Jaffe Juice

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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

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.

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.

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

For those of you in the Detroit area this coming week, I'll be moderating a panel discussion on Demystifying Engagement on Thursday morning at the Omni Detroit Hotel.

My panelists include:

• John Keck, SVP, Direct & Interactive Media Director, Doner
• Keira Lorentzen, Vice President, Digital Media Analytics, Digitas
• Mark Carpenter, Chief Planning Offier, GM Planworks

If you'd like to attend, please send a note to Kathleen Morris or myself

Here are the full details:

• When: Thursday, July 20th, 8.30am-10am
• Where: Omni Detroit Hotel (1000 River Place, Detroit)
• Why: Because it's about time we had some intelligent conversation on engagement!

At the beginning of this year, Adrants' Steve Hall and myself discussed Intel's beyond lame new tagline, "Leap Ahead" on Across the Sound - Episode 15.

We both took positions on how long we expected it to live. Steve and I both predicted 2 years max...we were obviously being way too kind because now we hear that Intel is reaching out to agencies for "brand positioning' ideas.

Download leap_ahead.mp3

To Intel's CMO, Eric Kim..drop me an e-mail to jaffe@getthejuice.com or Steve at steve@adrants.com for some honest advice and new marketing ideas. We're a lot cheaper than any of the agencies you're reaching out to and we won't dare suggest a celebrity-bloated campaign full of hyperbole, empty promises and generalizations. We might even tell you to go back to the old Intel Inside...

It's for real. Seth Godin will co-host Across the Sound the first or second week in August.

It should be a great conversation and hopefully you'll get to participate as well. We're going to respond to 10 audio questions from Jaffe Juice, Across the Sound and/or Seth's Blog. So if you'd like to submit a question, please send an mp3 of no longer than 60-seconds in length to acrossthesound@gmail.com or call the comment line on +1 206 203-3255.

We'll even send the 10 best a book or two as a thank-you.

Let the Prognosticators' DeathMatch begin!

It used to be..."what's the weirdest place you ever had sex?"

Now it's...."what's the weirdest place you ever recorded a podcast?"

This week I did it 35,000 feet in the air on a Virgin Atlantic flight to London. Quality's pretty good considering it was my first time.

I discuss the all important subject of talent and education, Kyle Macdonald and why it's a bad idea to diss podcasting.

Ala carte download here

This is special (hat tip to my man on the West Coast, Hashem)

Motorola has launched a wiki to coincide with the launch of the Q.

Here's a quote from the Moto clan:

"Because the possible applications for the Q are always expanding, the "ideal user guide" would always grow and change. That can’t happened on paper. With your help, this wiki can capture and share the ever-growing knowledge of the greater community of Q users.

Frankly, Motorola can’t possibly know how the Q will work in all situations – who could? But we love our Q users and want to learn from them, help them, and make our products better in the future."

What I REALLY love about this is the numerator factor (that's for Len), as opposed to the denominator treatment. Companies are always trying to minimize cost or risk, as opposed to maximizing return or reward. Case in point, many companies are putting user guides on a CD or worse still, downloadable from a website (as opposed to printing them) This is as transparent as day.

Motorola on the other hand, have opened up themselves to allow their community to build a human guide (as opposed to a user guide), and in doing so will no doubt uncover rich, diverse and incredible valuable tips, tricks, tutorials etc.

Bravo!

The latest episode of Across the Sound is up. It's a great converZAtion with Logic + Emotion's (and Digitas') David Armano.

We discuss the Brawny Academy, talent, Rocketbust or Unboomed, AO-Hell and customer service, creativity and much much more.

It's full of meat, nutrients and a couple of curveball surprises to boot!

Shownotes and mp3 link here and iTunes subscription link here.

Kyle did it! He really did it (and I had no doubt that he would)!

He traded one red paperclip for a house in Kipling, Saskatchewan. You can read all about it here.

Corbin Bernsen ultimately played a major role in making this happen. (You can hear my interview with Corbin here)

In keeping with the brilliant initiative, there's complete transparency in terms of getting in contact with the participating players AND no doubt the Mayor of Kipling and Corbin will be getting plenty of additional publicity along the way.

Well done Kyle! You are one in a million (pixels)!

If a picture says a thousand words, then I'm afraid this one said about 999 too many - leaving only, "disgraceful" for all to see.

A Sony spokeperson came up with this drivel:

"All of the 100 or so images created for the campaign have been designed to show this contrast in colours of the PSPs , and have no other message or purpose."

