Jaffe Juice

Baby Jaffe is 1 (day) and all is beautiful with the world. Thanks again to everyone for all their wonderful wishes (except the A-listers who are all full of themselves)

Here are some links and random thoughts as I attempt to keep my head above water:

• Check out Flight of the Conchords on HBO. Really brilliant stuff
• Dove's Evolution wins both Cyber and Film Grand Prix. Consider this the first day of the new era of creativity. Ding Dong traditional creatives, you are well and truly dead.
• What's your blog rated? Mine is PG (Thanks Ariel Waldman)

• Interesting commentary on Leno's Live Advertising experiment. But will it blend?
• Techno//Marketer - this guy IS good. What a summary!
• Barack Obama Ringtones. This one you have to hear to believe (hat tip to Jon Stewart)
• Wonderful story of Paul Potts who won Britain's Got Talent. He's a mobile phone salesman with an opera voice extraordinaire. Not sure the new marketing angle. Just a nice story
• Hilary Clinton Soprano's spoof and accompanying commentary by Simpson, 'eh. Haven't discussed this much, but probably worth doing so at some point

At 3.41pm today, we welcomed a beautiful baby boy into the world. He joins a big brother and big sister.

Baby Jaffe weighed 6 pounds, 4 oz and at an impressive stature of 18 1/2 inches of solid muscle.

I twittered his arrival about an hour after his birth. Thanks to Tim, Susan, Skye, Doug, Scott, Brian and Derek for your direct messages. I'll go back and check other tweets now.

More pics here.

Photographs taken with my loaner Nikon D80.

The papers and trades are all aflutter this week with reports that the upfront is back; network television is back; the 30-second spot is back, based on assertions/projections that this year's 30-second spot lovefest should bring in anywhere from $9-$9.3bn.

Last year's number around $8.75bn would make the increase in the region of 2.5-5%.

CPM increases are projected to come in around as high as 7-9% for ABC with even struggling NBC coming in around 3-5%.

Huh?

Let me get this right. Audience numbers continue to decline. Channels continue to proliferate. Adoption of DVR's continue to rise. Consumer generated content continues to increase. Blogs, Podcasts and Virtual Worlds continue to grow.

And we've decided to go back to the tried and tested?

Let's ask departing CMO of 30-second spot obsessed Gatorade, Cindy Alston, what she thinks of this logic-flow, shall we?

So what does this mean? Are we out the woods or is this nothing more than a cruel joke; an illusion; the mirage of an oasis in an endless and brutal parched desert?

If the reports are in fact confirmed, we're talking about a 5% increase of about $350 million dollars, which would put network TV's booty (much like my booty i.e. fatblogging exploits) back in a holding pattern, establishing over the past 3-5 years.

Personally, I believe that money could and should be smarter allocated elsewhere, as I joked yesterday with a reporter....how about investing some of this money in the blogosphere? Hell, if you were GM you could buy the entire blogosphere, let alone sponsor it.

But back to the subject at hand. Has the storm cleared or is this a temporary reprieve...kind of like the eye of the storm? For starters, there are always going to be seasonal/economic in play.

People still watch television. And although cable has continued to flex its muscles with improved programming quality, people still use the rule of 5 fingers when it comes to viewership i.e. 2 (CBS), 4 (NBC), 5 (Fox), 7 (ABC) and that other one. But are they watching commercials? We know the answer to that question, don't we? I can't tell you the number of senior marketers who skip EVERY SINGLE COMMERCIAL WITH THEIR TIVO'S, and yet somehow believe their consumers are less sophisticated or intelligent to do the same.

Another factor is going to be the shift to commercial ratings and the fact marketers would be paying for time-shifted viewership and it's probably here, that you'll get the best idea of the delusional drunkedness that proves well and truly that we're living in the Twilight Zone.

Here are some clips from the LA Times article:

Industry executives said they anticipated that the audience for commercials would be about 5% lower than the ratings for the program the advertisements appear in.

The networks, however, are offsetting any decline in advertising dollars that result from lower ratings, because for the first time they will be paid for viewers who digitally record a program and watch it later.

Last year advertisers refused to pay for those viewers. But that audience could no longer be ignored, as about 17% of homes with televisions in the U.S. are now equipped with digital recorders. Advertisers will now pay for viewers who watched a show within three days after it was recorded.

