Articles by Gordon Plutsky

2009 was not a banner year for the media industry, but there were a few bright spots.  Social media was a major story and became a key player almost overnight.  There is not a marketer alive who is not thinking about social media in some manner for their brand. Social media provides some important tools such as interactivity and the ability to broadcast a message for free to a community of people.  However, the more significant trend of 2009 is the continued growth of content marketing and how it is eating into traditional advertising. 

The reason why is not really surprising.  Content marketing takes advantage of permission based marketing to build relationships with customers and prospects while advertising depends on interrupting people while they are consuming unrelated content.   Thanks to advances in technology, brands are able to create and distribute branded content at a higher level than ever before.  The Custom Publishing Council and ContentWise recently released a study of major US companies to quantify this phenomenon.  Here are some of the highlights:

• Total spending on branded content was over $1.8 million per company, with 51% spent on print publications, 27% on Internet media and 22% on categories such as video or audio.
• 78% of respondents said that branded content initiatives are more effective than other leading forms of advertising and marketing. Seventy percent said it was more effective than television advertising; 61% said it was more effective than direct mail and 57% said more effective than public relations.
• According to 54% of the companies surveyed, the primary reason for branded content initiatives was to educate customers. This was followed by customer retention (25%) and brand loyalty (21%). Up-selling was at the bottom of the list, indicating that corporate marketers are looking for long-term returns rather than a stimulus for short-term transactions.
• The use of external agency services (custom publisher, design firm or video production company, for example) to handle some aspect of branded content initiatives matched an all-time high from 2005, with 54% of companies reporting that they outsourced some portion of their branded content.
• Among companies that outsource, the average spend on branded content was a whopping $886,000. The previous record high was $316,000 in 2006. When extracting nontraditional forms of branded content from this equation, the total outsourcing spend was $650,000, 105% higher than previous records.
• The survey showed that 24% expected spending to increase in 2010; 20% expect it to decrease and 56% say it will stay the same.  Print publishing is expecting to decline, while other forms such as digital are expected to increase.

Another study conducted by Junta42 states that 60% of marketers will increase their spending on content initiatives.  The study also shows that social media and mobile apps with be important channels for branded content.  It all ties back to measurability and ROI.  When you create your own content and environment you increase the ability to measure and get positive results.  And, as we slowly come out of a recession, all that matters are results and profitability.  Branding initiatives are fun and nice to have, but unless they can demonstrate a clear return they won’t help your company’s bottom line or valuation. 
 

This is an article I wrote that appeared recently on Marketing Profs. 

The hottest trend in brand marketing right now is the very thing that has fueled traditional advertising’s ongoing evolution: Brands are bypassing traditional media outlets in favor of creating their own private media platforms. That’s right, brands are becoming the media.

Savvy marketers have realized that for the same price they once paid for a glossy ad or 30-second TV spot, they can now own their fully branded publication, video series, or interactive online platform.

Moreover, they’re providing the same high-quality and engaging content found in those third-party publications and broadcast outlets, offering it to mainstream audiences for free and, in essence, competing with those very outlets that used to serve their advertising needs.

Of course, as new media channels continue to emerge, audiences become more dispersed, creating an urgent need for brands to spread their efforts across channels to capture the attention of their target audiences.

That fact alone negates the logic once used to rationalize huge ad spends on single outlets or mediums. Knowing that marketers must find revolutionary methods of enticing customers and prospects to engage with their brands, what better method is there than for brands to simply become the media?

Cases in Point

That’s the theory, but exactly which brands are becoming the media? I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!, U.S. Wellness Meats, Nike, Gillette, Kikkoman, and hundreds of others.

Consider Unilever. Its new-media initiative for I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! features Spraychel—the brand’s animated mascot—and her adventures in the fridge.

Looking for a new way to generate buzz for the brand, Unilever created an innovative, entertaining brand experience that compelled consumers to spread the word through viral-marketing efforts.

Weekly webisodes and a “celebrity-esque” blog allow consumers to follow the storylines and deliver the latest gossip in the fridge. Moreover, viewers chime in to decide the outcome of upcoming webisodes. Unilever’s most-recent campaign is at VoteSpraychel.com.

When U.S. Wellness Meats—a producer and distributor of grass-fed animal meat—realized that current educational materials on grass-fed meats were not only diffuse but often inconsistent, unclear, and untrue, it took on the challenge of becoming a dependable educational source for those seeking reliable information on grass-fed meat.

Its audience comprises athletes, parents, doctors, and others concerned about the nutritional value of the food they consume. Thus, U.S. Wellness Meats overhauled USWellnessMeats.com, which was once a traditional e-commerce site, and turned it into a regularly updated destination site for those looking for facts on sustainable eating, the difference between grass-fed and grain-fed meats, and the health benefits of the company’s products.

Inspired by its customers’ passion for health and cooking, and the many communications it has received over the years, U.S. Wellness Meats uses its new platform to feature professional and home chefs, a Wellness blog, and Wellness Kids, among other features. Instead of relying on outside media to educate its consumers, U.S. Wellness Meats can do that on its own, knowing that the information is accurate.

Another consumer brand that understands content marketing is Kikkoman, famous for its soy sauce. To familiarize more consumers with the versatility of soy sauce, Kikkoman’s website has a Food Forum that has original recipes and serves as a resource center on Japanese cooking and culture.

Kikkoman has been running an innovative campaign around umami, or the fifth taste (the discovery of which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary).

The brand launched a commercial campaign on the Food Network and YouTube that introduces viewers to umami and presents various foods—including Kikkoman Soy Sauce—that evoke the fifth-taste sensation.

The commercial directs viewers to a micro-site www.DiscoverUmami.com to popularize the idea with customers by providing appealing and educational information, as well as more ways to use the product. The sell is subtle as the viewer gets deeper into the world of Kikkoman and Japanese-flavored recipes.

The New Rationale

People are more comfortable getting their news from multiple sources—a perfect environment for any business thinking about stepping in and becoming a trusted source of information.

And that’s the general logic: When your company educates its current and prospective clients on its field of expertise instead of pitching them products or services, it effectively becomes a reliable source of information and entertainment.

In other words, your company (or brand) becomes the media and is in a position to provide thought leadership and build customer affinity.

You’ve established your company as a trusted resource; as a result, your customer feels more confident buying from you, and you have increased your ability to measure results in terms of generating leads and creating incremental sales.

Though traditional advertising will always serve as a means of general awareness, private media channels encourage brand loyalty and affinity,   allowing companies to speak directly to their customers and prospects in a controlled environment.

Add a bit of good research to the equation and brands are able to create content that resonates specifically with the needs of various audiences and current customers, as well as content that supports permission-based marketing tactics that will woo their prospects.

Here’s the bottom line: When a company or brand becomes the media, it effectively creates a direct dialogue with customers that leads to a predetermined behavior and increased sales. Creating your own media channel also increases accountability and measurability, which is critical in today’s economic environment.

Here in Massachusetts we had a front row seat to one of the biggest upsets in political history.  In the Bay State, politics is both an art form and a contact sport.  Though it is a small state, we have had our share of national figures – JFK, Tip O’Neil, Barney Frank, Mike Dukakis, John Kerry, Mitt Romney and now Scott Brown replacing Ted Kennedy. 

Many of the pundits and spinners around the country are blaming Martha Coakley and the campaign she ran, but that is not the real story.  Many are comparing her to Bill Buckner of the 86 Red Sox, who let the World Series go through his in legs to let the Mets win.  Actually, I’d compare her to Grady Little, the Sox manager who left Pedro Martinez too long against the Yanks in 03.  Martha made some bad decision, but the players really blew the game.  In this case the players are Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ben Nelson etc.  Voters, particularly independents were voting against healthcare, government spending and the perceived leftward direction of the President and Congress.  Exit polling shows Brown cleaned up among independents – and middle class/working class voters by huge margins

How did a State Senator with an unremarkable record who was unknown 4 months ago topple the Democratic establishment and win a seat that belonged to the Kennedy family since 1953?  With very good content marketing and the knowledge of how to own his media channel.  Here is how he did it and the lessons to be learned:

1. Have a brand that resonates with your audience and communicate it clearly.  Brown understood his audience and what they cared about: Economics, healthcare and terrorism while staying away from divisive social issues.  This translated to jobs and spending, the healthcare bill and the administration’s decision to treat terror suspects as criminals and not enemy combatants.  He didn’t dance around it, instead he was blunt and clear – even about water boarding.  He signed “41” after his name to make it clear he was going to be the vote that kills the health care bill.  His line about the “people’s seat” was brilliant in its brevity and power.  In an age when politicians don’t sound like real people, he sold it straight.  Brown’s use of content was far superior to his opponent.  Coakley was hampered by having to take positions to the left of Obama in a tough primary battle so she appeared out of touch by the majority of independent voters. 

2. Use powerful visuals as messages and storytelling.  Sometimes images and design can tell a story as well or better than words.  Brown’s ads were excellent – from JFK morphing into Brown, to the iconography around his old GMC truck and ever present barn coat.  He let his fellow suburbanites know he was one of them and he knows how they are feeling - frustrated.  It was telling that elitists like Martha Coakley and Pres. Obama were making fun of his truck – the definition of tone deaf.  I found it comical that the guy who ultimately runs GM would rip on a candidate who was proud of his reliable GMC truck.  Coakley made it clear that she’d rather spend time with other politicians and union leaders rather than shaking hands with ordinary people – not exactly a recipe for popularity. 
 

3. Scott Brown created his own media channel.  Brown didn’t get big contribution money until the last two weeks, so had to make do with “free” media.  His team owned face book – his fan page grew from 17K fans when I started tracking it to over 130K by Election Day.  Many were members from around the country who also contributed funds.  He was on Twitter and had a YouTube Channel that was viral.  Having these social media channels are not exactly state of the art, but the way he combined the content, passion and messaging with the communities were powerful.  There is little doubt he swamped Coakley who never had more than 20K fans.  He also used the free media a.k.a PR. Brown made himself available for a myriad of radio shows and reporters while Coakley stayed under wraps.  He gained a lot of good will from the media by being friendly and accessible.

4. He stayed mostly positive while Coakley ran hundreds of negative ads.  The DNC and other PACs supporting the Democrat poured millions into a carpet-bombing of nasty attack ads against Brown.  And they worked – driving up Martha Coakley’s negative ratings. It backfired badly.  Brown’s ads were great – showing him in his infamous truck interacting with people and his family.  Her ads featured her as a talking head in a conference room.  The contrast was striking.  While Brown created an integrated media channel, Coakley took the old school approach and relied heavily on broadcast advertising.  Brown owned his media channel while Coakley rented hers. In the end she wound up with what renters usually end up with - nothing but an empty bank account.

The marketing team behind Scott Brown was successful by knowing the needs of their audience. This knowledge helped them craft a simple and positive benefit oriented message. They created compelling content while utilizing all media platforms for their strengths.  You can expect to see this model a bit in November and that may not be a bad thing.  My advice to politicians running in 2010 – keep it simple and benefit oriented, stay positive, create a community and tell a compelling story across all media channels.  Good luck Senator Brown.

Here are this year’s media predictions.  Last week, I took a look back at 2009’s to see how we did, click here to see the scorecard.  Here are a few other places to check out where we participated.

Junta42 - Over 100 predictions from 70 of the top content marketing minds in the world.

Folio Magazine - 115 (give or take) magazine and media predictions for 2010.

eMedia Vitals – Media Blogs We Love (includes the King Fish ThinkTank) and Nine Bold Predictions for 2010

Here are a few thoughts for next year:

2010 will be the year that content goes mobile in a big way.  Having a mobile strategy will no longer be a “nice to have”, but a requirement for media brands and custom content.  The success of the iPhone and Kindle has shown that there is an appetite for content to be read in a “third place” away from both home and office.

More and more pure play online companies will discover multi-channel marketing paired with content drives customer engagement.  Look for more online retailers to create “magalogs” pairing content and offers in an appealing environment using both print and digital formats.

Broadcasters (network and cable) will create more integrated online content and advertising programs for the so called “second screen”.  According to Reuters, Nielsen’s research shows that “57 percent of TV viewers in the U.S. who have Internet access use both mediums at the same time at least once a month. That translates to more than 128 million U.S. consumers.”

This opens the door to creative ties-ins for deeper content, social media connections and games/contests to extend a marketing campaign.

Consumers will slowly begin to accept that they will have to pay for some premium online content.  The decline of print advertising means that online content can no longer be subsidized.  It will only be successful with unique, relevant content such as hyper local news or brands such as the New York Times or Variety.  Basic news and opinion found in places such as Newsweek and Business Week stand little chance of collecting a fee for content because there are so many other sources for that information.

Twitter is leveling off as many people quit or abandon after a short time.  I see that trend continuing, though the idea of micro blogging is here to stay. It’s too effective a communications tools not to have a purpose.  It makes more sense integrated into something else rather than a stand-alone; and it is still a mystery how Twitter will make a profit.  I am losing some interest –a lot of tweets are just of the “look at me, I’m clever” variety or other self promotional nonsense.  The whole “social media” frenzy will slow down considerably as it becomes just another marketing tactic and media channel. The cottage industry of social media experts, consultants and dedicated agencies will wane.  It’s like when “e” was finally dropped from e-commerce and it became just another commerce channel.  We can now drop the “Social” and recognize it’s just another media channel.

Tiger Woods is done as a mainstream pitchman for at least the next 3-5 years, probably forever.  There was a level of recklessness to his behavior as he was done in by the new media avalanche (texts, tweets, face book postings, TMZ, You Tube) of evidence.  The speed of these viral networks is blinding and can end careers in a matter of a week.  It is possible Nike and golf equipment vendors could continue to use him, but I can’t imagine current sponsors such as Gillette, AT&T, Tag Heuer continuing to feature him in ads.  I think they will follow Accenture and start dropping him in January. For a good long while, when people see his image they will either snicker or think about porn.  Not good for selling razors, watches and consulting services. 

As of today President Obama has slipped beneath the 50% benchmark for job approval in almost every poll.  The common refrain among his supporters is that it is “all about the economy, and the same thing happened to Reagan, so nothing to see here”.  I think that analysis misses the mark and don’t think he will go past 52% or 53% approval anytime during 2010.  In fact it is likely he will stay below 50%.  Why?  Classic marketing mistake – the White House does not understand its audience (a center right country) and never moved from campaign mode (lead acquisition) to governing (customer retention).  The 2010 mid term elections are going to be a nasty battle with much media money spent.  The net result will be narrow but unsteady majorities for the Democrats in the House and Senate.   This will take the President down one of two roads.  Does he turn to the center like Clinton and get reelected, or stay left and get nothing done?

Last year, I took a shot at 2009 media predictions.  Here is a summary of how they turned out – boths hits and misses.  Look here for 2010 predictions next week.

Prediction - The continued growth of web casting, virtual trade shows and online video will take a significant chunk of revenue from trade shows and live events during 2009.

Result – As reported by B2B, digital is flat while trade show and print revenue is way down. Print revenue fell 25.7% in the first three quarters of this year compared with the same period last year. Trade show revenue declined 19.2%, and digital revenue dipped 3.0%. Virtual trade shows remain hot – the combination of measureable ROI and lack of travel costs make them very attractive.

Prediction - The decline of the US auto industry will result in huge cut backs in print advertising from the big three, and several magazines will close as a result.  Local TV stations and newspapers will see big decreases in ad revenue as car dealerships close after GM kills Buick, Pontiac and Saturn and Ford also pares brands as part of a government bailout.

Result - The US Government actually bailed out GM and Chrysler, not Ford.  GM is killing Saturn, Pontiac, Saab and sold Hummer while keeping Buick.   Ad spending is way down and according to one count 383 magazines did close including Gourmet, Portfolio, Domino and Country Home.

Prediction - Several IT publications will follow the lead of PC Magazine and abandon their print issue to reposition themselves as online and events brands.  They will thrive once all the print overhead is removed.

Result - Not as many as I would have thought, but the print versions of these publications don’t carry very much weight any more.  The IT media companies are totally focused on online media and lead generation.  One brand I used to work on, VARBusiness did go to the great BPA Audit in the sky.

Prediction - Face book will explode and become a “must have” for professionals in 34-54 age group who will continue to blur the lines between personal and business life.

Result - This was a layup.  Face book started 2009 with 150 million users and could be at 350 million by the end of this year.  Just about everyone I know is currently on the site.  Except my wife, thank goodness.

Prediction - The big television networks will continue to become less relevant in the lives of Americans as they spend more time on niche cable networks and social media sites.  The 2009 fall season will produce zero new hits.  The continued penetration of DVR’s will further erode their advertising base and they will have to make major cutbacks.

Result - I was somewhat off base.  According to Variety, the new season was not bad and contained one buzz worthy/water cooler hit in ABC’s Modern Family – a laugh riot.  On the other hand the great Jay Leno at 10pm experiment doesn’t seem to be working out.  Shocker.  Not only is viewership down at 10pm on NBC, but research shows that DVR usage is up as people catch up on other recorded shows during that time slot.
 
Prediction - A major US daily newspaper will fold its print edition and go digital only.

Result – A few bit the dust including the Rocky Mountain Times and the Seattle Post Intelligencer went online only.  The big story was the New York Times Company playing chicken with the Boston Globe’s unions.  The Times essentially told the union to take their demanded cuts or they would close the paper which was on track to lose $50 million this year.  The union blinked and it is still publishing.  The NYT Company took the Globe off the market after bids came in around $35 million for the media property they purchased for a cool billion in 1993.

Prediction - Sarah Palin will write a book about her experiences during the 2008 campaign.  She will get a giant advance and it will go to #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list much to the dismay of New York Times.

Result – Home Run!!!  Her book hit the #1 in November and sold a million copies.  Huge crowds turned out for book signing and she did the usual media blitz round robin.  As expected, there was a cottage industry of Palin haters and endless opinion columns and blogs about “what her popularity means” and if she is running in 2012.  Interesting contrast to how President Obama is ending the year – the lowest approval rating for any President 10 months into his term and under 50% in both Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls.
 
Prediction - American Idol will see a strong decline in ratings - over commercialization and bland contestants killed the golden goose.

Result – The ratings did continue to decline for the season and the finale, but it is still the number one show on TV and a cash machine.  Once again AI had somewhat bland contestants with one very notable exception – Adam Lambert.  The jury is out on the long term success of the last two winners – David Cook and Kris Allen – two nondescript, moderately talented young men.  I don’t see either becoming a big star the way Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson did before them.  The more interesting question is about Adam Lambert.  Is America ready to embrace an openly gay male rock star?  I say yes, but as the cliché says – time will tell.

Check in next week for 2010 predictions.  If you have any of your own, send them my way and I’ll post them with a link back to your site.

Do you have a mobile content strategy?  If not, it’s time to start thinking about it.  While social media has grabbed many of the recent headlines, the iPhone/smart phone phenomenon is picking up steam.   Apple is selling roughly five to six million handsets per quarter and it is estimated there are 20 million iPhones now in use, and it’s not hard to see that doubling in a year.  The App Store has delivered over 1 billions apps (paid and free) among the 25K-35K apps that have been released.  How many professionals do you know who don’t have an iPhone, Trio/Pre or Blackberry?  I am guessing not many.

I am an avid iPhone user and believe it is a transformational technology for media and content.  The speed, versatility and readability are amazing compared to where smart phones were in the pre-Apple era.  It has become a critical delivery platform for your “third place”.  This is anywhere that is not your office or home where you are likely to be sitting in front of a computer or TV screen.  Your third place could be a hotel, train, airport, coffee shop, waiting room etc.  No need to lug around a laptop or even a netbook because the iPhone can do it all, including hold all your games, music, pictures, videos and act as a GPS system.

If you are creating content you have to think about a mobile strategy.  For some that can mean optimizing your site for mobile browsing, but you need to take it a step further.  Leading brands such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have created popular apps to push content.  A recent survey by the Audit Bureau of Circulation shows that media companies across the board are experimenting and planning apps of their own.  It is a great way to build a closer relationship with readers and gives you more interactive advertising opportunities to sell.

However, it is not just for traditional media.  You should also consider an app reader for your custom publications and original content you are creating for your web site, white paper/ebooks and blog.  It’s time to consider smart phones part of your private media channel along with social networking sites and traditional platforms of print, interactive and email marketing. 

In fact, any companies who rely on affinity/trust relationships with customers (i.e. online retailers for consumers and order tracking /supply chain for B2B) need to have a customer facing app.  Amazon has one that I have used and it extends my relationship with the retailer away from my desk. 

The strength of a private custom media channel is the ability to serve relevant content to customers on a platform they prefer so they are receptive to your message.  It is becoming clear that the smart phone platform is gaining favor at a rapid pace.  For many companies, a mobile content strategy can be a powerful customer retention tool.

Here is a blog posting I contributed to e Media Vitals. Check out the site.

Publishers often talk about their plans to negotiate the new media landscape with innovative web strategies, live and interactive events, and other programs to “engage” their target audience. But as it becomes harder and harder to sell traditional advertising, why is there not more buzz around custom media?

The most valuable assets a media brand has are its audience file and the relationship readers have with the brand. Think creatively about your database not as a mass market, but as a collection of niche audiences. Are there advertisers who would pay a premium for just a special slice?

Media companies can build off of that asset by creating custom media channels for their clients to talk directly to segments of their audience. A custom media channel consists of advertorial or original edit that is customized to a specific topic and created in partnership with the sponsor. Because the content is relevant to the audience and delivered to them on a preferred platform (the media company’s site), the potential return on investment for the advertiser is high.

This is also an opportunity for publishers to drive greater value to the people who are part of their social media community. Just as publishers are creating Facebook fan pages, LinkedIn groups and Twitter followings for their own brands, they can also make these communities part of the custom media channels they are creating for advertisers. Social media networks are dependent on having fresh content to keep members engaged, and custom content can be utilized in this manner.

Many publishers are wary of custom content, as it shifts the advertising-editorial paradigm. Some editors are concerned about the editorial integrity of the brand; while publishers worry that custom content programs may eat into their traditional advertising revenue.

The fact is, selling print ads in a B2B publication is a growing challenge, and custom content– webcasts, web sponsorships, events, and the like – are a better way to demonstrate ROI. (In our soon-to-be-published study on marketing, media and measurement, 74% of our survey respondents said original content and media is the most effective method for generating marketing ROI; only 4% cited traditional advertising as the most effective ROI vehicle.)

Traditional media companies need to take a hard look at their business models and think about custom media as an integral part of the mix rather than an ancillary business.  When you get right down to it, marketers want your readers as customers and prospects.  The best way to survive this crazy market is to give them access in as many ways as possible.

We at the beginning of a radical change in the way television is perceived and used by both consumers and marketers. The end result will be the eventual merger of television and the internet.  It has already started with technological advances driving new consumer behavior.  A new study from the Pew Internet Project sheds light on some developments:

62% of adult Internet users have watched video on an online video sharing site.  This number jumps to 89% among 18-29 year old consumers.  Watching online video activity out ranks the use of social networking sites, podcasts and Twitter. 

35% of adult Internet users have watched TV shows and movies online on sites such as hulu.com.  For the 18-29 set the number jumps to 61%.  Among those adults who watch TV and movies online, 23% have connected their TV to their computer.

The lines between TV and online video are blurring, especially in the eyes of the younger generation.  Broadband is now in nearly two-thirds of all homes and 90% of all homes will have a flat panel TV by 2012.  With the infrastructure in place, the merging of platforms will happen quickly.  This opens the door for the proliferation of interactivity and user generated video content to flood the web.  The amount of content choices available to consumers will grow exponentially.

There is another less known but equally important technological development that will give consumers more choice, and more challenges for marketers.  The growth of remote video storage will have far reaching effects by increasing the ability to serve video on demand.  Companies like Netflix and On Demand are quickly adding content to their libraries to offer streaming on demand video to consumers.  Much like iTunes did in the music business it will take a chunk out of the DVD business.  I never really understood the desire to “own” a movie or TV series on a DVD, but the need may evaporate when you can get it on demand for a few dollars with a mouse click.

The other application enabled by remote video storage is network DVR service currently being offered by Cablevision.  This would enable any viewer to use the basic time shifting and commercial skipping power of the DVR without having the box in home.  The DVR services would be remote and handled in a central storage facility.  Currently DVR penetration is 28% in the US and it could grow dramatically with the roll out of network DVR service.

These trends are all crushing blows to the traditional revenue streams of the content providers.  DVD sales are very important to the movie studios and television lives on the traditional commercial.  Technology will enable to consumers to have limitless choices and the ability to skip by commercials.  On the flip side, video content providers now have the opportunity to put their material online and give marketers an actual measurable marketing venue.  The big question- will they fight the reality of the future like the music and newspaper business or will they embrace it? 

Booz and Company just released a smart new white paper entitled “The Promise of Private label Media” which is worth reading if you are charged with your companies sales and marketing strategy. 

Private label media or private media is one of the most important, if not most important marketing trend of the new media landscape.  Companies can create their own private media channel to communicate directly with customers and prospects with original content.  Essentially, the brand becomes the media. 

People are more comfortable than ever getting their content from multiple sources–a perfect environment for any business thinking about stepping in and becoming such a trusted source of information.  This is the general logic: when your company educates its current and prospective clients on its field of expertise instead of pitching them products or services, your company effectively becomes a reliable source of information and entertainment. In other words, your company becomes the media, and is now in a position to provide thought leadership and build customer affinity.  You’ve established your company as a trusted resource, and as a result, your customer feels more confident buying from you.  And you have increased your ability to measure results in terms of generating leads and creating incremental sales.

While traditional advertising will always serve a purpose in terms of general awareness, these private media channels encourage brand loyalty and affinity, and allow companies to speak directly to their customers and prospects in a controlled environment. Add a bit of good research to the equation and now brands are able to create content that resonates specifically with the needs of various audiences and existing customers, as well as content that supports permission-based marketing tactics that will woo their prospects.

Bottom line: when a company or brand becomes the media, it effectively creates a direct dialog with customers that lead to a pre-determined behavior and/or increased sales.  Creating your own media channel also increases accountability and measurability, which is critical in the current economic environment.

King Fish Media, in partnership with HubSpot, Junta42 and the Upshot Institute, is conducting a short survey among marketing executives—both on the brand and agency sides—to gauge the ever-changing opinions and activity regarding new media, advertising, marketing and measurement.

While I’m sure you receive a fair share of invitations to participate in various studies, I hope you will give special consideration to this one. In return for your time, we will offer participants exclusive access to the survey for one week prior to making it available to the general public and media. The results will be compiled into an e-book format and will be supplemented by an in-depth analysis. Our hope is that this research will help marketers better craft their new business pitches and offer brand marketers a better sense of the continually evolving trends they should be paying attention to and preparing for.

Please take just a few minutes to fill out this online survey to help us understand the needs and plans of senior marketers.  Click here to take the survey

You will be asked for your email address at the end of the survey, but your answers will be kept completely anonymous. This is purely so we can send you the research in advance of its official release.  Otherwise, the results will be available for free download at kingfishmedia.com no later than Sept. 15th. 

Thank you very much for your participation.  Got to the Survey Here

Forrester just released their five year forecast for US Interactive Marketing and it is an interesting read.  Five year forecasts are always dicey in today’s new media world. How many people in 2004 predicted the most talked about politicians in 2009 would be Barack Obama and Sarah Palin?  Zero.  About the same amount of people in 2004 who predicted the country would come to a standstill to watch and follow Michael Jackson’s memorial on Face book and Twitter. 

However, the numbers confirm and quantify what most of us already know – the amount of dollars to be spent on interactive marketing are growing fast and taking share from traditional media.  Overall, search marketing will be the biggest component, and Mobile (27% CAGR) and Social Media (34% CAGR) will grow the fastest.  All of these media/technologies are game changers in terms of information/content consumption and marketing.  Anyone who has taken a spin around an iPhone can see just how radically our content consuming habits will change.  And, marketers must follow suit.

Here is a quote from Forrester’s Shar VanBoskrik’s blog:

But to me, the most interesting takeaway from the research is that overall advertising budgets will decline.  Yep.  With dollars moving out of traditional media toward less expensive and more efficient interactive tools, marketers will actually need less money to accomplish their current advertising goals.   But reasonable marketers won’t relinquish budget because their programs are running too efficiently. Instead, marketers will allocate unused advertising dollars into investments like innovation, research, customer service, customer experiences, and marketing-specific technology and IT staff, in order to further marketing’s strategic influence within their companies.

If I may add my two cents – this gives marketers and brands the opportunity to become the media.  By creating their own original content, brands can build trust and affinity with customers and prospects.  The budget and technology now exists for marketers to totally bypass traditional media and ad agencies and talk directly to customers.  Content is what will fuel search and social media, so the opportunity for companies to engage in content marketing has never been greater.  I may not be bold enough to predict what the marketing world will look like in 2014, but I do know one thing.  I would not invest in any traditional ad agencies any time soon.

