PardonMyFrench

Content Battles with YouTube Not Over Yet

About a week back I wrote a post called When Does MSN Get Upset with YouTube and it was about finding MSNBC content on YouTube.  My little theory went like this:  Why should a website like MSN or Disney with their own significant web traffic allow YouTube to host their own copyrighted material and make advertising revenue off of the YouTube traffic? 

Well, it looks like someone over at Comedy Central read my post (probably not, but I can dream right?) and sent a request to Google-YouTube asking them to remove all copyrighted material including SouthPark, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report.  The material can be found over at Comedy Central's Motherload site but a quick browse through the site shows that it is not the same as the YouTube interface or other video sharing sites.  However, there is a nice ad placement in the right that you must watch before the video launches.  (BTW - I watched a SouthPark video of the boys playing World of Warcraft.)  So my question is why should content owners let YouTube get their traffic and Google monetize it to get revenue?  Obviously, Google is/was worried about that answer too.

On the heels of this announcement, comes a post from Mark Cuban called Some intimate details on the Google YouTube deal in which he gets some potential behind the scene details on the deal. As Mark says "I cant say this has been fact checked. It hasnt. I cant say its 100 pct accurate, I dont know. But it rings true, and as I said, I trust the source" but the potential behind the scenes look has some interesting points if they are true.  The post is long, but here are the highlights:

• YouTube offered the media companies a straight revenue deal if the copyright issues went away.  It didn't fly with them.
• As part of the Google deal, $500 million of the $1.65 billion purchase price was to be set aside for potential settlements.  However, Google was still worried.
• The media companies negotiated a most favored nation clause with YouTube so they each got $50 million; however, they didn't want to pay talent fees so opted for equity positions.
• Google needed two other key points - a 6 month pause on copyright lawsuits from the media companies in the deal and lawsuits on YouTube competitors like Bolt and Grouper.

The key to a lot of what Mark wrote about is that we, Google, and anyone else involved in the video space knows is that the real money will be made on content professionally produced.  That's why the traffic is being generated on these sites. 

That's not to say that often a consumer generated video won't be a homerun, because it will happen.  However, if you are an advertiser you'll need to know where your ads are appearing, especially if you are spending serious money - like they do with TV spending today. 

Companies still spend big bucks on TV shows- if you are an advertiser where would you want your money spent?  Monday Night Football or a video of a 3 year old throwing his first pass?  For every great Mentos ad there is another homegrown video that will be hard to monetize.  This battle is far from over. Just follow the content to see who wins.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Lazy Passwords, Online Brokers, and WiFi Don't Mix

I don't know if you NJ residents saw this last Wednesday in the Star Ledger.  It is an article called Cyber-thieves Show Risk in Internet Investing and it highlights how TD Ameritrade and E*Trade both had customers who had their accounts fraudulently accessed to the tune of $4 million and $18 million respectively.  According to the article, there were two methods that caused customers of these brokers to lose money.  The first is the one you'd suspect - people get access to your account and liquidate it, while the second involves selling stock after using the victim's account to pump the stock up.  At first, I thought, ho hum article, but then I had lunch with an old friend and now think this story has a little more legs to it.

The first criminal act is pretty straight forward, but lets take a look at the second act - pumping and dumping stock.   Here's what my friend told me the other day:

1. Cyber-thieves, mostly the over-seas kind (Eastern Europe, Asia), monitor WiFi hotspots and public PCs with software that can capture keystrokes.
2. The cyber-thieves of course would love to get your passwords for your financial accounts, but any account will work.  Why?  They know your secret which is you are too lazy to setup multiple passwords and will recycle the same one over and over again.
3. So, you log onto your MSN Mail account, they get your password and then try it over at other accounts.  Of course, they'll need an account number, but if they can go to such lengths to get your password they certainly can get your account number.
4. Now, they get into your account and use your funds to buy cheap penny stocks which they also hold in their own brokerage account.
5. Since the penny stocks don't have a ton of volume, they can pump the stock up by using your account to buy tons of this penny stock and then dump their shares making a nice profit. 
6. At the end of the day, you have your identity compromised and worthless stock in your portfolio.

When TD Waterhouse and Ameritrade were merging, we worked on an email that we were going to send to customers of both of these brokers that basically said, how safe is your money in a merger?  Thankfully, it was scrapped because a few weeks later we were being acquired by E*Trade.  However, the strategy behind that email is valid.  How safe is your money when it is being moved?  Are your account numbers being mailed to you?  How about your password?  Do you know how to login to your new account and how secure is it?  So, here are my suggestions to you as a veteran of the online brokerage world for 5 years to help you navigate this area:

1. Change your PASSWORDS or at least come up with a different ones for your financial accounts.  Don't use these passwords.
2. Set your portfolio up at your favorite financial website (Yahoo Finance) so you can track your positions in real time
3. Never, I repeat, never use a free WiFi location to access your actual financial website.  You know that warning you get about the access being unsecure?  Well it is.  Use #2 above to track at these WiFi spots.
4. Be very cautious about emails from your financial services company.  In fact, turn them off altogether (yes I wrote that).  These emails can be phished so that you receive what looks like a legitimate email but it is in fact loaded with links that take you to a website where they steal your keystrokes.    That's why I think financial services companies should be using secure RSS feeds for communicating.
5. Watch your accounts at least once per week.  Besides being the bare (and I mean bare) minimum for investing, you should monitor it regularly for possible use.

Choosing your online broker or bank should be based primarily on security.  With stock transactions fees in the under $10 range, and unless you are an Active Trader, what difference should that mean to you especially if you buy big enough lots.  Research and tools?  Well that is nice, but you can always go elsewhere and besides how much do you rely on that research versus Bob at the water cooler? 

Put your money in places that are secure and change your passwords. Security sounds boring and often doesn't make for good advertising (unless your are Citi), but it is all that really matters when it comes to your money.  Oh wait, one more thing also matters - change your passwords.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

A Marvelous Civil War

Yes, I am going to write a post about Marvel Comic's Civil War series. As some of you readers know, I am an avid reader of Amazing Spider-man (yes the official name has a hyphen) and have a healthy collection.  Hopefully one day I'll have enough disposable income to buy Amazing Fantasy 15.  Anyway, at first I thought this was going to be just another giant cross-over series that would mostly appeal to kids who wanted to see their favorite Marvel super heroes fight each other.  Holy hot wheels Batman, was I ever wrong.

Civil War is much more than just a giant battle royal, but the kids that are reading it will probably think that was what it is about.   Civil War  is a scary look at how civil liberties can be eroded with a simple passage of a law in congress that is then enforced by people who interpret the law to be much more than that. Under the typical super hero bam, boom, pow content is a powerful message on how absolute power corrupts absolutely.

In a nutshell, Speedball who is a tertiary hero in the Marvel Universe decides to take on more powerful villians to film it for a reality TV show in the hopes of boosting ratings of his New Warriors show.  Instead of planning an attack, he is more worried how his team looks and gets into a fight with a villain who ends up blowing up part of Stamford Connecticut killing hundreds including all of the New Warriors except for Speedball.  In response to this, congress passes a law requiring all heroes to register with the Government and become civil employees.  Otherwise the non-registering heroes are considered enemy combatants and have to worry about having the registered heros hunt them down.  For more details check out this entry over at Wikipedia.