There are two (and only two) viable options here:

1) Sony and/or their agency, TBWA, are racist pigs

2) Sony and/or their agency, TBWA, are not racist pigs, but in fact are dumb asses

Either way, someone should be fired or sent to live with white supremacists.

Call it the Ferarri effect (David Armano and I talk about the VF incident on ATS #42 - out on Sunday, although I do refer to him at Ferazzi), but here's an article in Mediaweek which covers an AOL mull to move to a completely free, ad-supported service.

The future of ISP's never looked so bright...although one has to wonder if transferring all ones eggs to the basket of advertising is in fact going from the frying pan into the fire.

I know people get a little pissed when bloggers feel the need to issue advisories of "light blogging ahead", but I am going to be on the road pretty extensively through July 21st and so will most likely be blotting, as opposed to blogging during this time (I have no clue what blotting is, but it's definitely lighter than blogging)

I'll be making quick stops in Austin, Seattle, London, Denver and Detroit and where humanly possible it would be great to connect with Jaffe Juice readers and ATS listeners (although sadly, it's going to be tough)

Just took a little stroll over to the Brawny Academy...it's certainly not BMWFilms, nor is it Survivor, however it is something...

I watched the entire first episode and actually look forward to the second.

Hat tip to David who sent this to me, and also Bob Garfield's rather negative review of the campaign, which he claims is lost in the woods and although pioneering...is idiotic.

Whereas the Chevy Tahoe campaign deserved the negative reviews, however pioneering it might have been thought to be, I'm not sure this one even remotely deserves to be given criticism, except perhaps some constructive advice.

On the New Marketing side, props for your RSS feed (although copy is a little lame, "Thanks for subscribing to the Brawny Academy RSS feed. Isn't RSS great?") and a gentle man-slap for not doing more with your e-mail update sign-up (hint: try after the episode) A slightly harder slap for not making the episodes downloadable.

I would have liked a context setting video...how did this come about? how did these guys happen to audition? Perhaps this is why Garfield comments that the contestants aren't likeable enough.

My position on judging these long form efforts is very simple and very consistent....AT THEIR VERY WORST, THEY'RE NO WORSE THAN 90% OF THE 30-SECOND CRAP ON TV. Garfield feels that no one would lean forward and watch all the episodes. I disagree and I disagree because the goal is not to "reach" tens of millions of potential consumers, but rather to engage with a smaller subset of voluntary hand-raisers in the process.

Sure, they do take the product placement a little too far at times, but at others the gratuitous placement kinda works...in a campy sort of way. I also have to compliment the very accurate personfication of the Brawny Brand through the Brawny Man. This - without question - humanizes a brand I honestly never cared about before.

Garfield's most valid claim is the alleged audience mismatch.

The target here is women -- women so disgusted with their good-for-nothing mates that they take vicarious satisfaction watching other women's good-for-nothing mates humiliated by housework.

Except who has time to watch this, when in real life you're pushing strollers and vacuuming and filling toy boxes and unloading groceries?

Bob, you know I love you like the mentor I never had, but come on: a) have you spoken to women about this? b) do you know which room in the house most stay at home moms "live" in...and how many of these rooms (hint: they have a fridge in them) have computers in them? c) did you factor in working moms? (I'm told there are a few of them left) and d) what about the guys?

I don't know about you...but there's a damn good chance I'll purchase Brawny paper towels the next time I take both kids shopping while my wife gets a pedicure...just as soon as I go and put down that toilet seat.

Reality Advertising is a term I used in Life after the 30-second spot. Taking a page out of the Reality TV genre, I use Reality Advertising to talk about efforts like Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty or even Nike.

Marc Babej and Tim Pollak drew my attention to VW's latest effort - a TV spot which features real humans having an accident as opposed to crash test dummies. They even wrote a column about it.   

I just realized that I never shared this with Jaffe Juice readers. I wrote a guest column last week for Talent Zoo. I also have a distribution deal with them for Across the Sound on Radio Talent Zoo.

It's called "Weekdays at Bernies" and I think you should get what this is about in a second. But if you don't, it's about talent - both attracting and retaining - in this new social media enabled world.

This post could have been called "Social Operas" as well.

This might not be as dramatic as Adam Curry leaving Podshow or perhaps Nick Denton leaving Gawker (although he has offered several staffers the opportunity to do likewise), but it's big nonetheless...

Amanda Congdon has left the building (literally). In fact, she's left the East Coast altogether.

As read on Rocketboom:

Amanda Congdon has decided to move to L.A. to pursue opportunities that have arisen for her in Hollywood.

