Best Practices Not Included

Joost: At First Glance

Back in March I wrote a post about a new video service called Joost, a free ad-supported online TV service.  Initially, I was very excited to learn that dreams of internet TV were coming a reality.  So after months of private beta testing that caused the biggest invite demand since Gmail, Joost is as of last week now open to the public.  Again anyone can now try Joost out without an invite.  Just follow the link at the beginning of this post and you can get in on the action.  The official notice can be found here on the Joost blog.

Initially known as the Venice Project, Joost has garnered a lot of attention for being a very usable and well-designed product.  After playing around with the platform.  I can attest that the dashboard is very well put together, aesthetically I love it.  Overall the design could have been make or break, and the guys at Joost hit a home run in my opinion.

Now to the bad news, Joost received so much hype and after a few failed attempts at getting invite tokens, I put getting a hold of it on the backburner for the Summer.  So when I first heard that Joost went live last week, I couldn't wait to use it and after messing around with it for a few hours, I have to say I'm optomistically disappointed (if that isn't an oxymoron, I don't know what is).  Joost has a few major flaws in my opinion.

First off, I'm not sure how excited I am about having it run through a standalone application.  Matt Dickman over at TechnoMarketer was musing about this last Spring in his first review here.  Since I am a full time student with a laptop that might as well not be portable (it weighs like 9 pounds), this is a big inconvenience for me since I find myself in the computer labs on campus killing time between classes and studying, and I can't download and launch any applications from the school owned computers.  This sucks, as much as I dislike YouTube for various reasons, if they solved this problem, why couldn't Joost?  In this day and age, it does seem crazy that I have to run all these different applications.  Let's take Second Life for example, as I'm writing this, I'm remembering that I havn't used SL in months even though the application icon is right on my desktop stareing me in the face.

Furthermore, Joost has been proactively signing deals with various content providers, and believe me, there's a lot of content.  15,000 TV shows and 250 something channels to be exact.  The video quality is not the greatest but it will surely improve over time. But Joost needs to be careful they are not just becoming another distribution point.  I'd like to see them continue to think about formulating their strategy to survive in this time of incredible media proliferation.  Granted, content is still king and out of all the other players, Joost has by and far the most premium content.

Something you initially notice is the lack of user generated content.  Many reviewers seem concerned about this but I think Joost was smart to not try and compete with YouTube for the UGC.  Many have said that Joost should come up with a way to filter out the crap content and let premium user generated content be viewed through it's platform, but in the situation they're currently in, this could sacrifice user experience and there are to many other options out there right now.  Joost should stick with their PGC (Professional Generated Content) niche.  After the storm is over and the dust has settled, then Joost could experiment with this.  But again, right now, don't try and be all things to all people.

Lastly, when I think about the idea of TV, it brings a certain stigma, mostly a negative one to my mind.  And after watching some content on Joost, I felt like I was doing just that, watching TV.  Is this a good or a bad thing? Well in my opinion, if Internet is supposed to be about change and doing things differently, whether that be: reading, writing, banking, shopping etc. then Joost has some issues, because from what I can see, Joost is operating to great extent in the way of traditional television models.  It's no secret these models have issues, and if we want to save TV, what we'll need is innovation through some creative thinking.  Since when has innovation been reduced to a repackaging of what's already been seen?

On the surface, Joost might look different but I'm afraid to say that when it comes down to it, the living room is not dead yet.  Since Joost is relying on traditional ad models by placing 15 and 30 second spots in front of content clips, what's their value proposition?  Why would I want to switch from one broken model to the other?  Because if I have a choice, I will chose to watch content on my big screen from the comfort of my coach.  I wonder if anyone over at Joost has read Life After The 30 Second Spot?  How is Joost possibly going to compete against the coach?

