Greg Verdino

links for 2007-08-31

• Chris Brogan | Digital Kids
  Musings on how technology has impacted generational perceptions of media and relationships.
  (tags: technology digital culture change bloggers convergence socialnetworking trends television)
• Saul Colt | Something Cool I Am Doing For My Kids
  Cool idea from the self-professed smartest man in the world.
  (tags: bloggers creativity ideas google future)

Blogosphere turned upside down

Last week Perez Hilton broke the news that Fidel Castro had died.  Word spread through the social mediasphere via twitter and a few bloggers in my circle of friends picked up on the news and shared it with their communities.  The only problem is that Perez -- one of the web's most prominent bloggers -- was wrong.

This week, another blogger broke the news that the highly publicized but still-not-launched YouTube killer from NBC and Fox Interactive Media was finally eeking its way into private beta and now had a name (not content with ClownCo, as Google and the blogosphere took to calling it, NBC and Fox chose hulu.com.)  Which blogger broke the news?  Mike Arrington?  Robert Scoble?  Steve Rubel?  Nope -- actually it was newbie Jonathan Burg (of "what is innovation" fame) who, in addition to breaking the news, snagged an interview with hulu's official spokesperson.  Jon even got props from TechCrunch for the tip.

Kinda makes you question the very nature of influence... but in a good way.

If this isn't proof enough that there's something strange in the water this month, I've somehow cracked Mack Collier's recently revamped Top 25 Marketing Blogs, despite the fact that my Technorati authority (the data point that Mack uses to rank the blogs) has been on a steady decline for the past few weeks.  Ah, these end of summer doldrums. :-)

If asked to choose between 'lose' and 'lose'...

According to the latest online video study commissioned by AOL's Advertising.com ad sales network, consumers are happy to sit through ads in order to get free content, but prefer those ads to be "shorter than tv commercials."

What a shocker!  A company that derives all of its revenue from the sale of advertising -- and increasingly from video advertising in particular -- has funded a study that, by its very design, directs the respondents to choose the options that suck least, but still suck.  I've railed against similar studies that do nothing more than validate the status quo and give publishers and advertisers both excuses to take the easy route to the lowest common denominator (they call it "standards" and "scale" but let's not mince words.)

94% of respondents say that they would rather watch video (presumably pre-roll) ads than pay for online video content.  Are these really the only two choices?  How about sponsored content, product integration, commerce-oriented hotspots, branded entertainment?  Or are these things too difficult to buy and sell?

63% say that they prefer those ads to be shorter than television commercials.  In fact, "short" far outweighs "relevant" in consumers' minds, according to this survey.  That sounds more like resignation than preference -- "If I have to sit through ads, then the least you can do is keep them short."  By the way, the survey question itself framed the presence of in-stream ads as a foregone conclusion -- I quote: "Video ads are part of the online video experience..." 

Sounds a lot like, "You can get it in any color your heart desires, as long as you want black.  Oh wait a second, we also offer black-ish. Which one would you prefer?"

Rather than wasting money on these flawed and biased surveys, ad sellers should invest the same dollars in developing more consumer-friendly alternatives to traditional, interruptive ad models.

What ever happened to moving forward?

For newer readers, feel free to grab the white paper I wrote in February outlining what I still believe is one possible step in the right direction.

crayBC update: now with embedded video

Just a quick update to last night's post -- ABC's Future of the Workplace segment featuring crayon is now on YouTube -- so here it is:

[Sorry feed and email readers -- you'll still need to click through to watch.  You know how it is...]

crayBC news: the future of work

Regular readers may remember that ABC News paid crayon a visit as part of a piece they were putting together about the future of work.  Well, the piece finally aired tonight on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.  crayon is featured alongside other notable virtual workplaces like IBM and Accenture -- and we get more than our fair share of screen time.  My avatar Jiggy Stardust makes a fleeting cameo as my voiceover discloses my top secret, real world work location (Long Island.)

Click on over to ABC News to watch the video -- the player is in the upper righthand corner of the page.

By George, that's social

If you're in any way involved with The Age of Conversation or happen to read blogs by other AOC contributors, you may already be aware of the many ways in which the authors have made this book their own and have taken the initiative to market the book and extend the brand in a variety of creative (and meaningful) ways.

One of the latest -- and frankly most ingenious -- author-initiated marketing efforts is the Age of Conversation mascot tour.  Steve Woodruff purchased a Curious George plush toy, packed him up and sent him on a world tour.  Between now and August 2008, George will visit all of the 100+ AOC authors, hitting just about every state in the nation and making stops in Canada, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Oman, India and Australia.  That's a lot of travel (and a lot of frequent flyer miles) for a stuffed animal.

Why is this so ingenious?  It guarantees that people will be talking about The Age of Conversation for all of the coming year.  Every time another author receives the toy, he or she will no doubt take photos, blog about it and keep the conversation going.  In an age where books come and go faster than publishers can print them, this approach rides the long tail and prevents the "flash-then-fizzle" pattern that characterizes most launches.  This is an approach that could benefit just about any new product.   

Where AOC started as a cool experiment in self-publishing and crowdsourcing, it has evolved into a killer case study in the power of community, participation and citizen marketing.  Check out the Flickr photo group, Matt Dickman's author map, a custom AOC Google search, the viral video featuring Canadian marketing blogger Sean Howard in the buff,  and -- if you really want to be amazed -- the fuss that co-author Arun Rajagopal has made in his home country of Oman.  And those are just some of the amazing things that individual AOC authors have done to help promote the book. Imagine if you could create a bond with your stakeholders (whether they are employees, sales people, business partners or customers) that is so profound that they would take it upon themselves to market your products in new, creative ways.  You can -- you just need to find a way to make them feel vested in your success.  You need to make them want to help you tell your story -- and give them the latitude to do so as they see fit...

