Jaffe Juice

Questions for Seth and me? Send 'em in

Seth Godin and myself are recording ATS next week. There are still a few slots available to ask us a question...so if you'd like to pick our collective noggins, send in an audio comment by leaving a message on +1 206 203-3255 or attaching an MP3 file to acrossthesound@gmail.com

Please try and keep your questions to 60 seconds or thereabouts.

A croc of sweet

Great post on DailyFix by Mike Wagner titled, Hate my brand...please!

It's all about the polarizing appeal (or lack thereof) of Crocs shoes and why 'tis better to hate than not to feel at all.

Actually it's not about hate at all, but allowing for and respecting a difference of opinion...or just an opinion.

It's that kind of opinion that produces results like this:

They’ve seen Crocs go from selling 1,500 pairs of shoes and a revenue of $24,000 in 2002 to last year’s sales of 6 million pairs with total revenues (including shoes, accessories, and clothing) hitting $108.6 million. In May, the financial gurus at Crocs projected 2006 sales to reach over $200 million.

You see the problem with the world that we live in today is that we've all become a little numb, haven't we? We take a middle of the road "breakeven" position, avoiding the big win or the big loss as a result. We live in a world of artificially inseminated and falsely perpetuated reality and when we hear even the smallest whisper of dissention, we put our fingers in our waxed ears, scream at the top of lungs and hope to hell that the CEO doesn't find out about our butt-ugly plastic shoes (which might as well be a metaphor for our brand or our marketing communications)

Mike offers these words of wisdom:

• Embrace the hate to find your love.
• One person’s object of desire can be another person’s object of distain.
• People unite around ugly as much as beauty.
• Ugly can be temporary, while people adjust to “your kind of beauty”.

When I was in South Africa, one of my best mates came to visit. He was wearing THE most butt-ugly shoes I had ever seen in my life. I told him that I wouldn't be seen dead in shoes like that. The next day I purchased a pair for myself and my two kids. I love these shoes and talk about them to everyone.

The shoes in question? You guessed it....Nike's. Just kidding, they were Crocs.

Teens and e-mail: Oil and water

Article from CNN about the continued decrease in e-mail usage amongst teens.

A recent ComScore Media Metrix report shows teen usage of Web-based e-mail dropped 8 percent last year.

According to the article, this represents a boon for wireless providers, but increasing challenges for web portals and online marketers.

I'm not sure how new this information is at all. Seems like e-mail went out the door about 5 years ago for teens, with IM ruling the roost from the get go.

According to Pew: 46 percent of teens who are online chose IM over e-mail as their preferred method of written communication with friends.

CGC Nuggets of Note

Hashem Bajwa has this very interesting breakout of YouTube videos on his blog, Brain Sells.

Of the all time top 100 videos on YouTube....

The #1 video has been viewed 28,643,691 times.
The #100 video has been viewed 1,543,402 times.

58 are consumer generated content
31 are music videos
4 are commercial ads (Sony Balls, VW Pimp My Auto)
3 are commercial virals (2 identical Nike videos, 1 Nintendo)
2 are movie trailers
2 are Asian candid camera shows

Karl Long write a great post on FutureLab blog on current.tv (the social video sandbox) and what NBC should be doing with YouTube

Current.tv is like “project greenlight”, it encourages video submissions that the community votes on. In fact the community can “greenlight” projects as part of the voting mechanism, and because current.tv is actually a TV channel, it has an avenue to broadcast the best and the brightest. Oh and guess what, people get paid.

What current.tv has done is probably the model that every channel, that creates original content could benefit from, in addition to it’s normal development process. I can’t imagine a more cost effective sandbox for television content. I wouldn’t be surprised if the concept of a broadcast TV pilot just moves to a social video platform.

ATS links

2 new episodes of Across the Sound to share with you:

ATS #44 - recorded LIVE at the QED Forum in front of a live workshop audience. I answer questions about my earlier keynote and talk about "conversational marketing", including some social media "how-to's"

• Michael Seaton shares some love about the listening experience.

ATS #45 - recorded inbetween 2 separate President's Club lounges at Houston-Bush airport as I try and make my way back to Westport amidst 5 hours of delays after 2 weeks on the road. I discuss consumer versus user, Second Life and connecting with buyers. Winner is Motorola; Loser is Sony/TBWA

LA30 CSM style

The Christian Science Monitor just published a story titled, "Life after the 30-second advertising spot," in which I'm quoted.

The way I see it, when the Christian Scientists care about the future of media, it's time to start paying attention! (I'm kidding about the CS part of course, just in case anyone's out of joint)

Yahoo reports weak revenue, falls 9.5%; shows weakness in Internet spending

"Yahoo shares were off more than 9.5% in after-hours trading following its report that second-quarter revenue was lower than expected...the traffic acquisition costs were $453 million. Wall Street looking for at least $493 million...Those costs give investors a signal of the health of the Internet marketing business."

Yes and No. I certainly don't (need to) look to the health of an 800-pound portal to tell me how bright or healthy the future is, but rather as a barometer of the scaleability and potential of linear-based and one-dimensional transplantation of 30-second spots and traditional mentality to an otherwise non-traditional panacea.