We wanted to meet her demands to move production out to L.A., however, we are a small company and have not been able to figure out a way to make it work, financially and in many other ways at this time. While we continue to remain with open arms, Amanda has in fact quit and left Rocketboom. So sadly, we bid Amanda adieu and wish her all the best.

Rocketboom goes on.

Andrew Baron, the founder and creator of Rocketboom, will stay with the company in New York and will continue to produce and direct the show. We are in the daunting process of recruiting a replacement for Amanda.

While Amanda will be sorely missed, we have big plans for Rocketboom and are determined to make the show better than ever.

After Field Week and a week on hiatus, we know that you are hungry for the news! Rocketboom will be back with a news episode and an interim host this MONDAY, JULY 10.

And what social opera would be complete without a bit of dirty laundry being aired on Amanda's blog and via video.

...but THAT'S not half the story, THIS is. Jason Calacanis has offered her a job (or at least negotiating currency) at Netscape and he did it in full view and plain sight on his blog!

From a branding standpoint, it will be interesting to see if/how Rocketboom copes without her. It is on one hand a classic branding story (think Martha Stewart Living v Martha Stewart - not that I'm suggesting anyone's going to jail here :)) and on the other, a social media branding story (the meteoric - excuse the pun - rise of a star through a video blog!)

Also, Calacanis' move demonstrates not only social media's role in terms of elevating one's own personal stock price (getting a job), but also (and arguably more importantly) being in a position to offer a job, and thus attract talent.

Hat Tip to C.C.

Ad Age just released their annual Leading National Advertisers report and I always scrutinize this to see who's who in the new marketing zoo.

• What caught my eye this year was this chart (you can click to view it a little clearer) which shows ad spending totals by media.

Now there are a few caveats here (see expanded post)

...but what struck me in this analysis (2005 versus 2004 and Top 100 LNA's versus all spending) was the extent to which the so-called leaders are in fact not. Take interactive for example:

• Interactive grew from 2.4% to 2.6% of budget from 2004 to 2005 amongst the Top 100 LNA's. However, "Internet" grew from 2.8% to 3.1% amongst all LNA's during the same period. The difference is somewhat more pronounced when you factor the Top 100 LNA data into the overall averages.
• Television of all shapes and forms (network, spot, syndicated, cable network, cable local spot) dropped (yes it did drop) from 35.3% to 34.5% (a 2% decrease)
• As a % of total measured media, that's 57% of total (I guess it would be "paid media")

I could have my math horribly screwed up, but ultimately what I see shows an acute lack of leadership, openness to experimentation, ability to change, both on behalf of the top 100 LNA's (our so-called blue-chip leadership), as well as from the companies that track their spending sprees.

Am I missing anything here? Do the caveats below reveal any new insights/reinforcing or contradicting evidence?

I know it's probably the first sign of a mashup between megalomania and insanity to start quoting oneself, but be that as it may I have fallen in love with a rather pithy statement I uttered on ATS #41:

You are the community you keep

It's been growing on me the whole holiday weekend and instead of writing a long post on what it means to me, I thought I would turn it over to you for blog comments and audio comments for Across the Sound (+1 206 203-3255 or an mp3 attachment to acrossthesound@gmail.com)

What does this mean to you?

Is it just another stupid consulting buzzphrase or is there something there?

How should brands interpret this and more importantly, what should they do about it?

Ask yourselves this...what does Corbin Bernsen know about new marketing that you don't?

Check out ATS #41 to find out or subscribe via iTunes here.

By now, you may very well have heard about Vincent Ferrari, the 30-year old who tried in vain to cancel his AOL ISP service. The story is nothing new in the chronicles of sucky customer service, except for a few minor details:

• Vincent records the conversation and posts it to his blog, insignificant thoughts (as if!)
• He gets Dugg (3108 times and counting...)
• He is interviewed on NBC and the video is uploaded to YouTube

• New York Times gets in on the act (gee, I wonder what would happen if I tried to cancel my New York Times subscription, assuming I had one)
• AOL apologizes (well that settles it...all is forgiven then. PS Can I assume you've renewed your AOL membership for another zillion years?)

PS Vincent's blog (click on thumbnail for error message) is crashomundo for now (wonder if Earthlink will sponsor his increased bandwidth?)

So bottom line...this is another nail in the coffins of lazy, stubborn and arrogant corporations who pay nothing but lip service to their customers and customer service in general, opting for IVR labyrinths, cookie-cutter FAQ's and one-way mirrors. You can expect more taped calls like this to surface in an increasing fashion.

"This call may be recorded or monitored to improve customer service" has never rung so true!

Hat Tip: Clive in Oz (bad news travels fast in the social mediasphere)