Jaffe Juice

I just took this poll on Inside Flyer and thought I'd share the community's results with you. In short, it is pretty amazing to see how two related industries - air travel and hotel - have such different loyalty levels (at least when it comes to switching)

There's no question that the beleaguered airline business has done a better job (relatively) at differentiating it's otherwise commoditized serviced (A to B) than the hotel game.  Compare flat beds and in-seat on-demand entertainment systems to wireless broadband internet (free or fee) and plush pillows for example.

Here are the results:

"Changing Programs"
(Mar 31, 08)

We're all too familiar with the ultimate contradiction in the 30-second spot game - as every year goes by, we seem to be paying more for less. It makes no sense that as viewers continue to fragment to cable, favor video production over consumption or just switch to alternatives from DVD viewing to gaming, somehow marketers are conned into continuing to invest in the cluttered swill of wastage that is continually suffocating the last bit of life in the dying field of creativity.

According to Mediaweek, viewers aged 18-49 for network syndicated spots, viewership has gone DOWN by an average of 12% and some as much as 21% over last year. That equates to about 3 million viewers on average. But Media Agencies are still trying to use scare tactics on advertisers, boasting the fact that ad spots that are not locked in already will cost 30-40% more over last year.

Hat tip: Lori-Laurent Smith

...but wait, there's less!

I opened up my USA Today in my hotel room and looked at the latest Prime Time Nielsen ratings. Last week American Idol, the network's top rated program pulled in 24.7 and 23.2 million viewers for its Tuesday and Wednesday showings respectively.

And here's the kicker: there's another box which breaks down viewers 18-49 (didn't it used to be 24-39? I'm sure these numbers would be worse) and has the same AI numbers at 11.9 and 11.3 million respectively.

In other words, 52% of American Idol viewers are 50 and older??? I'm obviously assuming that a significant chunk of this viewership is 17 and younger...but I'm curious, to what extent do Nielsen numbers cover 17 and under? Irrespective, is it even possible that such a large percentage of viewers of the most watched program are outside of the (inflated) "coveted" demographic?

And just in case you want another example of a more adult program, Desperate Housewives has 53% of its viewers outside of the 18-49 demo, Brothers & Sisters has 55% and CSI has a whopping 64%.

Where am I going wrong here? Please do correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm not....

Enjoy

My gratitude and thanks to USPS and Deliver Magazine for their continued partnership and support of Jaffe Juice. Audio comments to +1 206 203-3255. In this episode, ZuckerberGate, self-policing marketing, politicians, character blogs, Mark Kingdon and much much more.

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0m - hello after too long away. My whirlwind/wide tour continues, which explains my anemic blogging and podcasting presence

6m25 - Feedback from Tim Brunelle and my trip to Minneapolis, including "Foster the Accidental", Friendship 2.0 the difference between professional, personal and private.

15m55 - Audio comment from an avatar, Jeff Radek, on 10 listener meme AND the relevance, rules and resonance of branding a "character" or persona.

also on iTunes

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Use this button on your site. Code can be found here. Thanks David H
 

Link to UK Word-of-mouth and criminal charges for falsely representing brands as consumers

27m45 - Upgrading the conversation to really focus on podcasting.

30m30 - Nearing the end of conversation starters and the podcasting partnership with USPS and Deliver Magazine.

45m15 - Hello again from Dallas and an overview of some audio comments to come in future episodes

47m25 - Kirk Skodis weighs in on SXSW's ZuckerbergGate

1h01 - Winners & Losers: My winner is Linden Labs for hiring Organic's CEO, Mark Kingdon, as their CEO; My loser are political candidates that continue to deploy TV-heavy campaigns instead of a conversationally focused committment.

So I've been traveling like crazy (hence the non-existent blogging and podcasting), but I have been capturing video throughout my various journeys around the world.

