing about forcing consumers to watch ads.

I was sent an anecdotal story about Starbucks' venture into the movie biz, with their funded production of Akeelah and the Bee.

According to their website, "Akeelah and the Bee is a story that reflects the values of creativity, community, hope and perseverance which we at Starbucks hold dear" - sounds good enough, except does anyone else know or care about this?

Do Starbucks employees know what Akeelah is about - and I don't mean "it's a movie Starbucks made", which is the response I got at a local Bux, I'm talking about the why, so what and why should I care.

Do Starbucks customers know about this? The person who e-mailed me about this said they've been into 4 Starbucks now and not one person actually knew Akeelah was a movie...this after green paraphernalia has been littered around every Starbucks store.

If you're wondering whether the LA30 debate is a global one, the answer would be yes. If you're wondering whether marketers are in the same state of denial in India compared to the US, the answer would be yes.

Here's a newspaper article from the Financial Express in India which cites a research study on the health of the 30-second spot. The article mentions that the results might be bad news for Joseph Jaffe fans, but after reading the highlights I'm not sure why.

I was looking forward to proof why the 30-second spot is "alive and kicking", but this proof wasn't consumer-centric at all in terms of receptivity or recall; rather it was using the current advertiser spending patterns as a proxy of health...and this is a flawed assumption indeed.

On a positive note, there seems to be a point about less clutter (shorter ad breaks) = greater opportunities for creativity. I am in full agreement with this point.

Bob Liodice keeps on impressing me. Not only because he’s blogging, but specifically because of the caliber and quality of his content. In his latest post, he pens an open letter to Ron Berger, who caused a rather large tempest in a teacup with his remarks at the recent AAAA’s Management Summit.

In a nutshell, Bob takes Ron to task on the latter’s assertion that clients should neatly place all of their eggs into the basket of a one-stop-shop. The former disagrees with the latter’s stance…and so do I.

From my new marketing corner of the world, this couldn’t be more appropriate. Agencies saying “of course we can do that”, but in reality representing a capability that is superficial at best and tantamount to fraud at worst.

My 2c (1c per point) is the following:

-         agencies defined as “companies specializing in advertising” should stick to what they do best…which in reality, is another problem for another day, namely the fact they’re not doing their jobs as well as they should (looking at the work product) There’s a reason why agencies (strategic, creative, media) are crowing about folding in mobile and gaming into their interactive capabilities…it’s because they’re the only new marketing approaches in which they can place terrestrial ads; there’s a reason why you’re not hearing about agencies reorg-ing their interactive departments to champion and marshal consumer generated content, podcasting or social media in general – it’s because they can’t manufacture, distribute and monetize ads against them.

-         In general, I believe that where capabilities are essentially mutually exclusive, clients not only should, but must seek out the best of breed players in their particular specialist spaces. Promotions. Search. Point of Sale. Public Relations. Sponsorship. Social Media. Multicultural. Branded Entertainment etc

Where I do want to interject is to examine the opposite end of Bob’s continuum. In a world where the only constants are fragmentation and proliferation, at what point does the scale collapse under the weight of seemingly endless best and brightest partners?

There’s a saying about too many chiefs and not enough Indians, and in the case of one client and way too many agencies (all of whom feel they are both smarter than the other agencies in the room, not to mention the clients themselves), there is the danger of in-fighting, back-stabbing and political shenanigans, or in the case of the exceptions to the rule (the agencies that truly are committed to collaboration), there are the practical challenges of bureaucracy, unnecessary layers, remnant silos on the client side and the tyranny of an obese “cc” list.

In my book (www.lifeafter30.com/live for the free chapter on the agency world), I introduce and offer up the role for a new kind of agency – the “integrators” – whose lot in life is to help coordinate, streamline and mash the multiple gourmet cooks in order to create the kind of finished product capable of pipping any Iron Chef at the post (yes I know…that extended metaphor sailed a long time ago, but you get the gist)

To be sure, there are many models and possibilities that exist today and will emerge tomorrow. Back to Bob’s point…the client-side marketers who figure this out sooner and commit themselves to the process will win. Big Time.

In addition, there’s no reason why mini-stop-shops won’t claim a handful of like-minded specialties in a win-win or Bob-Ron situation. The best example of this today might be interactive.

At the end of his retort, Bob says the following:

·        Ron, I fundamentally disagree with your thesis.  However, I think that the advertising industry is better off because of the dialogue we are now having!  I enjoy this discussion and debate, as I recognize that ours is an industry that requires multiple points-of-view.  Being challenged by you is beneficial to us all.  We should have more thoughtful debates such as the one you initiated.  And we should all appreciate the courage you had to voice your opinions and share your perspectives.  So while this may be a “backhanded” way to thank you, it is a thank you nonetheless.