Allowing that audience to be counted is likely to bring in additional hundreds of millions of dollars to the networks. The most popular programs tend to have the highest rates of recording and playbacks, so networks with the top shows will benefit the most.

"We're finding that a little more than a third of the people who delayed their viewing ended up watching the commercials," Schwartz said. "And we need to give value to the people who are watching the commercials."

I feel like Shaggy or Scooby right now. I just found the missing diamonds and pulled the sheet from the ghost to reveal a sad, pitiful old man looking for attention.

To recap, we're saying that all is good in TVland, because we believe 95% of TV-watching consumers who watch content will also watch commercials, coupled with 33% of DVR owners who just can't tear themselves away from the screen with feminine-hygiene bursts onto the scene.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I'm curious if that 33% include fast-forwarding stats in the "watching" data, and while we're at it....I wonder if the 95% (assuming this number is correct) specifies the difference between "was watching and paying attention" versus "making a sandwich, taking a dump, checking e-mail" etc.

Come on people. Wake up and smell the roses before you go the same way as every other CMO seems to be going nowadays. Grow some figurative balls or at the very minimum, use your brains or trust that gnawing feeling deep down in your gut. Surely you realize you're in the eye of the perfect storm and the worst is yet to come, don't you?

After about a month of being stuck around 195 to 196, I've finally broken through the 30 pounds barrier and hopefully it won't be long until I reach 190 pounds.

My original goal was to break 190 by the time the baby arrives (due date July 6)

That said, no telling how much scotch (2 pounds a tot) I'll consume when the baby comes. I did a search for "Bottle of Single Malt Scotch", but for some reason WeightWatchers only measures in single portion sizes :)

Verdino points me to an absurd article (I'm not linking to it for obvious reasons...it's reprinted below) in PC Magazine by Lance Ulanoff about MySpace, Twitter and Second Life (etc.) being doomed i.e. social media being bubble 2.0 (in a nutshell)

Now I could call Lance (who? my point exactly) a tosser; a wanker; an idiot etc....but I won't. I could get all upset about this clearly desperate and misguided attempt at trying to understand how the world has changed by being a serial naysayer...but again, I won't.

I realize now that this is the kind of schlocky sensationalist "journalism" solely designed to prolong the destruction of the rainforests in favor of short-lived (toilet) paper called magazines.

Oops, did I just fly off as a misunderstood blogger? Perhaps I tied the belt of my gown too tight or perhaps the damp in my basement is finally causing my brain to turn to mush. Perhaps I should just go on a drunken tirade in Second Life or send some random messages about what I'm doing right now in the form of a Tweet. Perhaps that will help me calm down.

Because here's the thing. Lance Ulanoff has most likely never set foot in Second Life. Lance Ulanoff has most likely never set up a Twitter profile or sent a tweet about a story idea or a search for an expert opinion on obscure topics such as...oh....well.....'er how about Second Life, MySpace or Twitter. Lance Ulanoff has most likely never even visited MySpace.

This kind of crap has really got to stop. You see, Lance is a smart "journalist". He knows that people like me will play right into his hands and rant, rave and rage against his stupidity. He knows that people will soon forget about him because dumb pieces like this one in Forbes will be around to replace his drivel. And he knows that should any of these new marketing approaches take a step backwards (for whatever reason), he'll be dancing on the graves singing Halleluyah (apologies to Monty Python)

For what it's worth, let's isolate a few of Lance's pearls:

Second Life could just as easily be the first to go. go where? are you referring to being acquired in which case, nothing says failure quite like a hundreds of millions of dollars No one believes its reported participation numbers anymore you mean more people than are on Amazon.com at any given point in time?, even though big companies, such as Circuit City and IBM, have built virtual stores (and Playboy is jumping in with both, er, feet this month). Some individuals are even claiming to make real-world money in there, but are they really? Frankly, I think Second Life is the equivalent of a virtual con. much like convincing people to buy cigarettes through sexy slim models or any other game or any other anything that people spend voluntary time and even money in exchange for value and/or a consumption experience There's no doubt that it's enjoyed startling growth in the last year and a half much like your magazine, right?, but that was driven, for the most part, by the laudatory press and media coverage it received from magazines like yours until such time the wind changed direction and with it your spineless coverage. Companies herded like sheep to the platform much like any other medium before it, because they believed the hype. So did users. But reality is finally starting to trump perception. Companies' virtual stores sit empty this has been addressed if you were paying any attention, and there's no way they can measure if they're building any additional brand recognition simply by being there. aaah measurement - let's compare Second Life to TV shall we. Let's hold SL to a higher standard than TV while we're at it.