Here are some snippets from last week in Copenhagen, where I presented in a movie theater to over 800 people at a Danish Post conference

Another crazy week of traveling means another anemic week of blogging activity (and even less on the podcasting front, but I am *determined* to get my audio freak on this week)

• Organic's CEO, Mark Kingdon, departs  the agency for Chief Executive position at Linden Labs. Huge loss for Organic. Huge gain for Second Life. Either the smartest or dumbest move Mark's ever made, but sends out a huge signal and Linden is FINALLY joining the conversation AND not rolling over and playing dead. I think I'll hold on to crayonville island for just a wee bit longer....
• As I wrote in Join the Conversation (with attribution to Pete Blackshaw), customer service is the new media department. A new piece of research from SNCR places customer service in social media and conversational marketing context.
• Following on from this, a FT review on a book (the best service is no service) by a Jaffe namesake.
• Forget Viral Marketing; instead think "The Viral Expansion Loop"
• Hey Microsoft, see previous post. This is a painful attempt at viral marketing that makes me want to downgrade to XP or switch to a Mac even more. Hat tip to Brunelle.

• Two more bits of bait on Facebook fatigue. Is Facebook the New Second Life? You decide.
• Why podcasting is failing. I'm not sure I'd put it that way, but I certainly don't think it's growing like it should. Read on and let me know your thoughts. PS: Massive boo for the antiquated splitting of posts across multiple pages in order to inflate page views
• Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff launches a new video podcast, 5 things I learned this week. Take a view

• Avenue A/Razorfish's David Friedman puts out a thought leadership piece on Chief Marketer, talking about a 6 C model, which looks fishily similar to a certain 6 C model I introduced in "Join the Conversation". Other Jaffe Juice readers thought as much as well. To his credit, Friedman responded quickly and put on a little caveat on his piece at the end. It's a blatant steal, but that's not what irks me...it was the lack of attribution that bugged me. This is one of THE most important new marketing lessons to be learned. Step 1: Understand Creative Commons....
• The latest 15 streams of fame welebrity, Tricia Walsh Smith. Welcome to Divorce TV

Senator Obama, I don't have to tell you that you lost the Pennsylvania Primary to Senator Clinton. In fact you lost by 10 points, which was quite an anti-climax considering all the polls and mainstream media hype about closing the gap etc.

What troubles me the most is that you outspent Senator Clinton almost 2:1. I believe you spent in excess of $9 million versus Clinton's $5 million on predominantly TV ads. What troubles me more is how this year - at such a crucial time for America; where it is more important than ever before to reach out to younger, disenfranchised, disengaged or just apathetic voters - all the political candidates are essentially eschewing the full continuum of web/digital on one hand and social media/web 2.0 (or what I call conversational marketing) on the other hand, in favor of the most traditional; the most conventional; the most predictable; the most intrusive and quite frankly, the most insulting form of communication: traditional television advertising.

Isn't your ticket about change? Isn't your entire platform about doing things differently?

Come on Barack...it's time to walk the talk and lead by example. This year candidates (PLURAL as in ALL candidates) have given such lip service to Digital, Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, Podcasting etc. when in actual fact they should be focusing more of their efforts (not ALL, but MORE) on the powerful strategic combination of community, dialog and partnership.

And Senator Clinton, what's the first thing out of your mouth after you claimed victory? "I need more money..." Don't outspend; outsmart. Join the Conversation, rather than trying to drown it out.

Prove to me (either of you) that you're listening. I'm about to become a new voter in the US and if you want my vote....reply to this post. I'll take it one step further, I'll give you my consulting time to advise you on how to best leverage conversational marketing for your campaigns IF you take the time to contact me.

Game on.