In closing, Joost is still very much an experiment as the need to improve overall user experience is evident.  Right now, Joost has been smart to seek out and aggregate premium content, it's an important niche for web-based television that has been previously unfulfilled.  Bottom line, I might describe Joost as a two-step-forward one-step-back kind of deal.  Although, it's clear we will need to see far more out-of-the-box thinking to avoid a one-step-forward two-step-back kind of reality. Hope some of you reading this give Joost a shot and let me know what you think?

Bring The Love Back: The Break Up

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

I promise you I'm not trying to turn this blog into a place that tracks Microsoft's every step. But, this video produced by Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions is an excellent characterization of why advertising needs to change through moving away from tradional one way communication models, towards a more interactive and conversational approach. I swear conversation is becoming the new marketing buzz word (Armano's BusinessWeek article, Jaffe's new book). My hope is that company's like Microsoft will fully embrace openness and transparency. Today's world demands that we be engaging in dialogue and not just monologue with our consumers. This video is the first in a series of ad's for the campaign. An ongoing blog about the campaign and the making of these films can be found here.

Integrated Marketing Communications Project

As part of a project for my advertising and promotion class, with the help of a team, I am going to be developing an integrated marketing communications plan for a business. After meeting with my team and figuring out each others interests and industry expertise, we have narrowed it down to two  innovative companies, both of which have great products/services in promising industries. So, with the entire advertising and marketing industry experiencing a paradigm shift and more over, being in a state of constant flux, we wanted to think big, and help take marketing in the chosen business to levels never seen before (laughing). So, sticking to this spirit, the first company we are considering is California-based TransOrbital, Inc., a company who's business is literally out of this world. That's right, TransOrbital is aiming to launch the first for profit commercial mission to the moon sometime this Spring. They seem confident their Trailblazer spacecraft will turn a profit.  Thousands of people have paid to have messages, business cards, art, ashes of loved ones etc. sent to the moon on the Trailblazer probe. If successful, the spacecraft will orbit the moon for a few months, all the while sending back potentially salable high quality photos and HD video that might be sold and/or used for advertising to generate revenue. In addition, data will be collected to create a new, high-resolution map of the moon. In its finale, the probe will slam into the lunar surface, disintegrating upon impact, but leaving personal effects remained intact inside a protective capsule that will tunnel into the lunar surface. It's easy to see how there's a lot of business to business marketing potential for this company. Some corporate sponsorships and advertising, including a notable partnership with HP are in the works as TransOrbital will be looking to offset the $15 million in mission costs. It's also important to note that in the age of corporate responsibility and sustainability, via environmental, social, and ethical, there have been many concerns raised surrounding the commercialization of space as it's beginning to look like it could turn into a modern day gold rush.

The second company we are considering is SlingMedia. Sling Media's revolutionary Sling Box is an exceptional product that can be best described as a media distribution tool. The device lets you watch your television, DVD player, Tivo or other remote controllable video output device from across the internet. The Slingbox has a broadband Internet connection allowing viewer's to watch a live TV stream across the internet to anywhere in the world. How Stuff Works did a great piece on the SlingBox if your interested in learning more about the technology. More recently, the company has apparently been speaking to Apple about its ambition to stream iTunes music and video to the upcoming iPhone. While it's unclear if Apple will allow SlingMedia to do this, the companies CEO Blake Krikorian has been adament that he would love making the SlingBox compatible with the Apple TV. And just a few weeks ago, CNET News.com confirmed that the company is indeed working on making the Slingbox compatible with Apple TV. The potential to enable iTunes users to access their music libraries and stream Apple TV content to mobile devices is mouth watering to say the least. Different verisons of the SlingBox are currently available from $179.99 to $249.99. In my opinion, one of the bigger trends we will see over the next 5 years is the transformation of traditional television and broadcast methods as we know them today. From a historical perspective, we've seen the internet evolve, watching the digitization of content into a connected world. The first step was print media, news in all forms left their physical medums as the "information age" took off. Then we saw the melt down in the music industry’s barriers of entry in recording equipment, brick-and-mortar distribution methods and broadcast as the sole medium. This inturn, is slowly leading to the death of the music industry’s hit making machine as audio has moved towards the web. The final forseeable step in the equation is video. Now, even though the integration of video online is already prevalent (just look at the success of youtube), everyone is still waiting on premium cable programming to switch over, changing its delivery method via the internet's multifacted mediums. So, what makes the SlingBox so great is that it represents a solution to a problem that consumers have been dealing with for years. The ultimate reality is that, at the end of the day, content wants to be free, not necessarily in monetary terms, but free in its ability to move, free in how it's distributed, free in how it's consumed. In today's world, with all the connectivity, there's no reason why television should be confined to the living room. Lifestyles are such that we should be able to watch video in a what we want, when we want, where we want, on demand fashion.