Everybody is talking about social media but we hear less about measurement and analytics.  All good marketing must be measurable and provide tangible results for the sponsoring organization.  I recently contributed an article to the June/July issue of Chief Marketer where I explore the topic.  Below is the text of the article.  Let me know your thoughts and how you are measuring social media.

Measuring the Value of Online Fan Communities

The tangible — and intangible — results of participating in online communities

Sure, it makes sense for most businesses to follow their customers into the world of social media. But before doing so, they must have a firm grasp on how to measure the ROI of those ventures.

The first step is to create a strategy that dovetails with existing marketing plans and messaging. A company wants to be where its audience is living online, and that will often mean social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and services like Twitter. Social media also means a corporate blog: If a firm does not have one, it is already behind the times.

For organizations, social media can serve as a private media channel that allows corporate control of the messaging. Social networks provide an excellent vehicle for pushing out content that supports marketers’ objectives, while social sites are great for spreading viral campaigns and word-of-mouth programs. Many companies are using social networks to recruit and invite prospects to Webcasts and live events, both of which are easily tracked by assigning unique URLs and codes.

There is little out-of-pocket cost associated with social media, aside from personnel costs. Even small firms can start a blog with shareware, and there is no cost to post a page or group on Facebook or LinkedIn.

But while the setup costs are low, a marketer needs to assign dedicated resources to manage the process and create and maintain the content. Someone in the organization needs to own the social media function for it to work successfully.

Work in progress

Initially, social media should be treated as both an experiment and a work in progress. Some trial and error is necessary to discover what works for each company and industry. One size does not fit all.

What constitutes the success of a social media campaign? Marketers are able to track relationships that were either created or enhanced by social sites or blogs. However, even before a prospect becomes a lead, there are ways to measure traffic and interaction with content.

To measure the ROI of new media, the media must in fact be measurable. Fortunately, the various social media are. The majority of social media platforms offer:
 

Quantitative data

Marketers can gauge success by the number of page views received, responses/comments, content downloaded/embedded, number of shares, RSS feed subscriptions, sign-ups and much more. These numbers offer indications of how well strategies are driving traffic and facilitating interaction with prospects.

Qualitative measurements

Hard data doesn’t do justice to measuring abstract returns such as an improved corporate reputation, reducing the ratio of negative/positive relationships in the online world, customer retention, strengthening of B-to-B or B-to-C relationships, increased direct dialogue with target audiences, and so forth. While it is hard to put a number on these measures, they are important outcomes of social media strategies.

Business value

In a down economy, dwindling budgets make low-cost social media campaigns a popular choice. According to an Online Marketing Summit presentation by Michael Weisfeld, senior Web strategist at BusinessOnLine, “Only 14% of people trust ads, whereas 32% trust bloggers’ opinions on products and services.” Social media offer a great way to get a direct connection with marketers’ audiences. Best of all, a single well-crafted effort can expand exponentially.

Can social media really lead to sales? Yes, according to research conducted among IT decision makers by IDG Connect. IDG found that social content is a significant decision-making factor within the IT investment process. According to their research, buying teams are using social content for educational purposes more than transactional content.

The big finding is that when a vendor is presented in a positive light in the social space, the likelihood of its offerings being purchased increase. Conversely, negative social exposure makes sales more difficult.

While that’s all true, one critical element of social media cannot be easily quantified: the quality of interaction between people. The blending of business and personal on social sites gives marketers an opportunity to get to know business partners in a different light and deepen personal bonds.

So while metrics are important, never discount the intangible, positive factor of human interaction. Social media allow us to get personally closer to our prospects and customers than ever before. 
 
 

© 2008 Penton Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Question: Has your sales and marketing tactics changed radically over the past five years?  Not to over hype it, but the second half of this decade has brought changes in media consumption that rivals the introduction of the printing press and television.  You need to keep your customer’s behavior in mind when deciding which marketing and sales tactics to use in light of the dramatic changes.

Five years ago no one had yet heard of YouTube, Hulu, Face book or Twitter.  Reality TV now dominates the ratings as Andy Warhol’s prediction of instant fame actually came true.  Public Wi Fi is everywhere and Google is now a verb.  The new generation of smart phones would amaze James Bond.  DVRs  and IPODs have completely changed the concept of consuming and buying entertainment.  When it comes to content, the influence of bloggers in politics, sports and entertainment often drive the media narrative with the mainstream media chasing. 

Major newspapers like the Boston Globe are a dying business model.  Network TV viewership is at an all time low and the level of creativity is even lower – how many crime shows do we need?  Magazine are shrinking and trying to reinvent themselves like Newsweek, Playboy and Reader’s Digest.  The B2B trade press is migrating from print to online content, web casts and virtual trade shows.

Thanks to advances in technology, the balance of power has shifted from media to consumer and that changes everything for marketers.  Have you adjusted your marketing plans to take advantage of these changes or are you maintaining the status quo?

Here are ten burning questions you need to ask yourself now:

1. Are you conducting or finding research to understand how your customers are consuming media? 

2. Does this research tell you the information needs of your customers and prospects?

3. Are you still renting expensive ad space in print and TV with the majority your budget? 

4. Are your producing original content and owning your own media channel to create an interactive dialog with your customers?

5. Is your company using original content to become a trusted media brand?

6. Are you creating passion and communities among your customers?

7. Do you make an effort to balance your retention and acquisition efforts, or are you over investing in lead generation?

8. Do you have a defined social media strategy to engage with customers and prospects where they are spending more and more time?

9. Are you personally engaged with Linked In, Face Book and Twitter to find prospects and talk to your customers?

10. Do you have measurement metrics in place for all of your marketing and sales tactics?

Think about your honest answers to these questions and take stock of where you are with both your company and career.  It is easy for mid career professionals to write these changes off as a passing fad or “for kids”.  That is probably what they there thinking at the Boston Globe and Newsweek just a few years ago.  We are in the midst of big time changes across the spectrum of politics, economics and media consumption.  The companies that adopt swiftly will thrive over the next decade. 

During last few weeks I have noticed a ratcheting up of inbound direct mail (postal and email) coming to me from companies that I had bought from in the past.  It ranged from Lowes and the Sunglass Hut sending me $50 off coupons for purchases over $200 to Omaha Steaks and 1800 Flowers emailing me great deals for Mothers and Fathers Day. 

Marketing to current or past customers is always smart, but even smarter during a recession.  Acquiring new customers can be a very expensive but necessary operation.  When funds are tight nimble companies tweak the balance between retention and acquisition.  By mining your customer database you can target past customers who will be more receptive to your messages.  Keep in mind most consumers are cutting back and trying to spend wiser.  A good deal from a familiar voice can get them to open their wallets.  It is always easier to convince someone to buy again rather than for the first time. 

Customer retention is even more powerful when paired with content marketing to build stronger relationships with customers who will see you as a trusted information resource.  This content can take the shape of custom magazines or magalogs, newsletters or webcasts.  Even face to face events for current customers could deliver a solid return.

How are you balancing your acquisition and retention efforts?  Do your customers see you as a trusted source of information or just someone trying to sell them something?

A content rich custom media customer retention program may be your best bet during trying economic times.

In 2000, Al Gore received a half million more votes than George W. Bush for President, but it was not to be.  Talk about Karma - fast forward to today and W. is in his living room with the lowest approval rating in modern times and is still a punching bag for the media and comedians.  Meanwhile, Al Gore has added a Nobel Peace Prize, Oscar, Grammy and Emmy to his environmentally correct trophy case.  In case you didn’t know, Gore is also one of the founders of Current TV.  Description below:

Since its inception in 2005, Current TV has been the world’s leading peer-to-peer news and information network. Current is the only 24/7 cable and satellite television network and Internet site produced and programmed in collaboration with its audience. Current connects young adults with what is going on in their world, from their perspective, in their own voices.

Current pioneered the television industry’s leading model of interactive viewer created content (VC2). Comprising roughly one-third of Current’s on-air broadcast, this content is submitted via short-form, non-fiction video “pods”. Viewer Created Ad Messages (VCAMs) are also open to viewer’s participation.
 

Current TV is a creature of the new media landscape and takes advantage of the fact many people want to create content, connect with peers and be famous. The technology to live this dream is now in the hands of the masses.  You can see this theme throughout media and popular culture.  Who received more “buzz” this year?  Was it Adam Lambert, Susan Boyle and the Housewives of NY/NJ or the scripted dramas on network television?  Clearly it was the reality stars because they feed into the concept of democratized content and aspirations of fame and fortune.

This trend has implications for marketers and advertisers trying to reach an ever more fragmented audience.  The 30 second spot and print ads are dying art forms.  One of the cool things about Current TV is they allow viewers to create ads for major brands such as HP and T-Mobile based on some creative assets and a brief.  Their research shows that viewers prefer user generated ads by a ratio of 9 to 1.  This trend does not bode well for traditional ad agencies, and doesn’t big Al know it.  Read a few quotes from a keynote he recently gave at marketing event as reported by Adweek:

He described the end of the industrial-revolution-like era of advertising, which produced ads that are “big, blunt expensive and very intrusive. . Audiences have begun to resist that old model.”   Going forward, advertising needs to become more nuanced, authentic and peer-to-peer, said Gore. “People want a different kind of feeling toward brands to which they give their money.”
 
That means being more upfront about ad messaging, rather than attempting to squeeze marketing messages into content through branded entertainment, he said. According to Gore, one of the reasons that Current viewers like VCAM ads is that they are straightforward in their intent. “People are interested in what someone like them is going to do and they’re not going to have something slipped by them,” Gore said. With ads that have been disguised as entertainment, “there is some resistance to those models. . . . We believe that intelligent empowerment of the audience is the key.”

Al Gore will likely never be President but he is now at the forefront of private custom media channels and content marketing.  In the parlance of marketing speak, Al Gore “gets it”.  Do you? 

The job of a marketer has probably never been more complicated with all the choices and options we have to communicate our messages for lead generation and customer retention.  The advent of new web tools and social media has made keeping up a full time job.  Our friend Joe Pulizzi at Junta42 has done a great job of compiling all the tools you need to know about in the areas of custom media, social networking, interactive conversations, Facebook and Twitter tools, content sharing, blogging, back end operation and of course, measurement.

Take a look at the list and let us know if you have any gems to add.   Personally, I have found the ability to share information with peers one of the best benefits of social media. Later this week I’ll let you know who I follow via Twitter to keep up with the daily changes in our world.  Happy reading.

Two sets of numbers recently came across my screen that illustrates the wrenching changes in media and marketing.  MIN Online has released 2009 first half numbers for monthly magazines and it is ugly.  Yes, we are in a tough recession, but these steep drops are more about the decline and fall of print advertising supported media.  Here is a snippet of the carnage as reported by MediaPost News:

The losses were widespread, with only eight out of the 118 titles tracked by MIN showing an increase in ad pages.  Among women’s lifestyle titles, Allure, Lucky, Vogue and W are all down over 30%. Auto and enthusiast titles (mostly targeting men) are sharply down, with drops of over 30% at Power & Motoryacht, Boating, Automobile, Motor Trend and Road & Track, Details, Maxim and GQ are also down over 30%, as are music monthlies Spin and Vibe and food titles Gourmet and Bon Appetit.

The brands mentioned above were formally profit generating powerhouses in lucrative categories.  The bulk of these pages are not coming back after the recession nor are closed newspapers going to spring back to life.  The ad market is undergoing a structural change.  Print is caught is a vise – readers have moved on to online media (more about that soon) and marketers are looking for measurable results that drive sales.  It is hard to make that case with a $50,000 branding ad in a monthly glossy magazine.

At the same time social media is on fire.  Facebook is now getting 300 million unique visitors per month, a 160% increase from a year ago.  This April, Twitter received 32 million world wide uniques, up 70% in a month!  MySpace has been flat at 123 million uniques per month while Facebook and Twitter grow unabated.  MySpace is going to end up the Netscape Navigator of its time. 

Since there are still only 24 hours in a day, something must be suffering with people spending all that time with social media.  Spring 2009 MRI readership shows a significant decline in magazine readership in the past year.

This has huge implications for marketers as they decide on their strategies for coming out of this economic downturn.  Reaching customers and prospects the old fashion way, is well, old fashion.  More than ever, it is imperative for marketers to turn to content market, storytelling and private media channels for measurable results.  And, now is the time to harness the power of social media.   Tweet now or forever hold your peace.

This is an interesting situation worth watching to see if a classic “old media” brand can make a successful transition to the new media landscape.  As reported on cnbc.com, Newsweek will debut their transformation on Monday in print and online today.  In a nutshell, they are moving from a newsweekly to thought leadership/opinion magazine.  In addition, they will take the rate base way down and focus on quality of readers who will in theory pay more for subscriptions. 

Here is a description of the new sections in the magazine:

“The magazine will be reorganized into four sections with a new focus on opinion. A new section called “The Take” will gather all the magazine’s columnists into one place. Newsweek is adding a new survey called “Internationalist” about world happenings. “The Culture” section will feature a lead essay with big ideas about art etc. The content will aim to speak to a well educated reader. And the design of the magazine and website will be sparser, with a lot more white space”

While everyone agrees a newsweekly no longer has a purpose, it may be too late to make this move.  In truth, they abandoned objective news reporting years ago and are now coming clean as somewhat liberal leaning publication (Obama appeared on 25% of their weekly covers in 2008 dwarfing his competitors).  If they are aiming to become a high end opinion magazine, they are cruising into crowded territory.  As Julia Boorstin mentions in her report, there is already some excellent journalism in that niche such as The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist and the New Yorker.  I am a pretty frequent reader of Newsweek and the New Yorker and there is no comparison in the level of writing.  Newsweek will have to up their game considerably to compete in that space.  Newsweek has been written for a broad general audience and will have to switch gears.

A prediction – Newsweek is gone as a print magazine in less than three years.  One thing I am fairly certain of is that you can’t completely change the DNA of a media brand and expect to go merrily along.  Newsweek has subscribers, newsstand buyers, advertisers and writers who are rooted in the newsweekly world and have a firm impression and mindset of what the brand means to them.  This can’t be changed on the fly at a time when print advertising is falling out of vogue faster than Second Life.

Media brands are living things whether they are TV shows, magazines, movie franchises or rock stars.  They have definable life cycles and eventually run their course.  Even one time mega hits such as Seinfeld eventually run out of steam and die a natural death.  I saw it first hand with PC Magazine, 10 years ago one of the largest magazines in the world, today an online only brand.  Its reason for being, a monthly print magazine with comparative reviews of PCs, is no longer relevant to readers or advertisers.  While we all bemoan the loss, the hard truth is the print magazine no longer served a purpose.

In the age of Twitter and smart phones, a weekly news magazine is no longer relevant.   And, moving a print advertising supported magazine into a saturated market segment does not make a lot of business sense.  At first blush their redesigned web site looks like a hodge podge of various types of content thrown up against the wall/home page to see what will be sticky.  The web site may grow and prosper over time, but don’t count on seeing the President on a dozen Newsweek covers in 2012.  He’ll be running, but the magazine will be a memory.

You may have seen Time Inc’s latest foray into custom media.  They sold Lexus into a sole sponsorship for a magazine called Mine (tag line – My Magazine - My Way) which is compiled from several of their titles to consumers who request it.  Give Lexus credit for wanting to own a private media channel to potential customers, but is this really custom media?  Anyone could sign up for it, and I did.  They didn’t develop the audience to be car buyers or people in the right demographic for Lexus.  It appears that anyone with internet access could sign up.  The content consists of articles selected by Time from several of their existing magazines.  The gimmick is that subscribers can pick which magazine reprint they can receive all in one place.  I don’t remember exactly what I signed up for, but I know for sure I didn’t sign up for Sports Illustrated because I already subscribe, and I certainly didn’t ask for Golf Magazine.  I want to read about golf about as often as I want to watch a Harry Potter movie or listen to jazz and that is never.  Here is the editorial line up in my “customized” magazine that came My Way:

Travel and Leisure – An article on how to look out an airplane window, and a feature on fancy tents.  I already know how to look out a window and will likely live the rest of my life without ever being in a tent, no matter how swanky.

Real Simple – A side by side nutritional comparison of juices, and a “how to” on road trips.  Let’s just say the editorial mission of being “simple” is coming through loud and clear.

InStyle – How to find the perfect pair of jeans, interview with Marc Jacobs, and fitness page staring Aisha Tyler talking about how to build biceps.  Not bad edit if I were a woman, but alas I am not.

Sports Illustrated – An amusing article from a soccer hater giving the game a try.  Good article and I liked it the first time I read in Sports Illustrated. 

Golf Magazine – Interview with golfer Natalie Gulbis, (of Celebrity Apprentice fame) and a “watch and learn” breaking down Tiger Wood’s swing.  This would be helpful if I didn’t hate golf.

As you can see this is really My Magazine, My Way.  A few weeks ago I received an email from Time that said a “computer error” may have caused me not to get exactly what I ordered in terms of content. 

Custom media and content marketing works best when you create original content that is designed for a specific audience and their information needs.  Mine misses the mark on all counts, the audience was not qualified nor selected as customers or prospects of Lexus; and the content is anything but original or aimed at a specific audience.  This is a classic big media company maneuver.  Take some edit that is already in the can, patch it together and send it to a random list.  And finally, get someone to sole sponsor five issues.  Only an auto company would go for something this off target and old fashion. 

“I wouldn’t call this an ad, this goes much beyond this,” said David Nordstrom, Lexus’ vice president of marketing. “Our message of ‘driver-inspired’ and ‘customization’ will come through a lot stronger.”

Here is what came across to me – the back page is an ad that screams in 28 pt type: THE ALL NEW 2010 RX. NOW WITH MORE GORDON PLUTSKY

It is so much more than an ad; it is off putting and annoying.

All that being said, it will probably be a decent money maker for Time Inc, but please don’t call it custom media when it is a glorified reprint.

Twitter is turning into a full fledged cultural phenomenon.  Former underwear model and cougar lover Ashton Kutcher is now over 1 million followers and Oprah and Howard Stern have joined the fray.  The New England Patriots tweeted their NFL draft picks this past weekend.  There are no shortage of so called social media experts and consultants publishing lists and posts on how to use Twitter, how to make money with Twitter, Twitter etiquette, etc.  The hype is reaching a fever pitch and a lot of it seems to be marketing people talking to each other.

Here is the fundamental thing we all need to keep in mind about Twitter – it is a media channel to talk to people directly without the filter or expense of a media brand or company.  That’s it folks, nothing more, nothing less.  That being said, we are big fans of owning your own media channel, so Twitter can and should become another aspect of your private media strategy for customers and prospects.

Twitter is a great vehicle for pushing out content to a specialized list of people, and I will distribute this blog to my “followers”.  Please go here if you want to follow me.  Whether you are a B2C or B2B company Twitter is an effective way to engage in an interactive dialog with your customers.  I follow lot of journalists and research companies to keep tabs on them without having to go to their sites directly.   It is smart for your executives to have a presence and be able to get feedback from customers and create a relationship with them.  Stronger personal bonds mean stronger sales for your company. Twitter is a no brainer when thinking about customer retention.  Smart and judicious use of this media channel can be a low cost way to drive sales from existing customers and give your content a broader audience.  For a great example, check out what Dell Outlet is doing to engage customers.

On the flip side, given the 140 character limit, it is much harder to mix business and personal as you can with Facebook.  Many keep Twitter mostly business, and that seems to be the general milieu.   Some people link their Facebook status update and Tweets so they are in sync.  I don’t like this because you should customize your message to your audience and environment, but it seems to be a growing trend.  Additionally, you can wear people out with over posting and will no doubt lose followers.

Twitter has reached the critical mass where it can’t be ignored by marketers, so embrace it as a free private media channel while it lasts.  Give it a shot, talking to your customers is always a good thing, especially when they can talk or tweet back.  Or better yet, buy something.

The big media news here in New England is the fate of the Boston Globe.  The situation now looks even more urgent in light of the dreadful earnings report and cash burn situation the NY Times Company reported this week.  The Times bought the Globe for $1.1 billion back in 1993 before the dawn the web.  They had a couple of very profitable years until the bottom fell out of the newspaper business.  In retrospect, newspapers did what many trade publishers did for a long time – resist the web because selling print ads was so damn profitable.  And, they gave their content away free online to build traffic.  This combination worked out poorly.  Newspapers across the country are closing or in financial peril. 

In 2008, the Globe lost roughly $50 million on an estimated $450 million in revenue (down a few hundred million in the past three years).  That is not easy to do unless your costs are way out of whack, especially labor costs.  The NYT is asking the unions for concessions or they will close down the paper, and I would assume and keep the very successful Boston.com. There has been a lot of finger pointing and looking to place blame. Hundred of comments have appeared in online forums raving about how the Globe’s liberal editorial slant has hurt them with subscribers and advertisers.  I am sure it has cost them some, but does not nearly account for their revenue and profit freefall.

The truth is actually pretty simple, but the solution is not.  In the not so distant past the Boston Globe was a money machine because it had a stranglehold on classified advertising in New England – help wanted, real estate, cars –huge money makers raking in over $100 million annually with high margins.   This cash flow allowed the cost structure to get fat and happy during the good times.  Most of that revenue is now gone to cars.com, monster.com, realtor.com and craigslist to name a few.  Although Boston.com generates high traffic numbers, the CPMs for online ads are a fraction of what they were in print thanks to all the competition and low barrier to entry.  Factor in declining subscription and single copy revenue due to changing consumer behavior and the fact they are giving away all the content for free online. 

To survive the Globe and other newspapers are going to have to start charging for online content – there is just no way around it anymore.  Something has to give, or they will go out of business. Our communities and democracy will suffer without a functioning free press.  Bloggers, pontificating from their cube or basement, are no substitute for real reporters who are digging for stories and holding government and business to task.  It has been conventional wisdom that people won’t pay for content online, but they have never been confronted with a situation where if they don’t pay for it they will have no other option, at least locally. 

If push comes to shove will people refuse to pay $10-$20 per month for an online local newspaper and let it fold?  Or will they realize there is no real difference between paying for a pile a paper and ink dropped at your door and online content.  Many consumers have an emotional attachment to newsprint, but the web version of a newspaper is far superior with up-to-the minute news, video, talk back forums, interactive charts and archives.  Additionally, younger people are just not subscribing to print versions of newspapers, nor will they anytime soon. One issue not easily resolved is access for people without internet access. Perhaps a newsstand only version can be provided that is subsidized by ads. 

The bottom line is the newspaper business needs to start monetizing online content and quickly.  Consumers would rather read online because there is more functionality and marketers are running less and less print ads because they are not measurable.  The writing is on the wall, but is anyone reading?  In this case, living in the past is a fast road to extinction.

I recently participated in an interesting project as one of 100 marketing authors to contribute to a book called Project 100: Marketing in the Social Media Era.  This is a topic that is relevant to anyone in the marketing profession today.  Social media is about two way conversations, interaction, story telling and authenticity.  It is having your own private media channel to talk to your customers and prospects without the filter of traditional media. 

The project was the idea of Jeff Caswell who recruited the authors and produced the books.  One of the best aspects of this project is that all profits will go to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, global leader of the breast cancer movement, with a goal of raising at least $5,000. 

Please check out the site and consider purchasing a book for only $19.95 to get 100 unique opinions on social media marketing and make a donation to an important cause at the same time.

Here is a very interesting take from David Meerman Scott on the possible movement of journalists from traditional media to creating meaningful content for companies.  It seems everyday media companies are cutting back and sacking writers and journalists.  (Old joke – When does a recession become a depression?  When journalists lose their jobs)  At the same time the content marketing/custom media business continues to grow.  More and more companies are creating their own content and private media channels to talk to customers.  Here is a clip from the Mr. Scott’s posting:

“Many organizations — corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, and educational institutions — finally understand the value of what I call “brand journalism,” creating interesting information online that serves to educate and inform consumers. People in companies now realize web marketing success comes from creating content-rich web sites, videos, podcasts, photos, charts, ebooks, white papers and other valuable content.”

He gives advice to journalists to be thinking about taking their skills to brand journalism where they can tell stories and impart information to a different set of consumers.  It is pretty sage advice when looking over the current media landscape.  While we can joke about it being the “Dark Side” the fact remains that companies have grown far past the old fashion “advertorial” to creating compelling, rich content for customers and prospects.  Companies like Cisco are maintaining full-fledged news rooms online while leaving the advertorials to Vince the Sham-wow/Slap chop guy.

It is pretty clear which way the market is moving, so come on over to the “Dark Side” you may just find yourself a new career.

Check out this article: “Why Advertising is failing on the Internet” written by Professor Eric Clemons of the University of Pennsylvania.  He makes a case why an ad supported business model may not work over the long term on the Internet.  One of his main themes is that pushing messages at consumers on the web is not a winning combination.  Below is a excerpt:

“Pushing a message at a potential customer when it has not been requested and when the consumer is in the midst of something else on the net, will fail as a major revenue source for most internet sites.  This is particularly true when the consumer knows that the sponsor of the ad has paid to have this information, which was verified by no one, thrust at him.  The net will find monetization models and these will be different from the advertising models used by mass media, just as the models used by mass media were different from the monetization models of theater and sporting events before them.  Indeed, there has to be some way to create websites that do other than provide free access to content, some of it proprietary, some of it licensed, and some of it stolen, and funded by advertising”

In addition he thinks that ads will fail because of the following:  consumers don’t trust ads, nor do they want them.  And, they don’t use advertising for research on the web since there are so many other sources of information available.

He goes on to talk about some models that may work, but I think the critical point is that marketers can’t rely on concepts and tactics that worked off line by merely porting them online.  It makes more sense to build a relationship of trust with customers and prospects rather than jamming advertising at them.  Additionally, marketers should take advantage of the fact that people use the Internet to search for content and information.  Unlike magazines where people browse passively, the Internet is interactive and active. 

It is that dynamic that makes the web ideal for content marketing and private custom media channels.  Talking directly to consumers with relevant content provides them with information and builds trust.  When marketing on the web, content marketing is a better tool to engage consumers than pushing out advertising.

GM and Chrysler have presented business plans to the government in return for more bailout cash.  I don’t know if a new ad/marketing strategy is in the mix, but here is a take on what they are doing wrong and how to fix it.  Click here to read part I.

1. The auto makers over use rented media channels with interruption style advertising, and the basic auto ad has not changed in 50 years. The ads show the car being used by one of their stock cliché characters – the executive, the harried mom, the twenty something on the go, the tough guy truck owner, the hapless suburban dad, etc.  The ads are slices of life showing our heroes using the product.  This is ineffective because there is much waste; and the creative is boring and unmemorable. The auto companies are big at buying sponsorships that just slaps their name on anything and everything.  Chevrolet spends big bucks to sponsor the “player of the game” during televised college footballs games.  Why do they do this?  Awareness?  How many men watching football have not heard of Chevy?  I am sure it makes the Chevy execs happy, but has it ever sold a single car or truck?  In fact, has anyone ever bought a car based on a TV ad?

2. American car companies sell with price, price and price.  The ads always stress the price cut or financing incentive.  If you train consumers to wait for the deal you will never get full price.  That is a problem when your union contracts give you a $2000/per car disadvantage against the Japanese automakers.  They need to stop the addiction to price selling and sell value.  They are two different marketing messages.

3. All the auto companies are out of balance when it comes to customer acquisition and retention marketing efforts.  The majority of the marketing budgets are aimed at convincing new customers to buy their cars while they give lip service to customer retention.  Some of the manufacturers have custom magazines for their owners but they seem half-hearted.  I used to get a magazine from Acura and it was full of underwhelming content.  This year I leased a Mercedes and bought a Honda Accord and the follow up communication from both brands and been almost non-existent.  I have received a few weak emails that are selling me accessories and their overpriced service.

It would be more efficient to create long term customers rather than trying to sell new customers over and over.  This is an area where I would suggest the biggest changes for the auto companies.  They should peel off some the budget they are shoveling at TV to create private media channels to talk directly to their current customers to create a long term relationship.  This private media channel needs to have high quality original content from subject matter experts and great writers.  They need to create a real relationship based on affinity and trust with their customers, not just send them a magazine with travel articles and offers to buy floor mats, mugs and logoed junk.  In addition, try working in some new media – interactive webcasts for owners to get more from their car, and social media to connect owners and build community.

4. I would suggest more live test drive events where people can get inside a car and try it out.  It is a better experience without a sales guy breathing down your neck asking “how much do you want to pay per month”.   I went to a Mercedes test drive event about six years ago and decided on that day I would someday own a fine German auto.  In the time since that event Mercedes has probably hit me with a few millions dollars worth of rented media ads via magazines, newspapers, television, radio and billboards.  All those ads combined didn’t have a fraction of impact of the afternoon I spent getting to touch and feel the product and have a direct educational dialog the company.  On that day they built a level of trust and affinity with me that no traditional ad could ever duplicate. 

The bottom line:  They need to stop renting media and own their own media channel.