What follows is: Spider-man reveals his secret identity, Speedball gets stripped of any rights and is thrown in jail without being allowed a phone call, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four builds a clone of Thor all in the name of pursuing the enemy (non-registered heroes), the Government tags real villains and sets them free (including Spidey's arch enemy the Green Goblin) from jail to track down the enemies, and the Government follows reporters and other civilians in the hopes of finding the enemy.  Quite a lot has been set in motion from that day in Stamford.

This fictional story certainly is a warning sign from what happens when a Government is allowed to run unchecked all in the name of protecting civilians from another attack.  It is no secret what side of the political fence I sit on, but I can't help but be totally engrossed in this story line.  Sure it has pictures, but a good story is a good story.

I can't help but feel that Speedball was wrong and deserves to be punished, however, the Government in the Civil War storyline is out of control as is a lot of heroes on both sides of the fight.  Heroes registering with the government seems ok, but chasing them down and using force is uncalled for. Plus, you find what many readers would consider to be upstanding heroes like Iron Man (Tony Stark) and Mr Fantastic orchestrating highly questionable tactics all in the name of the law.

The true question that Civil War is trying to ask is when is enough, enough when it comes to giving up certain liberties.  In the name of preventing another attack, how much are we willing to give up?  As always, I follow what Spider-man is doing - I'll give up my secret identity because that is the law, but hunting down and jailing heroes without due process is much too far.  Excelsior...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

A Google By Any Other Name...

This is priceless.  Obviously with the army of lawyers Google now employs, someone convinced the marketing department to put this post up on the Official Google Blog explaining what is or is not a good use of the word Google.  Basically, as long as you search on Google.com or use it to describe the company, you are in fine shape.  So for example:

BAD USES OF GOOGLE:

1. Googling for my golf ball in the woods at  Spooky Brook
2. I googled for a missing sock in the washer
3. Honey, have you googled my keys?
4. I'm googling for love in the wrong places...
5. A John Ford movie starring John Wayne called The Googlers
6. Standing at the urinal googling for it...
7. Googling in your closet for something to wear
8. "Google up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane
9. My friend K. Harper Googling for famous people whenever she travels to NYC from Toronto
10. Googles the ketchup (inside family joke how the husband can never find anything in the fridge)

Of course any from 1-4 above would be a proper use if they were conducted on Google.com.  In fact, Google might be the only way to find that missing sock in the washer machine, which I'm sure Google has plans to index next.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

My Really Bad Service From AT&T Won't Stop

Yes, the bad service continues but obviously based on AT&T's last earnings call which featured a 74% increase in profit they obviously don't care.  You know why they don't care?  Simple, they are in acquisition mode and buying up all of the competition.  According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, voice revenue was way up and data almost doubled in revenue; heck even directory assistance revenue stayed flat.  You know why you can keep revenues like DA flat?  It is because there is no competition. 

Sure, the FCC and the Justice Department are betting that eventually there will be this all out battle for your TV set, wireless, and phone but that's a long way off.  For example, according to the article, AT&T has about 3,000 subscribers for its high-end TV/internet service - wahoo.  In the meantime, they get monopoly style pricing as they squeeze everything out of their wireline business including decent service.

Back in the good old days when a customer like me called into complain about why they were still receiving a bill, that was a sign to try to win me back with promises of good service and an offer or two.  Nope, not anymore. 

When I called in, the rep "tried to explain to me" why I'm getting an error message (see this link) when I call.  When I tell him AT&T already admitted their mistake, he put me on hold for a second.  Then the uncustomer service rep goes through his "save pitch"...

Bad Offer #1: "How would you like dial-up service?"  My answer:  You still actually sell that piece of garbage?

Bad Offer #2: "Well how would you like AT&T Call Advantage?" My answer:  You treat me like crap for wireline, why would I think the service or product would be better for VOIP?

Bad and Final Offer #3: "How about $3 off your local toll calls?"

That's it.  That's their script for a long time AT&T customer.  Of course, I used to also have AT&T WorldNet for dial-up and AT&T Wireless Service. Heck, I launched the bundling of wireless and wireline services while I was with the old and better AT&T. 

The amount of wireless, mobile web, internet, TiVo, and wireline usage I have would make Bill Gates salivate, but all I'm worth to the New, New, New, Trust Us It Is New AT&T is $3 off my monthly toll.

This is the first and only customer service call I've made to AT&T for as long as I can remember.  I paid all of my bills via credit card and used e-customer care from the day it was launched via AT&T One Rate Online.  In fact, the very last pricing plan I built for AT&T is still being promoted.  The plan AT&T 5 cent eWeekends is available and obviously must be popular.  I remember fighting to get that offer through the Pricing Department.

Hopefully, that's my last call into AT&T forever.  I'm obviously not worth anything to them over the long term because I'll never be in their footprint unless the government lets them buy up all phone lines in the US.  Think of the net neutrality problems when that day arrives.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

AOL Gets It Right with Ask Sam

AOL has gotten something really right especially heading into the mid-term elections.  And, coming from a reformed AOL-hater based on my extraordinarily bad experience as a premier financial sucker... err I mean... advertiser while with CSFBdirect, means something.  Over at AOL Elections Blog which launched a little over a week ago, they provide blogging coverage of everything political leading up to the 2006 mid-term elections.  I like the coverage, the issues and view points, as well as the integration of news and AOL video.  The best and I really do mean the best part of the AOL Elections Blog is the Ask Sam feature.

Ask Sam is ABC News Veteran Sam Donaldson as the voice of reason in this political season.  Using video, Sam answers questions posed by readers and comments on everything from who would be a stronger candidate Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama, why the gas prices are dropping so close to the election, and others.  The videos are well done, of course, and he answers the questions in about 2 minutes.  All answers include a 15 second video ad before the question is answered with a matching box ad unit to the right.  Of course you can't skip the pre-roll video commercial - try that in a TV commercial.

Ok, so the design is great as is the integration with the advertising.  However, what makes this so brilliant is Sam as the arbiter of the answers.  In an era where there are multiple cable channels and radio stations, blogs, websites, podcasts, and etc people don't have to listen to different view points or even neutral ones.  They can just consistently listen to the same opinion but packaged slightly differently. No longer do people need to sit around and watch Walter Cronkite provide a mostly (believed) unbiased reporting and then discuss it as a family.

Ask Sam bring us back to a place where liberals and conservatives, republicans and democrats can get the same question answered by a neutral source.  Mr. Donaldson provides frank commentary that is believable and allows people to socialize around his comment.  In this day and age where people can  listen to podcasts that reinforce their opinion, Sam Donaldson provides a neutral voice to an iPOD nation.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Bombing More Than Google Political News

I'm probably going to get nailed from both sides of the political spectrum for this post, but I like my Google results to be as pure as possible.  Over the weekend a left-wing liberal blogger, you know the kind the helped Ned Lamont beat Joe Lieberman in the CT Senate Primary, posted his strategy for Google Bombing search results of Republican candidates and then combining it with a Google AdWords campaign.  The plan is to have people link to negative articles about these Republican candidates so that these articles appeared #1 in the natural search results.  Not to be outdone, some right-wing conservative bloggers decided to fight fire with fire and try the exact same tactics but on the Democratic opponents.

Unfortunately search children, Google doesn't work like that anymore with 15 days or so left in the election.  You don't have enough time and linking is not the sole strategy in an SEO campaign for having your page rank so high.  There are techniques to combat this which do NOT include trying to alter the natural results, but of course, I can not divulge them because we have already implemented them for clients long before the call to Google Bomb came out.

