Jaffe Juice

MBV Sweet 16 and a prize?

Seth Godin would be proud. Looks like there's a free prize inside after all. Andy Nulman from POW! Right between the Eyes and one of 2007's MVB's contenders has agreed to "bankroll" a prize for the winner of the MVB's.

So what should the winner get? Someone suggested I should add the Final Four to my blogroll. Easy enough. The only reason I haven't added more is that I'm lazy and also not much of an HTML editor. Shocking, but true.

Also, definitely think a congratulatory button along the lines of "MVB 2007: Final Four", but then again...shouldn't we do the same for all rounds? 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1. Radical Trust, what do you think?

I could also invite the Final Four onto Across the Sound - The New Marketing Podcast for a guest co-host episode.

Those are great for the Final Four, but what should the winner get? Suggestions welcome!

PS Round of 32 Results and Sweet 16 pairings will be up on Sunday evening

Fact Checking, New Marketing Style

This is kind of twisted. A couple of years ago, I picked up a factoid about multi-tasking. Truth is I've been using this data point (sourced and all) fairly liberally. Even put it into Join the Conversation.

In my due dilligence, I look to confirm the exact verbiage and all that comes up on the Web is this:

Schulman: That’s right. It’s multi-task, right? I think Yankelovich says that the average 25- to 54-year-old can manage 1.4 platforms of media simultaneously. Which is like, you can IM while you work, or you can talk on your cell phone while you drive (hopefully). They say that 12- to 25-year-olds can manage 4.7 platforms of media simultaneously.

It's my buddy Alan Schulman from Brand New World being quoted in an interview on imediaconnection.com.

So I contact Yankelovich and they say....sorry, not our data.

Interesting conundrum with more interesting implications. For one thing, should iMedia be fact checking better? Why is Yankelovich not monitoring the conversation better and nipping inaccuracies in the bud?

Moreover, my primary interest is to see if the new marketing community (you) can help me get to the bottom of this very profound insight i.e. the multi-tasking ability of 12-24/5 year olds versus 25-49/54 etc. I'd still like to include it in the book.

Signed copy of the new book if you can help me solve the riddle.

Agency Evolution

Picked up this post on the Valley PR Blog, which refers to this article in the Arizona Republic on Ad agencies evolving.

The post includes this very flattering blurb:

In a fragmented and integrated media environment where designers must think like writers, media buyers understand the interactive space and so on, our titles pigeonhole us. One adman who reinvented himself, calls himself ‘Chief Interrupter.’ He’s more famous for challenging agencies with his new marketing mantra, via his blog, podcast, and of course his book that nails the 30-second spot. I’m talking of Joe Jaffe, who started off in the old networked agency framework, but has now built a ‘new marketing’ agency from scratch

Thanks for the acknowledgment Angelo. We'll keep working hard on executing against this!

Thanks for asking

Check out Bad Idea, Indeed!, which attempts to find answers to frequently asked questions in the world of digital marketing evangelism. Questions like:

• How far should I go in the dialogue with the users? Can I accept controversy on my website? What moderation level is acceptable?
• Is online advertising making sense without a decent website?
• Are there examples of 2.0 initiatives made by traditional brands that went totally out of hand?
• How can impressions be compared to television GRPs?
• How intrusive should I be? (expandable formats, videos with sound on by default)
• What does interaction rate (only available for rich media formats) tell me about the impact of my campaign?
• Does the long tail change anything to the way I should communicate with my target group?
• Why on earth do people use sites like second life?

I was asked to comment on the question, "how far should one go when it comes to dialogue?" My response, "...you can never go far enough." This absolutely refers to genuine and authentic conversation, as opposed to inciting, provoking or forcing controversy and "buzz"

Here's the full post

206.5 Another pound bites the dust

Last week's 5 pound drop wasn't a fluke (phew). This week I took off another pound and yesterday, came to the interesting realization that I dropped 50% of what my new baby currently weighs (we had a scan and the baby is 2 pounds now!)

I caught up with one of Jason Calacanis' Calacalacalacalacalaclacasts (where he insulted my weight once again) and on his blog he mentioned that he's been approached by several companies to do something with Fatblogging. I'm interested which ones.

I wrote about Fatblogging in Join the Conversation and noted that the Marketers have - once again - been conspicuously absent from the conversation (take that, Maarten)

On another note, I was interviewed for a LA Times piece on Fatblogging would you believe. Just goes to show, that you never know what is going to resonate and whilst some people have questioned the marketing signficance of a marketing blogger talking about Fatblogging, how about them P.R. apples?

MVB Game time: Seeding, brackets and pairings announced.