GM is back in the news asking for more loans and giving the government its plan.  President Obama doesn’t seem like he has much sympathy for their history of bumbling and mismanagement.  Neither does the public, Gallup just released new data that says 72% of Americans are against giving GM and Chrysler additional bailout money.  The sentiment is broad based across all demo groups. If the economy was good, I could see Obama saying no to more taxpayer money.  However, given the delicate state of the economy, the President is giving them a shot at redemption.  You could fill a book shelf with the collective mistakes of both management and the UAW, but I’ll focus on marketing and illustrate how the US auto companies, particularly GM is stuck deep the world of old media.

One of the most memorable experiences of my career was an attempt to sell auto advertising into PC Magazine in the late 90’s.  I was PC Magazine’s marketing director, and King Fish President Cam Brown was then the Associate Publisher.  We made it our personal mission to break the category so off to Detroit we went.  PC Mag had great demos of high income male gadget/tech geeks who loved the magazine and spent two hours reading each issue.  This was the perfect audience for Detroit and back then we had nearly 7 million readers and a circ of 1.2 million.  However, we were lucky to get 15 minute meetings with young and clueless media planners who only cared about two things. The pubs ranking in syndicated research and how much merchandising they could squeeze out of your book.  And, they made it clear that it was very hard to get on a plan if you were not already getting space. 

It is hard to do justice to what a bizarre world it was, not to mention that the depressing city revolved around keeping things exactly the same.  The media planners couldn’t get over the “environment” of PC Magazine.  They were running ads in every special interest pub measured in the JD Power study but they could not wrap their heads around the idea of their unimaginative ads appearing next to a technology review.  We could almost never get by that hurdle.  We did sell a few programs (Jeep, Ford) but more often than not, no one was interested in even exploring a new idea.

When driving around the Troy/Detroit metro area you could sense that one day the jig would be up and the whole system would come crashing down.  They were spending hand over fist for print and TV advertising to promote uninspired cars that people didn’t want to buy.  While at the same time they were overpaying everyone involved and locking themselves into insane union contracts that make GM more of a healthcare provider than car manufacturer.

Take a look at the latest research I could find on eMarketer from this summer.  We are in the new media age and GM has barely changed their spending mix.  Interactive spending is up, but still a fraction of TV. The vast majority goes to the rented media channels of broadcast and print.  It is common knowledge that most people start their auto shopping online, yet the overwhelming majority of their spending is on television.  The government is going to ask them to change some of their business practices in return for bailout money.  Maybe Mr. Obama will come across this blog on his BlackBerry so in part II I’ll have the audacity to tell GM what they are doing wrong and to fix it.

Another Oscar show is in the books and the ratings did tick up a bit from last year’s record low.  While the show format is tired, it is not the real story of why it no longer holds America’s interest as it once did.  The original purpose of the awards was to provide a sales boost to the winning movies and to get some PR love for the industry’s image.  That is still the purpose today and it is reflected in the nominated movies and the tone of the show.  This is the industry’s opportunity to show that they make “Big important movies about big important ideas”. 

The nominated movies are often loaded with political messages and diversity.  That is not a bad thing, but a complete disconnect with what the movie industry actually produces in large quantity today.  The majority of releases are marketing concoctions aimed at the at the lucrative demo of young men and women and kids.  Tad Friend wrote a fascinating article in the New Yorker about the movie marketing business.  The story takes you into the sausage factory and it is eye opening.  The artistic process has given way to focus groups and market testing to make sure the product resonates with the target audience.  Between 25-35% of a movie’s budget is taken up by marketing efforts.  Much of that money is dumped into a barrage of unmeasurable and unaccountable 15 and 30 second TV spots.  Like their cousins in the auto industry, movie marketers show no signs of breaking their addiction to print and broadcast advertising that is high in cost and low in return. When it comes to “renting” media channels, the movie industry spends money with a fire hose.

The whole situation becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  The added marketing costs make it harder for movies to make a profit, so they market test them and alter the film to resonate with the ticket buying young men and women.  This is apparent when reviewing the top movies of 2008.  The top grossing movies are mostly action and comedy films aimed at 15-28 yr old men and women.  There is also a number of animated movies for the under 12 crowd.  The first “adult” movie checks in at numbers 11 and 12 with “Sex in the City” and “Mama Mia”.  After that it is slim pickings for the over 35 set (I could also say the over 110 IQ set, but that would be mean). 

The fact that Hollywood is primarily producing products for the youth market is not a crime.  They are in business to make money and those are the people who buy movie tickets.  Ironically, the target audiences for their movies are the people least likely to settle in on a Sunday evening to watch an Oscar telecast that moves at the pace of a 1970’s variety show.  Unlike the Grammy awards that live in the moment, the Oscars are often about the past.  And, giving technical and behind the scenes awards (sound, costumes, editing) during prime time is not appealing to anyone except the families of the nominees.

There is also another factor at play in why America is tuning out the Oscars and that is political persuasion of the movie and entertainment industry.  They are not shy in their support of Obama and liberal causes.  This manifests itself in both financial and vocal public support.  Sean Penn came through last night talking about how America elected an “elegant” man.  Who knew Obama was like Fred Astaire.

This can be a turn off to the roughly 48% of the country that did not vote for President Obama – elegance and all.  It is one thing to tolerate a difference in opinion from elected officials such as Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi, but quite another to be lectured by rich, spoiled celebrities like Matt Damon.  Don’t underestimate some of the hard feelings from moderate/conservative voters who got fed up with the media and entertainment industry during the past election.  Nobody likes to be told how we are not doing enough about global warming and healthcare from surgically enhanced people who earn millions to stand in front of a camera and recite someone else’s words.  The individuals in the movie business have every right to speak their minds, but it can be a risky proposition when you are selling a product to a broad consumer audience. 

This explains some of the reasons why the Oscars are losing relevance, but what about the future of the movie industry in the age of new media.  We’ll explore that next week….

I am stating the obvious, but 2009 will be a rough year for the Face to Face events business – from trade shows to custom events to conferences.  I have been hearing about cut backs and cancelations from colleagues for months, and then saw this cover story in the New York Times on Vegas.  Business is way down in Las Vegas, arguably the convention and conference capital of the US.  Over 30,000 hotel rooms canceled last month as many shows have postponed or decided to cancel.  At last month’s Super Bowl the famous Playboy party was canceled.  They said a lavish party seemed inappropriate given the economy but I would wager that the only thing that was inappropriate was the lack of sponsor dollars to fund it.

The costs associated with live events makes them easy to cancel during a recession and that is really too bad.  Live events are one of the best lead generation tools available and they do an equally great job with customer retention.  The powers of events are enhanced when they are paired with original and compelling content created for the target audience.  However, event’s benefits come with a high cost per lead due to the fixed costs of running a first class event.   While there is no substitute for personal contact with a prospect or customer, there is another way.

Webcasting has been around for over ten years and is an established lead gen tool being used widely in the B2B world.  The Virtual Show or Virtual Trade Show is really picking up steam this year.  They have been around for a while now, but seem to be reaching a critical mass especially in the technology and life sciences markets.  If you are not familiar with them here is a definition from Wikipedia:

The structure of a typical virtual tradeshow often includes a virtual exhibit hall which users enter with specific permissions and capabilities, to either attend and view virtual trade show displays in the exhibit hall or build virtual booths to exhibit information related to products or services on offer, just as they would at a trade fair in a convention center. The virtual tradeshow may have other components such as a virtual web conference, or a web seminar or a webinar, or other educational presentations. The virtual show thus results in live interaction between all the users on many levels (one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many) and simultaneously. Detailed tracking mechanisms allow organizers to determine the flow of traffic in the virtual tradeshow.

Because this is online you get incredible data on the visitors and the actions they take during the show.  This allows you to segment and score your leads before you feed them into your lead nurturing programs.  And, your sales people can interact with prospects online during the show.  ON24 (King Fish is an authorized reseller) is one of several companies that provide a virtual show platform and they did some interesting research on the growth of virtual shows.  They surveyed 10,000 enterprise executive who reported that 53% of their companies have begun using virtual events and 23% plan to start using them this year.  The majority of these companies are also reporting that they will be decreasing their use of trade shows and physical sales meetings and training events.

If your company is struggling with your live events strategy it is worth exploring a virtual event.  Be aware, it is a large undertaking with project management, selection of a platform, content creation and audience development all playing a big role in your plans.  However, the rewards will be worth it when you start filling your sales pipeline with warm leads at a lower cost per lead (CPL) than a live event.

One of the consequences of the new media landscape is the marketing discipline of online reputation management.  This has always been an issue, but with the popularity of social media it has reached critical mass.  I recently came across a story that illustrates how ordinary people can harness the power of web 2.0 tools and make life very difficult for a company or individual.  Last month while flipping channels my wife came across a show we have never watched – Wife Swap.  The premise is wives from diverse backgrounds are switched for the purpose of mining entertainment from differences in attitudes towards housework, child rearing etc.  They’re generally from opposing social and political strata to create conflict and comedy, and this one was off the charts. 

One family was from Missouri and Middle America.  Their dream is seeing their oldest boy win a paintball scholarship, though I can’t believe it actually exists.  The “snobby” family was a pair of insufferable cultural elites from San Francisco who reveled in being environmentally correct and having a “World View” whatever that means.  The husband, Stephen Fowler, is possibly the vilest person ever to grace American TV.  He is a Brit who lives in the US of A to help us see the errors of our way.  Stephen (wearing a shirt that says “Sustainability”) was mean and cruel to the wife from the Midwest to a level that was almost unwatchable.  For more background check out this news video from San Francisco’s ABC affiliate. 

I watched to the end because I wanted to see this loathsome man get his comeuppance, and I sorely disappointed. It just ended with him and his wife (who said she was not proud to be American) being their usual smug and condescending selves.  I forgot all about the Fowlers until I read about the furor that this story caused in the Bay area and across the country.  Outraged people took to the web/social media networks and started making life difficult for the Fowlers.  This web site (stephenfowlersucks.com) became the hub and you can read about how their business and personal lives took a hit.  Stephen tried to apologize but it was too late, even though he was “deeply” sorry.  He had to resign from boards and his wife’s business, which they were promoting, was damaged.  It’s a reminder that things live forever on the web and once something goes viral, it is out of anyone’s control.  The internet is still the Wild West when it comes to digital rights and reputation management. 

All you need to do is flip through the comments section of any news, political or entertainment site to see public people being bashed by anonymous posters.  It is a real issue for companies who are seeing complaints about them rise in Google searches.  When people are angry today they take to the web and create a permanent record of their grievance than can be found by any customer or prospect.  I have had my challenges with Comcast cable so I typed “I hate Comcast” into Google and found almost 11 thousand exact matches.  And came across the charming site named comcastsucks.org.  That can’t put a smile on the face on their CMO. 

Monitoring your online reputation is something all marketers need to take seriously and it should be part of someone’s job responsibility.  That person needs to keep checking search engines, blogs, Facebook, twitter etc.  If possible you should reach out to the aggrieved person and try to resolve the conflict or at least try and show that there are people behind your logo.  Angry consumers often strike out against companies because they feel powerless and that no one cares about them.  It seems simple, but show you are listening and start an interactive dialog with your own blog or Facebook/Twitter account.  If there is something nasty being said about your company on the web, you want to know about it before your CEO’s son or daughter tells him about it. 

The current growth rate of Facebook continues apace, passing 100 million world wide users.  The growth is being fueled by both non-US users and the stampede of people between the ages of 25-55 who are jumping into the mix in huge and fast growing numbers.  Much of it is driven by professional needs, but the social needs are just as strong.  As the job market softens, it becomes imperative to network and keep in touch with past colleagues.  Also, to promote yourself and let people in your industry know what you have been up to for the past few years.  Having a Facebook account is a “must have” for those of us toiling in the media and marketing business.

We are firmly in a new world where our personal and business lives are combined, intersected and merged.  Even our young President has a Blackberry, and I heard him refer to the White House as a home office in jest.  Think of the Seinfeld episode where George does not want his girlfriend and friends to spend time together, because World’s Collide.  I feel like that on Facebook when “bawdy” Gordon exchanges ribald jokes with High School and gym friends in the same place where I dialog with clients, vendors and co-workers.  I try to be mindful of it, but others let it fly.  If you are going to wade into Facebook you have be tolerant of the torrent of trivial status updates (Fran is baking cookies, Leon is heading to Home Depot, Calvin needs coffee before writing a report) and ones that are there to self promote and sell. 

I have learned that given the ideological bent of the media world, it is best to leave politics off line, lest you want to receive a diatribe on the evils of George Bush or climate change (what global warming is called in the winter).  Like any platform or forum there will be those who abuse it and become serial “frienders”, just looking to pad their total in some odd ego affirming exercise.  Another form of abuse are over-posters who constantly regale their friends with political views, favorite articles and songs and generally clog up the works by assuming that there are hundreds of people who care about their every thought.  Take my advice – de-friend them.  I have done it a couple of times, it is cleansing

Now that everyone is here the question is – how best to use this powerful tool.  At this point no one has any firm answers but I do think it is valuable venue for marketing.  We’ll explore your company on Facebook in the next posting, but it is certainly worthwhile for individuals.  Facebook creates your own private media channel to the world.  You can chose to communicate one on one, to a specialized group or in mass.  It is a method to get the word out about events in your personal or professional life.   It also allows you to grow closer to people you don’t see or speak with on a regular basis.  I have found the ability to post links an effective way to get out the message about some interesting things we are doing as a company.  Facebook also gives us a targeted distribution channel for our blog and other content we create.  One of the main tenants of private custom media channels is the ability to speak to your permission based target audience with content in an environment where they will be receptive.  Facebook enables you to have an interactive dialog with your audience.  Social media has great promise as a marketing tool and right now we are all pioneers.

Over the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of appearing on a few radio shows to talk about the new media landscape.  It is important to look at these changes from the point of view of media consumers and how it affects marketers.  A common theme is how technology has empowered consumers to be in control of their media choices in terms of timing, format and platform.  This dynamic has changed the business model for traditional media companies especially in print and broadcast.  An equally important theme is the drive for measurability and accountability from marketers.  In a down economy, marketers are even more obsessed with return on investment and making every cent count.  These are themes we will be exploring in depth in 2009.

Please click the links to listen to the clips

December 22 – Indianapolis morning show with Pete the Planner, a well known financial planner from Green Candy.

January 16 – Houston National Public Radio

January 27 – KFUO morning show in St. Louis

January 30  - The Small Business Advocate with Jim Blasingame, small business expert

Cam Brown, President
King Fish Media

2009 will feature the greatest redirect in marketing approach that the media industry has seen since the explosive growth of cable television (and its subsequent usage opportunities that caused planning confusion in the 1980s and early 90s) . Looking forward, savvy marketers will broker deals with media companies not for reduced page rates or air time, but for their subscriber list – the more selects available, the better. Media companies will re-structure their sales teams, reducing the workforce of 30 and 40-something reps and elevating the most insightful marketers.

This new staff will gain immediate credibility with advertising partners who will not view them as yet another new face pitching the same old story, but as a strategic marketer identifying the most targeted database possible from their circ files, and guiding the best practices for usage of that file. The story of targeted efficiency over reach, and reduced top line advertising revenue in exchange for a smarter, more collaborative client relationship, is the story of 2009 and beyond.

Gordon Plutsky, Director of Marketing
King Fish Media

Custom Media, across all platforms, will be one of the few areas that will grow in revenue in 2009 thanks to two important trends:

    -  Companies becoming publishers and producing their own content to talk directly to customers and prospects.

   -   The need for more measurable media and high ROI during a recession.

The continued growth of web casting, virtual trade shows and online video will take a significant chunk of revenue from trade shows and live events during 2009.

The decline of the US auto industry will result in huge cut backs in print advertising from the big three, and several magazines will close as a result.  Local TV stations and newspapers will see big decreases in ad revenue as car dealerships close after GM kills Buick, Pontiac and Saturn and Ford also pares brands as part of a government bailout.

Several IT publications will follow the lead of PC Magazine and abandon their print issue to reposition themselves as online and events brands.  They will thrive once all the print overhead is removed.

Facebook will explode and become a “must have” for professionals in 34-54 age group who will continue to blur the lines between personal and business life.

The big television networks will continue to become less relevant in the lives of Americans as they spend more time on niche cable networks and social media sites.  The 2009 fall season will produce zero new hits.  The continued penetration of DVR’s will further erode their advertising base and they will have to make major cutbacks.

A major US daily newspaper will fold its print edition and go digital only.

Sarah Palin will write a book about her experiences during the 2008 campaign.  She will get a giant advance and it will go to #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list much to the dismay of New York Times.

American Idol will see a strong decline in ratings - over commercialization and bland contestants killed the golden goose.

Kathleen Martin
RocketComm

The markets will continue to ride the roller coaster through the third quarter. Big business will continue to contract but there will be explosive growth in small service firms and mid size companies. Contracting will be the norm versus traditional company employment.

Social media will continue to grow and the challenge in 2009 will be how to manage the scale and depth of your social networks and leverage the various media options for maximum return. As customers accept the flashing boxes on the sidebar and scrolling headers the media agencies will be looking for new ways to gain not only mind share but retention in a non-retentive environment.

I also think Elvis and Marilyn Monroe have a pretty good chance of being invited to the inauguration and we will see another Kennedy in the senate.

Joe Pulizzi
Junta42

More and more media companies will shed unprofitable titles in certain verticals to stay profitable and solvent. This will open up opportunities for corporate brands to become the content providers for those industries.  I wouldn’t be surprised if you started seeing corporate brands with some cash in the bank buy out small, niche media properties as they work to build out their content strategies.

Traditional media spend will continue to drop as corporate marketers will lean on web statistics for ROI. Marketers will take half of what they are pulling out of traditional and spend on content-driven activities, social media, and other more “experimental” media. Some “forward-looking” brands will see an opportunity to go back to targeted print activities, such as custom magazines and customer newsletters, to differentiate themselves from the barrage of email marketers. 

 What are your predictions?  Send them to gplutsky@kingfishmedia.com and we will post them or leave a comment. 
 

I just came across some data that shows for the first time in seven years, B2B trade show revenues declined, by 3.7% in the first three quarters of 2008 (source: ABM).  Of course, most people point to the recession as the reason – cut backs in both marketing expenditures and travel restrictions.  Surely, these are a factor, but not really telling the whole story.  It is more than coincidence that webcasting and virtual trade shows are a hot commodity and growing.  According to Frost and Sullivan the webcasting industry was worth $83.3 million in 2007 and is set to grow more than 28.2%. By 2014, they predict it to be a $3.4 billion market.

It is easy to see how cutbacks in travel can help webcasting, but that is just a small part of why it is growing.  Webcasting is one of the best lead generation mechanisms, if not the best, available today in the B2B world.  When someone attends your webcast they are raising their hand and self selecting themselves to view your content and message.  They are committing nearly an hour of their time to your message – the ultimate in content based permission marketing.  Additionally, you get incredible reporting data to know specifically who the prospects are and what actions they took during the webcast which often lets you know where they are within the buying process.  And, if you choose a live Q&A session, you can interact with dozens of potential customers in a personal dialog.  All of this comes at a pretty modest cost compared to traditional in person tradeshows. 

As someone who has once had the pleasure of managing their company’s trade show presence, I can tell you it is a very expensive operation.  The whole operation is designed to separate you from your budget – the space, the booth itself, power, T1 line, staffing, carpeting, plants, shipping and dealing with unions and their rules and rates.  All for the pleasure of standing in a tacky booth waiting for people to come by looking for free stuff and engage you with small talk.  The quality of leads of people who happen to amble by your booth can not compare with someone registering and attending your webcast – and engaging with your content. 

In many industries trade shows have an important role, but at what cost.  Buyers prefer to get content at their desks and marketers want a high return on their lead gen efforts.  Both of those trends point to the reason why webcasting is one of the fastest growing B2B marketing vehicles and it should prosper during tough economic times.

Some very interesting new data out from emarketer this week.  Several large investment banks and media analysts are predicting a significant drop in overall US advertising in 2009.  That is not unexpected given the recession and the lack of a presidential election and Olympic Games in 2009.  The big story in these numbers is the change in share of specific types of media in US ad spending.  The traditional methods of broadcast (TV and radio) and print (newspapers and magazine) are on the decline while the internet and Custom Publishing/Custom Media is on the rise.  The reason is simple - measurability.  Marketers are shifting their dollars to places where they can measure the return on their investment in addition to having control over the environment.  Additionally, Custom Media is ideal to talk to your current customers in addition to prospects with specific messages for each.  Print and broadcast does not give you the ability to target customers vs. prospects nor does it give you a measurable return.  Telling your story with custom content is a much better way to build a relationship with customers than blasting ads at them when they are watching TV or reading a newspaper. 

For the cost of a couple of ads in a major newspaper or during a prime time show you can create a quarterly custom magazine, or a custom web site or a series of live or interactive events with your own content.  It is a decision more and more companies are making. 

If you project current trends, it is easy to see how by 2013 the internet and custom media will be the two most popular marketing vehicles available to companies.  It is not hard to understand why media companies heavily dependent on print media are having fits trying to change their business models.  The latest is the development is about Newsweek who is currently losing money.  They plan to slash their rate base, keep ads dollars up, abandon news and become more of a thought leader publication.  Name me another magazine that pulled off that kind of rapid and radical transition.  My guess is that by this time next year, they will be losing more money than they are now.  It is not about the circ or the edit mission, it is about smart money moving away from print advertising to interactive and custom media and there is nothing Newsweek or anyone can do about that.

I covered lead gen in my latest posting on Online Marketing for Marketers .  Specifically, I wrote about cost per lead (CPL) online lead generation for B2B marketers.  At King Fish we use it often as a tool for driving registrants to webcasts and virtual trade shows.  Here is the posting:

The need for ROI-based online marketing will be ever greater in 2009 as financials types will be scrutinizing every marketing dollar and looking for cuts.  As I’m sure you know, marketing is one of the first to get some budget shaving—but of course your sales people are still looking for fresh leads in the pipeline and they’re expecting you to help.

If you have not fully embraced online lead generation and cost-per-lead (CPL) programs now is the time.  The era of email list rental and blasting as an online lead acquisition tool is nearing an end.  The vast majority of your outbound email winds up in spam boxes or get deleted.  Media (both print and online) companies have had it good by renting email names at high rates and guaranteeing no results.  It is time to ask them to do business in a new way.  Ask them for CPL programs so both parties have skin in the game, and you will guarantee yourself qualified leads from your online efforts.  It will likely cost more at first, but it is worth it.  Almost all of the big players in IT media are doing online lead gen, and doing it well.  The CPL model is starting to make the move into non-tech B2B media.  Here are a couple of tips we have found to be successful using online lead gen/CPL to generate qualified sales leads for our clients:

1. It works best when taking advantage of the relationship potential customers have with a web site and/or media brand.  You get the affinity and halo effect, so choose leading media brands for your efforts.

2. Use content as the offer – interactive events and webcasts work very well as does downloadable white papers and interactive ebooks.  Make it worth the prospect’s while to give up their name and email address and start to build a permission relationship.

3. Use third party independent content if possible, especially research that is not generally available.

4. Use strong filters by using landing pages with specific questions to get only the selects you want.  It could add cost, but also worth it to give your sales team a more qualified leads.

5. Track the results closely and keep in close contact with the media company on the volume and quantity of the leads being generated through online efforts.

Moving your online lead generation efforts to a CPL model will generate significant higher returns in the long run and keep your sales pipeline full during a challenging year.

We are heading into the holiday buying season and Black Friday is upon us.  I have a great suggestion for you to do your shopping and contribute to an important cause.  A good friend, Linda Kuehn, has created a site called “Click to Cure ALS”.  She is doing her part to battle a terrible disease that has stuck close to home.  Linda used her marketing and web skills to create a shopping portal with tons of terrific online merchants.  The best way to describe it is from the “About” page on the site:

Click To Cure ALS is a shopping portal built for the purpose of raising money in the fight against ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

All you have to do to help is simply visit this site, click a link or an ad to go to the store where you want to shop, and then shop as you normally would. It does not cost you anything and you don’t pay a premium when you use this site. As a matter of fact, you’ll find plenty of money-saving offers when you visit us!

When you click from this site to an online store and complete a purchase, we’ll earn a commission from our participating merchants and donate the profits to the ALS Association and Project A.L.S.

There is no extra cost to click through to sites you would be going to anyway via the magic of affiliate marketing.  I plan on using the site during some down time over Thanksgiving.  There is nothing better than having a drink or two and setting yourself loose on iTunes.  It is always fun when the bill comes.  Linda has put together a nice variety of sites and you may discover a new one such as Kosher.com.  Now I can have Kosher Bison delivered right here to Salem, Massachusetts.  The wonders of the internet never cease.

Give it a try and help to fight ALS.

Happy Thanksgiving from the King Fish Think Tank team!

The news broke today that PC Magazine will no longer produce a print edition and will focus totally on their very popular network of sites.  While some past PC Mag employees may find this to be a sad passing of time, I think it is the right move.  We are long past the turning point when the web became the primary information source for technology information.  And, tech advertisers have embraced interactive media, custom media, events and other ROI based marketing tools while essentially abandoning print trade advertising.

I was the Marketing and Research Director of PC Magazine from the mid 90’s until 2002, and when I left the print issue was in deep decline.  According to this article from paidContent, 70% of the brand’s revenue now comes from online sources.   Printing several hundred copies of a monthly magazine makes no sense when people really want the information online.  A few weeks ago I wrote about how media companies had to make the web the center of their universe, not print, if they wanted to survive.  This move by Ziff Davis Media is a foreshadowing of what we will see during 2009 as the recession forces the hand of media companies.

I am glad that I got to be a part of publishing history.  There were a couple of years where we ran more print ad pages than any magazine in the US and once booked over $7 million in a single issue.  PC Magazine was incredibly profitable and influential in the tech industry.  Working with talented people such as Michael Miller (see his blog on the closing here) was like going to publishing grad school.  Most of the people I worked with at PC Magazine have gone on to very successful media careers.

Looking back, I remember the day that was the beginning of the end.  We were at one of our regular meetings at Dell and they told us they just started selling PCs over the web and were grossing nearly a million dollars a day.   At the time companies like Dell and Gateway were running 10-12 expensive ad pages an issue to present every SKU they had to our readers complete with 800 numbers to purchase.  With the advent of their online stores that ad commitment would be coming way down.   All they needed to do was drive web traffic.  It took roughly ten years but the web finally killed the magazine.  I wonder how many other tech magazines will follow their lead.  Most of them have just a handful of print ads from the big players.  I say, let it rip, go 100% digital/online and move on before you get left behind.

The International Association of Business Communicators recently did a special issue on content marketing.  Here is how they describe it:

Content marketing is about revealing the credibility of your brand through customer-focused information—with an authentic and trusted voice. It’s an opportunity to use creative thinking—rather than a big budget—to get better results than traditional marketing methods.

I was lucky to one of several contributors to add an article to the special edition of their bulletin.  I chose to talk about creating a content-rich private custom media channel rather than traditional advertising.  Here is an excerpt from the article:

When a company educates its current and prospective clients on its field of expertise instead of pitching them products or services, that company becomes a reliable source of information. Your company becomes the media, and you’re now in a position to provide thought leadership and build customer loyalty. You’ve established your company as a trusted resource, and your customer feels more confident buying from you.

It’s no surprise that more and more companies are creating their own private media channels with original content to speak directly to their customers. With content and private media channels, marketers can start to take prospects down the road of permission-based marketing, where marketers must first ask permission before sending content or advertisements to prospective customers. This method requires that people first “opt-in,” rather than allowing people to “opt-out” only after the marketing messages have been sent. It also helps to build trust and affinity between marketers and their potential customers. Eventually, you will get to the point where customers and prospects will welcome your content and messages because of the trust you have built with them. Trust and affinity lead to increased sales.

This tactic stands in contrast to traditional advertising and marketing methods, which rely on renting media channels from media companies at very high costs. In that model, prospects are seeing marketing messages such as ads in magazines, on web sites and television, and are likely spending little or no time absorbing them.

In addition, rented media relies on “interrupting” your prospect with your message, an inefficient way to get out your marketing messages that is more likely to build resentment than trust. When a company owns its own media channel, it is engaging in direct dialogue with customers.

Every day more companies are creating their own media channels with original content to bypass traditional media outlets. In so doing, marketers take control of their message and their audience. Not only can marketers speak directly to customer interests and concerns, but now they do not have to worry about marketing messages being surrounded by distracting—or even inappropriate—content that may conflict with their brand. In addition, the financial rewards of private media speak for themselves: For the price of a few ads in a national magazine, newspaper or broadcast network, a company can create its own custom magazine with original content for a targeted audience. We believe this trend will grow rapidly over the next few years as advances in technology and consumer behavior make it more feasible. There is no better way to drive marketing ROI than by surrounding your potential customers and prospects in a controlled environment that you own.

To read the whole special report – click here.

Looking back at our election preview it seems that the bulk of our contributors did foresee Barack Obama’s win.  Junta42’s Joe Pulizzi, Brian Bucky and our own Kimba Jackson probably came in the closest to the final result.  For their efforts they win a year supply of Rice-a-Roni and brand spanking new President.  A look at the efforts of professional pollsters is a good lesson in market research technique and how to interpret data.