On one hand, this marks the reality of demand exceeding supply (pull-factor i.e. rise of web), combined with the fact that there will be too many dollars looking for a new home and not enough room to accommodate (push-factor i.e. demise of traditional)

The Web picture used to be very simple: "display ads" versus "search". I haven't had a chance to sift through Yahoo!'s results, but I'd be curious to see the breakouts, growth areas, as well as a new category: social media (although there are significant business model questions to be answered here)

read more | digg story

Why YouTube imitators will fail

Both CBS and MTV (same connection) have and will come out respectively with their own versions of YouTube. And they certainly won't be the last. NBC has taken a rather erratic or even schitzophrenic approach, clearly demonstrating its indecisiveness or perhaps lack of (self) confidence in the space.

...but this post isn't really about criticizing MSM in anyway, but rather to isolate 10 reasons why YouTube stands alone in a very enviable category (social video):

1. YouTube began from the ground up. All imitators are looking to make exponential strides with incremental steps and tweaks. Not going to happen
2. YouTube has entered the communal consciousness - it belongs to the people and is powered by the very same constituency it serves
3. YouTube has entered and nestled into an enviable pop culture acceptance. It is to video what Google (the verb, the act, the behavior) is to Search. When you hear about a clip of interest (from Star Jones' firignation - that's a mashup between firing, indignation and resignation - to Andrew Baron talking about RocketBust or Zidane's Headbutt), there is only one place to go
4. The law of one applies. How many online auction stores do you know of? How about book stores?
5. YouTube (closely linked with point -1-) subscribes to AND, as opposed to OR. It is completely inclusive; comprehensive. It is the one-stop-shop of online video
6. The Whack-A-Mole phenomenon. Whack one mole and another pops up...and again and again and again. Sometimes 2 pop up. Bottom line, any successful attempts to control/restrict/supress consumer generated content are at best short-lived.
7. It's freebie distributed content model is the carrier pigeon meets boomerang of the social media world. It always comes back...
8. It has not become a safe haven for the fugative 30-second spot. Rather than apply traditional business models to non-traditional value propositions, YouTube is able to help its advertisers win through a) treating messaging as content, b) allowing expression through long-form content and of course c) allowing consumers to produce their own content. The entertainment industry is the lowest-hanging fruit in this regard.
9. CGC is not only allowed to sit side by side professional content, but rather is judged/evaluated accordingly and thus has the ability to rise to the top of the heap (can you DIGG it?)
10. It is self-regulated - in terms of quality and popularity, but also in terms of objectionable/questionable messaging (I'm not talking about vulturous legal eagles policing against copyright, but rather about relevance, entertainment and utility)

Those are my 10....what are yours? Do you agree that YouTube has no equal? Let me hear you roar.

The panel on engagement is engaged

Due to various unexplained cosmic forces, as well as lackluster attendance RSVP's, the panel discussion on Engagement scheduled for this Thursday in Detroit has been postponed to a date to be determined later this year.

I don't have to tell you the irony behind one of the most important topics/themes in the business not getting the support of those who are vested with the very charge of delivering against it.

Hopefully Motor City will rally the troops for the rescheduled event.

The rise of new marketing

A new report from PQ Media reports on the rise of alternative media (or new marketing)

From the press release/PQ website:

• Spending on alternative media strategies surged 16.4% in the first half of 2006 to an estimated $53.37 billion compared with the same period of 2005. Growth was driven by double-digit gains in most of the 23 subsegments of alternative media.
• PQ Media estimates that spending on alternative media will accelerate in the second half of 2006, growing 18.5% to $115.77 billion for full-year 2006. The alternative advertising sector is forecast to grow 19.9% for the year, while alternative marketing is expected to increase 17.6%.
• Total alternative media spending rose 18.8% in 2005 to $97.66 billion, far exceeding traditional media and nominal GDP growth in 2005 and in the 2000-2005 period.
• Driving growth is the shift of media usage from traditional media to consumer-engaged content, such as blogs and online games; the migration of younger audiences to digital media, like videogames and podcasting; and the ability of alternative media to supply better ROI metrics, like search advertising.
• The largest alternative media subsegments include event marketing, cable advertising, and Internet advertising, while the fastest growing subsegments include user-generated media, mobile marketing, and videogame advertising.

To be honest, I'm a little confused as to the exact methodology, definitions etc. i.e. the difference between alternative media versus marketing. I also notice line items such as Out of Home, which I'm not sure I would classify as alternatives to traditional media, but then again perhaps it's not too far gone from an oversimplified "primary" 3-pronged crutch of TV, radio and print either, i.e. alternative = other.

I'm going to try and do some digging, but numbers aside the results speak for themselves in terms of the rise of new marketing. Also, I like the bucketing (a Patrick Quinn, President of PQ Media) of "young and influential" together, meaning that the ship has sailed on the ability for traditional media to reach/connect/effect with both youth and influential segments. Clearly there are more segments that (increasingly) are falling into the category of "Prime for New Marketing Time", but for now it's a hell of a start to own both tomorrow's consumer and those responsible for influencing, informing, spreading and propagating the message.

The executive summary and table of contents are available here.

Via Center for Media Research