Both TranOrbital and SlingMedia are companies with a lot of potential. It will be a challenge to develop a plan for one of these companies and I'm looking forward to thinking outside the box, integrating new and unconventional marketing methods.

   

Standing Out!

Business cards should be power, yet they are usually pretty boring and you don’t see many successful variations. But for Poul Nielsen, a personnel trainer from Toronto, this card is totally appropriate. It may seem to have some functionality issues, but I think the engagement potential here is huge, it holds your attention. The business card is so important, the last impression if you will. The cards I’ve always found to be successful are simplistic; simplistic in the sense of “less is more”, especially when it comes to the information being displayed. This card accomplishes that goal. It’s simple, just a name, occupation and phone number. But, what’s most powerful about this card is the dialogue and conversation it creates, and at the end of the day, that’s what’s important. It’s the new marketing way, integration and extension. The design facilitates the exchange, and again, it’s the exchange that’s important. The connection, the interaction, the sharing, this is the true power behind this card. Great concept.

Enjoy the Sun

I love this new ad by Hawaiian Tropic. This is a great example of simplistic design that not only gets your initial attention, but its practical and there are many associative qualities that help this ad come to life. Now, even though this is one of the best abstract ads (if you will) that I've seen in a long time, there are still some implications that can be explored as well as some questions that came to mind for me. First, the ad pictured above is interesting to me because it serves as actually advertising an advertisement. I'm not sure if that was the intent of Hawaiian Tropic or just the ad agency "Grey" promoting themselves. But nonetheless, I never thought about this. Has advertising as content and in all its transparency ever been so desired that we need to promote it? Will it ever be? In terms of story telling and puzzle solving, this ad seems to give the viewer a chance to find an answer without just hitting them over the head with it; "oh in case you didn't know this advertisement can be used to help you get a tan". I love the "Enjoy the Sun" slogan that is used because it's just a big enough hint for viewer if they are not getting it. Beautiful engagement.

Thanks to ads of the world for putting this up!

Super Bowl Ad Review: 2007

Well, this year's Super Bowl Sunday has finally come to a close. After all that went on, I'm still lamenting over who I feel more sorry for: The Bears (specifically Rex Grossman cause he sucked), The Advertisers (because they each spent at least $2.6 million and combined $100's of millions of dollars on another unmemorable year of Super Bowl commercials),  or is it The Viewers (who had to not only watch a pretty boring game but ended up sitting through all of these unimpressive ad's). Now, this is not to say that there weren't some memorable ad's but for the most part I was unimpressed. The Super Bowl is the one event of the year in which we as viewers and consumers actually view the advertisements as positive content supplements to the actual event itself. Seth Godin talks about Permission Marketing and that's precisely what Super Bowl ad's are about; they're the pinnacle of mass marketing. Nonetheless, we can learn a few things from this year's line up.

For the commercials as a whole, humorous violence was the overwhelming theme as seen in ad's like Bud Light's Rock, Paper, Bud Light and Bud Light Slap, Blockbuster's Click a Mouse, FedEx's Moon Office, Garmin's Evil Mapasaurus, beatyourrisk.com's You Gotta Have Heart and the slew of ad's from careerbuilder.com including Promotion Pit, Office Survivor and Workweek Survivor. This  seems to be somewhat of a transition from the sexual theme's we've seen in recent years.