The subject of surveying was a big one this year as pollsters had the very tough task of trying to estimate the proportion of voters by party identification.  That is the key variable for weighting the results.  It is usually based on the last national election – Presidential or mid term congressional.  In 2008 pollsters tried to grapple with the unknown factor of how many new voters Obama would be bringing into the process.  It was tempting to jack up the percentage of democratic voters based on the response to Obama’s appearance and fund raising.  The results are in and Fordham University did a study comparing the results of all of the polls.  The winners were Rasmussen and Pew which nailed the final margin.  See the full list here.

All during the campaign I was reading and relying on Rasmussen because they were the most conservative in their estimates, and always had it as a pretty tight race.  I had a gut feel that Gallup was over weighting to Democratic Party identification and as a result they came in near the bottom for accuracy.  A couple of lessons learned:

The best poll methodology is the tracking polls like Rasmussen because they survey every day and keep reporting a three day rolling average.  They also screen on likely voters rather than registered voters which tend to favor democratic candidates over republican.

Because of accelerated news cycles and proliferation of news and information sources opinions move and change quickly.  That makes the tracking polls superior to the polls that are just a snapshot.  The “snap shot” polls only capture a moment in time vs. a rolling average.

Put your trust in pure research companies over polls sponsored or done by media companies.  The bottom half of the list is dominated by media outlets such as WSJ, NBC, ABC and FOX.  And the two overall worst were the New York Times/CBS poll and Newsweek’s.  All of these snapshot polls consistently over rated Obama’s support and put him much further ahead.  They gave the appearance of a much bigger margin between Obama and McCain.  Media companies do these polls for marketing and PR purposes as much as to provide content to their viewer and readers.  Going forward, they should be somewhat discounted after this very poor performance.  Newsweek’s poll was particularly galling – they usually had Obama up by 12-15 points.  And, since they promoted the heck out of their survey it made news because it was showing such a wide spread.

I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt that their poll was just a poorly done marketing gimmick.  I would be shocked, shocked to learn that objective, unbiased news organizations such as Newsweek and the NY Times would try to manipulate the election by showing Obama ahead by huge margins that no research company was finding. 

Anyway, it’s time to move on and wish President-elect Obama good luck.  And one final message to the media.  Please give Mr. Obama some space and let him pick his cabinet without the need to vet (a.k.a. try to find information to ruin their lives) the people he may be considering.  We will be a better country if you show some restraint and class.

The reports of bad news from the world of traditional media have been startling.  Check this link to the I Want Media site and you will see story after story of layoffs and cut backs in everything from staff to frequency.  It seems that all sectors are being hit from consumer to B2B.  US News and World Report is becoming a monthly, and the Christian Science Monitor is closing the print edition.  The cutbacks are hitting all the big names: Time, Conde Nast, Rodale and G&J.  In addition, the troubles of daily newspapers have been well documented. 

This seems different than the usual end of the year cut backs that seem to happen in the industry.  It would be tempting to explain away this activity to a general economic slowdown and impending recession.  That is a big factor for sure and media companies are smart to pare cost going into 2009.  However, I think something bigger is going on than just recession based cutting.  The long talked about decline of print media may be gaining some steam, and approaching critical mass.

Traditional media companies are under intense pressure to transition their business from print to digital and alternative media.  The shift of business model is a killer because with rare exception, people do not often pay for online media vs. print subscriptions and the advertising CPMs for online are much smaller than print.  The web has become the default in most cases for information gathering and reading content.  In the past I never thought I would abandon the daily newspaper.  Now, I keep asking myself why am I paying $30 a month to have the Boston Globe delivered.  All the content is online for free and by time I get a chance to read it at night, the news is ancient.  In the “Green” age having a newspaper dropped at your door everyday seems very wasteful and not eco-friendly.   It now seems clear that information gathering and readership behavior has changed forever. 

The news is equally bad for print media on the advertiser side since print advertising is both expensive and un-trackable. Not a great combination in era of ROI based marketing.  The trend of companies communicating directly with customers and prospects is here to stay and growing.  The content marketing movement is clearly taking a bite out of traditional media.  Custom media is growing at the expense of print media in many cases.  More and more companies are bypassing media companies and creating their own private media channel.  In fact, we just launched a magazine for Aramark, the food service company, to talk directly to customers in the healthcare vertical.  You can see the details here. In addition, we are constantly talking to clients about digital magazines and online video to talk directly to their customer and prospects.  These sometimes are from budgets that traditionally had gone to traditional advertising.

Hopefully the people running media companies recognize the permanent status of these trends and are not just hoping for the market to “turn around”.   It is time for a new business model and cost structure.   However, the biggest change needed is mindset.  For today’s media brand the web needs to be the center of the universe and print thought of as an ancillary product.  This change needs to start at the top of these companies and they have to get out of their comfort zone.  Perhaps the news this month is the first step.  The first step of a long and tough journey that is now necessary for survival.

Here are some follow up thoughts to our election prediction post of last week and some links to check out.

I had a few people question me about my comment surrounding possible fraud on Obama’s contribution web site.  Here are more details: They disabled the security feature that makes sure a billing address matches a credit card number.  This is pretty standard stuff on almost every e-commerce web site.  Many conservative bloggers went onto the site and donated $5 under names such as Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, A. Hitler and my favorite Fraudulent Voter, with made up addresses and they were accepted.  If you Google “Obama contribution web site security” you will see plenty of postings.  If you don’t want to believe right wing bloggers, here is the NY Times on the story.  By disabling the security, they could take contribution from wealthy donors who already gave their legal limit or from donors outside the US.  The RNC is not going to give up on this one.

When ABC’s Charlie Gibson questioned Barack Obama on the topic, he said it was too hard to report the names of over two million donors from his web site.  Charlie just took the answer and moved on which is unbelievable considering two factors.

1. Anyone with even the most basic knowledge of technology and software knows how simple and easy it is to download a database from a web commerce engine into excel.  The man who made fun of McCain for not using email gets a pass.  Could you imagine the outrage if it was the Republican who raised $600 million, passed on public financing and had this happen on his web site?

2. What happened to Charlie the Grand Inquisitor who spent two days trying to make Sarah Palin look bad? (with assist from Sarah herself)

Here are some other interesting and random tidbits picked up over the weekend.

Great expectations – Obama certainly has his followers whipped up with hope and change and the spreading of wealth.  This clip is a classic and must been seen.  It features Peggy Joseph, Obama supporter, telling a reporter that if Obama wins she won’t have to worry about paying for gas or her mortgage anymore.  The O-man may want to think about managing expectations.  Peggy should probably keep making her mortgage payments for now.

Keeping it in perspective – Check out this local Detroit news clip of a woman who would not give Halloween candy to Obama supporters. You have to watch this nutty lady, her name is Shirley.  This is not exactly going to help the Republican Party build a new image going forward.

Media Bias – A new report from the Kennedy School at Harvard.  They did a solid survey about perceived media bias.  Link to it here, but here is the lead:

Most Americans do not trust what they hear or read in media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign. Poll results just released by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and the Merriman River Group show that 62% of those surveyed are distrustful of campaign media coverage and that same percentage think that the media does a poor job of separating their own opinions from the facts in their reporting. The public’s trust has not improved since one year ago, when a statistically equivalent 64% said they did not trust the media’s election coverage.

Also, incase you have not read it; check out this pretty brave column on media bias and its causes from Michael Malone of ABC News. 

Did you know there are several web sites devoted to Hillary Clinton supporters who still hold a serious grudge against Sen. Obama?  I really doubt many of them will vote for McCain/Palin, but they are still bitter.  Here is a post from one of their forums that is handy to read today.  It is a compilation of news stories from this time four years ago predicting a big Kerry win over Bush. 

I have been looking at polls all weekend, and there is something screwy going on with them, especially the state polling.  They are all over the map from Obama blowouts to three point races in the same state.  I think it has to do with the weighting of likely voters.  They try to weight and balance the proportion of party affiliation to make it representative.  Every pollster is using a slightly different model and that is accounting for the variation.  There is no right answer to know how many new Democratic voters there actually are and if they will come out and vote.  Also, these polls usually undercount Republicans as they did in 2004.  On top of that, no one has any idea of what role race is playing in the polling.  My gut says, based on primary results, that Obama’s numbers are over stated by a 2-3 percentage points.  If that is true and the undecided break for McCain we are at a dead even race.  Or, Obama will win by 7-8 points and the whole thing will be over when PA, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina are called at 8 pm eastern.  The people running the network polling operation should be pretty careful about using exit polls to make early calls of states.  There are too many unknown weighting variables to take into account this year.  Chances are someone is going to get burned by calling a state wrong based on faulty exit poll projections.

All I know for sure is that on January 21, 2009 (my birthday!) one of these guys is going to spend his first full day in the Oval Office with nothing but trouble and bad news on his famous desk.  Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.
 

Here are the final predictions on the Presidential election from numerous Think Tank contributors.  We don’t want to be like the one-sided mainstream media, so in the interest in being fair and balanced here are a variety of opinions and predictions.

Check back here after the election for the post-mortem on the actual results.

Please take the time to read through and please comment or send me your own prediction to gplutsky@kingfishmedia.com and we’ll post them.

Sam Whitmore, Media Survey

Barack Obama will win by five percentage points in the popular vote and with a plurality of between 40 and 50 votes in the Electoral College.

The Senate will go 58-42 in favor of the Democrats.

Sarah Palin will be another winner, as portrayed on Fox News. Fox will side with her in its coverage of the rift that developed between her and John McCain. Her groundwork for 2012 will begin to be laid on Election Night.

Joe Pulizzi, Junta 42

Whether you lean more to the right or to the left, this election if firmly focused on the economy.  If you look at the history of US elections, when the economy is the #1 issue going into the election, there is almost always a change in party, or a “throw the bums out” philosophy. Over the past couple weeks; you’ve seen McCain work to distance himself as much as possible from the Bush administration to try to combat this issue. Nonetheless, it’s pretty clear that Obama will take the election, most likely by a significant margin considering the severity of the economic crisis.

Although there are many important issues being discussed by both parties (health care, abortion rights, Iraq), this election comes down to this one issue.  My prediction, with just a few days until the election, is that Obama will win the popular vote by at least eight percentage points, and take the electoral vote by amassing 363 total electoral votes to McCain’s 175.

Gretel Going, Channel V Media

As someone who is more concerned with the U.S.’s global relations than my own portfolio; who sees more importance in caring for those in need than buying myself yet another house; and who wants to uphold the freedom of choice that this nation was founded upon rather than convincing everyone that my way is the right way, I want Obama to win…and by a landslide.

If he wins by only a small margin it doesn’t send out the message that America’s not happy with the status quo. Considering how the rest of the globe views us—and how much they’re affected by our actions (and us by theirs)—I think it’s important that we send this message out loud and clear.

So while I’d love for Obama’s win to dramatically reflect this sentiment, I think he’ll only win by a hair. I’ll take what I can get, though.

Gordon Plutsky, King Fish Media

It is stunning to think that in a few days we may be electing a president who is the most liberal member of the senate, has socialist ideas on wealth, has questionable past associations and possesses a significant lack of experience and accomplishments.  To top it all off he is a black Ivy Leaguer with the middle name of Hussein.  It sounds like a movie script. Yet, the polls have him ahead and he is likely to win.  How did we get to this point? Let us count the ways.

He is not a Republican nor named George Bush.  All Bush II did was preside over an unpopular bungled war, the Katrina mess and an economic collapse – Quite a nice piece of work, cowboy.  (Don’t blame me, I voted for Gore and Kerry)

By opting out of the federal campaign finance system Obama has raised and spent over three times what McCain had at his disposal.  This advantage has allowed him to carpet bomb ads and build strong local organizations. (Prediction alert – In 2009, a scandal will erupt around the type and nature of some his smaller contributors who’s names are not being reported)  The Washington Post has the story here.

John McCain, while an inspiring person is not an inspiring candidate.  And, he is not the candidate of the base of his party who never embraced him.  What happened to the right wing “values” voters who helped elect Bush twice?  Will they show up on Nov 4th?  If not for Sarah Palin and her appeal to the right McCain would be down 15 points.  She is drawing huge crowds everywhere, well, except for Massachusetts and Manhattan – home base of the liberal elite.

Barack the Wealth Spreader has used class warfare in the way of promised tax cuts and other goodies for “working people” while demonizing “rich” people and businesses.  Obama has leveraged envy and resentment for all it is worth.  Ask not what you can do for your country; ask what Barack can do for you.

   The O-Man on Casual Campaign Fridays

The end of journalism from the mainstream media as we knew it in the form of cheerleading for Obama. They fell for his message of hope n’ change like a teenage girl in love.  The vast majority of the media has been in the tank for him and did the dirty work to discredit his opponents.  First it was Hilary Clinton and then McCain before the brutalization of Gov. Palin.  Joe the Plumber and Bristol Palin were scrutinized more than Obama’s history with Bill Ayers.  It is beyond me why media business models (newspapers, magazines and broadcast networks) that are in real trouble chose to alienate half the county.  In the long term, this will not work out well for the national media.  They have lost all credibility.

And the biggest reason – the timing of the collapse of the finance and banking industry a few weeks before the election was probably point, game and match.  The drop in the stock market accompanied McCain down in the polls.  Books will eventually be written about the causes, but for right now, it is perceived to be the fault of Bush and the Republicans in general.  The general sentiment is to throw the Republicans out of office and give Obama a chance – this is a very legitimate rationale.  This fortunate timing is the reason why he may become the first Democrat in 44 years to top 50% in the popular vote.  The depths of the economic bad news will likely bring in voters who would never vote for Obama under normal circumstances.

The combination of Bush, the fundraising advantage, media bias and current economy are virtually impossible to beat.  However, there is one thought that is haunting me and that is Obama’s performance in the popular vote in the democratic primary vs. Hillary Clinton.  She beat him consistently down the stretch and would have won the nomination if there were a few more states left to contest.  In many of the big swing states the undecided voters broke for Clinton.  McCain has a history of closing strong and the polls are tightening after Obama took a big lead a few weeks ago.  Obama, who has not been in many tough fights during his charmed life, may not be a closer.  For these reasons I think it will be tighter than the polls indicate.  I am calling the popular vote for Obama 51.5 – 48.5, and the electoral votes 311-227.

This election battle will be over but not the war. Being the opposition party (and getting Bush off their backs) will energize the Republicans and conservative base.  The race for 2012 begins on November 5th.  Governors Palin, Jindal, Pawlenty, Huckabee and Romney, please start your engines.  However, if McCain pulls it off, Hillary Clinton lives to run another day.  Close your eyes and imagine this – October 5th, 2012 and Luke Russert is moderating a Presidential debate between VP Sarah Palin and Sen. Hillary Clinton.  That would be some sweet Karma.

Speaking of Sarah Barracuda, here is my talented wife Susan’s entry into her company’s pumpkin carving content.  It speaks for itself.

Larry Walsh, Ziff Davis Enterprise

The lead headline of the Nov. 5 New York Times will read “McCain Wins, Obama Launches 2012 Presidential Bid.” 

The headline might as likely read, “Obama Captures White House, GOP Aims to Capture House in 2010.”

In the closing days of the 2008 Presidential election season, one that began more than 24 months ago, predicting a winner is an invitation to foolishness. Obama/Biden is the likely winner, given the trending and momentum, but McCain/Palin show signs of closing the gaps in key battleground states in the final stretch. The final outcome: too close to call. The pundits are probably correct that the sheer volume of new voters and the anticipated record-high turn outs will likely break all of the previous statistical polling models.

But think about the previous time reference: 24-month road to the White House. Our Canadian neighbors dissolved their government, called for elections, launched a multi-party nationwide campaign and elected new leadership in a period of weeks. Americans, on the other hand, have created a system that will likely result in the perpetual presidential campaign. No sooner we cast our ballots will we immediately see contenders throw their hats into the ring for the next round of polling.

Should Obama carry the mantle of the Democratic party back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we’ll see Sarah Palin’s profile permanently elevated to national political leadership and Joe Biden positioned as the guardian of the Democratic leadership in Congress. And with every speech, every policy brief and every piece of legislation, Obama will be selling himself for another term in office.

Should McCain mount a miracle comeback, he will be charged as the caretaker of the GOP leadership and setting up the White House for a successor. Perhaps that successor will be Sarah Palin, but more than likely Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee or some other rising star.

In this new age of absurd politics, the American people lose because they will be overexposed and manipulated by a continuous stream political marketing designed to force reactionary decisions rather than long-term policy direction. “Change We Need” and “Country First” are not strategies, but taglines. And, sadly, those taglines are now being mistaken as positions and substance.

Assume Pennsylvania stays blue; Obama will take the White House with a 5 percent gross national vote margin and 300+ electoral votes. And with that the 2012 presidential campaign will begin immediately. I might as well cast my ballot in early voting now.

Brad Ketchum, King Fish Media

Definition of “change” (or changed, chang•ing, chang•es)
As defined by Answer.com in association with Webster’s Dictionary

Verb:
          
1. To cause to be different: change the spelling of a word.
2. To give a completely different form or appearance to; transform:changed the yard into a garden.
3. To give and receive reciprocally; interchange: change places.
4. To exchange for or replace with another, usually of the same kind orcategory: change one’s name; a light that changes colors.

Change is a word that has come to define the 2008 election and by itself, the very meaning of the word has come to represent one party’s entire platform. The platform for “change.”  But as we all know, change for change’s sake really doesn’t accomplish anything as the definitions above make quite clear: “to cause to be different; to give a completely different form or appearance; to exchange or replace with another, usually of the same kind or category.”

Clearly, no matter who is elected, they certainly will look different in form and appearance from the current administration. But we shouldn’t elect our President based on appearance, their oratory skills, the form they assume or how much they spend on advertising. We need to elect a President that views the current situation as one that needs fixing and improving in order to compete in a challenging global economy and environment. We don’t need government to be bigger, to tell us what to do with our money, to spend more of our money or to merely make change for change’s sake. Change needs to happen as a byproduct of steering this country back on course, not as a platform bereft of sound decision-making, ideals and understanding.

If we’re going to change the way government does business, change has to actually mean something. It has to be supported by ideas, theories, and facts. To merely elect a President who promises change isn’t much different then deciding when to remodel the bathroom. The bathroom is functional, serves its purpose well but its time for a “change.” The thinking is that if we change it, everything will not only look nicer (that olive green sink—yikes), but somehow will work better. But will it?

No matter whom you vote for in this year’s election, don’t mistake change for good or better. We all know that change means many things. Some good and some bad. Rather, vote for the candidate you think has the experience, ideas, values and facts that will help lead this country into the next decade. Do your homework. After all, that new sink might look a lot nicer, but in the end, it can still get plugged.

I have to believe rational minds will prevail and change for change’s sake loses. McCain by a stiff arm’s length.

Kate Fleming, Channel V Media

I’m sure I’m supposed to come down firmly on one side or the other, but right now I’m pretty firmly stuck between my optimist and my pessimist selves.

Optimistically—and, bizarrely enough, rationally—Obama wins on Tuesday.  Key groups that he has rallied—young people, African Americans—turn out in historic and unprecedented numbers to move things decisively in Obama’s favor.  Although there are protests from Republicans about voter fraud and issues at the polls, these are no match for the basic fact that Obama secured a clear and decisive victory.

Now for my pessimist self:  in this self’s brain, ominous scenarios keep swirling.  Many first-time voters, a majority of whom are Obama supporters, arrive at the polls to find challenges to their registrations, people are turned away at overcrowded polling stations (more likely to be in urban—and therefore—Democratic  strongholds), and we see something akin to 2000. Supposedly energized young voters stay at home.  And another 2000 repeat:  Obama wins the popular vote, but John McCain wins the Electoral College.  At which point I, along with millions of others Americans, descend on Washington for the largest protest in years.  But it makes no difference. 

McCain keels over days after he is sworn into office. President Palin, Todd, and the whole Palin clan take over the White House, and bring “Wasilla Main Street,” “Real American” values (none of your fancy “education” for us, dontcha know) to the country.  Suddenly, W looks like a wise leader.

I won’t believe an Obama victory until I see it!

Cameron Brown, King Fish Media

President, John McCain, by 17,200 votes as he wins NC, Indiana and Pennsylvania.

Tim Coffin

President, John McCain, with 51% of the popular vote

Colleen Brown

President, Obama by 10,500 votes

Brian Bucky

Obama - 54%
McCain - 43%
Ralph Nader - 3%

Ekem

Obama - 59%
McCain - 39%
Other - 2%

Kathleen Martin, RocketCom

Winners and Losers

No matter what your thoughts are related to the candidates this year, there are going to be some winners and losers this November 4th.
 
On the top of my loser list would be the majority of reporters in the media.  They have clearly demonstrated that neither truth nor facts are required for a news story.
    
Hollywood will also find itself on the worst dressed list for this election season.  Apparently playing a politician or person of importance on television has left these individuals delusional when it comes to their influence on the majority of voters.
 
Topping the winner list would be democracy.  With record turnouts expected at the polls and early voting lines being opened to allow all registered Americans to vote, the democratic process remains alive and well in the United States.
 
Each of us will also be winners.  While we may be paying more in taxes, healthcare, gas, groceries or anything else we purchase at least the campaign commercials are over.

Kimberly Jackson, King Fish Media

I’m Gonna Miss Sarah - er uh Tina Fey!

Five days till voting and I have just one thing to say:  I am really going to miss Tina Fey.  My favorite part about this election has been the resurgence of Saturday Night Live.  Our country may have needed change, but we also needed a good laugh.  Talk about delivering content that was just what the Comedy Doctor ordered!

Now for the important part: my prognostication for the election.  It was Tim Russert (boy do I miss him) who said “Florida! Florida! Florida!”  My prediction is “Ohio! Ohio! Ohio!  Ohioans have picked winners every year since 1944 EXCEPT for 1960 when they chose Nixon over Kennedy.  I am predicting Obama by a touchdown, 7% points overall across the country with a big win in Ohio.  I also am swinging out and calling Florida and North Carolina as Blue, not dark Blue, but Blue enough to add to the overall point totals.

And as the token mom in the group, I am going to say to my friends and colleagues what I say to may kids, regardless of the outcome.  I didn’t vote for George Bush and my children know that.  One day, one of them called George Bush a bad president and a litter bug.  (For a 7 year old that was a real insult!)  I told them they were not allowed to say mean things about the President especially if they couldn’t prove that the comments were true.  They countered with “but mom you didn’t vote for him, so you must not like him!”  I explained to them all that no matter who I vote for and whether or not I like them - the person who wins is MY President too.  I don’t have to agree with him/her but he/she gets my respect because it is a very hard job to be President and we should be grateful for their service.  No matter what, we have two Americans who love this country so much that they are willing to work around the clock for the next  4-8 years (for much less money than your average CEO) in service to our county and in dedication of their lives to the American people. 

So Sarah Palin, have fun back in Alaska.  Somehow I believe that we haven’t seen the last of your folksy-good ol’ self.  Remember that Obama started off with a big night at the DNC 4 years ago and it has catapulted him to greatness.  Keep your rented wardrobe handy, you may need it again soon!
 

It now seems clear that we are heading into rough waters next year.  You can see the slowdown everywhere.  It will be interesting to watch how marketers respond to the challenge.  Some will overreact, shut things down and go dark to save money.  Yes, you will save money, but you are also sending a signal to prospects, customers and competitors that you are nervous and perhaps a company that will not be around for the long haul.  Other companies will just continue bad habits like overspending on “branding” and expensive, hard to measure ads in rented media such as broadcast television and print.  However, I think the smart companies will be opportunistic by mining their most valuable asset – their customer database.

This is a great time to talk to your customers with your own private media channel and accomplish two important objectives.  First, you can firm up their support and make sure they have a strong affinity for your company, and won’t be swayed to leave for a cheaper product or service.   More importantly, it is an opportunity to earn incremental revenue from a group of people who you have already acquired and sold as customers.  Now it is time to reap the reward of the investment you made to make that person a customer. 

This week I received a mailing at home from a company who does a great job of cultivating their customer base – Lowe’s – the home improvement store.  As a homeowner I am a pretty regular customer, and I prefer it to Home Depot, mainly because of the customer service and nicer atmosphere of the stores.  Recently I bought a storm door and had Lowe’s installed it for me since I am completely useless in that area.  I must have received 10 calls from Lowes and the contractor they hired to set up the appointment, thank me for the purchase and make sure I was satisfied with the installation job.  I was pretty impressed, and it left me with a great experience and strong affinity towards Lowe’s.

The mailing I received was sent to current customers and had two main messages.  One was to send two gift cards – one for $10 off a $50 purchase and the other was $25 off of a $250 purchase.  They called them “Project Starters” which is an excellent idea. The cards are a great method to give someone the motivation to get into a store and spend money with Lowe’s.  The other message was near and dear to my heart.  It was an offer to subscribe to one of three custom media magazine’s that Lowe’s produces for customers.  They gave a web address and an 800 number to subscribe and see back issues on the site.

Lowe’s is doing a great job of creating a content based private media channel to retain and market to their customer base.  When you combine that effort with superior customer service, you have a company that will do fine even during a housing and economic downturn.  I wonder how many companies will follow Lowe’s down the Private Media path of content marketing.  It is much harder than just going dark or the status quo, but the payoff is significantly greater.  There is opportunity in chaos and the companies who are smart in 2009 will emerge even stronger for the recovery.

After a year of campaigning, I am getting cranky with the whole deal.  Less than month to go and I am punch drunk - not to mention poorer thanks to the stock market.  Here are a dozen phrases or issues that I have had more than enough of hearing about.  Some of these are hardy perennials that come around every four years.  How about you?  Do you have a pet political peeve?  Send it in and I’ll post it here in the King Fish ThinkTank.  Click here for Part I
 

Wall Street vs. Main Street – Class warfare at its most insipid.  Didn’t Wal-Mart wipe out Main Street?  Shouldn’t it be Wall Street vs. the Mall?  It is silly when Obama is a classic cultural elitist and McCain is a very wealthy man.  Neither one of them is very connected to the working class family. 

My Plan – Every candidate crafts elaborate policy plans that become endlessly debated during the campaign.  These plans which are dutifully posted on their web sites are forgotten on Jan 20th.   None of them are realistic or have any chance of passing muster with Congress and the lobbyists who actually run Congress.  A giant waste of time for everyone involved. 

Scranton/Amtrak Joe Biden – Very tired of the way he has been reinvented into a blue collar guy.  He moved from Scranton when he was 10 - 56 years ago and has been in the cushy Senate since 1973.  I moved from Hollis, Queens when I was seven – that doesn’t make me a member of Run DMC.  Also, the train trip from DC to Wilmington, Del. is 80 minutes one way.  I used to commute for an hour each way on the Long Island Rail Road, where is my medal?
 

The Bridge to Nowhere – McCain talked about this snoozer endlessly during the primary and it picked up steam with Palin.  The media and Obama then went after it like it was a critical issue.  They actually started comparing it to John Kerry’s “I was for the war before I was against it.”  Not exactly the same scale and it serves to remind people how lame the last Democratic candidate was four years ago.
 

Talking Point Robots – It is infuriating how spokespeople and surrogates from each campaign go on cable news and just repeat the same talking points over and over no matter what question is asked.  Do they think they are fooling anyone?  My least favorite is the unctuous Bill Burton from the Obama campaign.  No matter what he is asked he blames Bush, ties Bush to McCain and closes with we can’t afford four more years.  He is very aggressive in his attempt to stick to his script.  The thought of him as Press Secretary in a potential Obama administration is too depressing for words.

Man Love for Obama – I can no longer watch MSNBC and witness Chris (my leg is tingling) Mathews and Keith Olberman moon over the O-man.  They are joined by a good number of their colleagues on every network except for Fox, of course.  I just don’t see it or find him all that dreamy.  Obama comes off to me like a humorless professor who looks down his nose at you because you don’t agree with him.  Has he cracked a single joke or delivered a laugh line in this entire campaign? Come on Barry, loosen up. Who knows, I guess he is likeable enough.

Less than 30 days to go and then we can turn our full attention to something that really matters – Football.  
 

For the next couple of weeks, I will be on Folio Magazine’s Marketing Excellence site under the “Ask the Expert” column.  It is an informative site, and I will also be contributing to the blog from time to time.  If you are in magazine marketing it’s a good resource that you should make one of your regular web stops.

Click here to check it out

After a year of campaigning, I am getting cranky with the whole deal - last night’s “debate” was a low point.  Time to scrap the fake “Town Hall” format.  It does not work.  Here are a dozen phrases or issues that I have had more than enough hearing about.  Some of these are hardy perennials that come around every four years.  How about you?  Do you have a pet political peeve?  Send it in and I’ll post it here in the King Fish ThinkTank.
 

This is the Most Important Election of our Lifetime– I have heard this one every four years since I have been following elections – back to 1976.  A sense of historical importance can only be determined when looking back with a greater context.  “The Most Important Ever” is a pretty high bar.  This may not even be a very important election in the long run.   With economy and Iraq a mess, the next President doesn’t have a lot of leeway to get things done.

