FutureNow's GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog » Branding and Advertising Rants

Hardee’s b-holes — do they sell?

John Quarto-vonTivadar — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:35:30 +0000

I recently viewed this Hardee’s Ad and thought, “Can this be real?” It seems Hardee’s now sells little breakfast items that compete with donut holes. And this ad takes a blind taste-test theme, wherein the participants choose between the “A-holes” and the “B-holes”. (I swear, I’m not kidding)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now I’ll be the first to admit: normally this sort of humor is right up my alley — I’m the one in the FutureNow office who sees “giggle-value” every time a new iPhone flatulence app comes along — but seeing this as an advertisement was funny the first time, and each time I re-watched I became less and less enthusiastic and more and more offended. What’s next? Shall we be subjected to Dunkin’ Donuts Butt Munchkins?

I’m guessing most people would be offended by this ad. But leave personal sense of what qualifies as funny aside for a moment, and consider: At the end of the day, the purpose of the ad is to sell more product. Perhaps in this case one might argue the real focus is on creating product awareness, so that at some point in the future I *might* try the product. Either way, I’m dubious as to whether the ad does anything more than make me aware of Hardee’s new product but lacking the inducement to act.

Did you watch the video? What’s the actual product name? As I wrote this post, I had viewed the video 8 times, but actually cannot recall the product name since my mind wants to refer to it as “Hardee’s B-holes”. Now there’s an anti-inducer.

What do you think? Offensive, or just puerile humor (not that there’s anything wrong with that, fellow South Park fans!). And what does it say when the more times the audience is exposed to the marketing, the less likely the viewer is to choose the product, or even remember its name?

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Visual Scandal, Story Appeal, and Banner Ads

Jeff Sexton — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:29:36 +0000

Steve Krug has famously compared Web pages to billboards, meaning that Web visitors are task oriented, and therefore on-the-move. They click through websites, sizing up any individual page’s content in about as much time as a driver takes to glance up at a billboard, roughly 7 seconds or so.

The difference of course, is that material in the active window is being actively and consciously engaged and evaluated by the Web visitor, who can then slow down and read material that has proven itself relevant, which is obviously not the case for billboards. This is where the analogy breaks down, and why most copywriters will slap anyone clueless enough to vomit up the old “People don’t read online” mantra.

But as useful as the analogy is for web pages, it’s far more so for online ads:

Both are on the periphery of your vision/attention, and therefore both have to present a reason to shift your attention from the task at hand to their message.

Both want to leave you hungering for more information or more contact with the brand.

So when my recent post on Apple’s Banner Ad Innovation provoked some Ogilvy-inspired comments that compared banner ads to magazine ads, I thought It would be worthwhile to revisit that advertising giant’s advice on billboards (or what he refers to generally as posters). So here it is:

It Pays to make your poster a ‘visual scandal’”

Your poster should deliver you selling promise not only in words, but also pictorially.

Use the largest possible type

Make your brand name visible at a long distance

Use strong, pure colors

Never use more than three elements in your design

Now, strong colors might be a toss-up, because while they can draw the eye, they also scream “I’m an ad, ignore me.” And you can take or leave the other bottom four bullets, but the top two are pure gold for banner ads and are exactly what Apple was doing in it’s New York Times banner/skyscraper ad.

1. A ‘Visual Scandal’ surprises and delights viewers

This surprise and delight factor causes a peripheral eye sweep to become a studied look, gaining you the web visitor’s/driver’s active attention and consideration. And it does it while leaving those people with a positive emotional response to your brand (as apposed to gaining attention through an annoying, dancing stick figure). Here’s an example of visual scandal that Ogilvy provided in Ogilvy on Advertising:

And here are some of my personal favorite examples:

Of course, the razor blade, kill bill, and Nike ads are probably better than the Makers Mark and Frozen Mars Bar ad because in those billboards the selling promise is implicit in the visual scandal, thereby following Ogilvy’s second point as well as the first.

Achieving Visual Scandal by Coloring Outside the Lines

Notice how often this idea of visual scandal requires the use of 3-D or “outside the lines” effects. So how did Apple do this with a banner ad? They had multiple space ads interacting with each other, extending the ad outside the lines/boundaries of what we are used to. Take a look:

Achieving Visual Scandal by Visual Pun

Another technique for creating visual scandal is to make creative and unusual use of a boundary, line, or element that is already a part of the environment, creating a visual pun, as these examples do:

This techniques works for a lot more than posters, too:

Story Appeal

Humans use stories to explain deviations from the ordinary. As Jerome Bruner writes in, Acts of Meaning:

“Stories seem to be designed to give the exceptional behavior meaning in a manner that implicates both an intentional state in the protagonist (a belief or desire) and some canonical element in the culture . . . The function of the story is to find an intentional state that mitigates or at least makes comprehensible a deviation from a canonical cultural pattern.”

So viewers create stories by speculating on the motives of the actors depicted (within a scene or picture); they use their imaginations to fill in the back-story. Needless to say, you can’t have a story element to your picture/billboard/banner ad unless it contains people, or more precisely, characters.

Just look at the ad Ogilvy used as an example of “story element”:

And here’s what Ogilvy wrote about Story Appeal (and this ad):

“The kind of photographs which work hardest are those which arouse the reader’s curiousity. He glances at the photograph and says to himself, ‘What goes on heres?’ Then he reads your copy to find out. Harold Rudolph called this magic element ‘Story Appeal,’ and demonstrated that the more of it you inject into your photographs, the more people look at your advertisements.”

“The eyepatch [in the Hathaway ad] injects the magic element of ’story appeal.‘”

Do you see how the odd characteristic of the Baron Wrangell character made readers curious. They speculated about his background, purpose in the ad, etc. And so they read the ad. In online terms, they’d click through to get the full story on your home page.

For most people this same story appeal now occurs whenever we see the Mac and PC characters – especially when we see them outside the confines of a TV ad. Viewers know there’s a story to the ad somewhere, and so look closer to find out what it is.

So all you Internet Marketers yearning for a creative renaissance in online advertising, follow Apple’s lead and employ these techniques to their maximum. Just try to remember that after you’ve surprised and delighted your audience, it will be relevance and scent that will determine whether your ad actually makes the client any money.

[Editor's note: the author of this post is now blogging at jeffsextonwrites.com]
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Step Right Up and Try the Latest Disruptive Advertising!

Brendan Regan — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:51:55 +0000

In my tenure here on GrokDotCom, I’ve done a pretty good job avoiding the snarkiness and sarcasm that permeate my whole being. I open with that so you’ll indulge me on this one

Recently, I went to MySpace.com to look up a semi-obscure band. Why did I go there instead of my usual search engine query? Because every band is on MySpace. If you are a band, and live in the Milky Way solar system, you are on MySpace, and everyone knows it. It’s the kind of reputation you could leverage into ad revenue…you know, relevant banner ads, text ads, promotions, etc.