Of course, they're not.

Twitter's demise will certainly come before we hit 2011. That's in 4 years time. So you're basically saying that Twitter will be around for another 4 years, which will surely be yet another sign of utter failure. It's the perfect example of Internet flash paper, and I suspect it will shine as brightly and briefly as this favorite magician's gimmick. I'm singling out the site, which revolves entirely around people's random notes about what they're doing and thinking at any given moment, that's the origin of Twitter, but it has quickly being used for a variety of experimental applications such as I did with live call-ins on Across the Sound because of a recent John C. Dvorak column

. He somewhat insanely says that these random postings should be saved for posterity. Dvorak is too smart to believe this, so I'll assume his entire column was tongue-in-cheek. No one is going to save these random posts about nothing. Twitter is popular now because the Web cognoscenti some call these people influencers are using it. This bunch of eggheads prides itself on irony and witticism. They treat the site like some sort of ongoing haiku contest. Well, folks, I have a haiku for you:

Goodbye, bubble, and
So long, overhyped nonsense
Till the next "Big Thing."

Dude - at this point, I'm thinking you're a genius as there's no way [much like your hat-tip to Dvorak] you actually believe this is a bubble per se. For what it's worth, I believe the next big thing is NOW. Also check out this post of mine which talks about Bubble 1.0 versus your 2.0 notion.

Anyway, I've ranted way too long and I suppose I should apologize for any personal insults slung Lance's way. Lance - you're invited to our panel discussion next week in Second Life. If I had "met" you sooner, I would have asked you to moderate. And if you don't know how to "get in" to Second Life, feel free to call on a crayonista to spoon-feed you on your journey.

Peace my brother.

The announcement yesterday of Greg Verdino and Steve Coulson joining crayon was picked up by the following press outlets (and it's only Tuesday):

• Adweek
• Mediaweek
• MediaPost
• iMediaConnection
• PaidContent.Org

I'm a big believer in listening to what the market has to say. A big part of the marketing world has always been the "perception is reality" adage and to this end, I thought I'd call out a few phrases and/or quotes which obviously stuck with Brian Morrissey and Gavin O'Malley at Adweek and MediaPost respectively:

• "The things that are No.'s 13, 14 and 15 on the traditional agency's list are No.'s 1, 2 and 3 at crayon" - Verdino
• "There is a huge part of the puzzle missing right now: the ability to go beyond the superficial execution. It's a spectacular fireworks display and 30 minutes later you can hear the crickets chirping and the sky is dark." - Jaffe
• "When we talk about blogging, we're not just talking from the perspective of being marketing professionals, but as actual bloggers. We've rolled up our sleeves and found what it takes to successfully engage in the blogosphere." - Verdino
• "What we're trying to do is bring the innovation back [to interactive], and the key is conversation." - Jaffe

Moreover, I was a little surprised by the direct/head-on comparisons with Digitas and while our goals are without question to crush the interactive upstart known as Publitas like a Mr Burnsian paper-cup, I think the comparisons probably end with our common friend known as Gregory.

I don't think Digitas and crayon are evenly remotely in the same business. crayon is not in the media, advertising or direct marketing space. Digitas is not in the conversational space. Blogs, podcasts and virtual worlds are not Digitas' primary focus and putting 30-second American Express spots on Yahoo! is not our core competency or interest.

That said, I wholeheartedly admire and respect what David Kenny has done to build a digital powerhouse and think he's received the recognition and reward for his efforts. I hope crayon is to conversation, what Digitas was (and is) to interactive media and marketing. I doubt we'll ever be as big, nor would we want to be, but I'm sure we both share the desire to be the "best" at whatever we set our sights on.