The most famous example of course is the Google search results for miserable failure.  President George W. Bush is the #1 result followed by President Jimmy Carter, but besides that, what is interesting is that the top sponsored search is from Google for explaining these results and the #3 position is from a SEO company for optimization techniques (nice placement).  Google's explanation includes calling these people pranksters, that they are reluctant to alter results like this, and they don't believe it alters the overall quality, whose objectivity remains their core mission. 

That explanation from Google seems pretty decent when they were a small cute company, but not any more.  The results that they deliver on search should be as pure as possible and when a group of thugs, not pranksters, wants to hold my search results hostage for their own political gains that alters Google objectivity.  Sure maybe a few examples Google doesn't mind, but what happens if 1000's of people get together and decided to alter results on every political candidate?  Shouldn't Google pay attention then?  Isn't this their product and shouldn't they try to protect their brand?  If people think they can alter results and game the system, then why would advertisers want to pay for altered results?

It seems to me that when people get together and bomb Google's results, that they are doing more than just pushing their own views on people.  They are damaging Google's brand and reputation and that demands a response from Google.  If nothing else, this is the worst form of link baiting* and the architects of the Google Bombing effort for the 2006 mid-term election deserve link baiting punishment.  I want my Google results clean  and objective and so should Google.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

* BTW if you are keeping score at home, Google Bombing and Link Baiting are not exactly the same tactic, but both are a result of a linking strategy.

*********UPDATE ON 10/26****************************

An article from The National Journal called Political bloggers coordinate "Google Bombs" has a great quote from Mike Connell on the likely ineffective use of Google bombing the election and Google backs him up too.  It also includes a quote from Pete Leyden director of Democratic think tank New Politics Institute who says "it will definitely work.  So few people are buying political search ads [that] a blogger can get it for literally pennies per eyeball."  Umm, I'm one of those people and I know pretty much every CPC out there.  Clearly, thinking about search marketing at New Politics Institute is not a pre-requisite for getting a job there.  Let me be blunt, they have no idea what they are doing when it comes to search engine marketing.

When Does MSN Get Upset with YouTube

The other day I watched a few videos online.  First, I started off over at MSNBC watching Chris Matthew's Hardball's College Tour and then for some odd reason, I ended up following a few links to a YouTube video with MSNBC's Keith Obermann.   Of course both units had advertising on the margins with YouTube's primary advertising revenue source being Google PPC Content Targeting ads.  Besides the obvious copyright battles, what about the ad revenue battle between Google PPC Content Text ads versus MSN's ad targeting system.

MSNBC historically has high CPM rates for display ads especially ones framing video ads.  Believe me, I ought to know because I've been buying on MSN for years.  Their traffic is being diverted to YouTube-Google when people upload this co pyrighted material so instead of watching it on MSNBC you can see it on YouTube.  The revenue generated from this should be lower (not a scientific analysis but just based on my experience in running content CPCs versus buying display ads).  In effect, MSN is losing traffic and revenue when these files are uploaded.  I can't believe they will continue to allow this which not only becomes a battle over copyrighted material but also a battle in ad revenue models.  Even if they had a deal, they'd have to make it up on tremendous amounts of clicks.

So, where do you think the battle is going to end up?  If you are a major publisher like MSN or Disney and have tremendous amounts of traffic already, I can't believe you are going to sit on the sidelines and let YouTube take your traffic away with your own protected media.  How much pay per click advertising from clueless advertisers using Google's content targeting would need to go to MSN or Disney to allow this to occur?  I'd think the derived CPMs wouldn't match up for a while.  And, if they don't send orders to YouTube to remove it, I hope they don't go after the consumers that posted it as my fellow Marketing Prof Mack Collier  warns in his post called The Google-YouTube Deal:  Here's What You Missed. It should be an interesting fight....I wonder who gets to copyright it and post it on YouTube.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

TV, DM, OTM - A Coordinated GOTV Effort by RNC

Just the other day, I got this direct mail piece from the RNC and at first I thought, well it took about 20 days before the election until I finally got a wasted direct mail piece.  Then I read it and I thought to myself, wooah not so fast - no need to jump to conclusions.  Not only did the piece coordinate between National Issues (war on terror ) and New Jersey Issues (state sales tax), it also reminded me to get out and vote and register for an absentee ballot.  Forget the fact that I've never voted absentee in my life, it showed a good use of direct mail by maximizing the messages (no more than three) with a strong call to action.  Ok, so the direct mail was effectively put together, so what, you are thinking to yourself.

One day later, my wife picked up the phone and it was the RNC calling (she didn't recognize the voice) following up on the direct mail to remind us to send in our absentee ballot.  Of course she hung up because a) she knows I've never voted absentee and b) with my role at Connell Donatelli she knows I'm going to vote.  Plus, she didn't realize that I already got received the direct mail piece and saved it for this post; she was also confused why we were selected to receive the call. 

If that wasn't enough, the direct mail and, I can only assume that, the phone call, has the same messaging strategy as the new Republican National Committee TV ads.  Over at the Hot Air blog they have a video of the RNC's new ad which they compare to LBJ's famous Daisy ad.    I've watched it a number of times and it should motivate the republican base to get out and vote.

The direct mail, TV ad, and phone call are all nicely aligned from a timing as well as a messaging strategy.  Couple this with very targeted database selections and you have the ingredients for an effective campaign that the most savvy private companies should be envious of.  Now, if only we can put all of that offline tactics with an online campaigns, then we would be cooking with gas....

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Walmart Flogging Top Bloggers

Well the fall out continues from the paid Walmart blog I originally wrote about in a post called What's Your Blogging Storey.  The post was really mostly about figuring out the point of view of the author of your content, whether it is traditional news media or a blog. 

The PR firm Edelman has confessed to making a critical mistake by not being totally transparent behind the Walmart flog (fake weblog) and it is not only nailing the firm, but also premier blogger Steve Rubel from Micropersuasion fame who also is an Edelman employee.  As of right now there are over 90 comments at Edelman's blog confession and Richard Edelman is doing an efficient job of answering the posts.  Then comes a shot from AdAge and also a pretty nasty critique about Edelman and Rubel's blogging transparency from ZDNet called Edelman Blogs. Exclusive Country Clubs?

This last post is what caused me to write my own which hopefully you'll finish reading.  Donna Bogatin writes this about Rubel's blog "Rubel uses his “personal” blog (although he writes under "we," for himself and Edelman) to promote his employer’s business relationship with a blog tracking service and then uses his same "personal" blog to reprimand a third-party blog tracking service for not acknowledging his own promotion of his employer’s blog tracking efforts."  I'm not sure you could be more blunt in saying that Rubel is using Micropersuasion to promote Edelman clients.  My thought is, so what?

Rubel has been very open about his employer and has given as much transparency as possible; even posting a badge.  I too have had this feeling for a while, but at the end of the day, as I wrote in my What's Your Blogging Storey post, it doesn't matter to me and it shouldn't to you. 

Do you get good information from Micropersuasion?  Do you like the links, the data, and analysis even if you think it might be slanted.  Who's blog isn't slanted to something.  Look he works at Edelman and if he wasn't aligned with their goals then he wouldn't work there.   That would go for any of us, unless you are hanging on for a severance package from the new, new, new, trust me it is really new AT&T.