Is this Liodice being snarky? Not at all. I know Bob and he is as genuine as he comes across. This is too critical to overlook…the problem with our industry today (one of them) is the fact no one is prepared to stick out their proverbial necks and take a stand. It is a fundamental weakness and flawed character trait – namely, the passive aggressive stance of an industry that only seems to lay it on the line when nothing is at stake.

Berger went on a tear and clearly he was venting frustrations which boiled to the point of no return. The scary thought is that he is most certainly not alone and no doubt is joined by way too many agency execs to count.

If the considered debate had been taken up earlier in time, not only would his blood pressure have been at a more acceptable level, but arguably the industry could have taken up the charge in a more constructive fashion.

Irrespective, he should not be looked at as a “grumpy old man” (even if he is), nor as a scapegoat; instead consider Berger a catalyst – one that unfortunately is holding onto delusions of grandeur, but hey…that’s what makes creatives great, right?

Final thought…will Berger respond to Bob’s post? Or how about mine? Or better yet…does Ron even known what a blog is or how to access one? Watch this space.

2 months ago, I commented on the iPod Halo Effect, which was introduced by ANA Chief, Bob Liodice in his blog. I also commented on this in an episode of Across the Sound.

Longtime branding guru, Al Ries, adds more perspective and a little repetition to the conversation here. He tags the Motorola's Razr, HBO's Sopranos and Sirius' Howard Stern to the mix to demonstrate how an "anchor tenant" brand can essentially influence the very success of the parent/umbrella in the process.

• After broad marketing campaigns heavily focused on a single produt -- the iPod -- Apple's overall fiscal 2005 sales were up 68%, profits were up 384%, and the company stock had jumped 177%.
• Sirius has 120 channels, but they promote only the shock jock. The day they announced the hiring of Stern in 2004, Sirius had just 660,000 subscribers. Today they have 3.3 million.

I really love the concept of the Halo Effect, which rings especially true with the iPod example, insofar that an MP3 player has influenced/effected the sales of computers. No other example resonates this strongly. The Motorola example in my opinion is more so an illustration of focus, singularity and the "rise of product" (a common theme in my most recent blog post/podcast memes)

It's quite sad when the way I find out about a good friend/colleague of mine's new venture is through a press release (who said the press release was dead?), but hey - I'll take it anyway I can get it!

Allie Savarino is terrific. I've known her for as long as the Web has known her (mostly from her Unicast days) and about 1 1/2 years ago (approx), she got bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. Little did I know that bug was the social media/networking bug (which these days, is the best bug of all)

Allie, along with her "girlfriend" Sally Rogers, has just launched Sisterwoman - a social networking site aimed at a slightly older and more sophisticated female audience. Think of it as a mashup between MySpace and iVillage perhaps.

They already have some top tier advertisers and I wanted a) to alert you to this and b) to wish and Sally nothing but tailwinds and the best of success with this worthy venture.

P.S. The one implication beyond this is the democratization of the MySpace phenomenon - why shouldn't every demographic, psychographic and/or community of interest have their own 2.0 social networking haven? Some already do.

In a previous post, I highlighted the $705K for a 30-second spot on American Idol, which was then a record for any Prime Time network show. I noted that now (unprecedented fragmentation, clutter, concern about TV's efficacy, ad skipping worries, do I need to go on?) was not the time to be setting ad rate records.

Apparently the good folks at Fox heard my call, which is why the season ender for AI will fetch a record $1.3 million for a 30-second spot. Never mind that the AI reaches the most resistant audience, or the fact we're talking about 30 million potential consumers, which used to fetch far less on a regular basis, or the fact that the finale will be bursting with contrived vignettes, flashbacks, filler content etc.

But that sound you hear drowning out the carping about the death of the 30-second spot isn't just the cash register ringing at Fox, but also at some other major TV networks primed to rake in some big bucks from big-time season sendoffs.

btw...you only have to go back to 1998 for a worthy comparison of the desperation that has set in. In 1998, a 30-second spot on the Super Bowl fetched an estimated $1.3 million and reached an estimated 90 million consumers.

Honey, I shrunk the audience.

I couldn't understand why the Anomaly-led text-to-buy proposition wasn't working for me and then I realized I hadn't read the damn print ad (although in my defense most consumers don't read them either) in Ad Age.

So I finally activated my mobile Paypal account by visiting www.paypal.com/mobile, texted "bot" to 40543 and now all I have to do is sit back, relax and wait for my toy robot to arrive in the mail. Isn't technology sweet?

The experience along was worth $5, let alone the fact I can give the robot to my son or put it on my desk to remind me of an agency who agency walks their talk by a) advertising and b) producing solutions for their clients that deliver against life after the 30-second spot.