Death of the Portal - December 6, 2006

Plus there's that "circle of arrogance" thing

More here

In preparation for my Mac transformation, I am giving up on Internet Explorer and FINALLY installing Firefox. For some reason, my IE keeps crashing (on a daily basis if not more frequently) and I have lost countless blog posts in progress to the point of wanting to tear out my fingernails.

First of all, congratulations to Angel Cabrera on his incredible victory yesterday at the US Open. Fending off Tiger Woods with an under-par round takes some doing. Angel was humble and gracious and made it really hard for a partisan crowd not to smile back at him.

So here's the thing. Look closely at his shirt and you'll notice that he is being sponsored by South African Airways (the official airline of my home country) So what's wrong with this picture? How about the fact Angel Cabrera is ARGENTINIAN!!!!!

This left-field sponsorship might have been justified by Angel's internationalism (he gets around...and so does South African) or perhaps by an affordable price tag, but that pales against the coverage he received this past weekend.

The media value alone must have the South African executives high-fiving each other all the way to Argentina.

This is one of those rare times where crap sponsorship comes out looking like silver(ware). Well done!

Would you buy a used-car from this man? The good news is that you won't have to because he doesn't work in advertising anymore.

It is with great excitement and pleasure that I am able to welcome New Marketing giant, Greg Verdino to the crayonista family.

More coverage here from Adweek.

Greg will assume the newly created role (they're all new at a start-up) of Chief Strategy Officer, which essentially will put the man in charge of insights, research, strategic planning, analytics and anything else we can cram into his portfolio.

Greg joins our management team, together with Chief Creative Officer, Steve Coulson, C.E.O. Gary Cohen and myself.

Greg is also joined by New Marketing whizkid and strategist, Seni Thomas (who starts today as well), Project management maveness, Melissa Parrish and last - but definitely not least - Relationship Director and Consigliere, Scott Monty.

In addition, 2 familiar crayonistas - Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson - are reverting back to their previously-established independent roles as trailblazers in Social Media. As I have always said - once a crayonista, always a crayonista (it’s a life sentence!) We wish them luck and express our thanks to Shel and Neville for their help in getting crayon to where it is today.

We look forward to working with them in the future and listening to FIR!

Check out the crayonville website for more.

So I'm contacted by Forbes magazine for an interview on Second Life. I quickly get back to the reporter, Allison Fass, and chat with her for about an hour.

At no point in the interview does she inform me the piece is about "sex and pranks." In the end, she doesn't use a single quote from me, which I can only imagine is because what I said wasn't bashing Second Life in any way.

The full article is below in the extended post.

This pisses me off for a bunch of reasons:

1. It's a totally unbalanced representation of Second Life by Mainstream Media
2. The misrepresentation in terms of Allison's intent
3. The fact that 1 hour of my time ends up being totally wasted

Ironically, newest crayonista Greg(ory!) Verdino is quoted in the piece, with the most balanced perspective of the lot.

For what it's worth, I invited David Charbuck on to ATS and also to be a part of the SL panel we're conducting on June 26th (post to come...) and haven't heard back from him. Hmmmm.

From this point on, I'm going to take a leaf out of Jason Calacanis' book and record all journalist conversations via telephone and/or conduct them through e-mail. At least that way, I get some value which I can share with my community.

I know this is obvious, but still it should be said: Twitter is the new Water-Cooler. After the series finale of The Soprano's, I avoided Twitter like the plague, because I knew it would be all a-tweet with conversation about the show (and ending).

If you go to Twitter Search and type in "Soprano's", you'll get tons of tweets and links, such as this "alternative ending" (sounds like the work of PW Fenton to me):

Chalk it up as another emerging use for Twitter.

So I'm definitely "stuck" in a range between 195 and 196 pounds (my last 4 weigh-ins over the past 5 weeks have been in this zone), but I'm not discouraged at all. Truthfully, I have let go a wee bit, especially with Memorial Day and Sardinia. In addition, how can you not drink BEER with the NFL crowd (where I was this week), especially with the A-B folk nearby!

On the upside, my fatblogging efforts made the LA Times this week. Who would have thunk that being a fattie would get you ink in the press :)

Really insightful article in this week's Ad Age by Tim Williams and Ron Baker on client-agency relationships and the need to move from cost-based to value-based compensation.

