Category archive: Promotions

Saturday, May 13, 2006

They're all in the ad business now

When the demand side of a voluntary exchange starts supplying itself, the traditional suppliers are going to get scared. To wit, all of the exploding business models around us (newspapers, music, movies, and TV just for starters).

The same fear is being felt by companies when it comes to their ads. This is, of course, because it’s so cheap and easy for people to bring to life their own creations - people who are connected to the most powerful distribution network in history.

These companies usually aren’t connected to that network, though they think they are. 

"They're all in the ad business now" continued...

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Social media as advertising replacement/supplement

The Center for Media Research has some interesting figures on ad spend on blogs, podcasts, and RSS. Audience fragmentation and demographic fervor are two big drivers for advertisers who are exploring these new areas.

What the research doesn’t address is how many companies are looking beyond the traditional ad placement model and at using social media as a way to reach key audiences without actually advertising. Providing valuable information and services to potential customers and existing customers can be much more effective than merely flashing an ad in front of their faces. (An exception to this, of course, is search engine marketing, where searchers are actively self-identifying themselves as looking for your products and services. The search engine results they receive constitute that valuable information.)

To that end, I see that British tabloid The Sun is now offering RSS feeds of their site content. Are you going to wait for even the white van man to turn into a subscription fiend - podcasts on his iPod, RSS feeds in his Bloglines account - before you start looking into these engaging forms of marketing? (Hint: Many of the white van men already are using social media.)

Monday, April 10, 2006

Disney to give away shows online

Yes, on the one hand, MovieBeam. On the other hand, Disney has just done something of seismic consequence for the way we get our entertainment. Media man Jeff Jarvis says:

Not very long ago at all, the networks would not have dared to do this for fear of pissing off their distribution channels: station affiliates, cable MSOs, and even retailers for the DVD market. But now the force of change on the internet is so great that the networks are facing a choice of pissing them off or dying. They are choosing the former. I’d sell your cable stock, by the way.

But what does this mean for advertising?

TV is grabbing a share of online advertising by redefining TV as both broadcast and broadband. Advertisers have always been more comfortable spending big money on TV. Now they can continue to spend their money with those familiar players and get broadband, too. And TV is doing this so as not to lose money to other media even as broadcast — and next, cable — shrink; this is how they rescue upfront. And if TV succeeds at holding advertisers’ attention and money, other players — online companies, magazines, newspapers — may not be able to break in. This an effort for both networks and ad agencies to keep ahead.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

"Narrowcasting"

Chris Yeh blogs on Adventures in Capitalism about a crazy-brilliant niche marketing scheme dreampt up by a women’s soccer team in New Jersey:

The New Jersey Wildcats (a women’s soccer team) has realized that they can use today’s new technologies to launch their own broadcast network, essentially for free. They’re uploading broadcasts of their games, including embedded commercials, to Google Video. Their fans get a notice whenever a new broadcast is available, and can watch on their PCs or iPods at their convenience.

This is brilliant. They already have a brand and a strong audience, and this scheme allows them leverage both those assets at no cost to generate a new and potentially exciting revenue stream.

The team has lots of name stars, and lots of girls aged 6-20 have iPods. And little girls who love soccer also have soccer moms. And soccer moms have disposable income. Get all the fascinating details at Adventures in Capitalism.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Apparently, the Chevy Tahoe really does have guts

The big marketing story of the day is how GM, coming off of an episode of Donald Trump’s The Apprentice where the contestants were asked to create ads for the Chevy Tahoe, launched a website where anybody could edit together video, audio and text into their very own Chevy Tahoe ad. This is a groovy marketing story in and of itself, but what happened next is even more interesting--as is the way what happened next was reported, i.e., innacurately referring to the campaign as a flop. Why? Because some of the 21,000 people who created ads used the format to say critical things about global warming, Iraq, and, well, the Chevy Tahoe. CNET announced shrilly today that:

"Viral marketing” is the current buzzword used by advertisers to describe the way a message can spread among Internet users. Much has been written about attempts by corporations to tap into this phenomenon, but the GM contest is an example of how such efforts can backfire.

A statement that directly contradicts another paragraph in the same article, by the same reporter:

The contest is a success as a marketing campaign, according to Melisa Tezanos, a GM spokeswoman. Consumers have submitted more than 21,000 ads and have e-mailed commercials over 40,000 times, she said. Chevyapprentice.com has generated 2.4 million page views, and the average visit to the site lasts more than 9 minutes. The company anticipated before launching the contest that it may see some negative ads, but Tezanos noted that more than 80 percent of the commercials depict the Tahoe in a favorable light.

2.4 million page views. Hmmm, yes, that is a disaster. As a journalist, I always cringe when web people call journalists dumb--but even if I weren’t a recovering journo, I’d feel humiliated just by having read this unfortunate muddle of an article. And CNET is supposed to be one of those news sources for and by people who know about ‘puters. Heh.

These must be the same people who think you can catch the bird flu by eating a McNugget.

TechDirt got the story right, of course. The right story is that GM gets it. Their being brave and hip enough to take their lumps indicates that they’ve actually shown up for the conversation. As for GM’s detractors, I’d venture to guess that 98% of them would never have considered buying anything but a used Volvo anyway. You’d never catch me in a Tahoe, probably because it reminds me too much of Marge’s fictional SUV on the The Simpsons ("Can you name the truck with four wheel drive, Smells like a steak, and seats thirty five? Canyonero! Canyonero!"). But I’m impressed enough that I’d definitely consider mashing up an ode to my fugly little gray Pontiac should GM decide to extend the invitation....