With the voting in and tallied, including two cheaters (who have been paired up against each other as punishment for trying to rock the vote and ultimately set up against Seth Godin), we are now ready to begin the big dance.

The full seedings are as follows and you can click on this thumbnail to view the complete brackets.

More importantly, click here to vote on the 16 head-to-head match-ups. Once enough votes are in, I'll tabulate again and narrow the field down to the "Sweet 16" and so on and so forth.

fyi, David Armano, in a putrid ass-kissing way to influence his growing following put together this very smart post offering commentary and insight on the randomness of the MVB's and also the MSM angle associated with it. Don't let this MVB demonstration of thought leadership go unpunished!

• Jaffe v Seth Godin on the card if all goes according to seeding
• We're rooting for Where's the Sausage heads up against Eggs, Bacon, Chips & Beans!

Vote NOW

Seedings:

1. Seth Godin - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
2. Wired – http://blog.wired.com/
3. Logic + Emotion - http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/
4. Jaffe Juice - http://www.jaffejuice.com
5. BrandAutopsy - http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/
6. Russel Davies - http://russelldavies.typepad.com/
7. Church of the Consumer - http://www.churchofthecustomer.com/blog/
8. Beyond Madison Avenue - http://www.beyondmadisonavenue.com/
9. Micro Persuasion - http://www.micropersuasion.com
10. "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots" http://www.fightthebull.com/blog/
11. Cool Hunting – http://www.coolhunting.com/
12. Mark Cuban - http://www.blogmaverick.com/
13. Branding Strategy Insider - http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/
14. http://www.scottweisbrod.com/index.php/
15. Gaping Void - http://www.gapingvoid.com/
16. PSFK - http://www.psfk.com
17. Creative Think - http://blog.creativethink.com/
18. Radical Trust - http://www.radicaltrust.ca
19. Adverlab – http://adverlab.blogspot.com/
20. SpringWise - http://www.springwise.com/
21. POW! Right Between The Eyes! http://powrightbetweentheeyes.typepad.com/
22. Adliterate by Richard Huntington - http://www.adliterate.com/
23. "Eggs Bacon Chips & Beans" - http://russelldavies.typepad.com/eggbaconchipsandbeans/
24. Servant of Chaos - http://servantofchaos.typepad.com/
25. Conversation Agent - http://conversationagent.typepad.com/
26. Hello_World - http://missinglink.typepad.com/hello_world/
27. Where's The Sausage - http://wheresthesausage.typepad.com/
28. Modern Life is Rubbish - http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/
29. NussbaumOnDesign - http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/index.html    
30. Pronet Advertising - http://www.pronetadvertising.com
31. CK's Blog - http://www.ck-blog.com/
32. Top Rank Blog - http://www.toprankblog.com

Why Sanjaya Malakar will not win American Idol

The world is all a-twitter with the demonic rise of Sanjaya Malakar in this season of American Idol. Lately all the talk has been about his hair, but really the story here is about the fact he's been the weakest link for week's on end and yet somehow stays in the competition.

The secret is not his over the top hairdos. And it's not his smile either. Or the fact that every week he becomes more Michael Jackson-ish (weird) It's the "power of us". Its Vote for the Worst.

[update: I've been asked to remove the screenshot from VFTW; I'm not sure why and I'm trying to get to the bottom of this]

"One vote cast for Sanjaya is a vote against Simon" was one of the quotes in 3 (count 'em) articles in USA Today which asked the question for the first time, "could he actually win this thing?"

Suddenly MSM wakes up to realize that the very voting mechanism that is set up to democratize (read: mask and hide the DIRT CHEAP, artificial and seamless creation of a pop idol, whilst selling advertising at the same time - how sweet is that!!!!!????) the process, may very well bring it down.

In fact, many people believe that if Sanjaya won the whole thing, this would cripple the whole AI franchise.

The articles go on to single out VFTW and Howard Stern as being responsible for keeping Sanjaya in, but its really VFTW. Howard Stern does not have the audience (or influence) he once had....this is all about the many-to-many.

Rest assured, he won't win the competition. Although Sanjaya is enjoying his charmed life, the Wisdom of Crowds will prevail as soon as the numbers get manageable enough to counter the voting fragmentation. At the end of the day, talent will shine (go Blake!!!) and Clive Davis will get his boy/girl.

...but along the way, it sure is fun to see Simon Cowell squirming. He said it best last night (paraphrased), "at this point there's really nothing we can say that's going to make a difference. If America wants you in, good luck to them"

A Really Good Pitch

Lately, we've been chatting a lot at crayon about blogger outreach and good v bad v ugly pitches.