At crayon, we are moving forward aggressively on a hybrid value- and performance-based pricing model as a foundation for engagements.

Here are a few phrases or ideas which caught my eye, with some accompanying Juice:

Value is relative. A client's definition of value is different to an agency's. I know that sounds obvious, but it does speak to a misaligned set of expectations and realities.

How marketers believe agencies create value:

• Working in a collaborative way with the client by creating an environment of mutual respect.
• Ensuring that agency functions are integrated and agency divisions collaborate on behalf of the client.
• Developing and producing creative ideas that are fresh and unexpected.
• Developing ideas and programs that can be integrated into multiple communications channels.
• Developing solutions that go beyond traditional approaches and reach consumers in new ways.

How agencies believe marketers create value:

• Giving the agency the necessary time and resources to do its best work.
• Working with the agency in a collaborative manner that puts a premium on mutual respect.
• Identifying and articulating the outcomes the agency's work is expected to produce.
• Providing clear, complete direction to the agency.
• Providing constructive, timely feedback to the agency.

Many of these drivers are basic rules of engagement and yet how many of them are delivered? Agencies typically do not respect their clients and ultimately believe they are superior to their clients. To me this is clearly evidenced in the other agency perceived drivers which basically state that clients are nothing more than glorified clerical staff: get out of our way and let us do our jobs!

Yes, there is truth in that statement, but surely marketers bring more to the table.

On the flipside, marketers are fixated on integration - not just between mediums, but between silos, departments, divisions and other collaborators. And yet, their agencies have been unbundled and fragmented to create more silos. And to make matters worse, the marketers' organizations are no less siloed as the agencies that service them.

Which leaves my special interest: the ability to energize brands with a bold mix of alternatives to traditional advertising. New Marketing is no longer a, "yeah, we do that", but a holistic and strategic imperative.

The article continues with a discussion on efficiency (input) versus effectivenes (outcome) and the definition of chief value drivers - things customers care the most about. My CEO always talks about understanding "how clients buy", but I'm wondering whether we shouldn't be focusing our efforts on "how clients sell" in order to get closer to this common goal.

Anysome some food for thought. Check out the entire article and drop your thoughts as you see fit.

This is what I think I'm going to get:

My questions as follows:

1. Black or White?
2. Apple store or online?
3. What software should I have on board?
4. 15" size screen OK? Or do I supersize?
5. How do I do the whole Parallel thing?
6. Do I wait until October for Leopard, or is it a simple upgrade?
7. Anything else I left out?

Looks like Bud.TV is flexing a bit of short-form muscle.

If you think about it, Bud.TV should be the anti-GEICO-caveman in terms of being authentic, irreverent, risque, ballsy, brash, honest, true.

My advice...take it to the next level. Release the uncut version of this footage. Piss off a few people along the way if necessary. This is on-demand heaven.

Way to go, Schu....I owe you $10 for the swear jar

It's not often that I avoid the conversation, but in the case of The Soprano's series finale (don't worry...no spoilers HERE) this was exactly the case.

I flew out to Toronto on Sunday and thought I'd be able to watch the finale later that night.

Turns out however, that HBO is not available in Canada. Huh? WTF? It takes me less time to fly from LGA to Toronto than it does for me to fly to Chicago and yet no HBO?

So now I have a challenge....try and wait it out until Tuesday evening and watch the finale back at home, thanks to my TiVo and the joys of time-shifting.

The challenge begins...

1. No newspapers. Not much of a problem there. I don't read newspapers anymore, except ironically on the road. In any event, I did not receive the newspaper this morning in my hotel room in Deerhust.
2. No radio. Again, no problem there as I don't listen to the radio anymore either, unless of course if you're counting Sirius or a selection of ESPN podcasts (which are delayed by a day anyway)
3. No TV. A trickier task as commercial-avoiding-channel-surfing can often lead to spoiler flashes. This is what happened to me last year with the World Series of Poker. Turns out that watching Canadian-flavored Sportcenter, interspersed with Supernanny (She IS good)
4. No websites. Difficult. Certainly avoided all blogs and podcasts and with the exception of checking sports scores, online was in fact offline.
5. No Twitter. I'm shaking now with classic withdrawal symptoms. Pretty sure this was a safe (but painful) bet...
6. No word-of-mouth. Yeah, right! Not too much of a challenge given the fact I was at an NFL Canada event in Deerhurst (about 150 miles outside of Toronto) and talking about more important things like New Marketing, Experimentation and Marketing Transformation.
7. No e-mail. Impossible! Nevertheless, I found a solution: I removed the "preview message" pane on my Outlook window and then shortened the subject header to remove any unnecessary headlines. Turns out this was a good move as several messages and threads (one from an e-mail group called The OldTimers List) came in with the phrase, "Soprano's" in the header.
8. No Blackberry mails. Not a problem as the subject header already comes cropped.