But getting back to the "mascot tour" itself -- I took delivery of Curious George last week, when organizational effectiveness expert Steve Roesler hand delivered the little monkey to crayon's New York office.  Next week, I will hand George over to CK -- but only after getting him good and drunk during a night out in NYC.

Until then, he'll be safe and sound on Long Island, where my daughter will care for him and read him passages from (what else?) The Age of Conversation. 

More photos here.

And if you haven't purchased your own copy of the book, what are you waiting for?  All profits benefit Variety the Childrens Charity.

links for 2007-08-26

• Carlie's Rants & Opinions | SLCC Business Track - Coke Talks!!
  Carlie Flossberg highlights the key points from the Coke/crayon Virtual Thirst case study presented at SLCC this weekend.
  (tags: marketing brands crayon socialmedia secondlife metaverse conference)
• The Future of News: CNN Digital Diva Dishes on CGM, Online Video and PR
  An interview with CNN.com's Nicole Lapin about where MSM meets social media.
  (tags: socialmedia media emergingmedia)
• Blog Maverick | The Internet is Dead and Boring
  Cuban says that the internet has gone from revolutionary to utility, and that we've seen the last of the internet's "explosively exciting ideas."
  (tags: trends internet technology business change culture ideas predictions)

How are television ads like SUVs?

According to a story recounted in The Elements of Persuasion -- G. Clotaire Rapaille, cultural anthopologist to many of the world's automakers, advises his clients that "it isn't safety per se that matters, but rather the feeling of safety."  Classic perception vs reality -- or more precisely, perception as reality.  So the car makers load their SUVs with airbags (which probably do contribute to the actual safety of the vehicle),  design them to sit higher than normal passenger cars (which makes the driver feel more powerful and in control but has been proven to make the vehicles less safe) and max out the number of cupholders (which have absolutely nothing to do with safety, but play into the fact that humans feel more secure when they have a beverage at hand.)  And soaring gas prices aside, those SUVs fly off the lot.

In fact, it seems that our quest for the "perception of safety" guides many of our most important life decisions, from the relationships and careers we choose to what we eat and our choice in dogs.   

But what does all of this have to do with marketing innovation and new media?

Maybe nothing -- but it does say a lot about our industry's adherence to old reliable ad models that feel safe but are actually getting more dangerous with each passing day.  We've been spending billions of dollars on television advertising for decades and, to bastardize a well known IT maxim, no marketer ever got fired for buying prime time.  We tell ourselves that viewership isn't on the decline, that the viewers we still attract really are paying close attention even though they're surfing the web and checking their Blackberries while even their favorite shows are on, and that DVR users really do sit through all the ads.  We pay ever higher prices despite falling ratings.  But, really, television is the safe decision because -- well, just because.  The safe choice? Not really.  No marketer ever got fired for buying television?  Maybe not, but that won't last for long...

No need to just pick on TV, as much fun as that may be.  You may feel pretty good (pretty secure) about that Yahoo! banner buy -- even though you overpaid on a CPM basis and your click through rates have never been lower.  Investing your ad dollars in the big portals feels like a safe bet, even when you're simply putting all of your rotten eggs in just a few broken baskets.

So let's switch gears.  Many of our new marketing channels -- from social media to interactive television to gaming and mobile -- feel pretty risky.  We can't rely on so-called best practices because there aren't any.  We can't take comfort in predictable results because there may not be enough of a precedent.  We may not even know for sure how to measure success.  In short, new approaches force us to stray outside our safety zone and that scares us.  And keeps us from stressing innovation over the tried-and-true.

But here's the rub.  The things that have worked for us in the past may feel like the safe choices but, given that they no longer work quite as well, they are actually becoming the riskiest choices -- especially if your key competitor has an eye on getting to the future before you do.  Maybe the "safe choices" you're making are actually putting you in the greatest danger of marketing failure. 

Give it some thought.  We may be wired to respond to the "perception of safety" but maybe the achievement of "true safety" is worth just a bit of discomfort.

links for 2007-08-23

• Instigator Blog | We're Not All Ready To Be Media Outlets, But So What?
  Weighing the pros and cons of living in the age of personal publishing.
  (tags: personalbranding socialmedia blogging media)
• How to Brand Yourself in a Competitive Job Market: Q&A with William Arruda
  (tags: marketing branding)
• WSJ | Facebook Gets Personal With Ad Targeting Plan
  The social network reveals its new ad plan that relies on extensive harvesting of users' personal data. The upside - more relevant ads. The downside -marketers will know a lot about you.
  (tags: advertising facebook emergingmedia socialmedia socialnetworks media mediabuying business)
• Web Strategy by Jeremiah: Integrating a Social Media Strategy
  Sound advice on evolving beyond social media experimentation to a holistic social media strategy.
  (tags: socialmedia strategy bloggers ideas brands marketing emergingmedia business)

Smooth - and not so smooth - movers

Futurelab has just released their latest Futurelab 100, a ranking of the Interbrand "Best Global Brands" rejiggered to reflect online relevance (a measure that combines search engine hits, BlogPulse spikes and measures of sentiment based on positive and negative consumer mentions of the ranked brands.)  You can read the entire Futurelab 100 report here, but one of the more interesting datasets shows the biggest movers -- up and down, based on change in their rank year-over-year.

So I'm trying to figure out the rhyme and reason, here.  What are the "going up" movers doing right online?  What are the "going down" movers doing wrong?  Any lessons that brand marketers can take away from these trends?

I'd love your thoughts.