Also, with 2006 being the year of CGC with the YouTube's and other social media alike, we saw the 3 winning CGC entries including:
Car Wash by Chevrolet. Now to be generous, it was almost funny. But, it was poorly executed, involving a bunch of guys taking off their t-shirts crowding around a car and going crazy. There's a lack of clarity, what are they going crazy for the car or the girls in it? My understanding was that this contest only involved the conception and not shooting or editing the actual ad itself. This is a pretty weak attempt in terms of extension and vertical integration. How much interaction with the brand could have been going on if the contest only involved conceptualizing the idea? Also, this is a new car, the HHR I believe it's called, so what the hell was Chevy thinking by picking an idea that doesn't allow for showcasing the car. Decide for yourself:

The NFL's Hard To Say Goodbye was probably the best entry of the three. It really captured the moment of the end to the football season. One discrepancy though, at the end it shows Brett Favre as if he is retiring but he did announce that he is coming back next season. Even though this commercial was most likely shot before the announcement it was still confusing none the less.

And then there was the Dorito's CGC spots. First off all, there were 5 ad's that were finalist for the contest out of over 1000 entries and I think the chosen winner and runner up were in my opinion the weakest spots of the group. The winning ad could be described as nothing more then a recycled idea that we've seen many times before. "Guy gets caught staring at girl and crashes his car." This was nothing new. Was this really the best they could come up with out of 1000 ad's? Why did people vote for these?

The other Dorito's ad Check Out Girl that was also shown:

My favorite of the finalist which wasn't shown had to be Mouse Trap. Check it out:

At the end of the day I think that this year's CGC entries into the Super Bowl were for the most part boring and they did raise some questions as to what their place should be on advertising's main stage. I just felt it was disappointing when you think about all of the brainpower and effort that went into making the spots that were submitted. Were those really the best one's? Also, besides the quick and subtle references to the creator of these ad's in the commercials, no one can tell that these ad's are CGC. Not one of the 15 people I was watching the game with knew about any of it. These ad's look exactly the same as the in house or agency created ones. So everyone is ranting and raving that CGC is better for the extension and vertical integration purposes, and while this is clearly the case, especially in light of all the time spent by the CGC creators with brand's like Doritos, I think CGC is presently overinflated because the extension is just not taking place on such a large scale. Bottom line: CGC's place in mass marketing doesn't seem to be a very effective one.

Finally, my picks for this year's best and worst Super Bowl spots. We'll start with the best.

My vote for the best commercial of this Super Bowl has to go to the controversial but flat out hilarious Nationwide spot featuring the Britney Spears ex Kevin Federline as a part of the "Life Comes At You Fast Campaign". I thought this commercial was great and it really seems to connect with the younger generations who conclusively hate K Fed. This commercial will most definitely have post life and let me just say prop's to K Fed for working with Nationwide to film this. Thanks for making yourself vulnerable and the butt of jokes for millions of viewers.

My pick for the worst commercial of the night has to be a tie between the salesgenie.com ad and the robot ad by GM. First, the sales genie ad sucked. I mean it really did. What the hell were they thinking. Who created it and who signed off on this stupid thing. Do they really think consumers are that gullible? What a horrible first impression, trying to use the GoDaddy formula, it surely didn't work. It was only a waste of everyone's time and a waste of $2.6 million. Enough said. Second, the GM ad I must say was thoughtfully put together from a production stand point, but at the end of the it's all about the context of your message. So here's the premise: this robot drops a bolt and is fired at the end of the day for being clumsy. But what was this ad really saying? Well, it says a couple of things to me. First, the message of "GM is obsessed with quality" is instead interpreted as "GM sucks at making cars so bad that even their robots screw up." And, this idea that "General Motors is the place where everyone including our robots  gets fired". In addition, the robot commits suicide and even though this might be an extreme point, what is this saying to all of the GM employee's who have been laid off as of late. WTF?