When I write about political online marketing it isn't that I think other agencies aren't doing good work or that there aren't good online Democratic campaigns.  I don't know if there is, and if I did know, why would I talk about competitors?  I don't have the time or energy.  I even take regular shots on the SBC version of AT&T; clearly I am negative about them, but if you've been a reader here for a while you know why.  Besides, isn't the first rule of blogging to be controversial?

Will Edelman learn from this experience?  Yes and I'm betting in the long term this scandal will be nothing more than a case study on how not to be transparent.  I'm not forgiving them or even saying that it is over.  However, let's not through the Rubel baby out with the Walmart bathwater.  Decide what the story is behind the media you are reading and decide whether you can continue on.  If not, there are 1000's of other places you can visit - so just move on.....I do once in a while but every time I want to unsubscribe from Micropersuasion I see another interesting post.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Vote on New Banner

Yes - I need your help.  That includes you RSS and Feedblitz readers.  Come back to the site today and vote on my header for the website.  My friend Casey designed this header and I want to know whether I should keep the current boring one with my photo on the left or replace the top border/photo with this image from Casey.  Let me know by voting in the poll below.

***********UPDATE****************

The people have spoken and I've changed the header.  It still needs to be a little wider, but it looks better.  Thanks.

Thanks,

Eric

Because It Is GOTV Time

I get asked all the time by my non-political online marketing friends, why don't politicians spend more money online?  Really, don't they get it?  It seems like a no-brainer.  My answer is usually the same which is- they get search marketing, email, blogging, social marketing, and website development - now I'll add another piece which is GOTV marketing.

No.  It is not a new cable station or a new TV that only beams Republican messages to the viewers, it is an acronym for Get Out The Vote.  And, as far as I can tell, political campaigns can teach a thing or two to private sector marketers.  What is it exactly?  Well, there's an good primer that was posted over at MSNBC called Micro-targeting may be key to the election, but the one thing it lacks is a internet twist on it besides the obvious email push.  So, here's my little addition to that article.

At this point in the political cycle - let's call it the end game since there are 21 days left, we need to employ and online Get Out The Vote strategy (OhGOTV).  That means taking lists and matching them with publishers that are willing to do the match.  Once that match is done, we can now run display advertising and stream offline commercials to those matches.  Of course, the match process cuts back the available list by an enormous amount, but what is left is extremely valuable.  Talk about a valuable long tail - that's a real micro-targeting strategy.  No modeling, no behavioral targets, just simple direct messages to your valuable customer base.  If a publisher isn't already in the media mix or isn't willing to perform the match, you have an extremely unlikely chance of getting any share of the media dollars.

That's a process that is not done every day in the private sector, but when you are looking to find Michigan voters that snowboard to remind them to vote for your candidate, this is your best option.  There is much more at stake than just hitting your objective for the year here.  There isn't a next year or a "boss, look how much we learned" outcome.  In a few weeks, all you will have left is winners, losers, and a few hanging chads.....

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Who Hid The Content?

Sure there has been a ton of posts on Google and YouTube, so I'm not going to waste your time with my opinion on the deal.  You want a good perspective on the subject, than give Mark Cuban a read on his last post on the deal called I Still Think Google is Crazy.  When you read Mark's post and others on the deal one thing that is constant is what will Google do about copyright infringement?  Let's put aside the consumer generated content aspect of YouTube because the benefits are obvious:  traffic, free hosting, support of the community, chance to get voted up to the top for fame and fortune, and possibly advertising revenue.  I said possibly because not all marketers will want their brand message next to an unknown video, but that subject has been beaten like a dead horse.

My question is why would someone like Disney want to embrace YouTube for hosting their content?  According to Nielsen, Disney is the ninth largest parent company on the internet for August 2006 with over 40 million uniques and an average time per person of 40 minutes.  YouTube is a few notches down with 34 million uniques and an average time spent of 29 minutes.  Clearly Disney has an audience and an even younger one and I'm sure if they wanted to, can build a social community around their content; think Walt Disney World with videos. The brand value is fantastic, they already have an audience, and they have content so why should they share their advertising revenue?  Disney could also participate in CGC on their own sites or use YouTube as a portal to drive traffic much the same way TheStreet.com uses Yahoo to push traffic and usage their way.

NBC's Beth Comstock has interesting observations on consumer generated content and has a deal in place with YouTube that allows YouTube's audience to enhance NBC's fall line-up backed up with cross promotion deals between the two.  At her OMMA keynote she describes how the content king has been overthrown and that consumer generated media should be described as "small media"; plus big media companies should get used to giving up control.  However, when pressed by ZDNet's Donna Bogatin on the NBC YouTube deal she said that it was a promotional one with no money exchanging hands.  However, whoever does the best job of monetizing the content of this deal is the one that controls it and YouTube just added Google into its corner.

Rounding out the big 3 networks, Yahoo is going to carry local news footage from CBS Television Stations, stressing once again that it is not just the content, but also the ability to distribute the content to people that are searching for it. 

What gives?  I think "big media" where content is king, still hasn't figured out where the long term play is going.  Sure they understand the power of CGC but who owns the big media content, how much revenue can they extract from a deal, and where does the traffic come from are still unknowns in the long term.  Google is betting that YouTube can be a portal that brings big and small media together with the community and then monetizes the traffic powered by Google technology. 

Me?  I think you just need to follow the content owners.  The ones with a critical mass audience and content are not going to give it up so easily.  Heck, they are already starting to grumble over their rights.  If I'm NBC or Disney, I'm only doing trials for forecasting future revenue models with no long term commitments, testing impacts of the community and CGC, examining ways to build my own community, and then defending my content because while it may no longer be king, it is the only real play I have.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Think Wegmans Is Trying to Tell Me Something?

I went out today to get the mail and low and behold I found the following blue box in my mailbox with this very tantalizing headline "Open for an uplifting change". So naturally I was excited until I realized it was a sample an for Always Clean feminine hygiene product.  Ewww...than I thought, did I open my wife's mail?  Nope.  It was addressed to Eric Frenchman and right below the address it says "Have a happy period".  I've been married for over 12 years and one thing I'm pretty sure of is, I've never heard Mary say "wow, that was a happy period" unless of course she was helping my son with writing his first sentence.  Thank goodness Wegmans wrote that there were sending me this mail for their sponsor and that they never share personal information with their suppliers.

Too bad none of their suppliers knows anything about direct mail because maybe they could have helped Wegmans' marketing department.  I know, stop saying, any direct marketer could have made this mistake, but a) it is funny and b) no, they should have done a better job. 

Yes, they should have done a better job.  Sure my wife and I share the same card, but if you have ever shopped at Wegmans you know you are not going there because of packaged items, you are going their for their unique foods.  A simple database analysis of tampon purchases should have filtered out people that very rarely purchase them in Wegmans.  Plus, they could have scrubbed for male first names or labeled the address differently.  A significant population knows next to nothing about this product and couldn't recommend this to a female.  Imagine this "Mary maybe you should try this Always Clean product because it comes with a $1 coupon only available at Wegmans".

To demonstrate this, Mary once sent me into a 5 and 10 store down the shore while we were on vacation to pick up her product.  Of course, I forget the "specs" and had to ask the hot 18 year old store clerk for some help.  After a few questions which I got right, she then said "does she use the one with wings?"  My only answer was, "wings, why is this going to give her an uplifting experience?"