Earmarks – Enough Mr. McCain, enough!  Nobody cares, nobody comes out to votes on the issue and it is inside baseball.  McCain should not waste valuable debate time rambling on about earmarks when he should be talking about how Obama’s philosophy on business tax is to the left of Castro.

I Love Israel- In every election the candidates bend over backwards to profess their undying love of Israel and the Jewish people.  (Translation:  We love all that Wall Street and Hollywood money.)  Who knew the goyim loved us so much.  In fact, Joe Lieberman is McCain’s BFF!  Too bad Joe and I can’t get into John and Cindy’s country club. (easy, its just a joke)

The Abortion Dance – A specialty among Democratic Catholics such as Joe Biden.  It goes like this – “Because of my faith I am personally against abortion, but I support a woman right to chose.”  Huh?  Either you are pro choice or you are not.  I have a feeling St. Peter isn’t going to buy this one either.

The 40 Million Americans Without Health Care - This group makes an appearance every four years, and not so much during the in-between years.  The Democrats always promise that they will insure them and make them the centerpiece of many a speech.  It will likely never happen since the 300 million who do have insurance are not interested in seeing a decline in service or quality to socialize healthcare.  We will be hearing about them again soon – in 2012.

The Pundit Parade – How sick are we of the same talking heads making the same comments on every cable news channel.  They are all there primarily to push their consulting business, speaking careers, books etc.  You know what they are going to say before they say it.   For how much longer is Paul Begala and James Carville going to be living off the fact they helped get Bill Clinton 43% of the popular vote in 1992.  How about Mary Matalin?  Her claim to fame is working for Bush 41’s unsuccessful reelection campaign, advising Dick Cheney and supporting Fred Thompson’s very brief presidential bid.  Well played Mary, well played.

Check back Friday for Part II

Dear Steve Schmidt, Chief Strategist McCain Campaign,

After watching Sarah Palin light it up against Biden and draw huge crowds this weekend, I feel compelled to give some you marketing and media advice.  Love how you energized McCain and pulled ahead after the convention, but it has been all down hill since then.  The bail out timing was a bad break, and no matter what happens now it is Bush’s fault and by association McCain’s.  That may have been a tipping point in a year that should be a Democratic layup equivalent to Carter’s post-Nixon/Watergate win.  The RCP poll average has you down six, but the numbers have been volatile and may not be that accurate.  You still have a chance, time to take the gloves off and hand the ball to your point guard – Sarah Barracuda Palin. 

Your media missteps nearly killed your hottest brand, but it is not too late to salvage it with a new custom media approach.  What you have pulled off so far is impressive. As Alaska’s Governor she had no reason to be expert on issues such as internal Iranian politics, nuclear proliferation and Wall Street regulation.  You had five weeks to prepare her to debate a guy in who has been in the Senate since 1973 in front of 70 million people and you did a decent job.  However, you messed up the press relations and almost sunk her (and your campaign) by feeding her to the mainstream media on their terms.

What were you thinking?  I admit I may have given the interview to Charlie Gibson, who knew he would be a condescending ass? However, feeding her to Katie Couric was criminal.  The entire concept of network evening news is old school and a relic.  It has not been relevant or important since the 80’s.  In today’s media landscape, the consumer is in control and news is a commodity that is available on demand, 24/7 on any platform. The idea of influential people sitting down to watch 22 minutes of news at 6:30 every night has gone the way of parachute pants and knit ties.

Let’s face it, the mainstream media (MSM) is in the tank for Obama and has shown a willingness to do his dirty work by attacking McCain and Palin.  What possessed you to give into them and send Governor Palin to be interviewed by a woman who is floundering with horrible ratings and is on the verge of being fired?   Couric’s back is up against the wall and you gave her a chance to matter again – and you gave her complete control over content, camera work and editing.  You made people talk about Saturday Night Live again for the first time since the days of Eddie Murphy playing Gumby, damn it. 

Did you cave from the pressure of the MSM?  Did you actually take them seriously when they said it was the role of the media to vet candidates?  I don’t recall reading that in the Constitution.  The coastal liberal elite think that people in flyover land are too dumb to decide for their own, so it is their responsibility to decide for them.  They decided this one back in January, ask Hillary.

Here at King Fish, we have a philosophy called Private Media.  You need to own your own private media channel, not rent the old one from the MSM.  I suggest you create the Sarah Palin channel, to talk directly only to the voters that matter – swing voters in the key swing states.  Forget the traditional media of the networks and print media; you don’t need them – not a bit. They are losing significance and influence in the lives of Americans.  It is not coincidence that the networks and newspapers are the ones whose business models are most under attack.  You can get better marketing ROI handing out flyers in front of Penn Station than advertising during NBC’s new shows (hey, let’s remake Knight Rider).  The New York Times and its junior varsity team The Boston Globe have turned themselves into daily Obama campaign bulletins.  Is it any wonder their profits and stock price are declining?  The Times is cutting costs, sections and staff while losing what was left of their objectivity.

It is time to keep Palin away from these faltering outlets and have her talk directly to voters.  You will take heat for this strategy.  A hue and cry will come from people in NY, Boston, and LA who mock and hate her.  Who cares, let the NPR crowd stew over their soy lattes; you have already lost those states.  Focus on your target market – swing voters in swing states who identify with her and feel she is “one of them”.   Let the voters decide on Nov. 4th and let the chips fall where they may.

You are sitting on a pile a of cash, so buy up half hour time slots in critical local market to run infomercials and promote the hell out of them.  Create the shows as town halls where people can see Palin speak directly to voters with no media filter.  Embrace social networking to a much greater extent than you have – go viral with web video in a big way.  Enlist word of mouth marketing with PTO groups and churches in Middle America. Try some live streaming video web casts with Sarah where she can answers question directly from voters, and not from agenda driven members of the media. 

The game is well into the 4th quarter, put the ball in her hands and have her attack and bust the zone.  You can’t wait for Obama to make a mistake; he won’t, he is too good a politician.  Have her hit him hard on Ayers, taxes, and “the white flag of surrender” in Iraq.  Sarah Palin needs to take her message directly to the right voters and forget about traditional media.  The web, live events, you tube, email and word of mouth will be your media vehicles.

It still may not be enough since it seems that a slim majority of American are ready to cast their lot with Obama because he is a blank canvas to where they can project their hopes, dreams and fears.  Look on the bright side; if you and Gov Palin (or Gov. Jindal or Gov. Pawlenty) takes him on in 2012 you will have an actual Obama record to run against instead of slogans and promises.  No matter what happens over the next four years, good or bad, you can hang it on him.  It may be fun to take the easy route, it has been for Obama.

I feel like the guy at the gym with a giant walkman instead of an IPOD.  Or the weird co-worker who doesn’t have cable TV.  Yes, until this week I was not on Facebook. I am not a total stooge, and am quite active on Linked In and really enjoy it.  I was under the mistaken impression that Facebook was not for business.  I was pretty wrong – just about everyone on my Linked In list has their own page.  At the urging of several marketing colleagues and my super terrific PR agency I took the plunge.  I have spent the last few nights at home reaching out to friends and business associates and fooling around with the site.  It is a world onto itself.  Linked In is a somewhat spartan, no frills all business site.   I spoke with someone recently who told me it is one of her best sources for leads.  It does the job but kind of dull – like a Toyota Camry.

Facebook is a strange mix of your personal and business life.  I am not totally sure I like that, but everyone else seems to be having a grand old time.   There are two ways that personal and business mix.  First, I have business contacts mixed in with people from my personal life – in my case from my gym (North Shore Cross Fit has it own group page) and some friends and family.  Secondly, the site gives you the ability to express yourself in all kinds of ways – music, movies, relationships, pictures and politics.  And, everything can be commented on – lots of witty banter.  I have already engaged in some fun back and forth with some radical leftist commie friends over politics.  It is all in good fun, but does everyone else who can read it know that? 

The other strange feature is the twitter like stream of consciousness that you can post on a regular basis.  So far it has been amusing because I know some very amusing people, but what is the purpose?  Like most social networking sites, it is a freaky intersection of narcissism and voyeurism.

However, I do like being in contact with past co-workers whom I really like but never have a real reason to talk to during a busy day.  I am going to jump in and hope that King Fish gets some business benefit out of the whole thing.  I will be watching it closely, and will report on its success as a business and marketing tool.  Hey, if you come by, friend me. 

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Folio 08 Conference in Chicago.  It is billed as the national event for magazine professionals.  Ironically, there was not a lot magazine talk.  The big buzz was about web sites, lead gen, SEO, digital editions and face to face events.  I ran a lively and interactive session on B2B event models to a packed room.  It was clear that the “magazine” professionals are looking to extend their brand, and find new sources of revenue. 

While there was plenty of talk about web sites and events, it struck me that there was not a lot of focus on custom media.  The most valuable assets these media brands have are their circ files and the relationship their readers have with the brand.  Magazines can leverage that asset by creating custom media channels for their clients to talk directly to their readers.  Most are hesitant to do that for many reasons, but chief among them is a desire to stay within the paradigm they know so well.  It has been my experience that once you ask a traditional media person to shift away from running display ads, they get concerned.  It could be worries over editorial integrity, or the fact that selling run of book ads is so darn profitable they don’t want to give it up.  The fact is, selling print ads in a B2B publication is going to continue to be a challenge due to the obvious reason you can’t show measurable results.  And, there are so many great other options to generate ROI – web casts, lead gen, web sponsorships, events etc. 

Traditional media companies need to take a hard look at their business models and think about custom media as an integral part of the mix rather than an ancillary business.  When you get right down to it, marketers want your readers as customers and prospects.  The best way to survive this crazy market is to give it to them in as many ways as possible.

The conventions are over and I am looking at the numbers coming across the web and they are shocking.  A while back we covered the topic of media bias and sexism that was directed at Hillary Clinton and opined that it helped Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination by a slim margin. (By the way, in a little covered story, the DNC just announced that over 1000 delegates still voted for Sen. Clinton even after she released her delegates to vote for Obama –Yes We Can?)

It turns out that the assault on Hillary was just the warm up for a full beat down that was given to Gov. Sarah Palin after John McCain named her to the ticket a week ago.  The attacks on her experience, gender, kids, looks and home state have been well documented and I will spare you my rants and raves about NBC, Keith Olberman, Campbell Brown, CNN, Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell, Jonathan Alter, Sally Quinn, Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Gloria Steinem, The Daily Kos, Andrew Sullivan et al. 

The media pile on got so bad that stories started circulating that she may drop out and the McCain campaign would be embarrassed and doomed.  The sharks were circling and smelling blood.  My two cents is that sexism and the double standard were just a small part of the vitriol.  The left leaning mainstream media has decided that Obama must be elected President at all costs.  They have personally invested themselves in this notion and there is no turning back now.  Oprah endorsed him and they can’t let her down.  They knew that the pick of Palin could finally get the conservative base off the sidelines and enthusiastic about a McCain/Palin ticket. 

All was riding on her Wed. night speech at a lackluster convention that was delayed by a hurricane.  Living up to her High School nickname, Sarah Barracuda, she ripped the roof off the place and delivered the best address by a Republican since Ronald Reagan.  She connected with people and went after Obama with a smile and a wink as only Reagan could.  She made Obama’s thin resume and “community organizing” a national joke, and showed herself to be tough, smart and ready.  And, it was viewed by 40 million Americans, the same number who watched Obama the week before.  (This just in – last night McCain received higher ratings than Obama did last Thursday night.) But, did it matter?  Here are the results as of today, exactly one week after she was introduced to the country as a virtual unknown:

From Rasmussen’s Tracking Polls

A week ago, most Americans had never heard of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Now, following a Vice Presidential acceptance speech viewed live by more than 40 million people, Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of American voters. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 37% hold an unfavorable view of the self-described hockey mom. The figures include 40% with a Very Favorable opinion of Palin and 18% with a Very Unfavorable view

The new data also shows significant increases in the number who say McCain made the right choice and the number who say Palin is ready to be President. Generally, John McCain’s choice of Palin earns slightly better reviews than Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden. Perhaps most stunning is the fact that Palin’s favorable ratings are now a point higher than either man at the top of the Presidential tickets this year. As of Friday morning, Obama and McCain are each viewed favorably by 57% of voters. Biden is viewed favorably by 48%.

The Rasmussen tracking poll has the race virtually tied wiping out Obama’s convention bounce, and one third of the survey’s interviews were conducted before Palin’s speech and all of them were done before McCain’s acceptance.  A CBS tracking poll also has the race tied, while Gallup has Obama up four, but many of the interviews in their tracking poll were conducted before Palin’s and McCain’s RNC addresses.  The Monday report will have the full impact of both conventions for the first time.

Some other tidbits – SurveyUSA’s poll reports that 60% gave Palin an A for her speech and 11% a B.  The same survey shows that voters think she is more of an asset to McCain than Biden is to Obama, and now think that McCain will win.  Oh, and one more – 54% think that the media is rooting for Obama, while 8% feel that way about McCain.  That echoes an earlier Rasmussen poll that said 51% thought the media was being unfair to Gov. Palin and 24% were more likely to vote for her because of that.

Here is the big surprise from Rasmussen today:

Following the Wednesday night speech, voters are fairly evenly divided as to whether Palin or Obama has the better experience to be President. Forty-four percent (44%) of voters say Palin has the better experience while 48% say Obama has the edge. Among unaffiliated voters, 45% say Obama has better experience while 42% say Palin.

              

Think about that for a minute – they are comparing the Democrat running for President against the Republican’s VP.  Obama has been at this for 18 months and has had the media fawning all over him.  In just one week his lack of experience has been exposed.  The turnaround is an incredible change in perception from a 45 minute speech where the mother of five looked into the eyes of the country and spoke from her heart. 

All this could change by next Friday, and you can bet the media will continue to go after Palin and try and trip her up.  However, you can’t deny that the voters of the country are sending a powerful message to the media:  Stop the smears and we don’t care what you think!  As usual the mainstream media is denying any bias, but they need to stop reporting for each other, the Boston/NY/DC corridor and their personal agenda’s.  A nice change for them may be the central message from John McCain this week – Country First.

P.S. Take a break from all these numbers and read this National Review satirical column on Barack Obama and the Chicago machine.  It is laugh out loud funny.

As I watch the Democratic National Convention I can’t help viewing the up coming election as a marketer.  Most pundits say that given President Bush’s low approval ratings this election is the Democrats and Obama’s to lose.  However, I think they just might be on the road to a disappointing defeat.  The Democratic Party does not have a strong brand or unique selling proposition.  They are not clearly articulating what they stand for and their brand promise to voters.  During the primaries Barack Obama got away with a general message of “Hope and Change” and it lasted for a while.  However, it now seems that his weak finish in the primaries (Hillary won 9 of the last 14, some by large margins) was a foreshadowing of his current malaise.  He actually dropped a few points after naming Joe Biden his VP pick.  It will be fascinating to see where the tracking polls have him after his acceptance speech Thursday night and McCain’s VP announcement on Friday afternoon.

Listening to speaker after speaker you would think we are in the midst of another great depression. Sure, we are in an economic slowdown, but it not even an official recession.  In fact, the economy just grew 3.3% in the second quarter.  Based on what I have been hearing you expect to find long lines of people stretching for blocks waiting for free soup and apples.  Not to mention charming hobos with bags at the end of sticks singing “Brother Can You Spare a Dime”.  The Democrats have declared the American Dream is dead, thanks to one George W. Bush.  I don’t think doom and gloom marketing works very well.  By the way, I didn’t hear a single mention of 9/11 or terrorism, and how the Obama plans to keep Americans safe.  Bet you will next week when the Republicans get together.

So, what’s the Democratic brand?  Higher taxes for “the rich” and business and cuts for others, out of Iraq, kind of, sort of socialized healthcare, but not really, no drilling for more oil and pro choice.  What ties it all together, and what do they really stand for?  It is all nuance and nothing you can put on a bumper sticker or a sign.  Nuance is great at cocktail parties and in the faculty lounge, but it makes for a lousy marketing campaign.  They could argue that they are for “working people”, but how?  Where the specifics and what is on Obama’s resume that tells us he can get the job done?  Democrats are always afraid to come out and say anything strong for fear of offending one of the many interest groups who make up the party.  The Democratic Party has become a coalition of special interests and ethnic identity groups rather than a party held together with core beliefs.

Even their attacks on McCain are weak and half-hearted.  They are pinning their hopes on tying him to Bush over and over again.  However, he is not Bush, and in fact McCain is famously independent and known for going against his party on the environment, immigration and campaign finance.  Do they think everyone has forgotten that Bush and McCain were at one time bitter rivals, and McCain was the administration’s loudest critic on tax cuts and the execution of the Iraq war?

In contrast, the Republicans understand core beliefs, brand simplicity and message discipline better than anyone.  What is a Republican?  A free market/low tax person who believes in strong defense, law and order and traditional values.  That’s it in a nutshell.  Everyone understands it and that is the brand promise.  When you vote Republican you know what you are getting – take it or leave it.  There is a reason they have won 7 of the last 10 Presidential elections – they are master marketers. Even their message against Obama is simple and effective, and you will hear it a thousand times between now and November:  He is too inexperienced to be Commander in Chief, he will raise your taxes, and his Ivy League values are too liberal for mainstream Americans.  They will pound him with this all day and everyday.  And throw in a sprinkle of “Hillary got screwed and should have been the nominee” to get the ladies riled up.  Check out this new ad from McCain – it is a powerful use of actual news footage and past statements from prominent Democrats to cast fear, doubt and uncertainty on the experience of Barack Obama.

A lot can happen between now and Election Day, but it is becoming clear that the Democrats have brand identity issues while McCain and the Republicans are finding their voice and hitting their stride.  It is not enough for the Democrats just to be for “change” and complain about President Bush.  They need to tell their customers and prospects in clear, strong and specific language how they plan to make their lives better.  A little too early for a final prediction, but if I were Michele Obama, I would make a few inquiries to see if that $300,000 per year “public service” job she left is still available.

SEO (search engine optimization) has become one of the most important responsibilities of any marketing director/brand manager.  Google is the starting point for two-third of all web searches so you have to play strong in that game.  As most people know there are dozens of methods to getting ranked high by the all knowing Google algorithm. It is worthwhile to hire or talk to one of the many consultants who specialize in SEO.  If you go that route make sure they have a proven track record.  However, it is critical that as a brand marketer it is your responsibility to make sure the SEO tactics align with your marketing and business goals.  While the consultants can help you with the “black box” aspects of SEO, it is up to you to understand how your customers will be looking for your company or product.  Not every company can afford a consultant or to have a specialist on staff.  As the steward of your brand you really need to own this function.  And, once you start excelling in organic search, you can cut back your SEM/Adword expenditures, but that is a whole other topic.

At King Fish we try to practice what we preach, so SEO is one of the most important things we do for our own custom media company and more importantly for our clients.  Here are a few of the lessons learned from a marketing/brand perspective.

Focus on your key words – you can’t be all things to all people, so decided where you want to “win”.  We decided that Custom Media would be our stake in the ground.  Once we focused, we moved from #57 to #9 on the “custom media” key word search in a few months.  We are now consistently on page one or two of Google.  This is single most important aspect to your strategy.  Think about how your target audience will search to find you, and take into consideration the competition.  How are they defining themselves?  Can you beat them at their own game?

Key word density – once you decide on the key word you have to use it often in your site copy, especially on your home page.  It does not always make for great writing, but it works.

Web site structure and URL - make liberal use of your key search terms.

Page headline – once again, keep the focus on your key words.
Fresh relevant content – nothing is more important to keep up your rankings.  This is where a blog can be critical to have a venue for new and relevant content.  Also, you can post news, press releases, white papers and other content rich material that is relevant to your keywords.

Links in to your site – these are easier said than done, but think about relevant partners.  Using services like PR Newswire can work wonders with your releases.  They have a SEO tool that we use often to get our URL out to dozens of sites.

The bottom line is SEO has to become part of everything you do from a marketing perspective with both focus and discipline.  Marketers who don’t put SEO at the top of their agenda do so at their own peril. 

I had the opportunity to contribute another article to Chief Marketer.com.  I wrote about how you can use market research as part of a private custom media program.  For best practices, you should survey your customers and prospects to find out how they like to be communicated with in terms of content and format.  Click here to read how it can help you drive up your marketing ROI.

Last week I was out of action with a nasty case of pneumonia which seems like an odd thing to get in August, but there I was on my couch gasping for breath and watching TV.  I thought I would catch up the Olympics, but in the afternoons you get lots of team handball, bad baseball, women soccer and other stuff that does not make the prime time cut. So, I ended up flipping back and forth between MSNBC and Fox News to watch the run up to Obama’s VP pick.  The big story was how the Obama campaign was going to text message his supporters the pick before releasing it to the media.  As ideas go, it is an excellent one taking advantage of all the benefits of private media channels.  It helps them build their donor list, has a viral nature and allows them to tell the message directly to their “customers”.  It fits in with the younger demo of his supporters for whom texting is part of their everyday life.  And, it makes supporters feel that they are special and in the know.  However, great ideas need great execution and this is where they fell down.  My biggest gripe with the way they handled it was that it dragged out for days.  On Thursday, Obama announced he made a decision and teased it to reporters, and the campaign announced a joint campaign appearance on Sat afternoon in Illinois.

A story hungry press was in a frenzy trying to figure out who it was and why they were waiting so long to announce it.  You can argue that by dragging it out they received a ton of press coverage and owned the news cycle.  That was the take on MSNBC and it a legitimate benefit.  I would argue that by taking so long they made the choice of Joe Biden seem very anti-climatic and played into the fact it was a very conventional choice for a candidate that was all about newness and change – a bit of brand disconnect.  If the choice was Hillary Clinton or someone out of left field the build up would have worked.  The payoff to the suspense was a bit of a dud when Mr. Change picks a 65 year old white man who has been in the Senate since 1973.  Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC was one of many reporters who accurately reported on Thursday that Biden was the choice.  I don’t know what value was gained by waiting until 3am on Sat. morning after the press had already confirm it.  It turns out they had to send it at 3am because no one had checked to see if it was technically possible to send a few million text messages at the same time from the same source.  It was a great idea and fair execution, but huge kudos to the campaign for embracing private media channels and building an affinity relationship with their supporters.

The amusing part of the story was watching the reactions of the two cable news networks.  I think MSNBC has decided to become the liberal version of Fox News, but without the humor.  At this point, the Obama campaign should be paying part of Keith Olberman’s salary.  The Fox anchors led by the very funny Shepard Smith and Neal Cavuto reported on the text message strategy and VP choice in a somewhat mocking satirical manner while still reporting what facts there were to report.  Shepard Smith called it the most important text message in history and Cavuto said texting was for geeks and hoped the whole thing bombs.

Over at MSNBC they did treat the text strategy roll out with the excitement and gravity that the Fox guys were mocking.  The highlight for me was Hardball.  Chris Mathews kept going on and on how the Obama campaign was making a huge mistake if they didn’t announce the VP pick on Thursday night since everyone knows that is the key night.  He went on to explain that Thursday is when the editors of the big papers do their Sunday layouts (on paste up boards, no doubt) and it is the deadline for the Sunday op-ed columns.  Not to mention the fact the Sunday shows are booked on Thursday.  He was mystified that they would miss this golden opportunity to be in the Sunday papers.  His guest was a young reporter from the Washington Post who tried to politely tell Mathews that with the news web site, blogs and smart phones the day of the week doesn’t really matter that much anymore.  Chris just stared right through him and went back to a telling story about Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy.
 

With great fanfare and PR flash, a new search engine was launched this week with the name of Cuil, pronounced “cool”.  They claim to have indexed more sites that Google and will rank the results by content rather than popularity.  Also, the results will be displayed in a unique magazine style layout and have added tabs to lead you to other relevant searches.  Just the thought of taking on Google is a bit daunting.  Two pretty impressive companies (Microsoft and Yahoo) keep falling behind in the race to own search.  Has any other company, product or service become such a big part of our lives and culture as Google in such a short period of time?  Not only has it become a verb, but starting a search on Google has become hard wired into our brains.  Taking on Google would be like taking on Coke with a new start up cola.  Don’t know if I would wager on surpassing Google, but in the tech game the better mousetrap sometimes wins. 

I gave Cuil a try in its first week and I was not all that impressed.  Right off, it does not have the other features of Google such as news, images and maps.  I did a search on Custom Media (the key word we most focus on) and didn’t think the results were anywhere as relevant as on Google.  King Fish Media generally ranks 9 or 10 on page one with Google and we were back on page seven with Cuil.  There were tons of rankings from the same sites listed over and over again.  Many of which had a mere mention of Custom Media rather than being a site about Custom Media. A search on King Fish Media itself turns up the freshest links and most relevant news on Google.  On Cuil it was a hodgepodge of old news and odd links.  I found this general pattern on a number of different key word searches.  However, the strangest thing was the image Cuil puts next to the individual search results.  In the vast majority of cases the images had absolutely nothing to do with the link referenced.  Usually they were random pictures or logos with no relevance to the result.  It was odd to see a link that referred to me personally with other people’s pictures.  Not sure what that’s all about, but it’s not “cuil”

Keep in mind this is just my own testing on week one.  To be fair, they will need time to get in a rhythm and be able to adjust their patterns based on how people actually search the site. Cuil is getting beaten up by the tech trades and bloggers who have a similar impression.  This is a good example of why you do a “soft launch” to work out the kinks.  They launched with a lot of PR which served mostly to have people take a very close look at their technology before it is ready for prime time.

It is worth keeping your eye on their progress, and especially how your sites ranks.  My snap judgment tells me that Cuil has not yet given web searchers a reason to change their behavior away from Google. And, what works for Google SEO will likely not work for Cuil.  The only people who may make out in this deal are the SEO consultants.

Mark your calendars for a Folio Magazine Webinar on managing marketing timelines.  I will be the one of the speakers for the Folio audience of magazine marketing professionals.  The goal of the web cast is to give advice and best practices on how to create awareness and buzz for a comprehensive marketing program.  We will also cover how to create a rollout schedule to your sales reps, press and clients.  It is a topic I know well - I was the Marketing Director for several tech media brands including two of the most successful ones ever – PC Magazine and CRN.  The webinar is on August 14th at 2:00 eastern.  Click here to register.

In addition, I will be speaking at two sessions at this year’s Folio 08 (Sept. 22-24 in Chicago).  I will be covering “Upping Your Marketing Success Quotient” as part of the marketing track.  As part of the events track, I will be speaking at a session called “Models for Event Profitability”.  I will have much more about this as we get closer, so click here to learn more about attending the show.  It is a great networking and learning experience for anyone in B2C or B2B media.

Very exciting news – AMC’s Mad Men starts up again this Sunday.  For my money the best show since the Sopranos.  For those who have not seen the show, it is a look at a New York ad agency in the early 60’s.  A fascinating portrayal of the men and women of that era juxtaposed against the advertising, media and marketing business.  The choice to set the show in the transitional early 60’s was savvy because it allows the show to explore the changing roles of men and women right before Vietnam and the civil rights and women’s rights movements.

It is a guilty pleasure watching the behavior of these guys in the office – smoking, drinking and womanizing is standard procedure.  And, so were sexism, harassment, racism and anti-Semitism - all out in the open.  It is jaw dropping to watch behavior that was then commonplace vs. today’s super sensitive politically correct workplace.

If you are in the marketing/media business you have to watch the advertising aspect of the show.  I get a charge out of watching them meet with clients, come up with ideas and pitch creative.  It was the heyday of traditional interruption based marketing.  They came up with a campaign and then bought tons of media in print, on billboards, or on television/radio.  That were all the options available, and there is nary a word about ROI, custom content or interactivity.  It was one-way communication from companies to the masses.  The ad agencies and media companies had a nice thing going, and they got rich fat and happy running ads.  They really never had to prove the ads worked as long as the drinks were flowing at lunch.

The “hero” is agency Creative Director Don Draper who is my favorite fictional character since the man with whom he shares many traits – Tony Soprano.  Don is morally ambiguous and lives by his own code of honor.  He is very ambitious and masterful with clients when pitching ideas.  Like Tony, he leads a complicated life juggling his family, extra-marital activities and his bosses and staff at the agency. An interesting aspect of the show is how the women in Don’s life represent the different and changing roles for women in the early 60’s. 

Keep an eye on how Don and his team come up with campaign ideas for their clients.  While we can make fun of the primitive tools they had to get the message out to their prospects, Don has incredible insight into how to craft a message.  He understands that great advertising is all about tapping into the mindset of the customer.  He strives to come up with concepts for the “emotional sell”.  A valuable lesson for today’s marketers to remember – good advertising and marketing is all about the customer, their needs and how they feel about themselves.  Sometimes because we have so many tools and technologies at our disposal we forget the basic fundamentals.  How many bad ad campaigns have we seen from marketers who just want to tap into the flavor of the week?  Putting the wrong message on a cool site; or just adding social networking to the mix does not make for good advertising.