Midway through my brief listening session, the infamous MySpace music player stopped performing its function and overlayed an ad. To continue listening, I had to dismiss a very intrusive banner.

I won’t waste anyone’s time with why interrupting my favorite song with a banner ad that has to be actively dismissed is a bad idea. Instead, let’s follow the experience of that one visitor in a million who wants to stop listening to cool music, go off to another site, and take a completely different action.

So let’s look at the p ersuasion scenario the advertiser, Dominoes Pizza, has paid to funnel us into.

The Creative: It’s professional-looking, but it could at least try to have something to do with music. The call to action button doesn’t really stand out or contrast, and it’s asking for a lot (go from listening to music to ordering food online).

The Landing Page: Yikes, that doesn’t look very fun. Where’s the scent of information for me to follow? Am I in the right place? They also get bonus points for giving me a promotional price on 3 medium pizzas instead of sandwiches!

The Rest of the Scenario: I clicked into the scenario a bit deeper out of morbid curiosity. Once again, nothing makes me more persuaded to order sandwiches online than a big picture of a plain cheese pizza. The whole experience seems geared towards ordering pizza, which makes sense if I am a direct entry visitor. Couldn’t they pass a parameter so the page defaults to the Sandwiches tab?

Disruptive advertising is risky. I’ve already started a mental list of brands I now hate because they interrupted my music listening (Blockbuster and Insurance.com joined the list). So, if you’re going to risk a bad “brand exposure,” and a backlash of negative word of mouth (or worse yet, bloggers ), you’d better have your ducks in a row for those who actually click through into your conversion funnel.
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Let’s Get Rid of Performance Based Marketing, Huh?

Jeff Sexton — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:32:10 +0000

So apparently the Internet Advertising Bureau is dissatisfied with search-based Internet ads. Seems they want to “overcome perceptions of ‘creative shabbiness’ in online media, and to help prevent the slide toward a ‘performance-based’ Internet advertising economy.” Ouch.

While I can’t help but shake my head at the elevated nose and depressed intelligence of a dying attitude that associates “performance-based advertising” with creative shabbiness, that’s not what really bothered me about this piece.

What bothered me was two-fold:

1)    The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s confusion about the very medium it claims to represent.

2)   The implied motivation behind the IAB’s attempt to bring branding to the web.

Let’s deal with the first point and how it relates to branding via Internet Advertising. Basically it boils down to this:

“You can close your eyes but you can’t close your ears.”

If I’m watching TV or listening to the radio and I’m interrupted by your ad, I can’t help but overhear your message, even if I look away and suddenly switch my attention to getting that last bit of salsa onto my Frito or avoiding the bumper of the car in front of me.

Since I’m at least half paying attention, great creative can cause me to redirect my attention back to your ad, thereby allowing the ad’s message to sink in. Given enough repetition, the ad gets absorbed to the point where it can sway my decision when I’m actually in the market for the advertised product or service.

It’s a seemingly inefficient process that’s made shockingly effective through intelligent use of mass media. The required repetition and non-targeted nature of your audience is more than overcome by the sheer number of people you reach and the amount of times you reach them. As listeners and viewers convert over time, your mass media campaign can potentially create dramatically more traffic and sales on a per-dollar basis than targeted direct response methods.

So for intrusive or interruption-based media, great creative plus reach & frequency all go hand in hand for an effective ad campaign. And I’ve said before that offline branding efforts can pair especially well with a solid online web presence.

So the takeaways are:

Branding almost always requires repeat exposure – this is why frequency matters.

Branding only becomes efficient when you can reach a lot of people cheaply – this is why reach matters.

The end goal of branding is to implant enough good associations about your product/brand/offer in the mind of the prospect to get them to buy from you once. You get one shot because actual experience either reinforces or destroys branded associations after the first purchase. Lot’s of recent brands have been built on extraordinary customer experience and very little to no advertising, but almost no brands have made it with mediocre experience and lots of branding campaigns.

Unfortunately, the Internet is NOT an intrusive or interruption-friendly media. It’s an interactive or “engaged medium” precisely because you need audience permission and participation to make it work. Attempts to shortcut the “permission and participation” part usually meet with dismal results: we’ve become extraordinarily good at concentrating on the active window while ignoring banner and right-hand column ads. That means great creative stands very little chance of grabbing attention from an Internet user’s task at hand.

Other than adolescent boys staring at Lamborghinis and viewers of the rarely successful viral video, people who aren’t in the market for what you are offering have no interest in voluntarily exposing themselves to your ads. And, for a participatory medium like the internet, that leaves only people actively interested in your market/offer. People who, I don’t know, might indicate that interest by, say, typing keywords into a search engine or something…

Nor is the Internet a medium where there’s usually any significant space or time between being engaged by an ad to buying the advertised product. If I click on a search-generated ad, I’m pretty much already at some stage of the buying process. You don’t have to repeat the ad to make it sink in or design the ad so that its message is memorable; you just have to make it salient to my task-at-hand and I’ll click. This is why ad relevance or “scent” has generally displaced the importance of “great creative” for PPC ads.

Yes, it helps to make more concerted efforts at grabbing people earlier in the buying process, but they still have to BE in the buying process to begin with.

So despite his protest at the misapplication of reach and frequency models to Internet advertising, I suspect that IAB President Rothenberg wants to similarly misapply an interruption-based model of branding to a permission-and-participation-based medium.

Brand builders plan around reach and frequency because reach and frequency are intrinsic to the mechanics of branding. You might be able to do branding on the web through viral videos or other entertainment-based efforts, but you’ll still have to ensure you reach a large number of people with enough repetitions to make your message sink in.

Will a fully engaged audience require less repetition than a more passive one? Sure, but less might mean 5-15 times vs. 156 or more repetitions. Other than planes hitting the World Trade Center or your wife saying “I Do,” very few messages are burned into your memory the first time your experience them. And I don’t care how “great” your creative is, your actual business message (vs. the novelty you wrap around it) will never reach that level of impact. This is why viral campaigns work better than single videos.

And this brings me to my last point and what bothers me most about the IAB’s push for “great creative” over “performance based” advertising:

They never once said that performance based advertising wasn’t making the wisest and best use of their clients’ ad budgets. They never seemed to indicate that their clients would be selling more and gaining more market share if they were actively branding on the web.

What they said was: “it was time for online publishers to reclaim some of the premium advertising turf vs. general market media, especially network television.” Followed up by a statement that the Internet’s emphasis on performance-based or direct response advertising, “does little to elevate the perception of online’s premium communications value.”

Hmmm. Does this sound like Randal and the IAB are most concerned for what’s best for clients or in what’s best for Internet Advertising Agencies?
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Branding Through Reverse Camouflage

Jeff Sexton — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:13:51 +0000

Do you have the courage to say what you’re not?