So here I am....about to find out if Tony Soprano got whacked or not (I'm going to say...NOT)and I guess I made it through my detox period after all. The world is still turning (I think) and life goes on.

My learnings?

• Firstly that "The Sopranos event" wasn't as big a deal as I thought. Not one person I spoke with from the US brought it up with me in our conversations. Makes you wonder about how much "hype" is artificially created through the newspaper, magazine (e.g. People) and TV (Talk shows, variety etc) machine.

• Secondly, the most active conversation (which almost ruined my surprise) was the human one, NOT the media one.

• Thirdly, I can in fact live "unplugged" although I still will choose not to.

• Finally, I need Slingbox. 

It's 7 1/2 hours later than scheduled due to what is now normal delays at LGA. It's 11.30pm, so should I throw in the towel and go to sleep? Fuggeddaboutit! I'm watching! Good luck Tony...I'm rooting for you (I think)

Even for an undeserving South African (who thinks Rugby rules!), the NFL brand is ultra-strong and powerful. Yesterday I keynoted at an NFL Conference in Deerhurst, Canada and had the opportunity to hoist the Vince Lombardi trophy. What a great experience.

Do you think Peyton Manning might get the same thrill out of lifting the 2006 MarketingSherpa Best Marketing Podcast coffee mug? I wonder...

OK OK OK...I've received enough comments to cause me to pause enough to consider a Macbook Pro as an alternative to the Vaio I'm looking to purchase.

This, coupled with CC's discovery path, has given me enough cause to contemplate a hybrid solution i.e. Mac for all multimedia and PC for Office-apps (Outlook, Word, Excel) I'm even prepared to give up PowerPoint for Keynote :)

One variable that has influenced this process is the fact I'm hearing that Vista is just not compatible (yet) with many programs/applications. There's no way I want to be stuck with hardware plug-and-play problems or apps like PowerGramo, Audacity or Castblaster giving me problems.

Marketing sidebar: Nowhere in this process is the presence or semblance of any life whatsoever from Microsoft, Sony or Apple. CC's post irks me insofar that Apple's inability (arrogance?) to participate in the conversation makes me less likely to consider switching. Whilst I love the fact his community came to his rescue (much like I'm proposing below), I can't help but wonder why brands continue to sit on the sidelines and pretend they're deaf.

So here's what I'd like to do. As part of UNM2PNM, I'd like to invite one (or more) Jaffe Juice reader(s) - Mac lovers of course - to Westport, CT to spend a day with me and help "train me" AKA "convert me" to the cult of Mac. We'll possibly head out to the Apple store at the Westchester Mall to pick up the machine (customized beforehand), spend the day in my Westport office, have a lavish lunch (with wine), takes photos with my Nikon D80 camera and record both an episode of Across the Sound and possibly an iMovie.

In fact the goal of the day will be to do all of this with the new Macbook Pro.

Who's interested?

Living Light Bulbs blog has this terrific post on various marketing uses for Twitter. They include:

1. Apologies
2. Taking requests
3. Ordering at arenas
4. Daily specials
5. Questions from the audience
6. Hailing taxi cabs
7. Customer-to-customer support
8. Informational updates
9. Quick intraoffice memos
10. Listening for understanding & ideas
11. Come down from your pedestal
12. Pre-orders
13. Info + product releases
14. Get "real time" feedback
15. Develop a community
16. Emergency situations
17. Just to have fun

Got any more?

My delapidated Dell is about to be retired. I worked the crap out of this PC and it valiantly attempted to keep up with me, but couldn't quite work at the speed of Jaffe.

