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?

I Hope This Finally Kills Conventional Television

Say hello to Joost (pronounced 'juiced'). I've been reading some great reviews about the software supporting user controls and interaction. Developed by the founders of Skype and Kazaa, Joost is essentially a piece of software that supports an interactive television service allowing for the distribution of TV shows and other forms of video content over the Internet via a peer to peer technology. A few weeks ago Viacom (MTV, BET, Paramount Pictures etc.) entered into an agreement to provide their content through Joost and more agreements with big time content producers will surely follow. Joost has been in beta testing mode since December but it should be available to everyone sometime this Summer. I'm super jealous after reading many of the reviews beta testers have been putting out about the software. Despite the complaints about the current content, some of the user controls include: channel chat, integration with Google Talk and user ratings/reviews. But, my favorite talked about feature has to be the ability in allowing users to search for shows and create personalized channels only involving specific content they are interested in. Advertising for Joost is currently set to be a traditional style which I'm skeptical about being that it's probably my biggest beef with tv right now. We'll have to wait and see how that pans out. All in all, this seems like it could be a hit a here's why. YouTube has been a great success, no 1.65 billion questions about it, but the reality is that traditional broadcast is not going away and it rightfully shouldn't. Giving your audience total control like YouTube has done, still results in limitations. I can't tell you how many times of had my cursor blinking in the YouTube search bar trying to think of something to watch and look up. User controls, accessibility and on demand are the attributes that make YouTube so great.  At the end of the day, a television audience still wants to be entertained, sometimes that can mean interaction, but millions of Americans come home every night, kick their feet up and instead of "tune in" they want to "tune out". Joost will no doubt capitalize on the choice factor. If you want to "tune in" and even interact, the option is there. Lets be honest, the last time we as consumers were given choice when it came to television was with the advent of the remote control. It's about time we were finally empowered thank you very much. In the long run, it's this integration that will set Joost apart from other traditional platforms. If someone can get me in on beta testing for Joost, please drop me a line.

The Transparency Of Celeb Endorsements

This is interesting! So Jessica Simpson is the cover story in the latest issue of Elle magazine. During the story interview, she talks about some of her health problems and confesses to Elle that she is allergic to a number of things:

"Health problems? There was that internal bleeding discovered last year around the time she was filming Employee of the Month; doctors found the presence of the little bugger thought to cause ulcers. Recently, Simpson tells me, after she was still feeling not quite right, an allergist delivered news that would chill the heart of anyone reared on Texan cuisine: She's allergic to cheese. And wheat. Oh, and tomatoes, hot peppers, coffee, corn, and chocolate."

So, Jessica Simpson, being the Pizza Hut spokesperson, can't even eat pizza. She gets sick; and the ingredients in pizza will cause her internally bleed. We are all aware of the transparencies in celebrity endorsements these days. But, this is pretty bad! I don't know what Pizza Hut was thinking? There isn't exactly a shortage of celebrities who can eat pizza!

Thanks to the Consumerist for putting this out.

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.

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.