Yes, I'm having fun with this.  I'm glad Wegmans is trying to use their database for marketing because they certainly have a lot of data on shopping behaviors.  However, they could have done a better job with addressing the box.  The only reason this wasn't thrown out right away was because I wanted to write this post....

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

BTW - what are the wings for anyway?

Air America Files for Bankruptcy, Surprised?

I found the article, Air America, Home of Liberal Talk, Files for Bankruptcy Protection over at the NY Times surprising.  No, I'm not surprised they filed for protection, but more surprised that the NY Times didn't elaborate more on changing usage patterns of Americans when it comes to getting political news.  According to Pew, 26 million Americans or 19% of the US 18+ population now get their political news from the internet on any given day.  This new number from August 2006 exceeds the previous high of 21 million Americans from the Presidential Election of 2004 and far ahead of the 2002 mid-term elections (11 million).  Does anyone else find it coincidental that Air America was started in Spring 2004?

I'm sure their business plans were thoroughly vetted and perhaps back in 2003/2004 when they put them together their audience forecasts looked reasonable. I'm sure they also included a competitive snapshot of conservative radio ratings.  Unfortunately, their audience is now online and in the form of political left wing blogs like Daily Kos.

Hitwise's Bill Tancer wrote a post called Blogs Increasing Influence in Online Politics, that shows a much higher percentage of their political category receives news and links from blogs (5.3%) versus print news (4.3%).  Bill also shows a list of top blogs and not surprising the top 5 are all left wing blogs.  Charlene Li from Forrester also provides more data that shows 24% of GenYers read blogs and so does 12% of GenXers.

If I had to take a guess, I'd say that the audience for Air America is easily found.  They aren't listening to the radio or even Satellite Radio, they are online interacting with their community.  If they are listening to commentary, it is being download onto their iPODs, not tuning in via a static AM radio broadcast.  What would you rather do?  Participate in a social community where people can link to your posts, drive traffic, post comments, and engage in dialog or listen to a one way conversation or a tough two way version by waiting on hold for 20 minutes to talk with Al Franken for 30 seconds.  As any political marketers knows, finding liberal democrats on a blog is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Of course, I'm just piecing together information and looking at it from my own blogging point of view.  I'm sure the NY Times had valid reasons for not digging into where the audience is, but then again maybe they were afraid they might find their audience elsewhere too.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

DeVos Ad Campaign Gets Showcased

Quite a busy week at Connell Donatelli.  Yes, with about 25 days left until the election we were really swamped.  However, two good news stories featured the best in class online advertising we are doing for the Dick DeVos for Governor of Michigan campaign.  First up was an interview I had with Kate Kaye of ClickZ called Gubernatorial Candidates Get in Web State of Mind.

With all of the focus on the midterm elections in the House and Senate, main stream media hasn't paid a lot of attention to the races for governor and Kate really did an excellent job profiling the biggest races.  Lucky for me, Kate had a lot of data that is readily available on the campaigns using AdRelevance so I didn't have to get into a difficult position.  As you can see from the article she figured out that we were running ads on behalf of DeVos on a number of sites, mostly Michigan news and TV sites and we have a heavy reliance on PointRoll for streaming offline commercials.  We talked a lot about my philosophy on online advertising and she also profiled our complex search campaign for them.

Based on that ClickZ article Mike Connell (the Connell in our agency name), parlayed it into an interview on FoxNews today.  The interview focused on our strategy for letting consumers create their own ad for the campaign and the winner gets an iPOD and a chance to have their ad featured in the campaign. As Mike said in his interview, this really leverages the consumer generated video craze available on sites like YouTube and hopefully engages people in a Web 2.0 grass roots fashion.  We are running banner ads online to drive people to the create your own video page, but to see them you have to visit the sites that Kate mentions in her article.

We are pushing very hard to make the DeVos campaign a success by employing innovative online advertising techniques like streaming video, geo-targeted buys, search retargeting, and a very complex search campaign.  Its too bad I can't vote in Michigan, but I do call my great-Aunt Selma a few times per week to make sure she votes for Dick DeVos.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

BofA Price Cuts Will Send Discount Brokerages Scrambling

Wow, Bank of America is going to offer up to 30 free trades per month if you have a combined $25,000 or more in deposit accounts with them.  And, it publishes (see screen shot to right) its other discount rates if you don't meet that criteria.  I think this is a problem for the discount brokers (BTW - I can not profile E*Trade as part of this post) because this combination makes BofA a powerhouse that can survive the ups and downs of the stock market (when it is a bear market people trade less).  Plus, it services almost half the US households, at least according to this BusinessWeek article.

Bank of America has checking, credit cards (old MBNA), and brokerage making it unique.  WellsFargo offers a similar combination of services and free trades at the very high end.  AmericanExpress also had a free trade program a few years back, but as I recall they got killed on the transaction fees.  We even had the strategy with Harrisdirect when we combined services with Harris Bank.  The problem with our strategy was we didn't have a large enough footprint of Harris Bank customers to draw from, but we were working hard at offers right up until the acquisition went through. 

WellsFargo and Harrisdirect are/were not big enough.  American Express certainly is, but doesn't have the banking products.  BofA has all of that plus 5,700 locations and 16,000 ATM machines to use for marketing.  Plus, really the fee on the stock trade is not that important.

What??? Yes it isn't that important.  Sure if you day trade, the fee is an issue especially for same day/same side orders, but for the people that BofA is going after (the masses) they don't trade that often (as I recall 4 trades per year or so) and if they are trading in 100 share lots, they should care even less about the price.  Check out the stock charts below for the major brokers and you'll see why.  For example, 100 shares of Schwab would be $1722 plus your trade price.  Does it bother you if the price of the transaction was $1722 or $1732?  If you wait long enough once you've decided to make a trade you can cost yourself more than that.  Try chasing a stock up or down while placing a limit order and you'll see what I mean.  That's why having a sound plan, tools, and research are more important.

So, what if BofA doesn't have the tools.  If you are serious enough, you can get research and trading ideas from The Street.com, Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance, and others.  Heck, you could go to Bloggingstocks.com for ideas.  You want research, you have to pay for it.  Charting and other tools you can find elsewhere.  At the end of the day, BofA should scare all of the discount brokers because of their reach, ability to bundle price, and 1:1 marketing capabilities.  If you are with a discount broker (which I am not), why are you there other than price?  I'm sure you go elsewhere for trading ideas and the latest news and information.  Now you can use those same sources and trade for free if you are a Bank of America customer.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Really Bad Customer Service Brought to You By AT&T

I was an employee of the old and better AT&T for 10 years; my final title was Director (really division manager in the old titles) e-AT&T where I managed our online consumer marketing group.  Prior to that I helped build and launch telecommunications first wireline/wireless bundle called AT&T's Personal Network.  As part of that bundle we created what we called Genie customer service reps.  These were our best representatives and they were trained to handle all aspects of your telecommunications needs - long distance, wireless, 800 services, rewards plans, and whatever else you need.  As VP Jack McMaster described when we had a meeting with him - the Barbara Eden version of Genie.  In fact, the reps were so good and proud of their service they started calling themselves Genie reps. 

Fast forward 7 years to a telecommunications world lacking in competition and of course customer service.  A world where the new, new, new, really it is new AT&T provides terrible customer service.  Sadly my Genie reps are now probably laid off.