In no respective order, and interspersed with several tangents for flavor:

• Hey Bob Garfield, Comcast cares. They really do. They have a twitter account which says it all, doesn't it?
• Is the Cluetrain still relevant? Do people even know about it? Find out more here. I wonder what the authors would say about my Join the Conversation assertion that not only are markets conversations, but marketing can be a conversation as well.
• Change articulated straight from the horse's mouth so to speak. Kansas State University students and Michael Wesch deliver your wake up call. Hat tip to Andrea Vascellari

• Amex CMO on moving from "disrupting" to "empowering". I'm glad they read "Life after the 30-second spot"
• Thought leadership and advice on Twitter here, here and here. Also this Scoble contention that # of people you follow and not the # of people who follow you is the real secret of Twitter (and by inference, wisdom, influence etc)
• fyi, here is my tweetcloud which gives you a nice snapshot of my jaffejuice (if you're on twitter, follow me here; I'll follow you right back) conversations on twitter. Hat tip to Verdino.
• Are you a member of thehissing monkey pack? I keynoted in Helsinki last week with Cult of the Amateur's Andrew Keen and he used the phrase "hissing monkeys" to describe elements of the blogosphere. He's probably not wrong. Now all we need is a logo. Anyone? Anyone?
• Hilarious parody of Second Life on the Daily Show. A year ago I would have been all out of joint; now I think it's indicative of ebb and flow into pop culture.

• The original crayon, crayola, gets in on communal act by announcing new color names. Apparently the community wants to play as well.  Case in point...."Best Friends' versus "Eating Disorder". You can imagine who's who in the zoo.
• Does the Tipping Point really exist? Some say not. Here's a post to the affirmative.
• Is the blogosphere blogging itself to death? crayonista, Deb Wiseman, picks up on a Times article which questions the health of bloggers.
• Friendship 2.0: Last week I met up with Andrea Vascellari and Anti Vilpponen in Helsinki. We had a simply awesome time and 3 hours flew by like 3 minutes. I have some video and will try and get it out soon enough.
• I know Fake blogs are criminal in terms of dumbness, but is it necessary heinous to the point of being a criminal offense?
• What's a blogger? Not the angry, gown-wearing, basement-dwelling, parent-living, disheveled, pimple-faced geek you might have expected.
• Blogs as EVOLVED focus groups. Just what I was saying up in Canada this past week...
• The blog cuss-o-meter. Sadly, Jaffe Juice rates at only 4.8%, 47% lower than other sites which took the test.

Created by OnePlusYou

• A new conversationally-flavored browser? You've got to be flocking kidding me. Hat tip to David H
• Elephant paints a self-portrait.
• I am Joe Jaffe goes national. I heard that every Joe Jaffe-wannabee is donating $25 to Frozen Pea Fund, which would put the total now at almost $700 by taking my name in vain. Love it.
• US and Western Europe lags behind Asia and emerging markets in social media participation? I'm puzzled. This might be the equivalent of saying 50% of the world population are dumber than the other half.
• What's the deal with this whole selling friends kerfuffle?
• Mind map of social media. Cool.

My latest Adweek column is out. It's titled, "Is it time to phase out the creative function? Why departments and dynamic duos no longer get the job done."

Here's the text:

For too long now, I (and I suspect you as well) have been troubled by the dearth (or death) of creativity in the industry. I've said it before, but "creativity sucks." Well, it does.

What's your favorite commercial of all time? Does it not trouble you that it's from 1984 or earlier? How about the new marketing offerings online? Or as I like to call it these days, "traditional interactive."

Legendary creative director Bill Bernbach was credited as the person who first paired a copywriter and art director together. It was cutting edge at the time. Innovative. Bold. Relevant.

But today, when it comes to methodologies and processes that attempt to surprise, delight, "tell stories" and, oh yes, sell stuff to people, not much has changed.

Bernbach would be turning in his grave at the state of the union right now. He's the rebel who said, "Safe advertising is the riskiest advertising of all," and for some reason, none of us are paying attention.

So where does the problem lie? It's not within the spun-off media department. Rampant innovation (sometimes out of necessity) has resulted in thriving media agencies. But more importantly, we've seen the birth and growth of the media-neutral planner and the philosophy of communications planning. In both cases, it is the rise and dominance of the generalist that has prevailed over the myopic traditional specialist.

When I worked at TBWA\Chiat\Day, maverick interactive creative director Doug Jaeger created a new format for interactive: in addition to the copywriter and art director (20 percent technologist, 80 percent creative director), there was a wizard (80 percent technologist, 20 percent creative director). Brilliant. Ahead of its time. Lost on us.
The simple addition of a bit of imaginative science to the intangible and mystical art component became the ultimate counterbalance.

Anomaly aside, today's creative industry is stuck in limbo, suffering an acute identity crisis that has one foot in Cannes and the other in Databases for Dummies. (Mark my words: A black-rimmed glasses-wearing nerd will win the Grand Prix for Best Database in 2012, perhaps even earlier.) There are still way too many agencies that are advising their clients to keep the URL off the 30-second spot because it "dirties the otherwise clean presentation and work product," think Flash is a superhero and wouldn't know a keyword if it came up and slapped them across the Face(book).

Part of the solution is to take a page out of media's playbook and, in the ultimate form of flattery, imitate the same best-practice formula blow by blow: launch a creative-neutral discipline led by "creative generalists."
The romantic in me thinks it would be as simple as that, but a little nagging voice wonders whether it is in fact too late to save the "advertising creative" as we knew him or her. The fact remains there's just too much unlearning and relearning required in order to teach the old dogs new tricks. The new creativity is one in which every single person present at the party should be able to contribute -- from the obvious or lowest-hanging media counterparts to account people to (gasp) clients. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Of course I'm also referring to consumers -- from consumer-generated content to co-creation to advanced crowd-sourcing programs.

Creativity is just way too important to be left to a single person, a dynamic duo or a department anymore. The world is too complex and fragmented for an oversimplified one-size-fits-all "story." The challenge is really how to overcome a one-two sucker punch of attitude and aptitude. The former will have decades of superiority, arrogance and separatist elitism to overcome, whereas the latter will need to focus on an entirely new set of rules and technical nuances.
I'd begin by losing the word "creative" from any job title and thus, any walking silo. Every -- and I stress every -- single person involved in the process of engaging, surprising, delighting, empowering and converting consumers has to be creative. Any less will just result in failure.

If truly great ideas do come from anyone and anywhere, isn't it time we walked our talk and proved the power of listening, learning and collaborating accordingly?

My company, Crayon, is a strategic advisory group, where there are no individuals with the word "creative" in their titles. There will never be any people with the word "creative" in their titles. If we do end up hiring people who will naturally gravitate closer to the transformation of strategy into actionable solutions and/or represent a specific specialization, I'll leave it up to them to come up with a title that rewards their imagination and tests their creativity. It can't be worse than mine, chief interruptor.

Until then, think about: your organization and how it comes up with ideas; how much time is wasted by slowing down the process; how little time is actually spent collaborating with insiders and outsiders; how difficult it is to change course midstream or how much credence and influence are given to the public (consumers, customers, bloggers, etc.); how many different platforms or approaches were taken into account and to what extent every possibility was factored into the equation and the true potential of the ideas was realized.

Depressing, isn't it? But it needn't be.

The new creativity is a brilliantly blank canvas that demands complete immersion and representation by all parties, platforms, technologies and approaches. It's ours for the taking, but it will not be accessible via incrementalist and siloed thinking.

Consider this your creative brief.

I think it's likely to get some good conversation going...

Been so busy lately, but didn't want to forget to mention that I'm opening the New Communications Forum on Tuesday, April 22nd in Sonoma County, CA.

The Keynote format is called "Keynote Conversation" and speakers will include myself, Dell's Richard Binhammer & John Cass, Susan Getgood, Paul Gillin & Nick Hayes, Len Brody & JD Lasica, and Elisa Camahort.

Sidebar: Thank the stars it wasn't called "Naked Keynote Conversations" as I'm not sure I would have been able to talk over the laughter :)

If you're still contemplating attending, give me a shout as I have some 45% off passes to give away.

It's going to be a lightening trip as I then schlep off to Copenhagen the next day...so bottom line: if you want to chat on Tuesday evening, I'm game!

Lee Odden, whom I had the pleasure of sharing a couple of workshops with at least year's DMA, interviewed me on his highly-ranked Online Marketing Blog (not to self: consider renaming Jaffe Juice to a more prescriptive and practical name) ahead of my trip today to Minneapolis to visit with MCAD.

Some of the questions asked included:

• If you were a social networking site, which one would you be?
• What have been some of your experiences with promoting “Join the Conversation” that were different than your first book, “Life After the 30 Second Spot”?
• Who are some of the companies doing well in “joining the conversation” and engaging effectively in social media?
• Can you share 3-5 tips for companies trying to make sense out of defining a social media strategy?
• What are some of the quantitative and qualitative metrics companies should consider with varying types of social media marketing efforts?
• What’s your response to Fortune 100 Marketing VPs that show interest in Second Life because they think it’s “cool”?
• From a personal standpoint, what’s you current favorite social media conversation tool - ie, shiny new object?
• Write your own question. Really. What question should I really be asking you here and of course the answer would be nice too.
• Outside of “Join the Conversation” and “Life After the 30 Second Spot” what are your favorite books on advertising, marketing or social media?

If you'd like to attend tonight (it's free AND you'll get a book) or hang out in a bit of a geek- or tweet-up, contact Tim Brunelle (@tbrunelle on Twitter) or just show up at:

The Fine Line Music Cafe Monday night 4/14 (318 First Ave North in Minneapolis) 6:00 PM - 7:45 PM

This is an interesting one and I can't believe I almost missed it.

Digital video recorders may indeed be the advertising bogeyman that media people have long feared. A study comparing DVR and non-DVR households released yesterday from Information Resources, a Chicago firm, suggests that ad-skipping may be cutting into new product purchases. The research found that households with DVRs purchase about 5% fewer new package-goods products than households without DVRs. Further, 20% of the more than two dozen brands surveyed had lower sales volume than in the non-DVR households. Interestingly, when brands diversified by spending at least 20% of their media budgets on non-TV media, there was no difference between DVR and non-DVR household purchasing.

So on one hand, the research is telling us that when people watch less 30-second spots, they buy less NEW packaged goods i.e. TV is good. The other conclusion is that when it comes to finding out about new purchases, TV plays a role in affecting purchases.

That said (and here's where I burst into spontaneous evil laughter), it's also saying that the incremental efficacy of TV is only equivalent to 5%. Anyone who has a DVR knows that the impact of TiVo and the like is not a marginal change in behavior, but a substantial and exponential one i.e difference between watching 30-second spots and essentially not is only 5%. I'll take "50% of my budget is wasted for millions of dollars, Trebek." Holy crap!

Additionally, there is the implication that it is imperative to embrace the "93 colors". When reallocating 20% of the budget elsewhere, the 5% lost spending is negated in non-DVR households. Again, this implies a degree of inefficiency i.e. 20% spending chasing 5% sales, however the net effect here is the "status quo" outcome i.e. normalcy especially amongst the more proactive, DVR-households.

One might also infer that several even newer approaches (conversational marketing, influencer outreach etc.) present additional potential conversion opportunities.

All in all, it's a few more nails in the coffin of inefficient and ineffective traditional advertising.

Via Medialife

"When will they ever learn..." - Pete Seeger

This is so ludicrous that it wouldn't surprise me if it were an April Fool's joke (and if so, wouldn't it be cool if it were THE BRAND doing the fooling, as opposed to Engadget), but at the same time it doesn't surprise me that it's NOT a joke.

So as it turns out, apparently Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile thinks it owns the color "magenta" and sent this nasty notice to the folks over at Engadget Mobile (page 1; page 2)

Mashable makes a great point asking whether and/or how T-Mobile thought Engadget would react (as in did you not see this coming?) The answer is they weren't thinking or didn't think (b/c it just wasn't aware of this little thing called social media and specifically, the blog-o-sphere)

Engadget has since "gone magenta" as an act of protest. I think I will do the same with my Twitter and Facebook profiles.

On a related note, T-Mobile has also issued a C+D to the makers of Blue's Clues, demanding that Blue's friend Magenta be "permanently erased"...OR ELSE!!!

Hat tip to Len Kendall