Throughout it's short but inspired tenure, it had one bizarre defect: it turned itself on spontaneously (as opposed to the battery bursting into flames), so when I'd be on a business trip, I'd open my briefcase and find the machine boiling hot and the battery half-eaten.

Very frustrating, but I coped throughout somehow.

Interestingly enough, none of the Dell technicians were able to even remotely (literally or figuratively) diagnose or solve the problem. After 4 or 5 attempts, I gave up and accepted my flawed, yet human extension (and representation) of me.

...but that was then and this is now.

I am thinking of returning to the Vaio fold (hat tip to Shel Holtz who has been gushing about the Vaio for a while). I once had one...it became a royal pain (kind of like Christopher Moltisanti) and I had to put it down. But I am convinved that this is probably the coolest, sexiest and most powerful PC on the market.

Before I continue, let me just say that I am not going Mac and probably never will go Mac. In my line of work, 'tis better to be a friend than a foe to the audio-visual technician at conferences. I know that the Mac is a better solution for a podcaster and certainly someone who wants to get into video podcasting, but I just don't have the time right now to figure it all out. If Apple was smart, they'd figure out a smart infleuncer outreach problem to do just that, but in reality they're too smart for us humanfolk and don't believe in making contact with the targets other than at the cash register.

The Sony Viao in question is the "SZ" series, VGN-SZ491N/X to be exact. Key specifications include:

• 2.16 GHz
• 2Gig Hard Drive
• 3.72 pounds
• 13.3" Screen Size, 1280x800 resolution and XBrite technology
• Built in camera and microphone
• Bluetooth
• Biometric Fingerprint Sensor
• etc.

Will go now and customize a bit to see how far I can push this baby.

Sidebar: Sony has slipped up majorly on many of their tech offerings (PS3 v Wii; Minidisk; Blu-Ray etc), but the Vaio is still (or should be) one of the few bright areas in their portfolio

Seem to have hit a bit of a Dip. Wonder if I should just accept that I'm a fattie at heart and quit?

In fairness, I did have a genuine Italian pizza and Gelati while I was in Sardinia (which is why I didn't fatblog last Friday) and indulged healthily over Memorial Day weekend as well.

...but now I'm back in bidnit.

Seems that I have inspired one crayonista to join the Fatblogging revolution. I won't reveal his name until he comes out of the refrigerator (fatties' version of the closet no doubt)

Sublime moment of the week was in the middle of a client presentation/proposal, being asked, "so how's the weight-loss going, Joseph?" Totally threw me.

...or maybe, as Ad Age's Matt Creamer puts it, Lord Maurice Saatchi is just "out of touch"

Creamer is referring to an Financial Times Op Ed piece quilled by Lord Saatchi which basically underscores the great divide between old marketing and new marketing. It also represents everything wrong with traditional advertising world - marketer, agency and media alike.

In his diatribe, Saatchi poo-poos the little upstart search engine called Google, and discounts "prediction" in favor of "perception"

Saatchi explains that, "People do not know what they want until a brilliant person shows them," and yet discounts the fact that a brilliant person can also be a brilliant algorithm. Perhaps human search like Mahalo.com will be critiqued in Saatchi's next technology master-piece. I'm holding my breath.

I'm not finished. Let's dissect that statement a little more:

• "People do not know what they want" - I find this statement to be arrogant and patronizing. It's time we stop underestimating the consumer who knows exactly what he or she wants...or at least has a good idea
• "until a brilliant person shows them" - Saatchi illustrates this point with Henry Ford, but who exactly is this "brilliant person" in today's times? Which "brilliant person" works on Madison Avenue and is "showing" consumers what they want? And while we're talking about Ford, are we talking about the same company that introduced Bold Moves and recently had a CMO change.

The rest of the article is full of hyperbole and vague, abstract and obscure metaphors. Sound familiar? Remind you of a certain golden goose that helped Maurice pay down his various villas?

BTW, I Googled "Lord Saatchi" and the third ranked result took me to a critique of his litany of obtuse and out of touch tirades. Guess the algorithm works fine after all.