Many people think advertising is about convincing or persuading someone to buy a product.  It is actually about making them realize they have an unmet need (physical or emotional) that can be filled with your product or service.  The customers who lined up for days to get the new iPhone were not “brainwashed” by Apple’s advertising; or even wowed by the technology.  They were searching to fill an emotional need to be the “first to have something” which validates their personality (yes, I was a psych major).  Apple does a brilliant job of leveraging that emotion.

On that note, my favorite scene is when Don is out with a group of bohemian type beatniks at a poetry reading.  One of beatniks starts in on him for “making people buy things they don’t want or need”, and then condescendingly asks Don “how he sleeps at night”.  Don coolly picks up his glass of scotch, smiles and replies “on a bed of money”.
 

Of all the things that fascinate me about the web there is a special place in my heart for Wikipedia.  I am a trivia nut, so I love trolling the listings, and I get a kick out of the earnestness of the people who contribute and patrol the site (more about that later).  It is now standard practice for marketers to create a Wikipedia page for their company.  And, it has become an art form to put up a page that does not veer too much in a sales pitch to prevent being smote down by the Wikipedia gods.  I have heard from many of my marketing peers who have done battle with the self appointed defenders of truth.

Because Wikipedia is very well indexed by Google having a company page helps your SEO efforts. When you Google King Fish Media, our Wiki page comes up in the third listing after our site URL and the Think Tank blog - and it is driven over 100 visitors to our site.  If you have not ventured into these waters as a marketer, you must try it.  These types of sites are quickly replacing more traditional sorts of reference materials. 

There have been a lot of debates to the validity of the information presented, and you do need to take the facts and information presented with a grain of salt.  The dispersed and anonymous nature of the policing opens the door for people with an agenda to set the tone. 

I am fascinated by those who have taken on the duty to police the site for factual accuracy.  What is their motivation?  What drives them to do what they do?  It’s not money since they are volunteers.  Valid questions as we move into the age of user generated content – or UGC as the cool marketers are calling it.  Over on Channel V Media’s blog they wrote about a game called wikiracing where participants add information to obscure pages and see how fast they are corrected or edited.

In the name of science I inserted myself as notable resident of my hometown of Beverly, Massachusetts – as an author. I write this blog and have had a bunch of marketing articles published so I thought author was my best bet.  And, my new found fame would give my mom something to talk about at the Boynton Beach JCC.  It seemed easy enough since the current list of 26 people is pretty weak expect for some 300 year old historical figures and a few modern exceptions – Kevin O’Connor who hosts This Old House on PBS, alternative rocker Mary Lou Lord (check her out on iTunes if you don’t know her, she is great) and world famous author John Updike.  The rest were a collection of people no one has heard of unless you were related to them. 

I put myself in there alphabetically between actor Howard Petrie and television sports commentator Derek Rae - under the radar flanked by a B movie actor who has been dead for 40 years and a Scottish soccer commentator.  My fame lasted exactly 27 hours before being struck down by a wiki police person with the user name of Adj.  Adj is a serial editor who seems to specialize in trivial information about Massachusetts towns – talk about a niche.  I was of one of 13 edits Adj made that day, and one of over 500 since April.  You can visualize Adj at a desk in a cramped basement home office surrounded by reference books, cats and stacks of old newspapers - sipping a cup of tea and staring at the screen over drug store reading glasses while stamping out informational miscreants such as myself.  There must be immeasurable pleasure and satisfaction in telling the world that I am a seemingly nonnotable resident of Beverly.  However, I would wager that more people read this blog in 2008 than watched the collective works of Howard Petrie, but I’ll let it go.

Maybe the information on Wikipedia is good and can be trusted if there is any validity to the wisdom of crowds.  I am not totally sure what to make of it as a marketing tool other than you better not cross the line or the Adjs of cyberspace will be there to put you in your place – the digital dustbin of history.

This week the NY Mets gave us an example of what happens when you don’t understand the current media landscape.  They fired Manager Willie Randolph on Monday night, and did it via press release at 3:15 am east coast time.  The team was in Anaheim on the first day of a west coast trip.   So, they made poor Willie fly all the away to So Cal, manage a game (he won) and fired him after the game.  As I am sure you know by now the Mets have been getting killed in the media for this low rent move on a classy guy.  They are spinning all kinds of stories such as they didn’t want to fire him on Father’s Day to they didn’t make up their mind until Monday.  The sad truth is they actually thought that if they did it in the middle of the night it would lessen the news and press impact since it would be a day before the NY papers could jump on it.  That was a questionable strategy in 1978 or 1988, but in 2008 it is beyond moronic.  That “strategy” backfired and blew up in their face.  They got beaten up on every available media platform for nearly three days – print, talk radio, blogs, sports web sites etc. 

At the heart of this mistake is a lack of understanding of today’s media environment.  It is always on, and always in search of content.  The explosion of media platforms, brands and choices has eliminated the concept of “news cycles” as we knew them.  On demand content and viral distribution have made traditional news cycles obsolete.  In addition, the proliferation of media platforms has created a situation where any “hot” bit of content and news is blown out of all proportion.  Many of these media outlets thrive on scandal and controversy.  The search and hunger for edgy content seems insatiable.  How else do you explain Lindsay Lohan’s mother and talentless sister getting a reality show.  More shame for us native Long Islanders.  Wasn’t Amy Fisher’s sex tape enough humiliation? 

The media narrative ended up being about how clumsy, heartless and dumb the Mets management appears to be.  The net result is the Mets did some real damage to their brand image, and maybe their bottom line too.  We are in a new media world, and if you follow the old rules you are sure to get burned.

I recently contributed another article to Chief Marketer on the topic of face to face events.  Specifically it explains how to use events as a lead generation and lead nurturing tool.  While working for several media companies I had responsibility for publication branded events and custom events.  One thing I learned is when using events as lead gen tool it is critical to scale your event (and budget) to the anticipated return.  Many people do think of live events as custom media, but they can be very powerful tools as part of a private custom media solution.  Click here to read the article. 

Just a short word on the passing of Tim Russert.   I spent much of last week thinking about and writing about media bias in the news organizations covering politics.  It was quite a shock to learn about his tragic death, as he was one of the last objective unbiased journalists on television.   Even though he worked his way up the ranks in Democratic politics he was equally tough on both parties.  You could make a case he was the most important journalist in America today.  Many people, including me, turned to him on Meet the Press and election night coverage to make sense of it all in a straightforward manner.  You could trust him because you felt he neither had an agenda nor was self promotional.  The timing of his loss before a historic election is a blow for this country.  We would hope that someone would fill the void, but it will be an impossible role to fill.

Nearly everyone I spoke with over the past few days felt like they lost a close friend.  He was such a presence on television, you actually felt like you knew him.  Just another reminder that as Buddhism states everything in life is impermanent.  It was heartbreaking to watch so many of his friends and colleagues talk about him all weekend.  However, listening to the tributes he was clearly a man who made the world better and lived every minute of his short 58 years.  Personally, I agree with his impressive son Luke, who said that if Tim could hear what was being said about him; he would be the most excited to hear that Bruce Springsteen paid tribute to him and played Thunder Road in his honor.  As a fellow Springsteen fanatic, I was very touched by the gesture from Boss who like Tim Russert is a master story teller with an ear to the common man.  Here is a passage from Thunder Road, a beautifully written song about vulnerability, yearning and redemption.

We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back
Heaven’s waiting on down the tracks
Oh oh come take my hand
Riding out tonight to case the promised land

In an interesting bit of timing, the NY Times ran a story today about perceived media sexism toward Hillary Clinton. (A topic covered here yesterday) In a shocking development the mainstream media (NBC, CBS, CNN etc) strongly disagree with that notion.  They seem almost dismissive of the claims.   They are also quick to say that Hillary Clinton’s defeat was caused by her own mistakes and they are not responsible for her loss.  That is true, Hillary has no one to blame but herself, and Barack Obama played by the rules and won the nomination fair and square.  However, that does not absolve them of their actions, nor does it lessen the anger many feel towards them.

There is this passage and quote from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann:

There was “constant reflection and analysis at MSNBC, and I must say there was constant good faith in trying to make certain Senator Clinton was not treated unfairly.”

Now that they have been called on the carpet they wrap themselves in objective journalism.  Ironically, Olbermann has made a name for himself making fun of Bill O’Reilly and the right wing bias at Fox News.  I don’t know if he realizes that he has become a liberal version of his friend Bill.  I used to enjoy watching him, but his rants have taken on an air of self righteousness and he has lost his ability to be objective. 

There are several problems with the mainstream media defense tactics.

As the old cliché goes – perception is reality.  Many Clinton supporters and women’s groups including NOW (click here to read a column from their President) are angry at the bias, and NBC/MSNBC and CNN have lost credibility with many viewers.  They can defend themselves all they want, but it won’t change the way many women (and men too) feel about the way their candidate was treated while her opponent got the kid gloves treatment.

I wonder if the many of the biggest offenders (who are generally men in their 50’s and 60’s) fully realize the way the media world has changed.  Every one of their comments is stored on the web forever, and can be easily passed around.  And, there is an army of bloggers to offer a counter opinion and analyze their comments.

The bottom line is they can deny it all they want, but we live in a new media world.  My advice would be to really reflect on how they handled the nomination process rather than trying to spin it away.  No one is buying it.

On a separate and personal note – Happy Father’s Day to the #1 reader of the Think Tank blog – my Dad, who is one of the smartest guys I have ever met.  The lessons I have learned from him are too numerous to recount here, and I use them every day.  Happy Father’s Day!!
 

Before we leave the process that will eventually name Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee, let’s take a look back at one of the factors in this contest that helped him beat Hillary Clinton.  It can provide us some clues and insights into how he may fare against Senator John McCain this fall.

There has been much debate whether sexism played a role in the defeat of Hillary Clinton.  She and her campaign made a couple of well hashed over errors:  they underestimated Obama’s appeal, had no organization in the caucus states, and used Bill Clinton incorrectly.   Watching Bill Clinton in the 2008 campaign was like watching Willie Mays play for the Mets in 1973 – painful to watch a star whose time has past.  She was significantly hurt by the actions of Florida and Michigan to break the DNC rules which cost her big states she could have won.  And, it seems like she didn’t connect with the voters until she went from frontrunner to underdog.

A big factor in the race was a media bias for Obama and against Clinton.  This manifested itself in a mainstream media that seemed to be openly promoting Obama, while gleefully participating in the steady stream of sexist comments and jokes aimed at Hillary.  It was open season on petty analysis of her appearance, emotions and of course, the comments about how she came across as a bitchy woman.   Take a few minutes to check out these clips.   One is a brilliant piece from the Daily Show and other is a home grown video from YouTube.  Both illustrate numerous examples of the mainstream media taking sexist shots at Hillary.  It is sadly comical to watch a bunch of middle age white men (Mike Barnicle, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Pat Buchannan, Wolf Blitzer) make statements that essentially says that Hillary is a shrew and a harpy who men don’t want to listen to because she sounds like a nagging wife.  Makes you wonder how happy these guys are at home.

In addition, journalists such as Keith Olberman of MSNBC and Frank Rich of the New York Times all but anointed Obama while never missing an opportunity to take a shot at either Hillary Clinton or John McCain.  By the way, making fun of McCain’s age is also fair game, and even sometimes the injuries he received as a POW.  Obama’s lack of experience and a real record and his relationship with Rev. Wright received as close to a free pass as you can get in today’s 24/7 media.

Try and imagine what would happen if these same middle age white male commentators used jokes and negative stereotypes about Obama’s race in the same manner as they did with Hillary Clinton’s gender.   When anyone even hints at race, such as Geraldine Ferraro, they are treated like a pariah.  Remember when a bunch of guys showed up at a Clinton rally held up signs and chanted “iron my shirts”.  It was laughed off as a prank.  What if it was an Obama rally and those hilarious frat boys were yelling “shine my shoes” or “fry my chicken” Not so funny, is it?  In fact, it is horrible.  However, it is hard to argue it was much different in terms of negative stereotyping.  Unfortunately, this gender bias affected the way the race was reported throughout the primary season.  Next, we will take a look at how media bias may have shaped the race.

The media bias manifested itself in the reporting of primary results and the race for delegates.  I took a very close look at the final results in all of the election results as reported on Real Clear Politics.  The results were much closer than reported and in fact, you can make a strong argument that Hillary Clinton should be the nominee based on these results and her viability as a candidate vs. John McCain.  The popular vote is all but tied in terms of statistical variation, and Obama won 124 more pledged delegates out of 3,046 available.  After they fought to a near draw on Super Tuesday, Obama reeled off nine wins in a row in mostly caucus states (where the vast majority of voters don’t participate) and states with a huge African-American vote in the Democratic primary.    When February ended, the media had Clinton left for dead and already started calling for her to drop out in the name of party unity.  The calls for her to quit continued all through March, April and May.  What happened once the media crowned Obama? 

Starting with March 4th, Hillary won 9 of the last 15 races (I am leaving out Guam) and some of them with big margins – Kentucky, West Virginia, Penn, Ohio, and Rhode Island.  So much for the party faithful falling lock step behind Obama.  It is clear that he has an issue getting votes from white, working class voters.

Add her strong finish to wins in Texas, New York, New Jersey, California, Tennessee, Arizona, Arkansas and New Mexico.  She also would have fared very well in both Florida and Michigan.  Look at that list of states above – that is a winning Democratic electoral strategy.

The vast majority of American’s get their information from the mainstream media.  You wonder what would have happened if the they didn’t decide to jump on the Obama bandwagon early and report the facts in a slanted nature.  Or, let the process play out without their own need for a winner to be named by the end of February.  By constantly hashing over the issue of Clinton getting out of the race since early March they may have tampered with the system and affected the results of the remaining primaries.

It is clear that droves of Clinton supporters, many of them women, are angry at the way she was treated and portrayed.  Their feelings are justified, a two term Senator and the first serious woman candidate deserved better treatment and more respect.  It is not a lock they will vote for Obama, when John McCain is perceived as the least conservative Republican candidate in thirty years.  When you combine this with Obama’s weakness among white voters in big states John McCain has a much better chance of winning than Keith Olberman could ever imagine.  A woman running for President has an impossible task – show you are tough enough to be Commander-in-Chief without being perceived as a “bitch”, whatever that code word really means.  Maybe it’s just me, but when it comes to the ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, I’ll take a “bitch” any day.

Last week my city, Beverly, MA held an election that may offer a small preview of this November’s election.  Here in the Massachusetts we have a wonderful law to reign in government called Proposition 2 ½ passed by referendum during a tax revolt in 1981.  Here in the bluest of blue states we have a segment of people who love their taxes.  It basically states that property tax can’t increase by more than 2.5% per year, except if the people in the town vote to over ride the law for a specific reason.  In our case it was to help fund the school system that is running at a deficit due to the usual suspects – increasing teacher healthcare and pension costs, unfunded state and federal mandates and exploding special education needs.  If it passed, the average homeowner would pay roughly $190 more a year in property tax and one of the six elementary schools in town would be saved from closing. 

It was quite a battle, a real steel cage street fight.  What struck me was the anti-government venom.  It was aimed at the Mayor, School Committee, City Council, Teachers Union and anyone who even walks by city hall.  There was also a generous helping of class warfare as the working class and seniors resented the upscale moms who led the fight for the over ride.  One of the leaders of the over ride movement made the classic marketing mistake of saying it would only cost “a latte a week” to fund the tax increase.  Oh boy! Talk about not knowing your audience.  That statement became a rallying cry from the working class people who wouldn’t go inside a Starbucks on a bet.  The moms (and some dads) were dubbed the Latte Divas by the anti-tax people who fought it out on the Salem News web site message boards.  I would read the forums and the anger was palpable.  The parents were advocating raising taxes “for the children” or our property values would plummet and the city would become a slum overnight.  Opponents ranted back about how unions, the government and entitled parents were ruining America, and how they can’t afford another cent is this bad economy.  Over rides for schools usually pass in small affluent bedroom communities, but in economically diverse Beverly (pop. 40,000) it was crushed 63% to 37%.  And, a real class division opened up in once cohesive community.

It was a fascinating look at how social networking and web 2.0 tactics shaped the debate.  The pro over ride parents (Yes! For Beverly) had their own blog, Facebook page and email distributions; and the forums on the local newspaper sites became ground zero for battles pitched by people from both sides using anonymous screen names.  Some of the postings were pretty mean, and would never be said if a real name had to be attached or it was face to face.  It is much easier to work up some real anger when hiding behind a made up name that can’t be tracked.  It got me thinking about the nature of these anonymous posts which are found all over the web on all types of sites.  Does the anonymity produce true and honest feelings that are hidden by social convention, or is it an excuse to be rude.  There is something freeing about putting the usual political correctness aside, but debates can escalate quickly.  It is an interesting situation for companies who host these types of forums, especially when someone can be slandered on your site.  Monitoring your site is a must to protect your brand.

In addition, I could tell that there were some “PR plants” in there spouting the talking points from each side.  I don’t think many “average citizens” know the intimate details of municipal finance, collectively bargained teacher’s contracts and academic studies on the benefits of lower class size.  There were more than a few people with not so hidden agenda’s passing themselves off as John and Jane Q. Public.

This local battle may be a microcosm of the upcoming Presidential election. We will hear some of the same issues and charges from both sides.  Elitism and class division, education, taxation and the economy will be issues out front and center.  2008 will be the first web 2.0/social networking presidential election.  The ground war is going to move from mainstream media ads and direct mail to the web in a big way.  The blogs, video sharing sites, forums and online fundraising are going to be humming.  This may help Obama and his more youthful supporters, but the same tools can also make any scandal viral or misstep magnified.  We are in somewhat uncharted media waters, and as the cable news talking heads like to say “only time will tell”

This week I had the pleasure of contributing an article to the Chief Marketer web site.  The article is about using web casts to drive leads and ROI.  This is a topic quite familiar to King Fish as we manage over 250 web casts yearly for our clients.

To read the article please click here to go to the Chief Marketer site, and check out all of the great content they have on many other issues relevant to today’s marketer.

Kimberly Jackson and I both wrote about the same topic this week, independent of each other, so here is a short introduction and both postings.  We were both taking a look at a private media channels created by personalities that are aimed at our respective demographics.  Oprah is for Kimba, the influential working mom and community organizer, and Howard Stern for me and my adolescent sense of humor.  While the content of each private media channel is very different, the net result is the same – a high affinity environment of trust.  Time and time again it is proven that in today’s media jungle the best way to get your marketing messages across is to pair them with original content that connects with your target audience.  Oprah and Howard may not have much in common, but they understand the power of intent based marketing as well as anyone today. 

No one in media today understands the concept of private media channels better than Howard Stern.  At first, his much trumpeted move to Sirius Satellite radio seemed like a way to get out from under the thumb of FCC and their constant monitoring. However, Howard had something more in mind than the freedom to drop an occasional f-bomb and in-depth stripper interviews.  Back in the prehistoric early 90’s he dubbed himself the “King of all Media” because he was successful on syndicated radio, did a highlight show on E!, had best selling books, and an autobiographical movie.  He was in all media, but they were not integrated and he was essentially renting channels from huge media companies who owned the shows and profits.  He now has two dedicated stations on Sirius (soon to be merged with XM), his own web site and Howard TV which is an On Demand pay service.  All three platforms are tightly integrated, and users pay for the radio show and TV shows, while the free web site is a promotion for both.

The radio channels are interesting because they create a unique environment for the show.  There is a news operation to report on news about the show and characters; and each day there is a wrap up show to talk about the events of that day’s show.  Each show is treated like breaking news on the radio, TV and web site.  It is very addicting to tune into – you get immersed in a parallel world Howard is President and Fred, Artie, Robin, Gary and the huge cast of characters are the cabinet and members of Congress.  The wrap up show is like MSNBC for the whack pack (Howard’s most loyal fans that have become part of the show). 

The net effect is a very high affinity environment that produces two sources of revenue – subscriber fees and advertising/sponsorships.  At a time when it is getting difficult to get people to pay for content, Stern fans are happily forking over money to be able to be a part of his private media channel.  Additionally, the integration and cross-promotion is critical to creating the feel of a private media channel.  Howard Stern may not be to your taste, but there is no denying he has been a media pioneer for the past 25 years.  Keep an eye on him, and you will get a sense of what the future of media channels may look like.

The cable giant bought Newsday on their home turf of Long Island for $650 million after a bidding war with Rupert Murdoch and Mort Zuckerman.  When billionaires place that much value on a local newspaper (albeit in a lucrative market), maybe the demise of newspapers is not as close as we think.  It is fashionable among media pundits and bloggers to pile on the newspaper business and declare it done for.  They always point to the fact young people don’t read newspapers and get their news on the web.  Has anyone bothered to ask what the newspaper subscription rate has been historically been among young adults – I bet it has always been low.  Not a huge priority at that stage in life.  And, what happens when these hip kids who have no use for newspapers and land lines get older and have kids, houses, careers, etc. 

I do agree that some of what newspapers currently do is obsolete.  National and global news is a commodity – either online, on TV or from the wire services.  Having it appear in a local newspaper serves very little purpose to the reader, who has probably already seen or heard the story in another more immediate platform.  For newspapers to succeed in the future they need to think locally – people love local news – the more local the better.  Reading about politics and tragedies in foreign lands is important but it really has little effect on the average person’s life.  However, they sure do like reading about their own slice of life in their town and region.  These stories have a real and emotional connection, and who doesn’t like keeping up on local gossip.  I may not know all the facts of what’s going on in Darfur or the real difference between Sunni and Shiite; but I know the gory details of an upcoming property tax increase vote in my town and the story of the kid up the street who was arrested for drug possession.

To take it one step further, instead of expending resources by having international and national news bureaus, redeploy those resources into good old investigative journalism on the local level.  Some of the best work from a newspaper is when they uncover crime, corruption or some other injustice in their backyard.  The Boston Globe did a great job this year exposing Mitt Romney’s illegal alien gardeners and some questionable ethics from the current speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representative, Sal DiMasi.  Newsday has a long history of doing that on Long Island, and I hope the new owners will be committed to that tradition.  There is real value in providing this type of content and service to a community.  And, it builds readership affinity for the advertisers, most of which are small local companies who do not run big web or TV campaigns, and rely on the local paper to get their message out.

The local angle is why I think the Cablevision/Newsday deal will work.  They can create an integrated media channel (print, web, cable, events) for readers and the local advertisers who want to reach them. In addition, Newsday now has ownership by people who actually live in the community and have a vested interest.  The days of the big remotely-owned newspaper chains and the homogenization of news that it brought may be over.  Maybe it is time that the local paper goes back to the future and becomes a major player in their community.

Although still the number one show on network TV, American Idol has seen a steady rating decline this year to it’s lowest totals in five years.  Many theories have been offered  - lackluster contestants, people growing tired of the format, a general post-strike decline in viewership to name a few.   I would suggest another reason why the show has generated almost no buzz this year and people are tuning out.

In the past AI has been a masterful example of combining content and sponsorship.  In this age of permission based marketing, they came up with a formula that was compelling to fans while providing companies like Coke, AT&T and Ford a great marketing vehicle.  Once this show became a huge hit – the producers and FOX amped up the tie ins and revenue opportunities.  They produce records, concerts tours and TV shows.  The voter results show was expanded from 30 minutes to an hour to sell more commercials.  And, they added more promotional deals with iTunes and with “guest mentors” who had new albums to hawk.  Slowly but surely, the marketing and advertising overwhelmed the content portion of the show and this year was the tipping point.  For example, the addition of an AT&T sponsored segment where “random” fans call in to ask questions is nothing but filler and painful to watch.  You almost expect Ryan Seacrest to come out one night wearing a sandwich board with an ad for Maaco Auto Body shops.

I am a fan of the show, but felt like I just spent two hours a week watching an infomercial.  The desire for promotion really hurt the perception of this year’s contestants by forcing them to sing songs by artists who are not relevant to today’s audience.  Two weeks of Beatles songs were a bore – for today’s kids, it does not mean that much, and for those of us over 35, we have heard them a million times.  Then they moved on to Dolly Parton, Mariah Carey and Neil Diamond –who shockingly, all had new albums and tours to promote.  Can anyone name me three Dolly songs? Mariah has more #1 hits than anyone – but are any of them remotely memorable.  However, the highest rated show on the unintentional comedy scale was “show tunes” week with Andrew Lloyd Webber. 

You get the feeling it all about driving sales and playing it safe for the sponsors.  It is just a little coincidental that contestants who are different (i.e. possibly gay) or edgy (tattooed) find themselves gone early and the bland survive.  The success of the incredibly boring and cloying David Archuleta (known as the “Gasper” on Idol fan site Vote for the Worst.com) is symbolic of that trend.  He may be the single least entertaining person on television.

For the show to be successful past next year, the producers really need to examine the balance between content and marketing.  While we often profess that content based permission marketing is the wave of the future, AI is a cautionary tale of what happens when the mix gets out of balance.  I know we are all in business to make a buck, but guys, take it down a notch or you will kill the golden goose.

I recently came across some interesting brand loyalty research.  This article from Chief Marketer  refers to a study done by Brand Keys that looks at a “Customer Loyalty Engagement Index”. In a nutshell the findings suggest customer loyalty greatly increases when products and services are customized to the consumer.  This makes perfect sense, as customization is becoming more critical to marketers as product differentiation is becoming hard to come by these days.  It is a testament to world wide engineering and manufacturing skills that most products sold in the US today are made very well.  Since most competitive products do the same thing reasonable well, the ability to customize for a specific buyer has become an attractive product attribute.

The two factors driving the age of customization are the same ones that are driving the move to private media channels and content marketing.  An advance in technology and web adoption has made ordering customized products or consuming custom content real and easy to do.  However, the biggest factor is that consumers have the power and are in control of their choices.  The web has empowered consumers to shop and/or gather information across the globe.  It also plays into the consumer’s mindset – they would much rather have something created just for them instead of the same product purchased by the guy down the street.

You can see how this can apply to your marketing choices – if you send your customers content that has been customized for them, you will increase your chances of building a relationship of affinity, trust and loyalty.  Many companies are missing a golden opportunity to build a stronger relationship with their customers by not communicating with them in a customized private custom media venue.  How many companies are still relying on mass market bulk mailings to talk to their customers if they talk to them at all?  The technology exists where you can mine your database to know a customer’s interests and tastes; why not send them content and marketing messages that are customized for them instead of a generic catalog or email?  Or even worse, do think you are hitting your current customers with a mass media ad that is focused at prospects?  Marketers are required to evaluate their customer communications in light of changes in the way people desire and consume information. 

We are in the age of customization, and savvy marketers don’t want to be sending yesterday’s news to tomorrow’s customers.

Folio just reported on a recent Magazine Day where there was much conversation about the future of magazines (Magazines 3.0) and print in general. The drum beat of bad news for the traditional print business has been steady as consumer eyeballs and marketing dollars migrate to events (live and interactive) and online (e.g., Web sites, video, social networking, etc.)

I was really struck by the juxtaposition of quotes coming from the conference. John Griffin, Chairman of the Magazine Publishers of America (and group President of National Geographic) is trying to put a positive spin on it, but he seems to be fighting a losing battle. He is hoping to be able to deliver faster “audience metrics” to compete with online and TV. Huh? How is getting MRI and ad readership scores quicker going to help compete against the web? There will never be a real and tangible way to tie a print ad in a publication like National Geo (with close and materials deadlines a month ahead of publication) to any measurable return – that fact is driving the migration of advertisers away from print media.

However, that is only one issue responsible for the decline of print media. The other is also mentioned in the Folio article. There are still existing hard walls between edit and sales in American print media. Check these quotes out:

“Advertisers want to borrow—or steal—the credibility and authority we have with our readers,” Griffin said. “And we want to give it to them” without threatening the credibility and authority, he said. “[At National Geographic] we’re always asking ‘How far can we go with this?’ It’s a contestant internal struggle.”

“It’s the single biggest point of contention within our company,” said Deidre Depke, Newsweek.com’s assistant managing editor. “The only editorial asset our magazine has is its content—for us to abandon that, and let advertisers do what they want with it, would be a big mistake.”

In sum: there is a holier than thou streak that runs though these companies and publications that goes beyond what is really necessary and required by consumers. But read this quote – it is excellent, and I think sums up how many marketers/advertisers feel today.

“[The line] has been self-governed and self-policed—you’ve put the handcuffs on yourselves,” Steve Sturm, group VP of strategic research and planning at Toyota Motor North America said. “The federal government, the state government, they haven’t told you to do it. You put up all these roadblocks” that other media don’t have. And a younger generation of potential readers, he said, “don’t play by the same rules you play by.”

Dead on. One of the things that I learned in doing dozens of reader focus groups and readership studies is that the readers don’t care nearly as much about the actual brand name of the content as the editors would like to think they do. Consumers just want good honest, credible and accurate content that helps them in some way or to enjoy for entertainment. No one cares about all the editorial awards or devotion to “church and state”. It’s all about leads, ROI and moving product for the savvy marketer, not having their ad appear across from “pure” award winning editorial. Think about American Idol – it is essentially a commercial for Ford, Coke, AT&T and iTunes wrapped in a talent show. It is a brilliant marriage of content and sponsorship. Consumers get content they love, and marketers get a private media channel for their brands.