For the past month when we periodically made an instate long distance or long distance call, we'd get the following error message "the carrier you selected is unable to compete your call."  Thinking the problem was Embarq (the worst brand name ever), I placed a call to their customer service who told me it was not their problem and I should call AT&T.  I told them I worked there for 10 years and it is most likely your problem, probably someone trying to get my Long Distance.  I called AT&T and they confirmed (or lied) that it was Embarq's problem because they are seeing a notation on my account that says LEC Denied.  Ahha, I said to the AT&T rep, it is Embarq's fault and I called back.  Embarq was helpful, opened up a trouble ticket and told me to call back in whenever I hear that message.  That call was today.....

Dear Ketel One Readers

Wow, I certainly have a lot of activity on a post that I made in March 2006 called Ketel One Marketers Need to Go Back to Drawing Bar.  What is odd is that I would occasionally get traffic in natural search results from it but as of today I've been hit with tremendous amount of traffic and some good commentary.  This either leads me to believe that a) Ketel One's Agency of Record has found the post and is taking some heat from it or b) Ketel One has found the post and used it in a meeting discussing branding with their agency.  Either way, very interesting.

Look, I stand by the original post no matter how many positive posts on the campaign I receive in the comments.  I'm a premium vodka drinker and I saw the ad in the WSJ and had an opinion on it.  So does millions of other consumers.  I'm not trying to win the business and am not trying to help an agency to win the business.  I still think Ketel One could do a lot better with the campaign by running it online targeted at their users instead of paying for a full page ad in the WSJ when only 1/4 would have worked just fine. 

If the campaign is helping generate vodka sales than great and you have a home-run no matter what people like me have to say.  If sales are slipping while the rest of your category is growing then clearly you need to try something new.  Only Ketel One and their agency knows for sure what the situation is.  BTW - not that I'm not grateful for the traffic, but the more you agency guys keep hitting that natural search link, the higher up in the rankings it appears, further spreading my post.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

***********UPDATE****************************

Yes Sam, I did land on AdRants.  Serves me right for the one day I was too busy to read my RSS feeds and I get picked up.  BTW AdRants, Drawing Board versus Drawing Bar - I was just trying to be funny....Cheers.

Eric

Major Politicians Are In Google - You Just Need to Search

In today's iMedia Connection there is an article (if that's what you'd call it) written by Brian Easter, Nebo Web's CEO, titled Major Politicians Missing from Google; however what really is missing is Brian's use of Google to actually find politicians using search engine marketing.  Brian's article reports:

• "very noticeably, there is a lack of major politicians in the search engine results for keywords that people search on. (Each campaign is unique so their words are unique)
• So, if you were a politician like Hillary ...or John..., you would probably want your site to be ranked for a whole host of terms like "national security," "Iraq war," "War on terror," and many more. (They are there for words that are important to the individual campaign)
• It seems incredible that major politicians are not putting out their messages on their key positions through the search engines. (It is incredible that you didn't find them)
• If someone is motivated enough to type in a search on immigration reform, then, I as a political candidate, would want you to read my position on this issue on my website.(See screen shot below)
• First off, it means our politicians are not web-savvy when is comes to marketing". (Believe me, they get search engine marketing)

Wow, if you actually read this article you'd think that politicians are ignoring search engine marketing.  "Incredible" he wrote; it is incredible that a CEO of  a company that supposedly delivers results and lists search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising as a skill set, couldn't find the political PPC advertising.    For example, instead of just blindly writing point #4 above, he could have actually typed in immigration reform into Google and he would have seen a political advertiser as shown in the image above.

I won't give away our search strategy for political advertisers, but let's just say that we and our clients are more sophisticated than what Brian reports.  As any private marketer knows, it depends on what the goals are and how much budget you have to spend when it comes to designing a well managed search campaign.  We construct individual search campaigns for each of our clients based on their budget and objectives; some campaigns are as complex as any private sector advertiser but everyone is unique.

Political advertising is not as simple and certainly not as clueless as Brian writes about.  Each one has different goals and challenges and what works for one campaign (ex, immigration reform) may not work for others.  A simple search via Google would have turned up PPC advertisers and not just the ones we are working with.  Heck, he could have found this website or an article in ClickZ today that mentions yours truly talking about among other topics, political search marketing.

When choosing an agency to handle your search engine marketing, make sure you choose one that actually knows how to use search.  Having a skill that you pay an agency for is usually an important component of the relationship.  And, when it comes to political advertising, having the right relationship is key to getting out the right message in a cost effective manner.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

What's Your Blogging Storey? (mistake on purpose)

A while back I wrote a post called What Came First The Chicken or The Blog regarding advice I gave my sister for starting her own blog on raising chickens.  The background on it was:  my sister wanted to sell decorative eggs online but she couldn't get enough traffic to her site by SEO, she tried PPC but couldn't compete with big gift advertisers like Hallmark, so I suggested she write her own blog to build up traffic and link to her decorative egg site (see continuation of story for an update). 

This is the same advice that I gave our friend Muffin Storey on her life coaching business, What's Your Storey.  Muffin wanted to have a web presence so I helped her with buying URLs, setting up her email, and talked with her about basic site design.  Sadly, I didn't have enough time to design the site for her, but she enlisted some help.  Muffin started a blog over at blogger.com and just started posting a few days ago over at http://mkstorey.blogspot.com/. 

Ok, so what's my blogging Storey?  I get that question all the time.  Sure there are sites with more traffic, but you have to start somewhere right?  When I started this blog back in September 2005, I wanted to be the voice of the marketer because business blogs out there either linked to other sites with  no commentary, were more educational, or geared toward agencies.   Wow, that was a little idealistic, no?  A year later why do I do this? 

1. It boosts my Google credibility with more links and listings than I could have imagined back in Sept. 2005
2. I've met a lot of great people and built online relationships like then one I have with Ann Handley over at Marketing Profs.
3. Just like the advice I gave my sister and Muffin, I use this blog to help generate and land new business.  Based on the three new ones I have, I'd say it is working.

You really need to understand what are the motivations behind your news.  When it comes to MSM (main stream media) it is to sell advertising space by increasing readership or viewers.  Think about how many extra newspapers the Daily News sold today with its headline on Joe Torre about to be fired from the Yankees.  What's the motivation behind the DailyKos and other political bloggers?  Traffic, support for their chosen candidates and causes?  When you read posts from other viewpoints like I regularly do, you need to understand what their Storey is and why certain headlines are posted.  One of the first rules of blogging is to be controversial.  Don't forget that.

Some bloggers have an excellent following and perhaps push public relations on behalf of their employer.  Hopefully, if they are above board, they disclose it properly.  Otherwise, they are secretly blogging on behalf of an employer or worse, they are getting paid to post by advertisers as the folks over at PayPerPost.com are now engaging in. Your Storey for blogging or having a website should be painfully obvious. 

*****UPDATE AS OF 10/9*****BTW - I just saw this over at BusinessWeek.  It is an article called Wal-Mart's Jim and Laura: The Real Story.  Yes they are real people but according to BusinessWeek, Working Families for WalMart is sponsoring the couple and that organization was setup by WalMart's PR firm Edelman.  Is this a cute little website or a PR strategy that is paying to have a freelance writer and a professional photographer make posts.  You decide.  Is enough information disclosed?  BTW - their Alexa and Google Page Rank is zero so perhaps people have figured it out already.