PS Gotta love the banner that appeared directly above the Ad Age article

Adweek piece on the intensifying revolving CMO door within the automotive industry. It's a pretty chilling account of musical chairs on crack, with the likes of the following companies shifting (or is it shafting?) their CMO's in the past few months:

• Hyundai
• Volkswagen
• Volvo
• Mercedes-Benz
• General Motors
• Chrysler
• Toyota
• Ford

I wonder what would happen if we audited these companies' marketing investment over these CMO's tenures to determine:

• % spend in digital/interactive investment
• Rate of change in terms of shift from traditional to digital/interactive
• % spend on non-traditional/new marketing versus status quo
• Rate of change in terms of shift from status-quo versus new marketing
• % investment in conversational marketing (community, dialog, partnership)
• Rate of change in terms of shift from communication to conversation
• % spend in experimentation marketing
• Rate of change in terms of shift from traditional/status quo/communication to experimentation

You'll notice that whilst the first step is an interactive focus, how quickly I've lumped it in with "status quo" or communication (i.e. paid media) versus the new maketing, conversational marketing or experimentation sub-sets.

That said, spare a thought or a parking space for any of these (or other) companies still dipping their toes in step 1 of the 4-phased roadmap i.e. online advertising. There are still way too many to count and way too many senior marketing positions to be filled.

Uber blogger, BL Ochman pens this piece on iMediaConnection.com.

In it, she cites the following examples of bad and ugle: Ford Bold Moves, Wal-mart fake blogs/bloggers, Microsoft/Edelman Acer/Vista giveaway and Sony's PSP Flog. On the good to great side, she commends Dell on their social media turnaround and lauds LegoS and Netflix

Jumping to the end, BL leaves us with these words of wisdom:

• To get something, you have to give something.
• Hand your customers your brand.
• Shut up and listen.
• Make changes that exceed expectations

I was thinking that we can add to this thread with more advice on how to avoid "killing" a social media campaign. I'll start:

• Don't call it a campaign. Great social media programs should be enduring
• Meet your consumers halfway
• Accept the inevitability of both good and bad response from the blogosphere
• Respond not only to customers, but "onlookers" as well (i.e. consumers)
• Stay the course. Don't be distracted or dissuaded by slow pick-up.

Sulemaan Ahmed sent me this amazing clip from my homeland's Kruger National Park.

In it, you'll see a truly once-in-a-lifetime clip of nature at its purest. And since we're talking about purity, why not bastardize survival of the fittest with survival of the fattest i.e. a marketing analogy which shows how the fat cats of today i.e. lions i.e. Cannes Lions i.e. traditional marketers, advertising agencies and media companies are all quickly shifting from the targetors to the targeted.

Is the consumer the buffalo? Are we as marketers and advertisers the lion? Is the competition the crocodile?

Miaoow!

I'm been playing around with Yahoo! Answers and am completely smitten. This is human-powered search at its best.

I've always been amazed that paid search actually works, i.e. A thorn by any other name is still advertising. Other than a bunch of people at Mountain View who habitually click for a living, it's difficult to to envision smart and savvy consumers embracing advertising and yet they do.

...but a people-powered search marketplace is something totally different.

Check it out for yourselves.

PS I'm wondering why Google's similar offering failed and/or why they would have pulled the plug on something that has so much potential.

In November 2004 (20 years after 1984), Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson released a flash movie called EPIC 2014 covering a "fictional" perspective of what the future might look like in a world of fragmentation, continued digitization of media, convergence and consumer empowerment. In this world, a new big brother called Googlezon.

You can get a partial transcript here

Note: There is a now an update called 2015 which covers podcasting, GPS and several other variables.

Segue to a friendly letter from the AAAA's and ANA to the FTC and Department of Justice this week urging them, when they have some spare time, to take a casual look into the recent Google-Doubleclick acquisition and while they're at it, a few others of note (without mentioning names)

The move smacks of special-interest, desperation and fear. At the same time, it is also the sobering realization that nothing - except the government - can stop Google now from becoming the Matrix (or something like that) and in this process, eviscerating all media, agency- and even marketer-life from this planet.

With Bubble 1.0, unproven (or non-existent) business models, lack of scale/critical mass (of broadband, online users, e-commerce etc) and hyped valuations contributed to the rise and fall of a period of irrational exuberance. Today, BOTH the business model and critical mass is there. In addition, with bubble 1.0, traditional media was not nearly as scrutinized or under