Today’s consumer, of all ages, is extremely media savvy and knowing. They can tell the difference between marketing messages and content. Editors need to give the consumer more credit for understanding the dynamic between marketing and content. The prevalence of corporate sponsorships, product placement, content relevant Web ads and custom media have made consumers come to expect marketing messages and content together in one package. In fact, I would argue they find it more valuable.

A magazine’s key asset is its database and the relationship with the people in that database. That is what they should be leveraging to compete. Marketers are tired of renting media channels in print publications when they can own their custom media channels using original content and targeted content delivery. Print can still be a valuable marketing tool when used as part of a private media solution that provides value for the reader and targeted messaging for the marketer.

As Steve Sturm mentions, younger consumers have a whole different perception of media and content. Magazine publishers are going to have to make some hard decisions and quickly. The old way of doing business is gone forever.

Last week I wrote about Starbuck’s attempt to reach out to customers and prospects for constructive feedback and new product ideas.  In Tuesday’s Boston Globe they ran an insert (with attached card, see below) that made the following offer: Come in to Starbucks on Wednesday’s for the next six weeks, and receive a free tall Pike Place Roast coffee.  Pike Place Roast is their new smoother blend that was requested by many of the suggestions on the site.  It is a great tactic to use custom media to get new and lapsed customers into stores and try their new coffee.  I have to believe this promotion was focused at people like me who prefer the taste of Dunkin Donuts and do not regularly shop at Starbucks. Six weeks of free coffee can get someone hooked and make a stop at Starbucks part of their regular routine.  Most importantly, it gets the product into people’s hands.  All the “branding” and expensive TV ads in the world can’t guarantee that.

In the interest of marketing science I went to my local Starbucks yesterday morning to test their offer and taste the new blend.  It was the typical Starbucks experience with lots of earnest, serious people sitting around with no particular place to go at 8:30am on a week day.  I strode up to the baristas and ordered my tall Pike Place Roast and flashed my card.  I guess the card identified me a newbie since my barista felt compelled to thoughtfully point out that “tall” means “small”.  It was probably the best coffee I ever had at Starbucks, not as good as Dunkin Donuts, but much improved. 

It is interesting to see their private media channel come full circle from soliciting advice from their customers to putting a program in place to put their words into action.  I will give it a shot the next few weeks and let them try and convert me.  Maybe some day I will actually know what Venti means.

Starbucks has been getting beaten up this year and faces tough competition from Dunkin Donuts. Even McDonalds is taking a run at them.  One of the ways they chose to respond is a great lesson in listening to your customer and embracing a private custom media channel.  For many companies the knee jerk, old school reaction would have been to launch a “branding” campaign or hire a celebrity pitch person.  Instead Starbucks did something very cool – they launched My Starbucks Idea web site.  The purpose of the site is to ask their loyal customers what they could do to improve the product and service.  I would encourage you to go to the site and read the both the volume and passion of the responses.  The site is powered by salesforce.com and they did a similar site for Dell.  Interesting, Dell and Starbucks have a lot in common – both were innovative companies who used to be the fresh up-and-comers, and once they got too big; they lost touch with what made them great.

I commend both companies for creating a private media channel to have a two way dialog with their customers.  This kind of forum gives customers a place to vent, and make suggestion.  Read through some of them – they are not only thoughtful, but smart.  A lot of companies give lip service to listening to their customer, but how many actually do and act on it?  More than ever, people in the executive suite are isolated from their customers, where they are a long way from their middle class American customers and prospects.  Also, since they only talk to other execs, they get caught in an infinite loop of their own B.S.  How many meetings have you been in where sales and marketing people sit around pitching each other and not taking in outside information?  Happens all the time and the result: the ads we see on TV and in magazines are completely off target.

What I really like about the site is the “Ideas in Action” section where Starbuck employees respond in their own words and tell customers what action they will take based on customer suggestions.  This is powerful because many times when you write to a web site, you get an automated response which is sometimes worse than getting none at all.  I have to admit I have never been a big Starbucks fan – the coffee is too harsh and I can’t stand the ordering process.  It was fun to see that many others feel the way I do.  As a result, they are introducing a “smoother” coffee and talking about an express line for impatient people like me who just want a regular coffee; and don’t want to stand behind a line of people ordering complicated permutations of coffee beans, milk (cow or soy) and odd flavors.

Now, let’s see if they take this process one step further.  They have collected scores of contact names and been given the “permission” to talk to them about Starbucks.  I would suggest starting a real Starbucks private custom media channel to their customers using content marketing to further strengthen the bond between them and their customers.  This approach could get Starbucks back on track and make the brand fresh again.  Meanwhile, I can’t wait for the first express line open. 

Last month I became a member of a somewhat exclusive club which is unusual for me since I have avoided joining anything for most of my life.  You name it – frats, the Elks, Shriners, Freemasons, religions, community groups – no matter the club; I was not your man.

After thinking about it for years, I took the plunge and leased a Mercedes-Benz.  I went to my local dealer on President’s Day weekend dressed like a slob and was clearly only interested in the cheapest model they produce – the C300.  However, from the minute I walked into the dealer, I was treated with respect and like I was someone important.  The sales manager greeted me warmly and made sure I was with a sales person as quickly as possible.  He kept apologizing for the wait which was no more than five minutes.

I purchased 6 cars before this one and each transaction was confrontational and unpleasant.  It was the same drill we have all been through – the pressure to buy today – and the old “What is going to take to for you to buy a car today”.  And of course, the Oz-like sales manager/business manager who is kept in back office and is in charge of closing and the final price.  His purpose is to intimate you into buying now.  The whole experience is usually horrible and you never want to go back.  My father-in-law once punched a guy who would not give him back the keys to the car he was considering trading in.

The people at my dealership worked hard with me to come up with a deal that worked for me.  My sales person patiently explored all options with me in terms of down payment, mileage etc.  I took a test drive and was incredibly impressed with the car and the knowledge of my sales person, who happened to be German – how cool is that.  The business manager was also helpful and closed the deal by giving me a credit for the two payments I had on my existing lease.  At no point did I feel pressured or harassed into buying

What I found interesting was in the sales pitch and all the conversations there was a subtle but strong theme.  From the moment I walked into the dealership they viewed me as a possible life time customer, not a one time deal to make a monthly quota.  There was a lot of talk about “joining the club” how I have earned this car/status symbol. Part of being in the club means I can come by any time for a free car wash, or call for a Mercedes service call anywhere in the US. 

After I signed my agreement, the sales manager who first greeted me came over, shook my hand and put his arm around my shoulder to welcome me and offer his congratulation for “arriving”.  It all sounds corny, but it worked for this cynical guy.

When you think about it there is no difference between a Kia and Mercedes in the respect they both get you from point A to B.  To sell a premium price car you must sell more than basic transportation.  Additionally, the high price point means there is a limited amount of buyers and lots of competition for their dollars.  All the expensive broadcast and print ads in the world can’t duplicate the experience I received when buying my car.  Your next best customer is always your current customer.  Check back with me in three years, but the odds are high I’ll be staying in the club.

Much has been made of the efforts of conservative radio hosts to affect the Republican primary process. The right wing talker crowd almost uniformly and vocally supported Mitt Romney, the formerly moderate Governor of Massachusetts. Additionally, they railed against John McCain and Mike Huckabee with a venom previously reserved for Bill Clinton and Barbara Streisand. Question: does anyone else see the irony of a thrice divorced indicted drug addict, Rush Limbaugh, defaming a war hero and a Minister?

A deeper look tells us a lot about the changing media landscape and reinforces the fact that consumers are now in control of their media choices.

Conservative talk radio has been a successful media phenomenon, while attempts to recreate on the left have been a commercial failure. The energy of these shows are often fueled by the anger and resentment of listeners who are unhappy with the changes going on around them and the always present liberal (or enemy of the day) threat. Tune in for a while and you will hear they sure are against a lot of things: taxes, universal healthcare, affirmative action, gun control, abortion, gay marriage, immigration, and secular progressives who are now apparently conducting a war on Christmas.

The success of these shows depends on conflict and ideological purity which is why they hate John McCain. Based on his past record, a President McCain would reach out to his friends across the aisle and attempt to create the solutions Americans crave. Voters in the primary elections are gravitating to McCain and Barack Obama who are least ideological and are the most pragmatic of the candidates.

Voters in both parties want real solutions and desire authenticity. That is one of the reasons why conservative radio could not deliver for Romney. Jay Severin, a radio host here in MA, turned his show into a four hour daily commercial for Romney (whom he said would be on Mount Rushmore as a President) and regularly spewed bile about McCain. Net result - Romney only beat McCain by four delegates in his home state on Super Tuesday, symbolic of his greater lack of traction among Republican voters.

The other reason talk radio could not influence voters is rooted in changes in the media landscape. Like the left-leaning network news, right wing radio used to be the only game in town. It was the place where people got their news, and where they formed their opinions. Not anymore. Now there are thousands of places to get information about the candidates and issues. Blogs and citizen journalists have flooded the Web, proliferating the number of opinions to choose from (Technorati tracks over 46,000 political blogs). Additionally, candidates are now using their own Web sites and private media solutions to speak directly to voters with their own media channel. Voters can easily find information and do their own research. It is tough to pass off Romney as a social conservative when You Tube is full of clips from his more liberal past.   Click here and here to see pro-choice Mitt in action.  It is also hard to misrepresent McCain’s conservative record when anyone can look it up themselves.  Between media changes and the current mood of the electorate, the conservative commentators are losing relevancy and influence. Not to mention the credibility issue they have after selling their audiences so hard on George Bush, on track to leave office the least popular President since Nixon.

The loss of credibility, relevance and influence has these radio hosts nervous and up in arms. Being a right wing commentator has become a lucrative media career. The radio shows are only the hub of a multi-platform brand that includes books, TV shows, Web sites and speaking engagements. In fact, I have hired Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham (me and Laura at the Rainbow Room, she was great) as dinner speakers for B2B events. A loss of relevancy and perceived influence could be disastrous for their media brands and personal income.

Twice in my career I was working on a formally powerful media brand that lost relevancy and influence seemingly overnight due to market and media consumption changes. It ain’t pretty to see up close, and once that mystique is gone, it is gone for good. This is why you hear some of these pundits, led by Ann Coulter, say they will vote for Hillary or Obama over McCain presumably to keep the conflict and anger stoked. Which do you think Ann is more concerned with, the welfare of American people or the bottom line of Ann Coulter, Inc.?

There have already been a million reviews of the creative, and that is not our goal, but rather to take a Private Media/Custom Media look at the efforts.

One of the big themes was Web tie-ins and promotions. Google/You Tube  offered a special package which was a smart option. When you are spending $3 million for 30 seconds of rented TV time, it is a no brainier to buy a package from the premier search engine and video sharing site. My Space and other sites also promoted how you could recap the commercials online after the game. Many (but not enough) of the commercials invited you to a special Web site with mixed results. This was the whole focus of the Go Daddy campaign where they teased you to go on line for a lame Junior High joke about Danica Patrick and a beaver. Embarrassing all around, and did nothing to persuade people to use their domain buying service.

The other theme was the overall level of violence, anger, mayhem and gross outs. Puking babies, hearts jumping out of a chest, people sucked into a jet engine, face mauling badgers, and Justin Timberlake being beaten senseless. I haven’t even gotten to the politically incorrect and just plain offensive – making fun of foreigners, unattractive women and creepy clowns. I am a pretty insensitive guy, and even I was offended at some of this stuff.

Mayhem has been a theme for a couple of years now. I can only guess that this is what happens when big agencies try to make news rather than practice good marketing. They are trying to outdo each other and be outrageous to break through the clutter. This is classic example of agencies talking AT customers rather building a relationship and imparting information that could be used to make a buying decision. The whole Super Bowl ad culture has forgotten the purpose of advertising and marketing is to actually sell products and services.

What struck me the most about these ads is how all those marketing dollars could have been used more effectively. Here are just some rough ideas on how to better spend $3,000,000 using content based private custom media solutions.

1. Mining your customer and prospect database to create a quarterly magazine or newsletter with customized content to build a relationship of trust with your customers.
2. A frequent buyer’s affinity program aimed at your best customers to get them to spend more money and convert them to life long customers.
3. A series of interactive webcasts where you can give customers and prospects great information while creating a two-way dialog.
4. A custom Web site packed with content and an online video series with a viral component to build excitement about your brand and turn customers into brand evangelists.
5. A series of face-to-face events to get yourself closer to your customers. There is no substitute to getting your prospects to actually touch, feel and try your product. This works for both consumer and business offerings. If you want someone to try a new version of Pepsi then get it into people’s hands in a fun atmosphere. That will convert a lot more customers than a commercial that rips off a 1990’s Saturday Night Live skit

Two Ads I Really Liked

I thought the ad for the Audi R8 did the best job showing you the product in action and creating excitement for a new car. First they get you hooked with a parody of the Godfather. They even used an actor, Alex Rocco, from the original film. (He played Jewish gangster Moe Green, the bullet in the eye guy from the scene where Michael settles all family business). After getting the viewer sucked in they tease the car in action, which was impressive to say the least. The only reaction you can have is “Wow, I have to know more about that.”

The other ad I really liked was the Coke parade ad. While Pepsi tries to be cool and trendy, Coke takes a timeless, classic approach with cartoon characters. It was creative, fun and multi generational, using Charlie Brown, Stewie from Family Guy and Underdog. Just putting those three together was inspired. The best part was in the end poor old Charlie Brown gets the bottle of coke. It was a feel good, affinity building moment that stood out in a sea of mean-spirited commercials.

I am also compelled to mention that my media flavored NY vs. Boston Super Bowl game prediction was right on the money. The lesson – When Hubris comes up against Karma, always take Karma and the points.
 

The proposed take over of Yahoo by Microsoft is a fascinating intersection of marketing, technology and advertising, with Microsoft motivated by its inability to compete with Google in search and online advertising.  If I were in Steve Ballmer’s shoes I would probably do the same thing, but this strategy is a classic example of fighting the last war.

Mergers in the tech world never seem to work out for a variety of reasons, but mostly because they forget about the customer or take them for granted.  These deals always sound good in the conference room where insulated executives pitch each other on stories of efficiency and synergy.  They think that one plus one never equals three, in some cases such as TimeWarner/AOL – one plus one equaled .75.

Trying to merge cultures, technologies, people and rivalries is always a mess, and the needs of and desires of customers always take a back seat.  It is always assumed that if “Joe” is a customer of Company B, and it is bought by Company A, then “Joe” naturally becomes a customer of Company A.  This is faulty logic – our man Joe has no relationship or loyalty to the new company, and may not even like them (remember the HP/Compaq merger).  The market has already selected Google as the de facto search standard by a huge margin.  Why they would think that combing the second and third place search engines would get people to switch.  The wisdom of crowds has spoken and it is not talking about the MSN network.

I have always been a big fan and heavy user of Yahoo’s content and email, but frankly, their search is not nearly as good as Google’s.  I have started the day with my customized myYahoo page and used their email service forever.  However, if a Microsoft-owned Yahoo tries to convert me to a Hotmail account, I am gone, and so will others who don’t want an email address that looks like it comes from an adult site.

Microsoft has to be very nervous about Google’s success and plans for the future.  According to the New York Times, MS is heavily dependent on sales of operating systems and Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) for profitability.  In the last quarter alone their operating profit from Office was $3.2 billion on $4.8 billion in sales.  That is literately printing money and a business model they need to defend.

It is hard to imagine a time when corporate America won’t be using MS Office, but fast forward 10-12 years.  Do you really think we will all still be using packaged software that costs $400 a pop, or will we be using some sort of Software as a Service (SaaS) or ASP model?  Check out Google Docs and you can see they are moving in this direction.  That thought has to scare the heck out of Microsoft.  Not to mention mobile computing and other platforms where they are lagging behind.

Technology is a cruel business, where one moment you are the hot new thing, the king of the hill, and a minute later you are yesterday’s news.  Google will not be toppled by the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo.  However, one day they will likely be knocked off the mountain by a group of brilliant kids who get their start in a garage.

I am not usually a fan of broad-based, brand advertising because they usually try too hard to be clever or sexy without selling the product or the benefits to the buyer. However, I love the recent Bud Light ads with the “Dude” guy. If you have not seen them, check out this YouTube link and this one which has football theme - and Fox’s Joe Buck.

In some ways this breaks all the rules of classic advertising. They do not give any features or benefits of the product, or even try. They barely even show Bud Light. Not exactly Ogilvy on Advertising. However, the product they are advertising is not all that good – in fact it is a poor excuse for beer. Bland taste, too much carbonation, and I don’t think it is possible for a grown man to get a buzz off of low cal version of the classic Bud. Trying to sell the quality of product would not have credibility since no one really thinks Bud Light is a great tasting beer.

So why does the ad work? On one level, it is well done and funny. It taps into the non-verbal relationships most men have with each other. There is no need for talk, when a well placed situational “dude” will do the trick. The camera work and the melancholy piano are perfect creating a unique environment. The casting is excellent – he is the classic everyman in his late twenties or early thirties. Everyone knows a guy like him from work, school, or the local bar. He sits in a cube, wears inexpensive clothes and lives with a roommate in a low rent apartment. He is just a regular guy looking to have some fun with his circle of friends.

It works because they create affinity with the brand. I have a more positive image of Bud Light because I get a kick out of the commercial. In my head, I know the beer has not changed, but they have created an emotional connection.

Affinity and likeability are critical when creating and promoting a brand. At King Fish we profess that affinity leads to trust, which in turn leads to a customer taking an action. In a Private Media solution we use original content in a preferred environment to create that affinity, trust and action. In this case, Bud Light created that relationship by using content that speaks to men on a non-verbal, emotional level rather than trying to tell them the beer was superior tasting. A smart strategy when selling something that is basically a commodity.

Will this commercial lead people to buy more Bud Light? Even more, will it get people talking about Bud Light, creating a groundswell of awareness and brand equity? I bet it will, and I can’t wait to see what they do with the Dude guy next.

Barack Obama has won the South Carolina primary by a big margin and trounced Hillary Clinton among voters under 30. The battle between Obama and Hillary has been positioned as a battle of race and gender, but I think there is something else at play. The real showdown between Obama and Hillary Clinton is generational. Hillary is the classic boomer, 60 years old, highlighting her 35 years of experience. Obama is of the next generation – only 46, and looking forward. Newsweek recently wrote a cover story declaring that this election will be all about 1968 and reliving those old battles. I could not disagree more. This contest symbolizes the generational change and will have major implications for media and marketing strategy.

Generational conflict has been much discussed over the years. I would consider the classic boomer generation as 1946-1959. They are now between 62 and 49, and their earliest influences are from the 60’s and early 70s. Generation X (1960-1975) is now between 48 and 33 strongly influenced by the 70 and 80’s. Let’s put generation Y at 1976 and 1998. These are 90’s internet generation. The millennials are 1998-present.

For the past 20 years the boomers have dominated and the Xers have been the kids and up and comers. Now the boomers are heading into their 60s and retirement. There is a major shift as the Xers move into leadership positions in government, business and academia. This is instructive because each generation’s early experience forms the way they view the world and interact with media.

Like Barack Obama, I am a Xer and just turned 44, which coincidently is the median age of current voters. That means 50% of the people voting in 2008 are younger than 44. Do you think they care about 1968? Let me be so bold to speak for my generation: we are so done with the 60’s. Thanks for all the protests, but we are worn out hearing about Woodstock, sit-ins, burning draft cards, ERA marches, the Beatles, Haight Ashbury, and free love. Enough already, it is time for change (maybe Obama is on to something). Reliving these tired battles has given us 16 years of gridlock and partisanship with our two boomer Presidents – Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and their counterparts in Congress. Future historians will likely look back at boomer-rule and see missed opportunities and failed leadership.

Here is a brief review of the early years of my generation’s memories: The end of the Vietnam War which we essentially lost, Watergate and Nixon’s resignation, a 12 year bear market, skyrocketing crime rates, double digit inflation and mortgage rates, and two Presidents (Ford and Carter) who were more famous for being made fun of than their accomplishments. Oh, and when we got to college – AIDS. That sure put a damper on free love. If it was not for bad news we wouldn’t have had any news at all.

This timeline of bad times led up to the turning point election of 1980 which brought us Ronald Reagan. He was the first President I voted for and campaigned for in 1984. He was enormously popular among young people in the 80s – today’s thirty and forty-somethings. It is easy to forget the job he did restoring confidence and strength in America. While the boomers continue to cling to the memories of JFK and RFK, we will always have Reagan. Our collective image is of Reagan staring down the Soviets, cutting taxes, joking after being shot, and comforting the county after the Challenger accident. He was a strong leader who projected honesty and optimism.

Barack Obama is a very skilled politician and as the first Xer to run for president, he is modeling himself more on Reagan than he may let on. His campaign brand symbol is an O that looks like a rising sun over a field – Morning in America. He also cleverly mentioned how Reagan was a transforming figure while dissing Bill Clinton at the same time. His target audiences for those comments are those 60% or so of voters under 50. The last few years have been tough; you could almost make an analogy to the late 70’s. The time is right to restore confidence, bring hope and change. Sounds like an Obama campaign speech - and one from Ronald Reagan in 1980.

I will counter Newsweek’s argument. Forget the 60’s, they are heading to the cut out bin of history. Whoever captures the mantel of Ronald Reagan will be our next President. This week on Meet the Press, John McCain sounded like a latter day Reagan, preaching a strong foreign policy and mentioning Reagan’s name several times. He reminds me of him with his genial manor and self depreciating humor. After winning in Florida last night, he is the front runner, and may be endorsed by former Reagan justice department official Rudy Giuliani at the Reagan Library.

We are down to the final four – will it be a turning point election with the Reagan-like change of Obama and McCain or more of the same with either Mrs. Bill Clinton or George Bush’s Harvard Business School classmate, Mitt Romney? If I am right about branding and generational shift, it will be Morning in America again. If I am wrong, wait til 2012.

Generation X may not take control of the White House in 2008, but, Xer’s are now settling into control of major corporations and of course of both mainstream and new media. And right behind them will be the even more tech savvy, online centric generations. Youth culture defines American culture – we are looking at a group of people who have declining loyalty to the mainstream media world and refer to print as dead tree media. These are not people who will respond to old fashioned traditional advertising and branding messages. How are you going to get by their texting, IPODS and TiVOs? The next generation just may be known as the Private Media generation.

On Super Bowl Sunday, Fox will run 42 30 second spots taking in $2.7 million a pop. Marketers will spend almost $115 million in renting the Fox Super Bowl media channel. Add in production costs and agency fees, and we are looking at nearly $150 million spent on traditional broadcast ads during a three hour period. Here is my marketing prediction (game prediction below): The vast majority of this money will be wasted and it will be a poor choice of marketing tactic.

Next week we will look at some of the specific ads and discuss how that investment could have been better spent by creating a Private Media channel rather than renting the most expensive channel available.

To be fair, there is significant brand value in running these ads. You get tons of free press as wiseasses like me will be reviewing them the next day. Also, unlike the old days, you can now create a viral campaign around them with online video and other Web 2.0 tactics. However, the total cost of over 3 million for 30 seconds is insane considering what else you can do with that money.

Super Bowl Sunday has become a national holiday and many people watch the game with a group of friends who they really want to be with as opposed to other holidays when you are trapped with your relatives. Commercial breaks are used for eating, drinking, bathroom runs and socializing. You really don’t have the rapt attention of a room full a buzzed people, and they not in a shopping/buying mode.

Most of the ads are over-produced “branding” ads that do little to tell potential buyers the benefits of the product or service. Sometimes you can’t even tell who is sponsoring the ad until the end. This is when agencies pull out the stops to win awards and stroke egos.

Check back next week and the Think Tank team will let you know which ads we liked, which were a waste of money, and more importantly, how a Private Media Channel implementing any number of custom media solutions would have been a stronger, more measurable media investment.

As someone who has spent the past 20 years moving back and forth between NY and Boston I look at this game with an eye toward the fierce rivalry between the two cities. The personalities and cultures between the two areas are very different for places so physically close. It really is Athens (Boston) vs. Sparta (New York).

The usual psychic balance between the two cites is out of whack. NY usually has the upper hand, but now it is all Boston. Between the Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics, it has been no contest; even Mitt Romney has put a beat-down on Rudy Giuliani. It is a bleak time in the Apple with the Mets collapse, the Knicks a laughingstock, and the Yankees embroiled in the steroid scandal. Wall Street has taken a beating and rumor has it that annual bonuses have dipped below seven figures. Gucci belts are tightening and the Hamptons real estate market is suffering. The horror of it all.

Bostonians are enjoying their time on top, and they should. The usual New England reserve and passive-aggressiveness has given way to front running, gloating and self praise. Those fine qualities are usually the province of New Yorkers, not the descendents of Cotton Mather and the Puritans. For the past year, I have had the pleasure of watching the Boston media glorify the Red Sox and Patriots in ways you can’t comprehend. Sports lead the newscasts more often than not. The first 20 minutes of Sunday night’s Channel 7 News was devoted to video of the Patriots boarding buses in Massachusetts, and deplaning in Arizona—gripping journalism. It is just a matter of time before major roads and landmarks are renamed after the holy trinity of Jonathan Papelbon, Tom Brady and David Ortiz.

To follow up on the Athens vs. Sparta theme, hubris has set in. The Boston fans are treating the Super Bowl as a formality on the way to crowning the Patriots as the greatest team of all time. This attitude set in around October when they were running up the score on opponents and the rest as been a coronation. Could Tom Brady’s injury be a symbolic Achilles heel? His ankle has received more media scrutiny than any body part since Janet Jackson’s exposed breast.

Just a feeling that this hubris will may come back to haunt New England. New Yorkers are ready for some Karmic payback and what would be better than ruining the perfect season? There is something cosmic about facing Eli Manning, whose brother Peyton ended the Patriots season last year in the AFC championship game

I have seen every Patriots game this year, and I think they are wearing down from the pressure and grind of the season. Their offense has had trouble with aggressive, blitzing defenses which the Giants feature and the Giants’ offense put up 35 points on the Pats defense a few weeks ago. The Giants are on a mission, have nothing to lose and know they can play with them. The Patriots, who are the far better team, go into the game knowing that if they lose, they will go down in history as failures to some extent. That’s not fair, but the unfortunate truth in today’s all or nothing media culture.

I’ll take a lot of grief for this prediction, but I have a premonition about the ongoing Greek tragedy between New York and Boston.

Sparta 27 - Athens 21

The contrast between Romney and McCain is equally dramatic in their approach to media. Sen. McCain, who has limited dollars, created ads where he just looked into the camera, told the voter who he is, why he is qualified and what he would do as President. Simple, on message and benefit-oriented to the voter. Because he didn’t have much money, he went directly to the voters in a Private Media strategy. He could not afford a media channel, so he built is own. He went from town to town and sat down with voters who asked him questions. No big speech, just an honest dialog between candidate and voter. He also took advantage of free media, making himself available for any and all who wanted to interview him. All the while, he stays right on brand message. He also comes across as warm and human.

On the other hand, Gov. Romney, who has and raised tons of money, started advertising in NH almost a year ago – and ads never really told you who he was and what he believed. They were a recording of him running off a laundry list a shop worn items he would do as president – lower taxes, cut spending, stop illegal immigration, stop terrorism, etc. Stop me if you heard this before. It was the ultimate in marketing campaigns created by consultants and committees, who conducted a big media assault, and spent tens of millions of dollars renting media channels - to little effect.

When it became clear McCain was gaining on him in the NH polls, he went negative in a big way. Here in the Boston market we get all the ads aimed at southern New Hampshire, and I am not exaggerating to say you could not get way from the barrage of negative advertising Romney aimed at McCain both on TV and radio. They were dreadful ads – the old school “man/woman in the street” fake interviews. Mock serious profiles of local NH voters telling us how McCain’s positions will ruin the country and make it hard on plain ol’ folks to raise a family. They made McCain out to be a cross between Karl Marx and Abbie Hoffman. Does anyone fall for this? Is there anyone who does not look at these types of ads and think they are not scripted Romney supporters or actors? These ads did not contain a single reason why you should vote FOR Romney, rather than just against McCain. The Romney campaign spent all this money and didn’t tell the voter anything about their man’s positions, who he is or why he should be President.

As we know now, they did not work. In fact, exit polling clearly told us that voters felt Romney ran an “unfair” campaign. Whether it is politics or business – comparative negative advertising just does not work. I don’t think people respond well to negative messaging. However, the real reason it does not work is that you are not giving the buyer a clear, benefit-oriented message of what you can do for them. In any type of marketing messaging you must create a dialog of affinity and trust to lead to action. In this case a vote. John McCain’s Private Media strategy and brand proposition led to a win, and maybe the Presidency.

