The Immigrant Song

Turning Legacy Brands into the Face Of Innovation

How do you position your legacy business as an information source that will evolve with the state of  technology art?  This Yellowbook.com ad seems aimed at that (the tattoo removal search is maybe more common than I would have thought, and reminded me of this SNL commercial for Turlington's Tattoo removal creme...hmmm)

In any case, it makes me wonder about what's possible for brands like this.  Can Yellowbook really transform itself into a cutting-edge information resource, make itself more than just names, addresses, and advertisements?  It makes you wonder. Is the ad representative of a desire, a plan perhaps, to embrace new technologies and find the most innovative solutions to empower the information seeker of the future.  If this company, any company, can do it, they are headed for something great.  Don't just let the future happen to you.

 

Link: YouTube - Yellowbook TV Ad, Say Yellow to the Future, Tattoo.

Marketer Owned Social Networks

Darren is right on target when he says users don't want to join multiple social networks just for a particular element of their personality.  I think I'm pretty much locked in to LinkedIn and Facebook- there's not much else I think I really need- I am not one of those people who thinks twitter is a social network.  The smartest brands are creating content that energizes users within their exisitng communities, and creates a lasting association with the product or brand.

A splinter effect of the niche social net phenomenon is the marketer-owned social network, like Saturn's recently launched social network-called ImSaturn. I don't have high hopes- trying to shift a conversation entirely to your site is going to alarm the most enthusiastic elements of your target audience.  They'll wonder what they won;t be allowed to do there.

A bigger question in my mind is what the company thinks it is getting out of these initiatives.  I still remember when GM killed and recalled is Saturn EV-1, which had about as dedicated a user base as you can imagine- people were evangelists about this revolutionary automobile. GM will never be able to recapture the enthusiasm it had with those users, whose zeal to protect the environment was swept away by a change in corporate strategy. 

Not Scrabulous? You're probably screwed, then!

This just feeds my theory that branded/sponsored ROBUST services will defeat apps which are basically just ads which do something silly.  I don't want to be a ninja or a a vampire bat behind the wheel of a Ford Model T drinking a Mike's Hard Lemonade wondering if my friend "sitting next to me" is more like an obscure TV character or an obscure movie character!  Those apps are attracting $.15 CPMs!!!!! 

Link: Facebook Platform Faces Rough Road Ahead, Despite Successes.

In the long run, more engaging apps such as Scrabulous are set to do better not only because they attract more dedicated users, but because they provide better opportunities for direct monetization, even if their CPMs are also quite low. Ravikant made a point to say that travel, dating, book, and game-related apps have the brightest futures whereas “everyone else is kinda screwed”.

Esther Dyson in WSJ- Google and Microsoft are so 5 years ago

This is a perceptive piece.  I should men tion that I think it partially confirms my assessment of Facebook's Beacon launch strategy, which was to build awareness through fear/backlash and then re-tool to the edge of user tolerance for privacy/utility trade-offs.

The commodification of online advertising services/platforms and its increasing irrelevance to the user present a challenge, and an opportunity. 
Dyson writes:

Each user determines who will get into his own garden, whether friends or vendors. ...Value is being created in users' own walled gardens, which they will cultivate for themselves in real estate owned by the social networks.

I don't think this means that everything becomes a social network, but companies should think hard about how to be friends with their best customers when traditional advertising (even web advertising) is so easily AdBlocked, DVR'd, or simply ignored.

Link: The Coming Ad Revolution - WSJ.com.

Who clicks on ads? And what might this mean?

I was pointed to Who clicks on ads? And what might this mean? by Nate via Jonah Keegan's ad ecologies  post.  My thoughts:

• Agree that there is a mis-match of perception about value of ad inventory
• Who clicks on ads is generally a far cry from the audiences that advertisers pay to reach- the impact of brand advertising is probably understated by an alnalysis of who "clicks"
• What does this mean for site business models based on advertsising to upscale and connected audiences?  Probably advertisers looking for exposure/impressions in their demographic will do ok, but CPC or CPA models will fail very badly.
• I still predict that within a few years major brand advertsising will be about brand relevant services which create a unique experience and allow users to connect to each other and the brand around an activity

The irony here is that it seems to come full circle to something like Facebook's disastrous Beacon technology, using people's behavior-on site and off- to create the advertising the people in their network see. 

Unfortunately, the involuntary nature of such advertising messages (or the prospect of ruining a surprise Christmas present, which is my favorite anti-Beacon anecdote to date) disturbed the notion that people should choose their causes. 

Causes- and brands and products- will ultimately find stronger support by empowering users consensually rather than sneaking up on them. 

My company is a Neural Net Processor, a Learning computer

From: Advertising Age - Digital

Microsoft has called Avenue A | Razorfish the "learning vessel" in its ecosystem  and rivals are quick to suggest that if you re an agency client you exist to provide insights to Microsoft.

So now that we compete with "tra-digital agencies" (thank you, Grey worldwide, for coining that gem- MediaPost ) we are also a learning "vessel"?

However, if I were a vessel, I'd be the SeaQuest DSV.

Did Pink Doughnuts drive simpsons movie ticket sales?

Evidently not- it was the burger king promotions.  Well, I still have 5 cans of Buzz Cola from the 7-11 Kwickie Mart promotion, which was awesome.

Link: Advertising Age - MediaWorks - And You Thought It Was the Pink Doughnuts.

On Google's Dominance- Is Automated Advertising Missing The Point

Maurice Saatchi writes in the FT that the ROI optimization inherent in buying targeted and automated advertising on platforms such as Google's AdWords misses the larger point about the human role in audience persuasion.

Admittedly, Saatchi and  Saatchi is part of Publicis’s ( nearly $6bn in annual revenue) empire , and their offline media buying and planning business is probably a decent chunk of that.  But near the end, there is this snippet: 

Human nature is not amenable to prediction based on the trends or tendencies prevailing at the time. It is amenable to startling creativity of the kind practised by great artists, directors, writers, musicians, actors, who know how to touch a chord in humans everywhere. They are the people that are needed to help advertisers navigate the internet because, as Aristotle knew 2,000 years ago: “Fire burns both here and in Persia. But what is thought just changes before our eyes. The decision rests with perception.”

 
I think this is an interesting question. If search advertising promises to present advertising messages only to those who show intent to purchase a product or service, is the search advertiser avoiding the true persuasive challenge of advertising? 

I'm tempted to think that any large advertiser would be foolish to fully ignore mass media campaigns and market research.  Metrics will have a place in advertising campaigns for the foreseeable future, but if Google's advertising platform gave advertisers the feeling that they left money on the table (in unrealized sales from persuasive campaigns), surely advertisers would start buying different ads?