Understanding why someone is posting commentary is key to forming valued opinions on subjects important to you.  Anyone can stretch the truth or be controversial in the name of generating traffic, increasing sales revenue, or just getting their name out there.  Until you know where your information is coming from and their motivations, you really can end up with a hollow ghost storey.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Marketing Rapid Fire 10-7-06

While I sit here in lower back pain from pulling out my back, I figured I'd give you a marketing rapid fire.  Yes, I pulled my back out during this morning's soccer game where I'm the head coach and team sponsor.  Literally for $150 , I sponsored my soccer team and had the honor of coaching this team.   Right now we are 2-3, which isn't bad considering we are not supposed to try and win.  Anyway, without further ado, this week's marketing rapid fire.

• Watch out in SecondLife for your own brand name as someone else has the Avatar name Leo Burnett.  When I logged in, I grabbed the name PardonMyFrench Boehm which the first name is obvious while the last name is not: it is the last name of my good friends Grace and Chip Boehm.
• MLB is running a $10 million advertising campaign to promote the playoffs. I really can't stand the ads with Tommy Lasorda - not that they are bad, but I think Tommy is reduced to a comedic character.  I guess the famous manager that has been reduced to always appearing in baseball bloopers doesn't care that much.  The folks at MLB.com were smart enough to spend more than 10% of their media budget on online properties.  Nicely done.
• How many of you marketing executives can't stand getting your ads approved by your compliance or legal officers.  Personally, I never had any problems because a) these folks were trying to keep me out of jail and b) their butt was on the line if something got out that wasn't kosher.  Over at BusinessWeek, a HP compliance lawyer clearly had concerns and issues with the pre-texting.  If you don't want to read the article, fine, but at least click the links to copies of the email trail.
• NyTimes is blogging about the Yankees and Mets playoffs games from an apartment in NYC.  Hmm - I guess it is ok for the people that can't catch the game on TV or TiVo, radio, or plunk money down over at MLB.com to watch it live.  The platform isn't as good as what you can get over at Yahoo sports where you can see live stats and it is just a blog...My guess is it will make an early exit like the Yankees.
• CNET has a cute article where they figured out by typing in "search" into Google and hit, I'm Feeling Lucky, you get the new Microsoft Live Search page.
• Finally, political blogger Michele Malkin gets banned for putting an anti-jihad video on YouTube and has a lot to say about it.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Retail RSS Feeds

Been a while since we looked at RSS feeds and with all of the catalogs appearing in my mailbox daily thanks to my resident All Star Shopper I thought I would rant a little bit.  First up, courtesy of AdRants, Target is offering personalized weekly ads via email which is great.  Too bad, they didn't mimic what Sears is doing via SimpleFeed and offer the promotions via RSS feeds.  Even Lillian Vernon has a RSS feed too.  As someone that has held various e-marketing positions in big corporations, I wonder why the management team at Target couldn't make the leap of faith and incorporate RSS fields off their site for a nominal fee via SimpleFeed?  It can't be because their e-marketing team was clueless can it?

Then this study came out from BizRate that examines online marketing in the retail space for the upcoming holiday season.  Before you jump for joy over the next number, I was disappointed with the people that did the study or combined the results.  It said that 41.6% of retailers will incorporate blogs or RSS feeds into their holiday marketing strategy and 79.5 will use viral marketing at social networking sites.  Just to round it out, 97.4 will use search marketing.  Ok, so retailers get search - wow, glad they figured that one out and almost 80% see social networking as an opportunity which I'm not really sure I know what that means.  Are they going to upload videos into YouTube, put up a page in MySpace, or use display ads?  However, what is disappointing, is that they combined the results between RSS feeds and Blogs which shows a naivete in what that means.  Blogs are social communicating sites while RSS feeds are a mechanism for pushing out news and information.  Sure you can advertise on both, but they require different strategies.

I'm glad to see that retail companies are embracing the internet for selling their products.  Too bad, they haven't really figured out how to use RSS feeds to cheaply and easily eliminate catalogs for marketing their products.  If only, they'd take a meeting with SimpleFeed and make the life of heavy shoppers (like my wife) easier.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Burger King Burgers - Yuck. Strategy - Yummm

I absolutely loved this interview in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal called Burger King Cooks Up Xbox Strategy which really at first looks like another in-game advertiser interview, but really it was a breath of fresh air.  The article is a real in-depth interview with Burger King's CMO Russ Klein.  Mr. Klein is smart enough to realize that advertising to gamers is a great idea, embraces new media strategies, cut his spending on TV, magazine, and print, and focuses on his target segment of young males. 

Heck, Burger King was involved in consumer generated content where one mini film featured a woman doing a fake striptease.  Instead of worrying about political fallout or backlash, Mr. Klein embraces the Burger King brand and realizes it is edgy and geared toward their demo.  After all, what would sell more burgers to (normal) young men - a women doing a fake striptease, a clown, or a cute red head, freckled girl in pony-tails (I wrote normal)?

Cutting back offline spending in favor of new media, embracing the good and the bad of CGC, and consistently focusing on your target market are all lessons marketers should take note on.  How many of you out there really get to know your customer? Sure they are using a freaky big headed King to promote burgers, but they really have a handle on the mysterious puzzle called marketing.  Long live the marketing King - now pass me an Egg McMuffin (the only fast food I've eaten at any of these chains in 5 years).

PardonMyFrench,

Eric 

BTW - Burger King's Xbox game launched today.

Riding Pew's Web 2.0 Wave

I just finished reading Pew's new report on Web 2.0 called Riding the Waves of Web 2.0 and I thought it provided a pretty decent primer on Web 2.0. It combines their primary research with Hitwise data that looks at web traffic numbers.  Read the article to get a good synopsis of Web 2.0, but here are the highlights for me:

• Are the old usenet groups really a Neanderthal version of Web 2.0 - you remember those don't you?  Countless hours downloading files on a 14.4 modem only to find that you have a bad version of a Springsteen bootleg
• A nice chart (the one on right) that summarizes Web 2.0 applications and their latest survey results on % of Americans that have ever use this service.
• A great chart that shows how Photobucket is destroying kodakgallery.com for internet traffic; showing once again that history can repeat as a large company gets Amazoned
• Wikipedia is surprise, more popular than Encarta - even with all of those discs jammed into your latest PC purchases.  BTW - Encarta discs make for good coasters.
• Email is still the dominant form of social communication on the web - 53% of all Americans use email daily, virtually unchanged in percentage from 2000, but the raw amount has grown substantially with more Americans online.

The one chart that was a complete waste was comparing MySpace's traffic with Geocities which is like comparing the hitting stats of the 1927 Yankees with the Bad News Bears.  The last time I was on a Geocities page was 8 months ago when I was researching Pete Seeger songs that Bruce Springsteen was releasing.  I found what I was looking for, but was shocked that they still existed and people continue to update them (and not anonymously).  However, true to form I got hit with a drive by download of spyware software that took me hours to remove.  Geocities was cheesy 10 years ago and still is today, but unlike 10 years ago it is now like visiting a brothel without protection.  Oops, that was uncalled for.  I hope the brothels don't get upset with me over that comment.  Oh well. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

Since When Is The Net Neutral Again?