Honorable mentions have to go the careerbuilder.com and Coca-Cola for their contributions of great ad's. In the case of Coke, it's just a shame that they are plagued by a poor product line because their marketing department is producing excellent content and doing some innovative work with social media. Furthermore, the most memorable punch line of the night might be "everyone wants to work in marketing" by GoDaddy.com's spot. However, this is actually saying very little because this ad features the same played out claim to fame of using sex to sell domain name's. One more thing, CBS, no one cares about your stupid self promotion of your network. Surely a waste of everyone's time. Although, the short Letterman/Oprah spot was hilarious. Your 1 for 50.  All in all, it was mixed reviews from the center stage of mass marketing as we witnessed yet another year of advertisers making their individual contributions to the overall level of wastage that is the Super Bowl.

Campaign For Real Beauty

I'm sure many people have been exposed to Dove's "Real Beauty" Campaign. I think this is a very interesting marketing campaign. It started following the results of a worldwide study showing that out of 3,300 female respondents, only 2% of these women could comfortably describe themselves as beautiful. We've known for years that the fashion and cosmetic industry have masked models in pounds of makeup and tediously using photoshop, they've created an unattainable representation of what beauty is. For those of you who havn't seen this video, it's a little shocking! It caught me off guard; I had no idea that makeup artists and editors went through that much trouble conjuring up these models just to create an advertisement. I think the reality is that our perception of beauty is warped if the images we are modeling ourselves after are this fabricated. Just like the study that preluded this campaign, why is it that we are so unhappy with our physical appearances? Dove has definetly capitalized on that point and as a result people seem to be connecting with this campaign. Part of the campaign also included billboards with pictures of "real" women wearing white underwear. The billboards had phone numbers in which people could call in and express their 'fab' or 'fat' opinions as to the "beauty" of the models. In addition, the results were posted real time on the billboards. 'Fat' eventually won. It amazes me how powerful of a tool marketing is, especially when you think about some of the discrepancies that were occurring in not only in Dove's product line but in the advertisements with the "Real Beauties" themselves (i.e. anti aging and cellulite lotions). It was risky for Dove to try and overcoming that kind of diametric, but the success of the campaign is evidence that as consumers, the joke's not on us anymore.

Book Review: Life After the 30-Second Spot

I just recently finished reading Life After the 30-Second Spot by Joseph Jaffe. First of all, I must say that I am a huge fan of Jaffe's work. An Industry leader in new marketing concepts, I listen to his podcast Across The Sound regularly and read his blog Jaffe Juice religiously. Life After the 30-Second Spot is an excellent look at the state of the advertising and marketing industry. Jaffe's insights, concepts and models are very effective at breaking down what is happening in marketing and advertising today. He outlines that traditional media advertising is being replaced by new types of interactive and consumer generated media. Arguing that the 30 Second Spot is either dead, dieing or is just simply outliving its usefulness, Jaffe makes his case that we've reached the point of no return and gives four reasons why. 1. there's too much clutter 2. creativity sucks 3. consumers arn't as stupid as they used to be 4. there are unacceptable levels of wasteage. Jaffe expands on these themes in the second part of the book as he talks about rethinking the four fundamentals of marketing: the changing consumer, branding, advertising, and the agency. I really enjoyed this book. It's always nice to hear about marketing and advertising from someone outside of businees school. I'm tired of talking about the old and worn out 4 P's marketing model. Sometimes I forget that I'm even a business student because I'm starting to feel like a history major. But, the content and the conversation that Jaffe  engages me through week-in/week-out is what keeps me excited about marketing and advertising . More than ever, we as individuals have the ability to impact culture and society on levels never seen before. In addition, our conversations through online social networks are becoming so powerful that it's forcing businesses and organizations to change. Bottom line, a great book by Jaffe, definetly worth a read and deserving of my first blog post.