Like many failed keyword-wannabees of years gone by, the key here is going to be the ability to reach some kind of critical mass with respect to instilling the text-to-buy vernacular in our collective consciousnesseseseses. Education, communication and ability to overcome any perceived fears/obstacles will be crucial.

I know a great agency that can help out if Paypal is interested ;)

From one Elliot to another. This time it's NYT's Stuart talking about Branded Entertainment (Stu, that's soooooo 2005 of you) i.e. brands weaving themselves into the very fabric and fiber of original programming.

The funny thing about the example offered up in the piece, i.e. JWTwo Entertainment producing "Sunsilk presents Max and Katie" for Unilever's Sunsilk is that it has all the elements of new marketing i.e. long form content, experiential, interactive, mobile etc. and yet just feels disconnected and empty.

It's on an obscure network (TBS) and is inherently non-scaleable.

I'm not sure why I feel so crabby about this. Perhaps it's the $10 million they're spending on this ego-drive, when the dollars could be deployed in so many different - and arguably better - ways.

To me it just seems like they're going through the motions and checking off as many so-called non-traditional approaches from their one-off checlist as is possible in one attempt. That way I guess they don't have to come back to them until 2007 and Stuart's next scoop.

I'll be glad to review the program when it comes out in the interest of giving it a chance, but for now, I'm positively unmoved.

It's a fairly long one, but packed with fresh goodness! Download ala carte here or subscribe via iTunes here.

This week’s guests Ammo’s Gary Stein and Jupiter Research’s Nate Elliot talk about buzz marketing, new metrics, engagement, rise of product versus brand, the future for GM, Consumer Generated Content, Click-to-call, the transparency of technology, and Loyal versus valuable customers

This week’s winner is the 118118 team/campaign for their latest spoof. Joint losers are Ricky Gervais and ABC

Mark Cuban fancies himself as a "jack of all trades; master of all" To be fair, he's earned a ton of respect from various successful ventures in his past and present.

One of his said fancies is to prognosticate on the future of media, marketing and advertising.

Take his current post which seems to be playing to rave reviews across the blogosphere. His suggestion? Make TV commercials live. Live productions in fact. Or as he calls it, "Reality Commercials"

Give me a shampoo commercial that shows some good looking models talking about how Mandisa just  got booted from American Idol, because of her hair. ” If she had hair like this” (model does obligatory shampoo commercial  hair flip) full, shiny, beautiful hair like only Pantene offer, she would have gotten picked.” Models all pull out their Pantene shampoo, hold it to the camera and smile.  Except for the blonde, who pulls out her fake tanning tube.

Give me a break. This is quite possibly one of the worst ideas I've heard in a very long time. Worse than the networks who deny the fact there's even a problem.

OK. Let's take a step back. I'm all for learning from the past, but going back 50 years and calling it "classic" has severe flaws. This is part of the justification being used for the explosion of production placement....hey it worked 50 year's ago on Texaco Theatre, so why shouldn't it work now?

BECAUSE THE CONSUMER HAS CHANGED! THAT'S WHY...THEY'RE NOT AS GULLIBLE, NAIVE AND WAITING FOR US TO INTRUDE ON THEIR LIVES WITH MEANINGLESS, IRRELEVANT AND INSULTING SELL-SPEAK.

The answer is to make advertising relevant again, through the combination of relevant targeting (or self targeting), utilitarian value, and of course a stronger entertainment factor (creative quality)

It is only on the entertainment front that Cuban's idea holds any water (the question is...how much water?)

I also don't believe his suggestion is original at all. Take the Super Bowl. Isn't that the quintessential live commercial and production? Or P&G with the People's Choice Awards. Also Cable has done a fairly good job of these human interludes....take TBS' Dinner and a Movie, which cuts to commentary (not live though) through the ad breaks.

The biggest problem with Cuban's idea is not in the idea itself, but in its execution; the very rot that threatens us all...laziness, simplicity aka scaleability. Unless you are American Idol, which itself is already bursting at the seams with product placement/branded integration, how the hell are you going to put on 20-odd reality commercials NIGHTLY?

I applaud the fact Mark is trying to figure out a solution, but I'm just not convinced that the solution involves turning back time. That said, perhaps there is some kind of middle ground, but in order for that to work....we'd have to experiment with a fairly healthy audience-sized show and make the following changes:

1) Eliminate ALL the "terrestrial" commercials. If this is going to work, the new vignettes are going to have to stand alone and not add to the existing clutter

2) I might start off with a live production, but for the most part this is a red herring. Being relevant is much more important than being live. Never mind the pangs of repeats and syndication....think scaleability once again. Live might work for top 10 shows, but that's probably it.