Every week I get tons of really crummy PR pitches for Jaffe Juice and obviously, I - and the fellow crayonistas - am trying to do things in a unique new marketingesque way.

Worse than your typical "please post about us" PR pitch is the "link exchange" one, which typically comes from an automated merge and purge bot (or at least seems like it)

So I get this today, which totally stood out and caught my attention. I'm reprinting verbatim to give these guys props and also the visibility. Pithy editorial in bold

I saw your site this week as I was roaming through ad blogs yeah, right. Funny, I've always liked the number 725, which, coincidentally, would be the exact number of blogs linking to your site if you were to exchange links with madisonavenew.com it's now 733

I represent advertising legend Harry Webber never heard of him. is that bad?, who is credited with such notable campaigns as “Quality is Job 1,” “I’m stuck on Band-aid Brand,” and “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste,” among others. For the last few years, he’s published a weekly column drawing from his experience in the industry (which includes a Clio Hall of Fame induction). His articles are read each week by tens of thousands of individuals from hundreds of major corporations, including General Motors, IBM corporation, American Express, and industry powerhouses such as Ogilvy & Mather and Omnicom, to name a few.  never heard of them

By linking to madisonavenew.com, you will be afforded exposure to this international audience of advertising and marketing professionals. Further, your graphic link will be given a highly visible position in the center of the page, directly next to Mr. Webber’s (sometimes scathing, always insightful) column.myself, I opt for always scathing, sometimes insightful

If you’re interested, please send a screenshot of your link to madisonavenew.com come on, don't you trust me?. In return, we’ll upload your link to madisonavenew.com and send you a screenshot. Or please let me know what necessary steps to take to add a madisonavenew.com link to jaffe juice.

Happy rantings always!,

Playfulness aside, this pitch really caught my eye. It was "mass customization" to be sure, but I felt they took enough time to understand me and personalize accordingly. Of course, all bloggers are ranting lunatics, so I guess I shouldn't feel special now should I?

PS One suggestion...provide hyperlinks in your e-mail.

PPS I checked out the site and really like the theme of the current article, "what would you do if you had to start over from scratch?"

PPPS I just linked to you via PS and PPS

PPPPS Now where is my link?

PPPPPS Why is the site so static? Move it to a blogging platform already! I know a great company to help you...

What's on a marketer's mind?

The ANA have just released their 2007 "top marketer issues" and the comparisons to 2006 are quite interesting:

Top Marketer Issues (Ranked By Importance)
	2007	2006
Integrated marketing communications	1	4
Accountability	2	1
Aligning marketing organization with innovation	3	2
Building strong brands	4	3
Media proliferation	5	5
Consumer control over what/how they view advertising	6	8
Globalization of marketing efforts	7	10
Growth of multicultural consumer	8	6
Advertising creative that achieves business results	9	9
Attracting and retaining top talent	10	7
Source: Association of National Advertisers survey of more than 100 senior marketers.

The 3 biggest climbers are "integration", "consumer control" (and how it relates to advertising) and globalization. Dropping down are multicultural and talent.

My thoughts:

1. I'm happy to see marketers revisiting integration. To be sure, 99% of what they're being sold currently is NOT integration. It's imitation or duplication. Looking, feeling, tasting the same is tantemount to a better white noise mousetrap. Those of you who have read Chapter 10 of my book would have the little doodle I constructed (I've since updated it in my recent presentations) about what I call REAL integration
2. I'm a little relieved to see the accountability obsession, as well as building strong brands dropping a notch. Don't get me wrong, they're both clearly important, however there are so many other key initiatives to balance and factor in the equation, for example "innovation"
3. I hope innovation rises next year. I believe this is the number one issue and so with it falling, I get a little concerned.
4. Other than that, it's downright alarming that multicultural and talent are not holding their ground and/or rising in terms of importance. I'm wondering if the people who completed this survey have been living underneath a rock for the past 12 months.

To summarize, this ranking (and comparison with last year) seems to fall neatly into 2 categories. For the most part, items that are past of the traditional methodology (brands, creative, etc) are either holding or falling, whereas initiatives that relate to change (new marketing) are holding or tending to rise.

Via MediaPost and Hat Tip to Jen

March Blogness Voting is Open

32 Finalists...let the Marketing Dance begin

Here is the survey. You get to vote on the 5 most valuable blogs (MVB) under the following criteria:

• delivers the best crash course/introduction to new marketing for newcomers/newbies
• provides essential insights to those trying to get up to speed with the pace of change
• offers superior levels of marketing relevance, value and utility
• demonstrates consistent strategic thought leadership

Again, you have 5 votes. Use them wisely. Vote now.

PS Thanks Scott for the logo