Jaffe Juice

Regis meets Showtime at the Apollo meets Idol meets Across the Sound!

Across the Sound returns in January 2006, without Steve, but with myself and an as yet unnamed guest co-host. Every week, I will invite a different co-host to join me in the global recording booth of Across the Sound. Every week, you will get to determine if they should stay or go....

January's co-hosts have been named. They are:

• ATS #14: Tom Hespos - Luminary, Online Spin Contributor and Commentator, Founder of Underscore Marketing
• ATS #15: Steve Hall - the looks, charm, voice, wit and soul behind the #1 marketing/media blog, Adrants.
• ATS #16: John Wall - I couldn't beat him, so I joined him :) He's the host of the daily, 10-minute informative, newsworthy and entertaining The M-Show.
• ATS #17: John Durham - Bus Dev maestro at Carat Fusion, long time friend and mentor; wine connoisseur

In addition to your comments, questions and promos, I invite you to submit "Audition Tapes" to be the next permanent co-host of Across the Sound. Think you got what it takes? Well send in your auditions to acrossthesound@gmail.com or via Waxmail.

Let's have some fun...but above all, keep the momentum and dialogue going! You can also subscribe on iTunes directly or through this link.

Rubel gazes into the crystal ball

Steve Rubel has a good series going on about predictions for 2006. Here's the countup so far:

4. The Talent Crunch

3. RSS Inside

2. Social commerce

1. Comment search

Check back for updates...

The Death of Advertising

Great commentary from LA Times' Joel Stein that paints a pretty sobering picture of the fundamental shifts occuring to newspaper, radio and TV and how advertising is being left behind in the process:

Mainstream media needs to fix itself fast or, just as cities have put Internet access in libraries, we're going to have to set up community centers with Sirius radio and televisions with pay channels. Young boys will huddle around the late-night Cinemax or the XM radio to hear 50 Cent without the curses bleeped out.

UNM2PNM 2005 Wrap Up

As 2005 draws to a close, I wanted to take this opportunity to summarize my open-source initiative, "Use New Marketing to Prove New Marketing," where I offered up a free copy of my book, "Life after the 30-second spot" to any business/marketing/advertising blogger or podcaster who agreed to review my book.

The original post is here and as you'll see, it alone attracted about 62 comments (making it the second highest commented post of Jaffe Juice's history; the highest was my Nike commercial with 109)

In short, I've sent out about 100 books to the four corners of the globe - including the likes of Netherlands, the UK, Canada, Mexico, Singapore, Australia, Spain, Italy, South Africa and of course the US...and the list continues.

By now, most people have the book in hand (and once again...if you requested a book, but haven't received it, please e-mail me and I'll look into it) and reviews have started to come in. I'm glad to say that they have been positive to extremely positive.

Part of what makes this is a unique exercise (after all, authors and their publicists always send out galley copies of the book to media outlets, critics, even influential blogs) is the following:

• This exercise does not discriminate - it is not about courting the "high reach" outlets. It is a long term investment (long tail) in the community as a whole - as defined by EVERY one of its members. For this reason, ANYONE who requested received a book, irrespective of their readership
• It was not designed to necessarily "bypass" mainstream media (I'm still extremely open to this book or the story of this exercise being covered by any media outlet), but by the same token, I wasn't going to sit on my a$$ and wait for them to discover the book, its central themes and the passion and conviction behind the message.
• The free book for review swap is unconditional
• The review itself is completely unconditional as well...in other words, I'm completely opening myself to any kind of review, but my conviction in the content arms me with confidence that the reactions will be consistent with all feedback I've received to date.

To those who are in the process of reading and ultimately, reviewing...please make sure that you include a direct link to either Amazon.com (here's the link) or to www.lifeafter30.com - this is a three-part excercise after all: 1) demonstrate the power of the blogosphere/podosphere, 2) validate new marketing and 3) show ROI/ability to result in sales i.e. there is walk behind the talk.

Also, if you're finished with the book and have completed the review AND want to return it to me (but you certainly don't have to), I'll use the book for additional request in 2006.

Speaking of which, phase 1 is essentially complete. I am not sending out new books right now, but am looking for a "sponsor" to provide a budget for a phase two wave of new books to prospective reviewers. Phase 1 was a organic approach and I feel that a more formalized layer on top of this would not be out of place...in fact would play up an important integrated proof point: this is not about replacing the old with the new; it's about adding, redistributing (budget), reordering (chronologically) and prioritizing (strategically)

Moving you forward (or at least ahead of GM)

News that soon, Toyota will surpass GM in terms of number of vehicle output. That's staggering...not necessarily surprising, but it's still the kind of tune that sounds more like a funeral march than a whistle like you work...

Ad of the Year: jaffe's Nike spot

Laurel Papworth from Oz gives my Nike spot the nod as ad of the year. I can't disagree with her.

I need a red bull

Have fun and don't overthink. But do have a Red Bull!

Proferential Treatmant!

Here's another great Agency Holiday Greeting Card, with an original spin on the ole Snow Globe concept. PS Also subtly communicates a global presence and footprint

JTG #11 - Radio Music Awards and Daily Source Code mention

The Radio Music Awards (on TV!) came and went. I clipped a sound byte and shared it with Adam Curry. He played it on Delta Sierra Charlie 303 and I'm sharing it with you in the form of a Juice to Go.

Download jtg_11_radio_music_awards_and_daily_source_code.mp3

Subscribe to Juice to Go on iTunes or click here

Who's heard of KsanLab?

Me neither. But now you have.

Check out their website and this really cool "Virtual Tour" of their office, which according to their note to me, "catches the spirit of KsanLab and its people" and "demonstrates the great potential of virtual worlds to transfer both informational and emotional messages"

Now compare this experience to the corporate websites of the "other" agencies out there.

Pray tell, who would you want to do business with?