Most people don’t want to draw that sharp line of distinction, and it’s why their marketing efforts blend into the clutter.

Discernible edges and silhouettes allow us to visually “grip” an object and separate figure from ground. Eliminate those edges and you’ll effectively camouflage yourself.

In the picture above, notice how the legs present a solid silhouette and are easily identified, while the man’s upper body camouflage breaks up his silhouette and blurs his edges into the background of trees and snow. As a result, it’s much harder to make out his his torso and arms.

Like our eyes, our minds also depend on edges and silhouettes. We define by giving parameters, mentally grasping a concept by its boundaries. Without the “edges” of contrasting reference points, a concept or term remains ambiguous at best.

That’s why grabbing after an “infinite” market and seeking to be all things to all people ends up camouflaging one’s brand and messaging; without contrast it all just blurs into the background.

Want to stand out? Sharply define the edges between you and your competitors.

The better you do this, the more strongly you’ll turn-off some customers. But wouldn’t you rather powerfully persuade some of your market than be overlooked by all of it?

Just follow the example of this doctor:

I found this ad in my local newspaper and was immediately struck by the bold headline:

“You don’t want me to be your family doctor.”

Pretty ballsy headline for a doctor, huh? Wouldn’t you feel compelled to read more about this doctor with the courage to so brazenly declare what he wasn’t?

Having gained the reader’s attention, the body copy further explains: “Neurosurgery is one of the few medical specialties for which I am well-suited. I am not warm and fuzzy. I could never be successful as a pediatrician or in a family practice – no one would come back a second time. But I am very good at what I do.”

Dr. Goodman then substantiates his claimed expertise with a list of very impressive professional qualifications and accomplishments, rounded off with some examples of his extreme commitment to surgical excellence and his patients’ well-being.

While his professional qualifications are truly outstanding, most readers would never have read them without Dr. Goodman’s use of reverse camouflage in his headline. Saying what he wasn’t allowed him to stand out amidst the clutter.

So here’s 3 sure-fire ways to reverse-camouflage your messaging.

1.    Get yourself an enemy and/or reject a reasonable alternative position
Nothing fires the blood quite so much as declaring what (or who) you stand against. But you get no points for tearing down straw men; rejecting a reasonable alternative position puts teeth into your message.

2.    Present a tightly focused perspective
Once you’ve narrowed the group of customers that you’re most interested in attracting, focus your messaging to speak most directly to their felt needs, desires, and frustrations. People who don’t share those experiences will feel excluded, but your core audience will feel an instant connection. Both will instantly recognize you. Tim Miles offers a brilliant example of this on his “About Us” page.

3.    Explain what costs you’re willing to bare and admit the downside to your offer/product.
This one is more about credibility than definition, but amidst a background of ad-speak, solid credibility acts as its own form of reverse camouflage. Plus, you don’t just want to be seen, right? You want to be believed as well.

Finally, if all else fails, you can always use your new-found knowledge of camouflage to escape weekend chores (just ditch the boots in favor of camo socks)

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Sword Arms vs. (Semi) Scientific Advertising

Jeff Sexton — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:38:02 +0000

While most copywriters have avidly studied Claude Hopkins’ Scientific Advertising, very few have even heard of Theodore MacManus, let alone read his book, The Sword Arm of Business. And yet MacManus was, in some ways, a more successful ad man, having:

Established his own (very successful) ad agency

Launched the Dodge and Chrysler brands

Hired and mentored Leo Burnett, creator of the Marlboro Man, Tony the Tiger, Pillsbury Doughboy, and many other advertising icons that made his clients rich

Turned positioning into a fine art form half a century before Ries and Trout even coined the term.

Helped establish Cadillac’s pre-eminence among early automotive marks

Wrote “The greatest ad of all time,” as voted in 1949 – an ad still listed in the top 50 of Ad Ages Top 100 Advertising Campaigns.

Interesting, but why should you care? Because MacManus’s – and by extension Burnett’s – approach was the yin to Hopkins’ yang, and because MacManus’s approach still works today.

And what was that approach?

In a word, it was to position the client while dethroning competitors in the minds’ of the audience. He wanted to create, in the mind of the public, a deep-seated prejudice towards his client’s brand.

If, in the words of the legendary Gary Halbert, the biggest key to success is to sell to a starving crowd, then MacManus aimed to persuade the consumer that only his client’s product would fully cure their hunger, and then wait for the more-cheaply-persuaded and much larger mass audience to get hungry as their individual circumstances dictated. This would be in contrast to targeting only hungry people and then selling to them via direct mail.

And so the two poles of advertising continue on to this day, as is clearly seen in the following comments by an extraordinarily successful brand builder, Chris Maddock. Chris was responding to my request for his opinion on Google’s recent attempt to track the effect of offline advertising upon online sales/conversions.   Here’s what he had to say:

Jeff,

I think Google’s traditional ad analytics are interesting, sexy, and certainly useful on some level. But I think the program could also be dangerous, in that it could give some folks faulty impressions of what is actually happening – or what is right – because it assumes advertisers know things they probably don’t.

Let’s say a local hardware store runs some print ads, and compares the online response to another time they’ve run radio ads. If the print ads were for a short term offer, and the radio ad of a more institutional bent, the print ad could drive more traffic to the website and have the hardware store owner thinking that print’s the ticket. The reality in such a situation is that the print advertising is impressing and motivating a tiny, albeit palpable, percentage of the market to respond and go the the website, while the time-sensitive nature of the offer makes the advertising all but invisible to the bulk of the market. On the other hand the radio advertising is likely creating greater long-term top of mind awareness, yet probably not motivating as many to go the website. Mr. Hardware likely thinks that the radio campaign was less effective, when in fact most category dominant businesses are those that eschew short-term sales, offers, promotions and the advertising tools that make them work, while leaning on intrusive media such as radio and television to push long-term awareness. Over time, radio could likely drive many more visitors to the website – visitors who will likely buy.

So my worry is admittedly Hamiltonian. Years of interaction with average business owners and traditional ad people has revealed a startling blindness to things like buying cycles, differences in long and short-term strategy, and proper media selection.

So these new Google analytics are cool. I just hope the good people using them understand what they’re trying to make happen, and what the numbers returned really mean.

-    Chris

Do you see how Chris picks up the standard of Theodore McManus, Leo Burnett, and Roy Williams? Although I think it is possible to intelligently and rigorously compare media, I can’t help but agree with Chris’s larger point. Creating a prejudice in the mind of the customer before they’re hungry is often a more effective strategy than trying to only target hungry customers.* But it requires a longer time horizon. So if you are only measuring on the short term, you’ll likely come to the opposite conclusion and then deem your position to be “scientific.” It’s a perfect example of one of the deadly sins of Web Analytics.

So what’s your time horizon? And have you implemented a measuring/analytics system that will enable you to measure accordingly?

* To be fair, there are certainly also times when it pays to directly target hungry customers, rather than engage in a lengthier branding campaign. I’m not necessarily advocating one over the other; I’m arguing that you shouldn’t base your decision on skewed metrics.
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Sell Me Something, Not Some Thing

John Quarto-vonTivadar — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:43:27 +0000

During recent casual browsing, I noticed the following magicJack ad (on the left):

Now can anyone tell what the heck the product is? (I happen to know, since I also remember a late night commercial that explains it.)*

Put yourself in the place of the site visitor who is seeing this for the first time. I mean, thanks for the Freebie and all, and congrats that PC Magazine seems to like it … but what is it?

A product? Perhaps magicJack is a flat tire fixer? Is it an apple-flavored children’s breakfast cereal with a magic toy inside?

From the picture, I might guess maybe it plugs into a phone jack and does…well… something phone-ish?

Or maybe it’s a service by a local magician? The possibilities are endless.

What isn’t endless is a prospective customer’s attention span, even when a Freebie is involved.The best way to sell something is for the customer to have a recognized need for that something. If I don’t know what you’re selling, it’s unlikely I can recognize that need on my part. It strikes me that an awful amount of marketing dollars are being spent to get a prospect to act on the freebie offer for something which remains indistinct.

Here on the Grok we often talk about the three fundamental questions of Persuasion Architecture(R): “who are you talking to?”, “what action do you want them to take?”, and “what do they need to take that action?” Most of the time our posts touch on how easily companies flub #1 or #2. However, this is an example of a company flubbing #3: What I need to know to take action is “what the product is” !

In your own marketing efforts, do you ever forget what it is not to know about your wonderful company and its product or services? Are you forgetting to say the obvious?

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* For the curious, I’ll save you a google search and tell you that what MagicJack does is plug into your computer’s USB port, and then you plug your traditional landline phone into MagicJack and make phone calls through the internet. Easy enough to understand once you hear it. Now, look at the ad again and see if it makes more (or less) sense.
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Microsoft’s Ad Vs. Apple’s Three Move Set

Jeff Sexton — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:19:26 +0000

First, if you haven’t seen it yet, watch Microsoft’s response to Apple’s infamous “I’m a Mac” campaign.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s the question: what do you want to bet that Apple has been just waiting – even itching – for Microsoft to release that kind of response to their “I’m a Mac” campaign?

Why do I ask that? Because I’d bet anything that Mac’s marketing was smart enough to engage in what Mike Smock has termed The Three Move Set. You see, when you try to take market share from a competitor, it’s usually a fair bet that they’ll react with some kind of countermeasure. And that means smart marketers think at least far enough in advance to consider their response to the competition’s countermeasures. Ideally, one wants to make sure this response is decisive, or at least hurts the competition as much as the initial challenge. Here’s how Mike breaks it down:

Move 1: Challenger attacks Leader

Move 2: Leader reacts to Challenger.

Move 3: Challenger reacts to Leader.

And here’s how to view the current Mac/PC ad campaigns in light of that:

Move 1: Mac challenges PC by personifying Macs as hip, cool, and reliably workable and PCs as nerdy, problematic (especially with the release of Vista), and behind the curve in user experience.

Move 2: Microsoft responds by creating an ad that actively evokes Apple’s framing of the issue and that essentially says, hey, PCs are cool, too.

Move 3: Mac slams Microsoft for covering up real problems with Vista by creating fancy advertising campaigns.

Do you see? Most strategists could have – and should have – seen this one coming. Apple goads you into advertising to respond to their ads and then they slam you for being more concerned with creating ad campaigns than fixing your software, as in the case with the ad I posted yesterday or Apple’s PC Bake Sale ad:

Click here to view the embedded video.

So what should have (or could have) Microsoft done?

Well, leaving aside the obvious bit about getting Vista right before releasing it to the public, they probably should have:

Responded to Mac in a matter of weeks, or at least months, rather than years. This one is sort of a no-brainer.

Come up with a response that re-framed the issue rather than responding to Mac’s frame. Saying, “I’m not a dweeb” is a bit like saying “I’m not a crook” – it just forces people to think of you within the frame of dweeb/not dweeb (or Crook/Not Crook). This is actually a well known phenomenon that is actively used by modern politicians. Just as asking people not to think of white bears is actually counterproductive, so too is Microsoft’s denial of Mac’s characterization of PCs.

Possibly take a page out of Trout and Ries’ playbook and attack the weakness inherent in Mac’s strength. In this case, it’s Apple’s closed system and (lower but still there) price premium. William Thomas alluded to the limitations of a closed system in a comment to my previous post when he compared Linux to catching and gutting your own fish and Apple to ordering fish at the restaurant. And I’m guessing here, but it’s also what Microsoft might be getting at with the “Life without walls” slogan. Of course, Microsoft will have to be as creative and sharp witted in pressing this point as Mac has been with their campaigns, and, well, their ad above hardly qualifies. The slogan is nothing but an afterthought.

So what do you think Microsoft should do?
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Traditional Media Stimulates More “Conversations” Than Digital Media?

Jeffrey Eisenberg — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:30:18 +0000

Wow! Is that true? I know lots of my colleagues wouldn’t want to believe it, but it certainly could be true, based on an interesting blog post I just read from Bob Hoffman.

The Ad Contrarian writes:

One of the axioms of Web 2.0 zealots is that “markets are conversations” (see Clueless and The Cluefree Manifesto) and that online social media (blogs, networking websites, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) are uniquely capable of stimulating “conversations” among consumers.

Just one tiny problem. They’re wrong.

On June 18, some facts arrived. And I think the social media maniacs are going to find the facts a little disturbing.

read the entire post

Let us know what your take is on this. If it’s true, then why do you think that is? If you think it isn’t true, then why not?
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Sloan Seymour, President of Ziff Davis, Spammer Extraordinaire

Bryan Eisenberg — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:41:54 +0000

How many complaints does the FTC have to get before they file a suit against Ziff Davis?

In February, Jeffrey asked “Does Ziff Davis’s Spam Damage its Brand?” Both Jeffrey and I could not get off of Ziff Davis’s email list, no matter how many times we tried to remove ourselves. Thankfully, a reader (James) left a comment on June 10th about how he solved this problem:

Hi all,

I found a solution to Ziff Davis SPAM. I spent an hour searching every Ziff Davis email on google and come up with the following list.

info@ziffdavis.com, phil_kramer@ziffdavis.com, kelli_turtz@ziffdavis.com, sandra_gibson@ziffdavis.com, Sloan_Seymour@ziffdavis.com, Martha_Schwartz@ziffdavis.com, Stephen_Veith@ziffdavis.com, Phil_Kramer@ziffdavis.com, angelo_mandarano@ziffdavis.com, lfreeman@ziffdavis.com, chris_maginn@ziffdavis.com, baseline@ziffdavis.com, appscout@ziffdavis.com, larryseltzer@ziffdavis.com, matthew_graven@ziffdavis.com, randy_zane@ziffdavis.com, events@ziffdavis.com, chris_primesberger@ziffdavis.com, opportunities@ziffdavis.com, eWEEK@ziffdavis.com, Debra_Olchick@ziffdavis.com, jeffrey_burt@ziffdavis.com, dennis_barker@ziffdavis.com, mary_hart@ziffdavis.com, gearlog@ziffdavis.com, Sheena_Mohan@ziffdavis.com, askloyd@ziffdavis.com, kristin_holmes@ziffdavis.com, ppereira@ziffdavis.com, debra_donston@ziffdavis.com, Matthew_rothenberg@ziffdavis.com, Evan_Schuman@ziffdavis.com, elda_vale@ziffdavis.com, eric_lundquist@ziffdavis.com, jason_freidenfelds@ziffdavis.com, Mary_behr@ziffdavis.com, john_mccormick@ziffdavis.com, aimee_levine@ziffdavis.com, stan_gibson@ziffdavis.com, Nicholas_mokhoff@ziffdavis.com, dennis_fisher@ziffdavis.com, garcia@ziffdavis.com, darryl_taft@ziffdavis.com, caton@ziffdavis.com, Karl_Elken@ziffdavis.com, barry_ harrigan@ziffdavis.com, andrew_garcia@ziffdavis.com, cameron_sturdevant@ziffdavis.com, chris_maginn@ziffdavis.com, joe_wilcox@ziffdavis.com, peter_coffee@ziffdavis.com, kristin_holmes@ziffdavis.com

This list includes CEO’s, GM’s Managers, Executives and staff thoughout thier SPAM empire.

Send an email to all these people with an email subject similer to:

Violation of Federal CAN-SPAM act of 2003: Request to stop receiving unsolicited emails from ALL Ziff Davis related publications, subsidiaries and websites.

However, don’t be rude or abusive just politily tell them that thier “unsubscribe” links have not stopped thier spam and that they are in voilation of the above Federal Legislation.

I sent off this email with a read receipt, and received no reponsce from anyone apart from:

Sloan Seymour
President, Enterprise Group
Ziff Davis Media
Office: 212.503.4850
Mobile: 917.273.2774
Sloan_Seymour@ziffdavis.com

She apologised, and advisde me I would be removed from all mailing lists. I have happily never received SPAM since

I’m sure you could just email Sloan and help would help you, but the extra emails in the CC feild might add a bit more weight.

Hope this helps other people out there stop the madness.

I followed this advice and was personally contacted by Sloan Seymour.

An Open Letter To Sloan Seymour

Sloan,

Thank you for keeping me off your email list, till now.

How bad are things at Ziff Davis? Desperate enough that you have to insist on sending emails to people who have so angrily opted out?

I suggest you invest a few bucks and buy a few copies of this book for your staff. Make it a requirement to actually read it and practice permission marketing.

By the way, if things are so bad at Ziff Davis, let me know — I’ll happily purchase a handful of copies and send it to you, as long as you never email me again.

You can see from the comments on our post that this is a common complaint. I’m sure you are aware. Please let us know what you plan to do?

Pissed off in the blogosphere,

Bryan

P.S. Below is the previous email thread to remind you of our correspondence.

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Can Delta’s Blog Really Deliver A Change?

Bryan Eisenberg — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:27:58 +0000

Delta’s latest marketing campaign has been focused on how much the airline has changed. Although marketing has surely been told to make sincere promises, it seems the business has no intention of keeping them.

While reading the news on Yahoo! this morning, I stumbled upon this ad for Delta. I’m a frequent Delta flyer and I’ve seen some small, directional changes — but they have a long way to go. They’re going through the motions of realligning and rebranding, but new tactics can’t change one’s corporate DNA.

When you click through on the ad, it takes you to Delta’s Under the Wing blog. (Blogging is an amazing tactic for engaging in conversation with your customers. I even hear from my good friend Joe that Delta is twittering.) So, what happens on the blog? One might expect to learn more about the airline’s changes. Instead, I was presented with a rather drab (like the old Delta), but clean, design and a post called “How Does Delta Gather Customer Input?”

Words can tell a lot about a company’s focus. I ran the text of this post through the customer focus (”We-we”) calculator and here are the results:

Your Customer Focus Rate: 17.39%
You have 4 instances of customer-focused words.

Your Self Focus Rate: 82.61%
You have 15 instances of self-focused words.
You have 4 instances of the Company Name.

You speak about yourself approximately 0,005 times as often as you speak about your customers.
Might that have an impact on your effectiveness?

Frank Wrenn, General Manager, Customer Insights & Analytics for Delta, wrote the post. Frank, I’d like to offer you and Delta my two cents:

1. The key to great customer insight and analysis is empathy. Don’t live by the surveys or the data; live with your customers. How often do you go through the process of booking and flying, just like the majority of your customer’s do? Want to improve the experience? Experience it like most people do. You’ll hate it. Really!

2. Show us you really care about listening to OUR voices. I believe you have honorable intentions, but your words are all about Delta. If you’d like to see how you could have changed your post from being all about how you gather data to why you want to hear from us, so you can improve the experience, I’d be happy to speak with you. I’d gladly share my experiences from the last 75,000 miles I’ve flown with Delta. Feel free to call me: (877) 643-7244 ext.801.

Is Delta serious about change? It will take more than a blog, some advertising, new uniforms, a new logo, some paint, and otherwise going through the motions.

The Greeks use the symbol delta to represent change because “Διαφορά” means “difference” in Greek. Will you really make a difference in customers’ lives, or will you be content putting lipstick on a pig?
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Geico Jumps the Shark with “Cavemen” Sitcom

Robert Gorell — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:47:14 +0000

One of the best things to happen this year is the term “jumping the shark” sinking its teeth into the pop lexicon. Eventually, though, even this perfect phrase must itself jump the shark. But, hey, that’s evolution. So goes ABC’s “Cavemen” — a sitcom based on the popular Geico ads — which debuted last night amid the dorsal fins of critics, bloggers, and critical bloggers.

New York Magazine captured the pre-shark-jump jitters:

. . .when this show was pitched to America as “the Geico Cavemen show” that it became laughable (and not in the good way). Yes, we are pretty sure this is gonna suck. But isn’t there even the slightest chance it won’t? After all, it’s not the worst idea for a commercial turned sitcom anyone could have come up with. What if it’s good?

Now let’s take a look at some of the initial reaction. Here’s Jay Black from the TV Squad blog:

There’s been a considerable amount of morbid curiosity surrounding Cavemen. Would it transcend its bad buzz and go on to be a seven-season television institution? Or would it wind up on the flop-heap of history? The answer after the jump…The short answer, for those of you only interested in that sort of thing:

It’s a flop. A major flop. The kind of flop that makes Steven Bochco feel okay about Cop Rock again.

Ouch! Cop Rock? Anyone who recalls that awful show can feel that zinger. But if it’s truly that bad, maybe I do want to see it.[Hollers off-stage] “Roll the clip… ”

(If you’re reading this via RSS, click here for video.)

Hmm… Looks like it might be funny, so long as they don’t overreach — which is exactly why Time Magazine wasn’t too impressed:

The mistake the show’s creators made in the first place was taking the sophisticated, low-key humor of the Geico commercials and making it sitcommy. What makes the Geico ads memorable is that their humor comes from playing the cavemen absolutely straight: they’re successful, business-trip-taking, therapy-going, bourgie members of society who happen to run up against reminders of discrimination.

The Cavemen sitcom turned them into another variation of three guys sitting on a couch, and that made the satire play broader, dumber and thus, at least to some people, more offensive [...]

[...] Don’t get me wrong; the original Cavemen pilot was uneven, but it had a point of view and potential. If ABC had had the conviction to stand behind the concept it bought, recognizing that of course people were going to make fun of them for it, they would at least have had the chance of proving the skeptics wrong. As it is, it looks like they’re just praying for the series’ quick extinction.

Thanks to National Geographic (and Google), I’ve found that, yes, prehistoric sharks still exist. Maybe there’s hope for Cavemen after all.

Regardless, there’s not much hope for the show’s website, CavemansCrib.com. It’s Flash-heavy, slow-loading, and does an awkward — albeit admirable — job of re-branding the (GEICO) Cavemen around Apple’s (APPL) iPhone. Doesn’t the show’s mere existence do enough to dilute Geico’s brand? Their commercials are fun, but Geico’s marketing slips when it stops jumping sharks and starts crossing channels.

Is multi-channel marketing so easy a caveman could do it? Take our ~~Cro-Magnon~~ Neanderthal Challenge and find out.
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Sales, Discounts & Farts Get Results

Jeffrey Eisenberg — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:38:14 +0000

Want to clear inventory or goose sales this month? Announce yet another promotion.

Want to clear out a crowded elevator? Ask my friend John and he’ll explain how a poorly digested meal will do the trick.

You will get results! Even if both leave a stink.

Farting and clearances are both necessary and both have an appropriate place and time.

Kevin Hillstrom got me thinking about this issue again…

Bryan and I often rant against discounting dependence, and we’re not alone. In his Entrepreneur magazine column, my good friend Roy Williams has explained the time and place to balance relational and transactional customers in your advertising . Another good friend, Jim Novo, can explain why discounting fails with RFM modeling techniques. So it’s not a new concept, but one worth revisiting.

Kevin Hillstrom wrote about sales and discount promotions in a recent blog post, which includes a spreadsheet on the matter:

…When executed properly, management loves a sale — profit could increase, sales likely increase, inventory is moved.

But then the sale ends. And a cohort of customers purchased because they got a “deal”. These customers, in many instances, are less likely to repurchase, and if they want to repurchase, they want to get a “deal”!

Couple that with a management team that is forced to grow top line sales. Sure, bloggers, management consultants and marketing experts will tell management to “sell great products”, and everything will take care of itself. That’s a theoretical argument. Management has to move what sits on the shelves today, regardless whether it is great or not.

So, management adds additional sale periods. Management mixes promotions, free shipping, 20% off your order, 40% off selected merchandise. Sales grow! All is good!

Eventually, the mix of the customer file is irrevocably changed. A large chunk of the customer file loves sale merchandise. Even if you have great full-price merchandise, it will take a few years to acquire the kind of customer who loves full-price merchandise… read the entire post

The addiction to discounting (clearly related to the crackvertising addiction) seems to be so consuming that, despite it’s noxious effects, retailers simply can’t control the habit. Perhaps repetition can change that.

So, I ask you retailers who read this blog: does repeating this information help?
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BusinessWeek: Are Big Ad Agencies Clueless?

Robert Gorell — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 13:30:52 +0000

BusinessWeek’s Bruce Nussbaum asks: “Are Big Ad Agencies So Clueless That Corporations Should Avoid Them?”

It’s not this bad, is it?

(Video may not be work-safe… If you work in an ad agency.)
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Trust Us, We’re No Shady Dot Com!

Jeffrey Eisenberg — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:24:16 +0000

Will you trust a .org more than a .com?

Hmmm…

TIAA-CREF thinks you will. Their new advertising campaign created by Modernista emphasizes its status as a nonprofit organization. Their new campaign, starting this week, focuses on a new website, PowerOf.org.

According to the New York Times article “A Dot-Org Stresses That It’s No Dot-Com“:

“Think .org-onimically,” the headline of a print ad urges. “How much more objective can you get than .o-r-g?” another ad inquires. A third ad declares that “.org” represents “three of the most trusted letters on the Internet.”

In a television commercial, an announcer declares: “We are a financial services dot-org, not a dot-com. For nearly 90 years, our mission has been to put the heart of a nonprofit to work for those who serve the greater good.

“We do this the dot-org way,” the announcer continues, “with low fees, objective advice and a unique insight into the hearts and minds of those who give us hope for the future.” …

I think the campaign has dialed into some powerful emotions about nonprofits that will resonate with their audience. Unfortunately, they’re using the advertising campaign as the driving point to PowerOf.org, and that afterthought of a website is the weak link.

PowerOf.org is a poorly designed website — actually, it’s a mini-site, and part of TIAA-CREF.org. The scent trails are weak, the navigation is worse, the usability is poor — especially those tiny plus signs for “more-ons” — and the messaging is the usual financial services schpiel with a pixie dust sprinkling of the creative that could have been.

I think TIAA-CREF may be onto something, but I’m not impressed with the execution. Too bad they’ll spend all that money on traffic to a website that won’t deliver the customer experience to match.

What do you think?
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iPhone Campout = “Brand Loyalty Beyond Reason”

Robert Gorell — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:21:47 +0000

Has anyone camping out for an iPhone realized that you don’t have to go to an Apple Store? As you may recall (from the only negative moments in any of the reviews), it’s an AT&T device. I just called a few AT&T stores in Brooklyn. No lines.

Apple has become the #1 brand this year for making people blind to the obvious. Don’t get me wrong; we love Apple so much our entire office has gone Mac. Still, this is nuts…

In fact, it might be the biggest example ever of what Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts calls “brand loyalty beyond reason.”

So, contact AT&T if you don’t want to “reach out and touch” the person next to you in line. Works better than “The new AT&T,” doesn’t it?
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Isn’t “alli” Why People Hate Marketers?

Robert Gorell — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:33:42 +0000

Any marketers out there ever feel like non-business folk’s knee-jerk contempt for your profession rivals that of ambulance-chasing attorneys?*

This prejudice, although generic, is understandable. And, by the way, show me an attorney who defends her trade as much as her clients and I’ll show you the reason lawyer jokes were invented.

I love the art of marketing but, like anyone else, I loath artifice…

So, here’s an idea: don’t market vanity products that result in “oily discharge.” It’s just not a good long-term strategy. (If you’re already offended, you probably shouldn’t read this Wired post about the new diet pill “alli.” And, whatever you do, don’t read this funny-yet-profane rant about the drug’s marketing spin, which I found at the very top of Reddit.com yesterday. How’s that for word-of-mouth?)

As you can see, saying “it’s not for everybody” doesn’t suffice–especially when “not for everybody” really means “. . . it’s probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work.” Oops!

Far beyond the fact that the FDA approved Alli (aka “Orlistat“) for over-the-counter use–thanks, drug lobbyists–isn’t it a drug maker’s responsibility to make it perfectly clear that treatments like this are extreme?

Sure, the big drug companies are an easier target than even the marketers and attorneys who enable them. But, without them, there’s no innovation. And for every Vioxx lawsuit, there’s a story about a new drug that saves lives. For instance, compare GlaxoSmithKline’s advertisement for Alli with this honest commercial for Merck’s HPV-preventing cervical cancer drug (thanks to DDB).

David Ogilvy wrote Confessions of an Advertising Man back in 1963, and what offends me–not quite as much as those who think “oily discharge” is fair trade for weight-loss–is when I realize an ad exec hasn’t bothered to read Ogilvy. It’s a conversation-killer. As a salesman, marketer, copywriter, entrepreneur and advertiser, the man came from nothing to master his craft. The least you can do is buy his book.

Consider these last few points from the Confessions… chapter on drug marketing:

Advertising drugs is a special art. Here, started with the dogmatism of brevity, are the principles I recommend to those who practice this art:

. . . (4) A good patent-medicine advertisement conveys a feeling of authority. There is a doctor-patient relationship inherent in medicine copy, not merely a seller-buyer relationship.

(5) The advertisement should not merely extol the merits of your product; it should also explain the disease. The sufferer should feel that he has learned something about his condition.

(6) Do not strain credulity. A person in pain wants to believe that you can help him. His will to believe is an active ingredient in the efficacy of the product.

(*Sorry attorneys, but at least you get high-profile dramas. We get low-budget sitcoms, at best.)
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McDonalds Instead of Starbucks: Brand Heresy?

Howard Kaplan — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:43:48 +0000

I know my audience. Or at least I thought I did. My bet is that this audience sits right in the Starbucks demographic sweet spot.

I just read this in an article from Bloomberg:

Marc Greenberg, a Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. analyst in New York, reduced his target price for Starbucks shares to $32 from $37 today, saying that positive consumer reaction to McDonald’s brew poses a threat to the coffee chain.

Yesterday, Jason West, a Deutsche analyst in Boston, upgraded McDonald’s shares to “buy” from “hold” on its “expanding beverages opportunity.”

Will you be going to McDonalds for your coffee instead of Starbucks?
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Images That Appeal to Women?

Holly Buchanan — Wed, 30 May 2007 10:34:57 +0000

It all started when I was doing research on women and images. I read lots and lots of women’s magazines.

I lost my will to live.

Seriously, I just didn’t get it. The models looked bored at best, in pain at worst. Fashion ads were the biggest offenders. Fashion photographers call these women beautiful models. I call them raccoons with a heroin addiction.

But I persevered. I find the study fascinating. So I went to view the Clio awards in print to see what images targeted at women were winning awards.

I lost my will to live . . . again.

Take a look at this award winner:

My first reaction was, “There’s a headless woman with a steel rod though her body. YIKES!” My next reaction was, “So, men are human enough to at least have balloon heads, but women are objects that don’t even deserve balloons?” (Stay with me here. It sounds bizarre, but I’m just giving you first impressions.) But then I thought, “Well, it’s probably a men’s fashion ad, so it doesn’t really matter.”

Then I saw that it is an ad for “womenswear.” This was an ad targeting women? So, I looked closer and realized the woman didn’t have a steel rod jutting through her body, she had a pin coming out of her body. (You simply cannot make this stuff up)

OK – I’m dying to ask – what is the message of this ad? What is the ad saying to women?

“Wear our clothes and pop men’s heads like balloons” (Yeah, you’re right. Too literal.)

“Women who wear our clothes can control men”

“Get men’s attention”

“You’re in charge”

“Look sharp”

I honestly have no idea what message the ad is trying to convey? What do you think?
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Monkey See, Monkey Do Marketing

Jeffrey Eisenberg — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:44:58 +0000

Kevin Hillstrom’s post “Give Me Someone To Believe In” provides an interesting analysis of some of the recent news on Dell, Best Buy & Circuit City.

I especially liked this part:

Each week, the punditocracy tells us who we should emulate, and why. All too often, their logic is flawed. We shouldn’t copy Dell and their direct-to-consumer model. We shouldn’t copy Circuit City and their “Buy Online, Pickup In Stores” program. We shouldn’t copy Best Buy and their “Customer Centric” approach.

Could it be that companies are so scared about marketing to today’s customers that they want the punditocracy to tell them what to do?

P.S. After posting this, I read Michele Miller’s blog. She describes the slippery slope of Dell’s attempts to sell through Wal-Mart. I’m so glad we switched the entire company to Apple.
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When A Product Sells Itself

Robert Gorell — Wed, 02 May 2007 04:13:04 +0000

There’s no need to call out the blue pill in question by name. If it worked for Bob Dole and Hef, surely a bit of competition won’t kill it’s, er, position in the marketplace.

Well, that was drug company Pfizer’s stance before, uh… performance started slipping.

Catching up with the times, said pill is now busy surprising broca with a new ad campaign that’s mostly in gibberish. The New York Times has the scoop:

Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, offers an answer in a new campaign for Viagra, so far shown only in Canada. The ads feature middle-aged men and women talking in a made-up language, save for one word.

“Viagra spanglecheff?” says a man to a friend at a bowling alley.

“Spanglecheff?” his friend asks.

“Minky Viagra noni noni boo-boo plats!” the first man replies, with a grin that suggests he is not talking about the drug’s side effects. The ads end with the slogan, “The International Language of Viagra.”

Okay, so not every brand can get away with this. But what’s interesting here is that the ad–and you don’t even need to see it to see it–speaks directly to its audience without asking the rest of us to hear, say, Bob Dole sing its praises. This strategy has the added benefit of saying “it’s not a big deal” without saying anything at all.

Funny how they can take copy that seems lifted from a sp@m email about their product, put it in a new context, and poof… instant re-branding!

Just goes to show, you’ve always got a first chance to make a second impression.
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Athletic Math Nerd Seeks Someone To Hum Seinfeld Intro Music With

Anthony Garcia — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 04:05:05 +0000

Would you date this person? Most of us wouldn’t.

But the person that would is sure to respond passionately to such a bold headline. According to Fast Company, if you want people to love you, you’d better figure out who’s gonna hate you…

We examined more than 1,000 Match.com ads–from men and women, old and young. Our search yielded headlines like this one: “Hey.” Folks, if your opening line is “Hey,” you better be hot.

Another said “Looking for love.” Well, duh, you’re on Match.com. At least two-thirds of the headlines said nothing–and did it poorly.

Why do these headlines suck so much? Fear. Fear of saying too much. Fear of saying something clever that someone might think is stupid. Fear of saying something revealing that might turn someone off. The headlines try desperately not to exclude anyone. In doing so, they succeed at boring everyone.

The “Hey” phenomenon is rampant in the corporate world. Branding is nothing more than a company’s personal ad, and companies are as bad at it as singles. Gap (NYSE:GPS), for example, is the “Hey” of fashion, thus its recent woes. And Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) –who, exactly, does it want to date? Brands with enough scale think they can get away with being generically likable. And some can, at least for a little while.

Your company is an athletic math nerd; not everyone is going to buy your goods. In fact, more people won’t buy from you than will. So, why are wasting so much time trying to be all things to all people in your marketing?

If anything, the fear of being disliked afflicts marketers more acutely than daters, because the stakes are higher. “Most marketers feel that if they make a bold statement, they risk not just alienating customers–but also their boss, and their boss’s boss,” says Charles Rosen, founding partner of Amalgamated ad agency. “That fear takes the edge off of all communications.”

What exactly are you afraid of? Stand up tall. Say who you are. The only thing more embarrassing than humming Seinfeld with your customers is humming it broke and alone.

(Note: Many of us around the office are quickly becoming big fans of Dan & Chip Heath who authored this article. My copy of their book Made to Stick is screaming for mercy from all the dog ears.)
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Speed Test: Which Landing Page Element Should Load First?

Howard Kaplan — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:19:00 +0000

Apparently, Verizon Wireless doesn’t always keep up with GrokDotCom. (Bryan recently explained the impact of optimizing your images for a fast load time. )

I’d just logged in to pay my bill, and what did I notice?

Kinda hard to pay your bill when the “login” button never shows up, eh?
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Shame on WSJ For Not Asking What Nielsen Is Smoking

Bryan Eisenberg — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 03:52:39 +0000

The Wall Street Journal’s (account required) reporters are top-notch journalists. Journalists are paid to ask the right questions. Yet today, while they report that Nielsen is shifting from page view metrics to time-spent metrics, nobody questions the absurdity.

According to the Journal:

“Page views have been a major barometer of a Web site’s popularity and help set advertising rates, but the measure is becoming less relevant. Online publishers and advertisers say page views don’t capture consumer loyalty to a site or reflect the increasing popularity of online video and new technology that automatically refreshes Web sites, thereby depressing page views.”

“Nielsen/NetRatings, in June will release what it calls “time-spent” data and stop issuing its rankings by page views. The New York company’s rival, ComScore Inc. said last month that it is emphasizing a measurement called “visits,” which takes into account the time people return to surf a Web site in a month.”

HA HA HA HA!! I have a bridge near our offices in Brooklyn to sell you, too.

The OBVIOUS QUESTIONS:

- Do you ever open up a browser and get distracted by a phone call, a meeting, your kids, or an instant message? Will the time the “page” is open be counted there as well?

- Have these folks never heard of tabbed browsing? Let’s pause for a moment. How many tabs or browsers do you have open? (More than one, most likely.) When people keep 6 or 7 tabs opened, would all of them count as time-spent from the moment the first tab was opened? That’s a clear indication that someone is engaged, huh?

- Nobody wants to be held accountable. New media gurus are just old media wonks in costume who still think of their audience as recipients. In today’s media climate, they’re participants, and the only time you can tell they’re engaged is when they click. Trying to base a measurement on anything more than the click leaves you playing a dangerous game of smoke-and-mirrors.

Maybe they should spend some time looking at the ways in which people actually engage with the Web instead of awarding themselves creative prizes.
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Imus, Vonnegut & Bigelow Tea: A Saab Story

Robert Gorell — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 20:09:58 +0000

I assumed it would be a big deal when Kurt Vonnegut died. Still, I don’t think he’d have shared my sentiment.

“People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.” -Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (1963)

And there I was, watching the gravity-shifting echo-chamber that is cable news, offering one-way smirks to people with good dentists as they charted fresh, new angles on a story about a media veteran with a foul mouth and a microphone who sold his voice box to people who were, it turns out, surprised to discover that this man was himself, indeed, nappy-headed.

Okay, fine. So it goes. Let’s give the nappy-headed loudmouth the stage over the nappy-headed poet. Besides, this was no time to think of dead poets; a real salesman had lost his career in full, high-definition glory.

What now with all this tea!?

Sponsors that pulled out of Imus’ show included American Express Co., Sprint Nextel Corp., Staples Inc., Procter & Gamble Co. and General Motors Corp. Imus made a point Thursday to thank one sponsor, Bigelow Tea, for sticking by him.

Then, whatever the celestial reasonings, I thought about Breakfast of Champions (or maybe it was the introduction to Slaughterhouse Five) where Kurt tells of his misadventures as the owner/manager of a Saab dealership in Cape Cod. It was a fitting job at the time; not even he could make this stuff up.

There I was, my attention once again back to Scarborough Country, just in time for commercials. As though Vonnegut’s ghost were the media buyer… That damn Saab commercial where it zooms-off along a rain-slicked runway, the tracking shot fading out moments before, presumably, its flux capacitor kicks in. Back to the future; to a place when a Saab could be a Saab…

“SAAB: BORN FROM JETS”

Being a superficial marketing-type, I needed to know what Saab’s homepage had to tell me that the commercial couldn’t quite say to my face.

Hmm… Seems they don’t really believe in words. But what if Vonnegut were Saab’s copywriter?

The Saab back then was a far cry from the sleek, powerful, four-stroke Yuppie uniform it is today. It was the wet dream, if you like, of engineers in an airplane factory who had never made a car before. “Wet dream,” did I say? Get a load of this: There was a ring on the dashboard, connected to a chain running over pulleys in the engine compartment. Pull on it, and at the far end it would raise a sort of window shade on a spring-loaded roller behind the front grill. That was to keep the engine warm while you went off somewhere. So, when you came back, if you hadn’t stayed away too long, the engine would start right up again.

Now I know why I never liked Saab’s revisionist nostalgia campaign. Like Don Imus giving the usual some-of-my-best-friends-are-blank song ‘n’ dance in front of a national audience of folks trying to muster the energy to care, this “yuppie canoe”-turned-rocket-ship had made itself seem so cheap, so contrived, kinda… nappy.

“So it goes.” -Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
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