3) Especially if the vignettes are going to be live - but in general - make it worthwhile for the viewers. Use time-sensitive calls-to-actions/offers; consider the introduction of Easter Eggs (TiVo would be a huge boon here)

4) Focus the vignettes on CONTENT i.e. resist the urge to blatantly sell stuff to people who don't want to be sold to at 8.30pm.

5) Consider cross-marketing of these vignettes with same-networks. For example, a mini-interview with American Idol's Katharine McPhee during the O.C. sponsored by Pantene (all obviously on FOX) Not only would this help drive collective network tune-in, there'd also be less white noise (we're waiting to hear who got voted off, so why are we sitting through Axe telling us how much sexier Ace would be if he wore the Deodorant)

I'm sure there's more here...and again, kudos to Cuban for getting the ball rolling. I would say, focus on the Mavericks' NBA title hopes and let the experts take it from here, but the so-called experts have done such a lousy job thus far, that suggestions should be taken from all anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Back to you Mark...

Just heard about humanclock.com via DSC. The communal marketing version of the atomic clock.

It's pretty cool. Implications for marketers? Now why you gotta go perverting the whole conversation with advertising-speak? But seriously....get that creative brain working. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Time is money.

I'm pretty damn bullish on podcasting. Not just in terms of talking about it, but also in terms of walking it...and by walking, I'm referring to talking and by talking I'm talking about being able to demonstrate its proven ability to draw a quality audience, monetize that audience (input) and generate return on investment in return (output)

Ricky Gervais took his chances by going the paid route and anecdotally evidence has pointed to this being a success (although I'm not convinced) as in season 2's audible/iTunes audiobook rankings and the fact, Gervais didn't bale after 2 episodes i.e. completed 6 recordings.

Australia's The Age wrote this piece on the subject, including a take on the free-fee transition and ask.

The view in the market seems to be that, if you move from a free podcasting service to a paid one, you will lose at least 90 per cent of your audience.

On the flipside is the ability to monetize via marketing/advertising support and sponsorship. That debate hinges around both quantity and quality of audience, together with the ability to move beyond the 30-second audio spot.

ChaosScenario's Paul Herring alerted me to his colleague John Keehler's post and critique on the recent Forrester study which allegedly underplayed the numbers/potential of podcasting listenership.

One thing's for sure, the limited data/metrics available certainly are not going to reward the risk-averse and conservative marketers/agencies out there. My take has been pretty consistent...don't judge podcasting on what it is (or appears to be), but rather on what it could be (and more specifically, what you can make it become)

USA Today is running a great poll which allows viewers to tell them (and the networks) which shows should be kept on and which should be fed to the sharks.

It's an idea I had a while back for the networks themselves to throw their viewers an interactive bone and in doing so, allow the likes of Sports Night, Once and Again, Family Guy (iteration 1) and Arrested Development to continue to air.

Unfortunately, the idea hinges on one very important 3-part assumption: that the networks give a damn, are listening and open to change.

Great Content R.I.P.

A bunch of people e-mailed me about Linda Kaplan-Thaler's remarks at the AAAA's Management Conference. Some felt that she had taken a swipe at me, but I must admit that on reading the reports and watching part of the video, I don't know that she's doing anything other than a self-deprecating (and I'm a big fan of self-deprecation) dramatization of the problems facing the industry - in particular, the myopic and inward focused bubble that is the 30-second spot, along with all its nonsensical attributes, constraints and characteristics.

Were you there? What did you think?

I'm on location in Boca at the ISOBAR Client Conference. ATS #27 is a real twist on the guest format as my guest in question is Kevin McCormick, a "consumer" (you know, those humans we like to quantify and dissect, stick behind one way mirrors, call "users" etc, the same ones that actually buy our products and brands) who started the viral website, www.dresskevin.com

Subscribe on iTunes here

Download individual episode here

ABC, a so-called and probably self-proclaimed forerunner (is that a word?) in the "broadcast on-demand content stakes" (a new category I just created), announced that they will test a "one day later" online airing of their hit shows Lost, Desperate Housewives, Commander in Chief and Alias.

The shows will be free and there will be ads. Oh yes, there will be ads. And yes, there will be advertisers as well.

Worse still...the ads on show (which will apparently not be the same as the live ones) will be non-skippable.

I just spoke at ISOBAR's Client Conference in Boca and I asked the question, "are you part of the problem or part of the solution?" in reference to media change management. It is rather sad that in the publisher/seller category - from radio to magazines to newspapers to online (yes, those damn pre-roll ads count) to TV - we just see a lot of hot air and posturing to maintain an outmoded status quo.

ABC's move here seems to indicate 1 step forward and 2 steps backwards. We are moving to a world (if we're not there already) where permission prevails and where advertising will