There are some interesting marketing lessons to be learned from this week’s Republican New Hampshire primary. It is ironic that the Harvard MBA and businessman, Mitt Romney, may be conducting the worst political branding and advertising campaign seen in some time. He has all the advantages – especially money – and lost to Sen. McCain by five points. Comparing the marketing strategies of these two candidates illustrates a few fundamental marketing and media truths.

What is a Brand? Brand is a promise of what the consumer gets when they purchase your product or service (or vote). The brand proposition is the foundation for any product, service or candidate. The McCain brand is clear and consistent - he is the war hero turned Senator who is both a maverick and straight shooter. He tells it like it is, and fights for what he believes in - even at political costs. McCain has taken positions on Iraq, campaign financing, immigration and taxes that often puts him at odds with mainstream Republicans. And he does not care. His primary goal is to do what he thinks is the right for the American people. He has no trouble telling voters what they may not want to hear, and does not pander to interest groups. McCain’s brand scores high on measures of likeability, authenticity, compassion, honesty and foreign policy experience.  Like him or not, you know what he stands for and what you are going to get.

Contrast that to the Romney brand. Is he the moderate Republican (pro choice, pro gay rights, pro gun control) who ran and won the Governorship in Massachusetts, the bluest of blue states, in 2002? Or, is he the hard right conservative who is now running for President in 2008? Like the businessperson he was, he changes his sales pitch based on the prospect he is trying to sell. Because he has changed many of his positions and seems to pander to the right, he loses in the authenticity category, which does not help him in the honesty department either. There have been a few examples of when he got caught stretching the truth about his past (he exaggerated his hunting background, and there was a sketchy claim about his father marching with Martin Luther King).

The bottom line is no one really knows who he is, and what they could expect from a President Romney. What is the brand promise? I get the sense he is running as someone who he not, but rather as a conglomeration of focus group-tested themes.  My hunch: he is not as hard line as he comes across, but feels he must project that image to win the Republican nomination.

Here is some free and unsolicited marketing advice to Mitt Romney to repair his brand: toss the consultants and ad agencies and just tell the American people what you really believe and how you will make their lives better and safer if you are President. Keep the message clear and consistent.

Additionally, try and show some empathy and compassion. Nobody likes a good-looking rich guy who demonizes immigrants while they are mowing his lawn. By all accounts you’re a nice person and good dad. Let people see that side of you, and make some jokes at your own expense – loosen up.

You are running to be President of the United States - all of them. Don’t worry about the approval of the religious right, Fox News, Rush, Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity. Americans are anxious to move past the 16 years of red state/blue state bickering we have had. Be the guy/brand that can bridge the gap and get people talking to each other. Time to take a hard look at your brand, the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire have and opted elsewhere. The clock is ticking; you only have 30 days left if you want to be President.

We often talk about Private Media in terms of for-profit corporations directly talking to customers and prospects by owning their media channel rather than renting time and space from large media companies. One of the many benefits of the private media approach is that the owner of the media channel gets to control the message – both the content and distribution.

We now see a rapidly growing movement where individuals are also creating private media channels – pretty easy with today’s Web 2.0 technologies. Between social networking sites and video sharing, anyone can create a private media channel with minimal effort.  All of the Presidential candidates are well down this road, and almost every rock star, actor and athlete worth their salt has their own Web site, myspace page, and has posted videos on YouTube for an interactive dialog with fans. While the primary motivation is promotion, it can also be used to communicate directly with fans, enabling the personality to control the message and environment while getting their message out there as fast as possible. One of the key rules of crisis management is getting the word out quickly and framing the conversation.

How many times on TV have we seen someone yell at their lackeys in anger, saying: “the press will have a field day”. (By the way, a field day is an opportunity for unrestrained activity, not a day of sports competition at school – thanks Encarta.) In the past, celebrities and companies were dependent on their PR machines pitching and spinning stories to the press and having no input as the press edits and positions the story. Once a negative story gets into the 24/7 news cycle it is well out of your hands, and indeed a field day ensues.

We are now seeing famous people taking their message directly to the people. When Rosie O’Donnell was battling ABC and Barbra Walters over her job on the View, she posted video blogs on her site for her fans and the media to pick up and replay. Rosie’s private media channel told her side of the story quicker than the Disney/ABC PR team could tell theirs. Baseball’s Roger Clemens did the same thing when responding to reports he used steroids. After a few days of silence he posted a video on his site and on YouTube to deny the allegations. He will appear on 60 Minutes this weekend, but he has already gotten his message directly to the public bypassing the 60 Minutes film editing room.

The newest private media channel took me by surprise – The British Royal Family has premiered their own royal channel on YouTube. This is where they posted the Queen’s annual Christmas message and other clips and archive footage. When one of the oldest and most traditional intuitions in the world embraces private media, it is clearly an idea whose time has come.

Consumers of media and information need to watch these videos with an attitude of buyer beware. This is an unfiltered message, which does not have the benefit of a journalistic screen – no fact checking or follow up questions.  On the other hand, there also no agenda or bias from the journalist or media company. This is especially attractive to polarizing and controversial figures such as Queen Elizabeth II and Roger Clemens. It bears watching how this trend will develop – as we can assume that more and more notable people and companies create their own private media channels.

How will the traditional media companies adapt? Will consumers put as much faith in messages directly from the sources, rather than through journalists? My guess is that we will come to expect the direct message from our actors, singers, athletes, politicians and corporations. It will be incumbent on corporations and others using private media to keep the content benefit-oriented and information rich when speaking to their customers and prospects rather than a sales pitch. With the right content, a private media channel can be more powerful than any ad or PR effort will ever be.
 

As we head into the home stretch of the holiday season, I am thinking about two media images that are juxtaposed in my head.  The first is one you have all seen – the crazy rush of people charging stores like Best Buy and Wal-Mart.  Check out these clips from YouTube, the one from Best Buy was taken by their own staff  - priceless.  I don’t think I am going out on a limb by saying this may not be our finest moment as a country.  We in the marketing/media industry need to take some of the responsibility in helping create this insane frenzy over material products and the mania to buy the latest and greatest toy or electronic gadget for ourselves and our children.  The ad blitz starts right after Halloween, and it has turned Thanksgiving into a speed bump on the way to “Black Friday”.  That night the news is full of stories about people lining up at 4 am and acting like maniacs to get their hands on stuff no one really needs.  TV and newspapers are full of ads that make it seem like if you don’t get out there now and fill your cart you are a bad parent. 

The whole furor over the Wii is an eloquent symbol of this excess.  My 9 yr old nephew and 10 yr old niece HAD to have these – a $250 product.  Not only do their friends have them, but they have been exposed to hundreds of ad and media images selling them this video game.   My brother got my nephew his Wii and like a true New Yorker paid a $50 premium on ebay; my New England brother-in-law got his at list price for my niece by standing in line for five hours.  I love these kids more than anything, but this is just nutty.  I can’t even imagine how the conversation with my parents would have gone, asking for a $250 toy back in the seventies when I was their age.  I was more than happy with my anatomically incorrect GI Joe.

Don’t get me wrong; I am as much a capitalist as the next guy, (although my Fox News loving father-in-law has called me a Communist on occasion).  But, maybe things need to be taken down a notch. Do kids need to be sold and pitched all day long on the dozens of cable channel aimed at them?  The ads all have the same theme – if you don’t have product X, you are not cool and don’t measure up.  That’s a lot of pressure for pre-teens.

This brings me to the other media image – one that struck a cord with my personal sensibilities.  I came home tonight to a front page story in my local paper about the dire conditions of food banks across our region and the county.  Local food banks are at an all time low in donations and an all time high in demand.  The reasons for this have been well documented – out of control energy costs, the credit crunch, foreclosures, rising health care costs and a stagnant economy.  It is going to be a tough winter here in New England, as skyrocketing heating oil prices will force many people, especially those on a fixed income, to make hard choices between heat, food and prescription drugs.  Add to this the monetary pressure of the holidays and you have a sad situation. 

So, take a break from buying and going to parties and donate either time, food or cash to your local food bank – every town and city has one.  There is a great one in my town, Beverly Bootstraps, and I will be bringing them a donation on my way home.  Or check out this new site www.redefinechristmas.org that makes it easy to donate money you may have used for gifts to worthy charities, and it has a viral element to pass along the message to friends. It’s the least we marketing professionals can do in return for our role in making Christmas and Hanukkah an orgy of spending and excess.
 

This recent Boston Globe article does a nice job out outlining how media companies and advertisers are dealing with the DVR phenomenon.  Currently, 20% of US household have one, and that is projected to rise to 35% by the end of 2011 –representing 40 million households. Of course, the issue is the fast forwarding and skipping of commercials.  Once you own a DVR, your days of being a slave to the TV schedule and watching endless commercials are over. 

The fact that 40 million affluent household will be skipping commercials is not good news to the ad supported networks and cable channels.  Nor is it great news for ad agencies that create and run commercials for their clients over expensive “rented” media channels provided by the networks.

The article points out several fixes and solutions the networks are trying to force people to watch commercials by running fixed logo, making some programs so you can’t fast forward them; and coming up with commercials within the actual program.  I will predict right now that all of these will all fail because of one basic fact – the consumer is now in control of their media choices; and they do not want their TV watching interrupted by commercials that have no relevance to them.

Try this small personal experiment and it will bring it to life for you – watch two hours of network TV shows that you usually watch and are basically aimed at your demographic.  Take note of the commercials and keep count of how many are:

1. Of completely no interest to you and something you would never buy for any reason.
2. Of such poor marketing quality, you don’t even know what they are selling or what the benefits of the product being advertised are.
3. Advertising a product category you do buy, but it is brand you would never switch to because you are satisfied with your brand or you don’t like the brand advertised.
4. Advertising a product you already buy or plan to buy.

I will wager that 90%+ of the commercials that you see in that two hour block will fit into one of those four categories.  Think of the wasted dollars spent reaching you and others who are skipping the commercials or don’t care about them.  This type of advertising is a vestige of the past when broad based media – TV, radio, magazines and newspapers were the only option.  You could do some audience targeting via MRI, Arbitron and Nielson, but it is more art then science, and the waste is incredible.  Also, this type of advertising has little or no accountability.  You really have no idea how and if it works.

The big media companies and ad agencies have a vested interested in keeping this system going even though it is not an efficient use of the client’s marketing dollars.  Granted, there is ego involved here on the client side – marketers and their CEOs like to see their ads running on famous shows where their family and friends can see them.  It’s like those corporate branding ads that run during the Sunday morning news shows.  Please write to me if you can name a greater waste of marketing dollars. 

We are heading to an inflection point in the advertising/marketing business where companies are going to eventually put a stop to spending their money in this manner.  They will turn to custom and private media solutions to generate new leads and create a meaningful dialog with customers.  The technological change over the past 10-15 years (Web, wireless, DVRs, iPods) has changed the game for the delivery of media and marketing messages.  Broad-based advertising has its time and place, but some of that money being spent to create glitzy commercials could be redeployed to market to the company’s database.  Companies who master their customer and prospect database can own their media channel rather than rent it; and create specialized private media communication and content for their best customers and prospects.  Owning your media channel will provide a tangible ROI for the bottom line rather than a commercial that rents network time and where the clear likelihood is for a skipped, ignored and expensive message.

In this Monday’s New York Times, David Carr writes about print magazines and how they fit into his overall media consumption.  Read the article—he makes the case that there is less and less time for print and publications like The Week will thrive in the web era with its style of short articles and quick hits of the week’s news.  He may be right for some people, but I don’t agree.

To me, the strength of print is the long article and thoughtful analysis. I can get quick AP type headlines and news on the Web all day long. In fact, I do—I monitor the major news outlets on myyahoo.com feed all day long. In addition, I make time for the Boston Globe and the New York Times print editions to get behind the news stories and personalities. I also make time for Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, Portfolio, Inc. and Boston Magazine. What I get from each of these is long form, in-depth journalism that I would not tend to read online. That may change someday, but for me and probably others my age, nothing can duplicate the environment and affinity you get with your favorite magazine. What I love about magazines is discovering and learning about something I had no idea I would be interested in; or a unique take on an old topic.

For example, this New Yorker story about Rupert Murdoch buying the Wall Street Journal by long time journalist and media analyst Ken Auletta; or well known tech writer Steve Levy writing in Newsweek about Amazon.com and the future of the ebook.

That being said, the magazine industry faces enormous challenges as a marketing vehicle as we move into the Private Media era. Of the magazines I read each week—I could recall only one ad through unaided assistance—the back cover of the New Yorker had an ad for the Mercedes C series, a car I really want to buy in the spring. It is ironic; the only ad I remember is a product I was already sold on.

The case for print advertising is a tough one to make. It is neither actionable nor measurable to the advertiser, and it is the classic example of “interruption” based advertising. The ads are only relevant to a small amount of people who have an interest or ability to buy that particular product. Each week my reading is interrupted with dozens of very expensive ads for pickup trucks, minivans, video games, outdoor camping equipment, energy drinks, credit cards, after dinner liquor and pharmaceuticals that I will never, ever buy. The amount of marketing dollars wasted reaching prospects in the manner is mind-boggling. And by the way, is this the way to have a dialog with your current customers?

Print publishers face a huge challenge—how to stay relevant and profitable at the same time. Most smart publishers are far down the road to becoming multi-platform media brands with strong online, video, events and lead generating offerings. They need to get to a point where the print product is no longer the center of the universe. This evolution will only accelerate over time as most consumers under 35 are online focused and will not have the attachment to print that us middle-aged people do.

However, a stumbling block to the future is that these media companies are stocked with people who have spent their entire careers in print and still see the Web as an ancillary product. And, because print still drives profits, most media company compensation plans are skewed towards selling print ads. I love this quote from Felix Dennis, owner of The Week, and founder of Maxim magazine.

“The American magazine industry has been massively overstaffed for years and years. It is one of the most inefficient businesses in the history of the world. And you know what? The chickens are coming home to roost,” Mr. Dennis said. “They can sit around the campfire listening to the scary noises out in the dark, wondering where it all went, but what I would suggest is that they take some of the chickens, skin ’em, and stick ’em on the campfire and start eating.”

This sentiment will resonate with anyone who spent significant time working for a traditional old line publishing company. Their staffing and business models are still heavily weighted to print, especially in management and sales. Print sales reps still make huge salaries compared to people selling online media and event sponsorships—does that still make sense? Grab a copy of any consumer or trade publication and take a hard look at the masthead and you will be amazed at the layers of management (thick with VPs, EVPs, SVPs and Extra Special Super Terrific VPs) and the people with titles (anything with “Strategic” in it) that look like what they are—old timers and buddies hanging around at big salaries. Add this overhead to rising costs for paper, production, circulation and postage and you have some significant costs that must be covered by print advertising’s declining margins.

I share Mr. Dennis’s opinion—it’s time to blow up the internal structures of these companies and realign assets and people to reflect the new reality of the multi platform, Private Media world. It’s time to bite the bullet and come to the realization the long term future is not a print dominant world. They need slash costs and hire and reward the people who are driving online, video and event products—not the risk-adverse print veterans who are waiting for the “good old days to come back”. Time and progress only move forward, get on the bus or be run over by it.

The news has broken and Don Imus a.k.a the I Man will be returning to the airwaves on WABC NY for the same company that syndicates Sean Hannity.  So, we can only assume that syndication is around the corner.  Just six months after his career was left for dead by the conventional wisdom pundits, he is coming back; and ready to settle a few scores.

To be up front – I am a long time listener and fan of Don Imus.  I started listening to his show as kid in my Dad’s car in the early 70’s.  I listened to his show almost every morning from 1993 (when syndicated in Boston) through his dismissal in April, and I watched the MSNBC simulcast as well.  I loved the mix of somewhat juvenile edgy humor and high minded political and literary discourse.  I enjoyed the way he would shift from a nasty/funny song parody to a serious political conversation or review of a new book.  Also, you saw a side of people like Pat Buchannan, Tim Russert and Jeff Greenfield you didn’t get from them during their “real jobs”.  The show became a staple in my daily routine and often the way I got my news.

Clearly, Imus crossed the line with his comment about the young ladies at Rutgers.  The rich, famous and powerful are fair game, but 20 yr old hard working college students are not.  I wish he didn’t say it, but it shouldn’t wipe out all the good he has tried to do for people over the years, and the business success he brought CBS, NBC and his many sponsors.  He deserved a slap and suspension, but not to be fired.

It is well documented how Imus came under fire in a barrage of hypocrisy, political correctness, corporate wimpiness, and general media piling on that seems to be the fashion of the day.  How Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson got to be the arbiters of what is right in America is maddening and best left alone.  However, it was not shocking that these two publicity hounds went after Imus like raw meat while giving rappers and hip hop culture a free ride for using the same words.

What I found most disappointing and dispiriting was the way the sponsors, NBC’s Jeff Zucker and CBS’s Les Moonves caved like a cardboard suitcases within days of the story catching fire.  These two big traditional media companies knew what they were getting into with Imus.  In fact, his CBS Radio contract called for him to be “edgy and provocative”.  Regular guests who went on his show to hawk their books bailed on him in the sanctimonious hand wringing that followed.   I was so angry, I haven’t watched MSNBC since this happened, and have switched my allegiance from NBC News to ABC.   I was not alone - read the comments to this blog post and check out this site to buy Save Imus t-shirts.

I also knew he would be back – I figured by early 2008 at the latest.  A couple of reason why it was a no-brainer that he would be back in the saddle in today’s media world.

1. He has a loyal following representing a built-in audience waiting to come back and listen; and more importantly patronize any sponsors who come back.  There are always going to be struggling radio stations that will take a chance at capturing this revenue.

2. His core audience of middle age white people was probably not all that outraged at his comments.  Not to say they condone what he said, but it was no worse than the usual equal opportunity beat downs on the show.  While what he said was bad, they are just words, he didn’t kill anyone.

3. He has a track record with sponsors – isn’t that what radio is all about – selling stuff.  The man knows how to move product.

4. Companies like NBC and CBS don’t control the media world anymore – they have become like any large conservative public corporation – pumping out safe stuff for the masses.  They don’t want Imus or Howard Stern working for them anymore – too risky for next quarter’s earning report for Wall Street.  That is why we get multiple versions of CSI and Law and Order and pap like the new Bionic Woman and Kid Nation.  There has been zero buzz about the new TV season.  Have the major networks ever been less relevant in the lives of Americans?

The lesson, boys and girls (an Imus phrase) is that it’s ALWAYS about the money.  Sponsors fled when Sharpton and Jackson threatened boycott which in turn made CBS and NBC abandon someone who had been loyal and successful for them.

The dust has settled and the attention deficit disorder media are on to other things, the coast is clear for Imus to return because there is money on the table to be made from sponsors desiring his affluent audience.

As we say in New York – money talks and bullshit walks.  See ya’ later Al, Jesse, Jeff and Leslie – the I Man rides again.

Nike and others have discovered that they can increase customer retention and affinity by communicating directly with customers rather than through traditional “interruption” based media. Companies that use Private Media and permission based marketing techniques are seeing positive results; and are shifting their advertising budgets away from big media companies to direct interactions with customers and prospects. This Private Media strategy has been at the foundation of King Fish’s approach since its founding, and continues to be successful for our clients.

I thought this fact and quote from the story was very powerful:

Last year, Nike spent just 33 percent of its $678 million United States advertising budget on ads with television networks and other traditional media companies. That’s down from 55 percent 10 years ago, according to the trade publication Advertising Age.

“We’re not in the business of keeping the media companies alive,” Said Trevor Edwards, Nike’s corporate vice president for global brand and category management.  Mr. Edwards says he tells this to many many media executives. “We’re in the business of connecting with consumers.”

Read this story from a New York Times article illustrating how Nike and other leading marketers are using Private Media and bypassing traditional media channels.

This is just the beginning of what will be a long term shift in strategy.  Thanks to advances in wireless technology and the maturation of social networking web tools, we will see more and more companies speaking directly to consumers without the filter and expense of media companies.  This does not mean that traditional media companies will disappear by any means.  However there will be a shake out and only ones with the best relationship with their readers/viewers will survive.

I sent the link to my last post to the very marketers I was talking about.  Not surprisingly, they commented and added to the list.

This comes from Tracey Passuello, Director, Digital Marketing & Sales Promotion at Portfolio.com.  Tracey is part of one of the coolest media launches of 2007, Portfolio from Conde Nast.  I will have to write about it soon, but it becoming one of my favorite reads.  Check out the October issue if you have not yet seen it.  

Let me frame it out - “By the blank stare you are giving me I figured out that you didn’t understand a word I said so maybe I need to stop throwing every buzz word I know out and actually speak English”

What’s our play? - “I have no idea what to do in this area so you better figure it out”

It goes in the bucket - “I have no idea how to do this task so I will put it into a file and pray it goes away”

It’s time to flip the model - “damn if I know what to do”

These come from Laura Mastroberti, Manager, Advertising Research & Marketing at Newsday Long Island, one of the largest daily newspapers in the country, and the paper I grew up reading.  They have recently redesigned their web site.  Check it out here.

We need to think economies of scale – “Less money, more work”

This is going to be so much fun – “Fun for me because I don’t have to do it, you do”

I think you’re on the right track – “You missed it by a mile; try again”

Do you have more to share?  Send them in and we’ll post them.

Like Rudy Giuliani, I make an effort to be direct and to the point. It saves time and I think you should let colleagues know where you stand. I know it sometimes makes people uncomfortable, but I believe in being up front and honest rather than hiding behind niceties and not speaking my mind. It certainly cuts down on miscommunication. I prefer working with people who are direct, and it is a personality trait of a good marketer. Being able to express yourself clearly and persuasively is what marketing is all about anyway.

I have a group of friends and former colleagues in marketing who I bounce ideas off when I am looking for input. They always give me good feedback, and the best marketing people I have known are frank, honest and not always looking to spare feelings. If you want to be successful in marketing, you better have a thick skin. The bad marketers I have known are mealy mouth corporate survivors, who rarely say anything of substance. They are also masters at repeating other’s ideas as their own. As a service to Think Tank readers here is a guide for translating business weasel phrases during those painful conference calls and meetings.

Term - “ThinkTank Translation”

1. We can divide and conquer - “Please do my work for me”

2. We need an off-site meeting  -  ”Let’s stick our head in the sand somewhere else and have a dinner on the company”

3. Special Projects - “It’s cheaper to keep him around for a while, also see #15″

4. He’s not Strategic - “He’s not smart”

5. She’s more Strategic - “She can’t get things done”
 
6. I don’t have the bandwidth - “I don’t feel like doing it”

7. Let’s take it off line - “Pipe down until we are off this call”
 
8. Please take ownership of this - “Take it off my plate, it’s not of interest to the boss anymore”

9. Let’s form a task force - “I need some ideas I can steal”

10. We don’t have enough marketing suppot - “Need a scapegoat for bad sales”

11. Revenue is down year over year - “We have a product no one wants”

12. It’s a good thing - “Someone got screwed and it’s not me”

13. We need a new branding campaign - “I can blame the last guy for a while”

14. It needs more white space - “It’s mess, take it down a notch”

15. “Strategic” or “Strategy” in job title - “No longer useful, but friends with the boss”

16. I am working on it - “Have not even started it”

17. Town Hall Meeting - “Propaganda for the masses”

18. Realigning assets - “Swingin’ the ol’ axe”

19. Let’s get back to what we know worked in the past - “I have no new ideas”

20. We need to be entrepreneurial - “No more car service, free drinks or room service”

21. I need you to be a team player - “Sorry, no raise this year”

22. Nice to put a face to the name - “I thought you would be better looking”

23. She presents herself very well - “Babe”

24. My bad - “I screwed up, but using street language makes me cool”

25. It’s not about the money - “It’s always about the money”
 

I had a Professor in Business School who tried to get his students to give opinions and thoughts in clear language, and to speak our minds. He hated hedging and generic terms —he would say “no weasel words” when some tried to give him business clichés as an answer. I used to think of him when stuck on mind numbing conference calls that were grossly common when I was working for large companies. These calls were a cornucopia of political positioning, name dropping, calendar filling and butt kissing—that’s not how I roll. Truth is I spent most of them on espn.com and exchanging witty IMs with like-minded call participants.

The modern world has created a whole vocabulary of politically correct, soft and non-offensive terms which is symptomatic of our times. Fear of lawsuits and current educational trends have made all of us careful of what we say so we don’t offend or make anyone slightly uncomfortable. Politicians are the worst at this type of safe talk. I used to love watching Meet the Press and presidential debates, but don’t watch much anymore. No one ever says anything interesting. All they do is repeat the same focus group-tested, carefully constructed statements that are designed not to get them in trouble or offend any special interest group.

In the entertainment world, when people come along like Rosie O’Donnell, Don Imus, Kathy Griffin and Donald Trump, people gravitate to them because they shoot from the hip and say what is on their mind. However, as soon as they cross some arbitrary line they get smote down with a great fury and vengeance. Because not many people want to take that risk, we get a steady dose of Ryan Seacrest, Carson Daly, and Regis and Kelly. Dull, boring and vanilla.

I am rooting for Rudy Giuliani to win at least the Republican nomination. Anything can come out of his mouth at any time and speaking his mind is in his DNA. I relate to Rudy because we both grew up on Long Island, where people are not shy about telling you what they think—whether you want to know or not. Contrast him to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney who come across as programmed machines from that old Yul Brenner Westworld movie. The question is: how will America feel about this choice of verbal and personal styles? Let’s take a look at recent experiences of the voters. (Rudy and me at a corporate event)

For eight years they had Bill Clinton who debated the definition of the word “is” as he was being impeached for lying about a girl. He was followed by George W. Bush who fudged his way into a war by linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11 with no proof. I may be wrong, but I think the country may be ready for a straight talking Long Islander in the White House.

I re-learned a valuable marketing lesson at the AI conference about audiences and keeping an open mind. Some of the speakers wanted to present keynote sessions where people would sit together in tables of 10 and do interactive exercises together. No big deal, but we were sitting 450 people and it just didn’t make sense to me and my B2B/Technology events background. We strongly suggested doing it our way, but eventually relented and reset the room in rounds with materials for a brainstorming exercise. Well, the attendees loved it, and it fit right in with their democratic and participatory ethos. The lesson is one I should have remembered – put yourself in the mind of your customer and keep your preconceived notions to the side. One of the great dangers in marketing is to default back to what worked in your past. Every situation is new and times change rapidly. Approach every situation with a fresh eye and blank slate for the best results. Besides, “That’s the way we have always done it” is the worst phrase that can ever be uttered by a marketing professional.

Another interesting note – one of the speakers in the conference was an old friend and boss, Nancy Newman who is now a V.P. of sales training at Yahoo! It never fails to amaze me how life and careers takes twists and turns. It was great to see her and she was her usual funny self. When she made a few AV and logistics requests and I jumped right back into employee mode and made sure they got done for her, pronto. Nancy was the Publisher of PC Magazine and I was her marketing director back when it was the size of a large phone book in the pre web 90’s. Never in a million years could I predict that I would see her 10 years later at an Appreciative Inquiry conference my company was producing. She was joined in a standing-room-only presentation by her Yahoo! colleague, Kim Bennett. Over drinks at the evening reception Kim told me she was a stand up comedian on her rare breaks from working at Yahoo! That is what I love about face to face events, none these conversations would have happened online or in any virtual world. There is no substitute for human interaction. Here is something the internet is great for – sharing a video of Kim’s stand up act, on Yahoo! Video, of course. Click here to check it out, and enjoy.

King Fish Media recently produced the 2007 International Appreciative Inquiry (AI) Conference. The four day summit brought together people from over 25 countries to hear speakers such as David Cooperrider, Marcus Buckingham and Martin Seligman. I will not even attempt to explain positive psychology and AI even though I am the proud owner of a 20 year old BA in psychology. Click here to learn more about the conference and see links to AI resources.

Spending several days at this conference reinforced my belief that face to face events are a critical media channel, and a key component to any Private Media solutions. Events a media channel? Of course, they are. Events bring together a community of people with similar interests with compelling content in a high affinity environment. That is the perfect description of private media. Additionally, a live event is the best community building mechanism known to man. It is one thing to join an online social network, but it is quite another to spend three days with a colleague in keynotes, breakout sessions and social situations. You can actually see relationships being created and deals being done when you walk around reception rooms and break areas. Can you think of a better customer retention venue than spending 48-72 hours with your best customers?

Events can be a hub and jumping off point for additional permission marketing vehicles such as newsletters, magazines, Web sites and more. As we become more and more Web centric, live events are more critical than ever to build relationships and market your company. As a marketing guy who has run his share of events and conferences, I am a huge believer in face to face. I strongly believe that focused events are a “must have” in most private media solutions. When you have someone in your own environment for a period of time, you have a golden opportunity to message to them and create long term customers.

The amount of media available to consumers has grown dramatically, but the irony is there is not enough content to fill all those cable channels, radio stations, Web sites, etc. The new network TV season is upon us and history tells us we will have 2-3 hits and mostly misses. I am not the only one who scans hundreds of cable channels and can’t find anything to watch—unless you enjoy shows on house flippers, close-u