A while back I made a post called Since When Is The Net Neutral? and it generated a lot of great comments.  At the end of the day, the conclusion I came to with the help of PCLiberal (whoever he is) is that we are losing the battle of the last mile to the household and the rallying cry of net neutrality should be about local competition and not about content or hampering the little guy.  The issue was dead for me from a post perspective, because well, once a topic gets too hot and picked up by bigger sites I don't look original any more.

Well, my fellow MarketingProfs blogger Ann Handley wrote a good post called Dumb is The New Smart and it has to do with using humor to discuss boring, but important subjects like Net Neutrality.  Without stealing Ann's thunder too much, I republished my comment below.  As you can see, when people use humor to discuss important issues based on facts, it can become very effective.  When humor is used to confuse people or distort facts for the sake of making it funny is when it becomes an issue.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good post Ann. I went through the site and I agree with you that using humor to tell this boring story is a great idea. What I like best about this is that they do a great job of getting to the heart of the issue which is the RBOCs have a legalized monopoly at the local level and now command pricing power at our access points. That's the heart of the issue and not if you are going to have access to content.

When I was at AT&T (the older version), we had plans to compete at the local level as I'm sure MCI and Sprint did. Sadly, the government allowed the SBCs and Bell Atlantics (Verizon) of the world to buy up the competition and form giant telecom companies. So these guys are dead on accurate.

Anything that gets the real message out and steers it away from the content argument is a great idea. If it makes us laugh too, well it is better the crying over spilt content.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Dr. Siegel's Graying World

Way back on September 20, Dr. Jeremy Siegel had a letter posted in the Wall Street Journal's editorial page called Gray World.  The article basically outlined that we can't escape from our demographic realities which is an aging population and not enough younger people to balance them out.  This impacts social security (not enough younger workers to improve the workers to retirees ratio),  not enough younger Americans to purchase the products that need to be sold by retirees so they have cash (you can't buy food with an iPOD), and why the global economy will help. 

I really hope you can read the article because it makes a lot of sense to me and as Dr. Siegel points out, there are not many things we can do impact this reality.  I had the chance to hear Dr. Siegel speak at a Money Matters conference courtesy of Yahoo! Finance on this same subject, but of course in more detail.  Dr. Siegel spoke at length on social security and this was right around the time President Bush was pushing for major changes to it.  I went up to Dr. Siegel after his presentation and asked him the following question.

Instead of the President talking about privatizing social security, maybe he should go with a new slogan which is make love and not privatization.  Dr. Siegel pointed out that America benefited from the mass immigration at the turn of the 20th century and a huge population explosion following World War 2 that brought us the baby boomers.  I asked him, why we couldn't increase legal immigration and have more babies and basically replicate what happened with us in the past?  Dr. Siegel smiled and said, it was possible, but why not rely on the global economy to solve our issues.  So, much for my argument with a Professor of Finance at The Wharton School of Business.

Anyway, give the article a read because it is very interesting and really our destiny unless we open up immigration and make love more....

PardonMyFrench,

Eroc

You Have 30 Days Left In Your Campaign

I often get asked what it is like to work on political campaigns, now that I've been employed by Connell Donatelli for about 10 months.  Sure people are confused on why politicians don't spend more money online, but I've been very excited to see how they've been growing and spending more dollars on internet advertising since the beginning of the year.  Search marketing is much larger and more and more campaigns are just streaming their offline commercials in online ad units like PointRoll.  What hasn't changed, however, is the demanding timelines and sadly to say, most publishers, vendors still don't get it.  Yah, I know you are reading this and saying, I get it Eric, really I do, but I can assure you, you don't.

People that have worked with me over the past few years, know that I'm a stickler for deadlines and if something slips, I get very fired up and pound people into submission until they either correct it or get it live ASAP.  However, none of that prepared me for this - YOU HAVE 30 DAYS UNTIL YOUR CAMPAIGN IS OVER.

No, there is no tomorrow.  There is no, oh - let's roll it into next year or how about, let's just have a make-good.  None of these things pass muster.  YOU HAVE 30 DAYS UNTIL YOUR CAMPAIGN IS OVER. 

3 Business day turn-arounds are no good, how about 3 hours?  You take 3 business days away and I just lost 10% of remaining time.  Optimization after 2 weeks - forget about it, you have maybe 2 days to figure out what is working.  No more testing what works and rolling it out; now is the time to get your consistent performers together and spend on them  because they can deliver.  Everything up until Labor Day was testing/learning, donations and email acquisition, but now you have to brand and win.

Win or lose, your advertising campaign ends on November 7, 2006.  YOUR ADVERTISING BUDGET GOES TO ZERO.  When you win, you feel good and maybe can do a case study on your success so campaigns come to you in the future (read - February 2007, earliest).  You lose, well you are really out and all of the good work is lost.  You won't be able to put a power point presentation together that says "here's what we learned" or "we achieved 99%"; none of that matters.

This is a real deadline; not something artificially made up by your CMO because they promised a date to her boss.  Google flags your creative because you have a typo?  You just lost 5% of your campaign.  Yahoo! Search takes too long to give you editorial approval?  You shut it off because you lost time and have to go elsewhere.  That's what it is like working in the political world with 30-35 days to go. 

YOU HAVE 30 DAYS TO WIN.  WHAT'S YOUR STRATEGY NOW?  You say you want a bigger share of the advertising budget.  Can you handle the deadlines and the pressure?  How about instant messaging an IO?  When a client ignores that you told him that you need creative approval before a campaign goes live, and wonders why their campaign isn't live and thinks you mislead them.  That's when you can answer what it is like to political campaigns. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

(PardonMyFrench Redux) Now, It Is Ok To Antenna Chase

*Note: I wrote this post 5 years ago. Enjoy

Way back when I was working at AT&T, I volunteered to work on two double secret probation projects called Cheetah and Panda.  These were AT&T's first efforts to market cellular (Cheetah) and paging (Panda) to the AT&T long distance customer base.  We in the LD world had to work with our McCaw cellular counterparts in understanding the products, offers, and incentives to create the direct mail piece, inbound call scripts, and TV ads.  This was back in 1995 when you didn't have wireless gizmos attached to your body and hardly anyone understood how the product worked.

The group we had was very small, and as I recall there was only one marketing manager (me) on the project and my job was to write the marketing brief, review creatives, work with sales execution, and negotiate the offers.  Two big decisions I recommended were the use of 1800336TRUE for inbound calls and what I believed was the first official use of a free cellular phone with a new account sign-up.  Both were significant because people never forgot that 800 number (AT&T finally shut it off last year in 2005) and the free phone offer is often the price of admission into wireless service.  One other recommendation I made which was shouted down was comparing service with our competitors.  I was told that Craig McCaw called that antenna chasing and with a growing market it wasn't needed.

As this Sunday NYTimes article explains, now with over 70% penetration in the US, cell phone carriers now focus ads on each other in order to steal market share. What was once taboo in the industry now looks common place as I must have seen the Sprint/Nextel wireless data card ad (mentioned in the article - see ad below) about 100 times while watching football this weekend.  I'm sure with this strategy shift, you'll see more offers to switch, better promotions, and better prices.  It used to happen in the LD world, but with mergers that the FCC allowed to create super local/LD carriers, those incentives have long since evaporated.  I'm still waiting for a phone call from my local provider Embarq (the worst brand name in history) to call me with an offer to switch.

Well, at least we consumers can enjoy some good old fashioned name calling, promotions, and fun advertising in the wireless world.  My antenna chasing idea wasn't so bad, it was just 10 years ahead of its time.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric