Jaffe Juice

R.I.P. 30-second spot

Seriously, buy yourself a copy of "Life after the 30-second spot". Written in 2004. Published in 2005.

An accurate prophecy of what just happened at Cannes:

• A digital agency in Amsterdam wins the coveted "film" Grand Prix for a web video
• President Obama shows that when it comes to integrated marketing, it's less about advertising and more about a great product, community and conversation.

Time of death: Saturday, June 27 2009.

Good riddance.

The Launch of the Living in High Definition Podcast

This is a little backwards, because I still want to spend some time over the next couple of weeks outlining the single most signficant project we've worked on at crayon, namely Panasonic's "Living in High Definition" community and commitment.

We've had the pleasure and privilege to work with Panasonic North America on a truly landmark effort - actively demonstrating that Living in High Definition changes everything.

And what better way to bring this to life than through a High Definition video show, presented by one of the real stars of the program, Laura Pollack, a mom and a community member.

The LiHD Podcast is a bi-monthly snapshot of the best of what the community has to offer. It's a showcase which operates on three levels:

• Internal i.e. within the community - motivation for members; a showcase of recognition
• External i.e. outside the community - a portal or window into the community; a source of promotion and membership acqusition
• Both - a source or resource filled with tips, tools, tricks, how-to's and inspiration

Making this podcast happen are the fine folks over at For Your Imagination (FYI)

So take a look, subscribe to the show and while you're at it, join the LiHD Community.

Living in HD Podcast, Episode 1 from Living In HD on Vimeo.

To pay or not to pay, is THAT the question?

Forrester just released a report titled "Add Sponsored Conversations To Your Toolbox," authored by Sean Corcoran.

Kmart gave some bloggers a free shopping spree in exchange for a blog post about the experience — a practice we call sponsored conversation. With appropriate protections for disclosure and authenticity, this practice will take its place alongside public relations and advertising activities in the blogosphere. Marketers should take advantage of sponsored conversation as an entrée into the online conversation. To succeed, you should get to know the bloggers you plan to work with and set expectations across your organization.

What's interesting is how Forrester is pretty deliberately putting this approach into a category of its own, alongside it's predecessors or cohorts (depending on your position), advertising and P.R. and in doing so, plays a part in terms of legitimizing or formalizing an emerging practice.

His colleague Jeremiah Owyang covers it here and Brian Morrissey at Adweek covers it here. Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb takes a strong counterposition here.

I was interviewed for this piece by Sean, as was Chris Brogan, who participated in the aforementioned Kmart program, sits on the board of IZEA - the company behind the program (and the one formally known as PayPerPost). Chris responds specifically to Marshall with this post.

Here's the thing. In my time in this space thus far in a formal capacity (i.e. crayon), I've worked on two pretty public and well received programs: My ooVoo Day and the Panasonic CES program. In the former example, both Marshall and Chris were participants; in the latter one, Chris was one of the bloggers. I'm not sure I would call either of these programs "sponsored conversations". In fact, crayon calls them "tactical hooks" - a mash-up of the best (practices) of the advertising and social media worlds. Put differently, we believe that influencer outreach should be treated with the same consideration, commitment and investment as a traditional communications program from both a planning and production standpoint.

It's imperative to give influencers both a reason to believe and a reason to behave. Too often, we are lazy, greedy and gratuitous in terms of what we expect from bloggers and the like and essentially what we expect back from them, relative to what we put in, in the first place.

In a personal capacity, I've participated in both the Nikon D80 giveaway and the Sears program (part 2 of IZEA's Kmart 1-2 punch). In both cases, I wouldn't say this remotely smacked of PayPerPost; nor would I say my conversation was sponsored. In some respects,this is no different than a "celebrity" (TRUST me, I'm using that loosely) sponsorship - from loaning a star diamonds on Oscar night to adorning Tiger Woods with a cacophany of swooshes in exchange for mega moolah.

I guess the point is where on the continuum does blogger or influencer outreach fall. Personally, I believe we should be calling this "blogger/influencer outreach" and not "sponsored conversation". Let me also be very clear (and you can see from the definition), that I don't think Sean meant this to be taken in a negative light. I spoke with him and we had a great conversation. I think the real ambiguity and problem lies with us (i.e. the readers of the report; the commentators and so called social media experts etc).

Part of the problem lies with the fact "sponsored conversation" sounds a bit like "paid search" does it not? Putting two terms which seemingly mean exact opposites together and in doing so, creates a rather jarring disconnect.

Part of the problem as well lies in the endless, boring and inaccurate comparison between the new class of content creators (bloggers if you wish) and journalists. They're not...at least for the most part.

And so we come back to the two core issues:

1. Should bloggers be compensated in any way, shape or form for their time, effort, energy, passion and contribution. The answer can only be a resounding YES, with standard terms and conditions (disclosure, transparency etc) which make both common sense and business sense.
2. Is expecting bloggers (in return for aforementioned compensation) to write, talk, post, create etc about their experiences, reflections, ideas, participation crossing a line? The answer here is a resounding NO, provided there is adequate disclosure and transparency.

Come on people. Grow up and wisen up. This is a nascent industry and space which is learning and maturing all the time. What we have here is in many respects no different to how the world was, but in many respects is also incredibly and completely different. It's time to get off our high horses and open our minds, instead of stubbornly holding on to and exhibiting self-righteous, hypocritical and close-minded positions.

Whatever you call them, "sponsored conversations" are here to stay. And just like the vast differences between crap and mediocre creative (lumped together) and inspiring/breakthrough creative, so too will there be a marked difference between influencer programs that stand out from the crowd or get trampled by it.

CES La Vie in HD!

I'm back from my first CES and besides the side effects of acute lack of sleep and the looooong road to recovery ahead, the buzzing in my head is the best kind possible.

If you've been following my blog or my tweets, you'll know that I went to CES as Panasonic's guest, but also as their partner. With regards to the former, I had the pleasure of participating in a Spotlight presentation to talk about the future of Web Marketing. With regards to the latter, my company - crayon - worked with Panasonic to bring along a diverse and talented group of individuals to the show.

Going into the show, one might have referred to them as blogger, podcasters, vloggers, content creators, or even the slightly cruder but industry appropriate, influencers. However, having been a part of the experience, I would most certainly replace all of those terms with these descriptors: Humans, consumers, customers, Moms and Dads.

(photo courtesy of Steve Garfield of SteveGarfield.com)

Pansonic's whole positioning centers around the harmonious balance and interconnectedness between technology and humanity (ideas from life; ideas for life) and no where was this more prevalent than at CES.

If you think about it, every day we are forced to be schizophrenic - separating our personal lives from our professional lives. In business, we fight every day for integration - but what is integration really? Is it print, TV and online playing nice with one another? Or is it something a lot more profound, namely the ability to join forces with our customers - as partners; the gift of being able to participate in their lives and communities (and to be welcome); the propensity to engage in meaty, healthy discourse and dialogue with them?

...'er yes. That's it. That's what Living in High Definition is all about.

For me, the highlights (if video isn't available yet, it soon will be) of CES and this program were plentiful. They included (from the sublime to the ridiculous):

1. Making 6 new friends (or extending existing friendships) in the form of Chris, Steve, Stacy, Ponzi, Melissa and Vicki and in particular the time when we sat down and talked about this experience together. It's not often you'll get to see video like this that gives you a look inside the Kimono, but then again, there was pretty much no restriction in terms of what was on and off the record. All I can tell you is that this was 100% unprepared and unscripted...and there was some additional conversation once the camera was turned off (not intentionally) that I will remember for the rest of my life.
2. Meeting the Calandro's (yeah, thanks for that!) and the Pollak's
3. The dinner we had with the 6, together with our Panasonic clients - and in particular the moment when we got to share birthday cake with 6-year old Matthew Calandro. This is probably one of the seminal moments in my career....where everything I wrote in "Join the Conversation" came to fruition. Indeed, marketing can be a conversation. I saw it with my own two eyes. Cluetrain was wrong, only limiting this to markets. We - the marketers - are as much a part of the equation as our customers are.
4. The time we spent with Panasonic North America's Chairman, Yoshi Yamada. There will be some video of this soon to share. Mr Yamada was amazing...his empathy, genuine interest and care is something that you just can't fake.
5. My spotlight presentation
6. Meeting Tom Dickson, CEO of Blendtec and the face behind, "Will it Blend?"
7. Meeting Mario (of the Mario + Luigi duo) and coming back to a framed photo of us in my son's room
8. Meeting Philip Scoble. It's a long story :)

I'm very honored that people are embracing this program so much. Brian Morrissey wrote this piece in Adweek, although I'm not sure I agree with him that this is "Advertorial 2.0." The content creation component was just one aspect of this program and I'm pretty certain that everyone who participated - directly or indirectly would vehemently agree that - even with a 2.0 slapped on it - the crude description of advertorial doesn't come close to capturing the genuine emotion and relationship component associated with this effort.

My full Flickr set is here, but if you want more....just search for the LiHD tag (on Flickr; on Twitter; on YouTube etc)

Additional posts/recaps from Greg Verdino, Chris Brogan and the Calandros.

Missing Fedex Package (Tracking Number: 3,000,000)

So today, Fedex announced that - for the first time in 12 years - there will be no cavemen or Burt Reynolds (not necessary the same person) in next year's Stupid Bowl. Steve Pacheco (he's a Jaffe Juice reader) made the announcement on the Fedex company blog. 

The statement cites "unprecedented economic waters" as the primary reason for this decision (not being able to "justify the ad spend")

In the ultimate medium when where the message is king, being in the game simply sends the wrong message both to employees and other FedEx constituents. A Super Bowl ad buy is not where we should put dollars at this time although, in the past, the value of doing so for FedEx has been indisputable.

Steve & Co. - I appreciate your POV on how advertising in the Super Bowl helped strategically establish the brand. In addition, I also completely acknowledge that times have changed - for example: Fedex no longer needs to establish itself as a player (nor explain what it does and how it does it - better and/or different)

However, I do take a point of difference in terms of a contradiction of sorts. IF the Super Bowl was truly everything that you say it is (the Super Bowl is the only single event where an advertiser can reach a global audience of this size . . . last year almost 98 million people watched the game), then surely it should not be (one of) the first line items to be cut, but indeed the last.

This same logic could be applied to the intangible reasons why companies advertise in the Super Bowl i.e. less concerned with end consumers and more focused on internal customers i.e. employees, as well as the trade (including plenty of tickets and bragging rights)

The fact remains: advertising on the Super Bowl arguably NEVER had the return on investment that has always been touted by the networks (that's a relative statement). It's always been a giant ego play and a perfect game of illusion, misdirection and hype.

Don't get me wrong...has the Super Bowl ever worked? Of course it has. Big time. Remember Apple's 1984 commercial. It's just that the list or ratio of "hits" to "misses" has shifted radically away from the success stories to the eulogies of dot bomb 1.0 and most recently, "everyone else".

And as every major indicator has shifted away from the 30-second spot (from declining audience numbers to more diverse i.e. more fragmented viewing audiences), the prices continued to rise. Kids - don't try that strategy at home.

And here we are....the fork in the road. Fedex (spare a thought for poor BBDO) smartly (although arguably a few years too late) takes a bow and leaves the final line of incumbents to stubbornly defend their position, status quo, and along with it, their pride.

Steve - again, I appreciate your company's position. It is financially sound and responsible, but it is also 100% a reflection of common sense. The bottom line is that the recent "unprecedented economic waters" have not only forced all companies to think and act in a more fiscally prudent way, but also to be more accountable in their efforts.

I would take this one step further: it has also created a more glaring transparency of wastage (current and years to date with line items such as the Super Bowl), unnecessary opulence and self-congratulatory debauchery (to be clear, I'm not saying Fedex suffered from any of the above, with the exception of not being able to justify their Super Bowl spend anymore based on its performance/efficacy)

Companies cannot afford to send out a message of careless or excess wastage anymore - especially when they're laying off employees left, right and center.

Net Net: $3,000,000 is better spent on retention, customer service, employee satisfaction and building long term relationships or commitments with customers.

The final nail in the coffin of the 30-second spot? Almost 50% of American Idol viewers are over 50???

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....

Fun with video - the Jaffe edition

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

Proof that TV works. Or does it?

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

Three Headlines (one of which is mine) which triangulate in one direction

The first is a pretty meaningful piece in the New York Times covering Nike's dramatic shift from traditional to non-traditional/experiential marketing. It's significant given whom when it comes...

The second is a warning (WSJ - subscription required; if anyone wants to paste a text version in the comments thread, feel free to do so...) from WPP about a 2009 slowdown in advertising, admittedly due to external variables from the Presidential Elections through the housing market slowdown.

The third is the topline results from the SNCR/TWI Surveys research conducted on behalf of Join the Conversation about the (continued) rise of Conversational Marketing.

Nice triangulation.

Proof of Conversation (now go and sell more 30-second spots)

A Frank Magid Associates Millennial study conducted on behalf of ABC Family shows unequivocal validation in favor of word-of-mouth above all forms of paid media when it comes to finding out about "cool, hot and latest" products/services etc.

Combining the top 2 boxes (i.e. important and very important) reveals a landslide of support behind conversation:

• Friends: 71%
• My Kids (Millennials are growing up): 54%

The next tier of influence comes from content itself (which I guess justifies the ABC Family investment) - for example, programs on cable TV: 35%

TV commercials weigh in at just 29%.

3 interesting insights here:

1. No mention of "online ads"; just "websites" @ 38%. Not sure what to make of that
2. Social networking sites comes in at 28% (in line with TV advertising). I'm wondering how this differs from the "my friends" category. From a methodology standpoint, is the distinction here between "fun wall" and "skyscraper"
3. Blogs prop up the list at pretty much the same level as billboards. Personally, I think that's pretty remarkable, given both category's tenures.

I wonder what would happen if marketers invested their dollars relative to this chart.