Keep the torch burning

some days it's really hard to keep pushing forward and selling. The good news is I really believe that what I sell works. If you don't believe in the product your selling, that's rough.

I thoroughly believe that relationship-building and problem-solving are two overlooked aspects of sales. Us sales people are consumers too. We're influencers and bosses and bowling league teammates. Some of us are on the PTA or volunteer for a non-profit.

So, I have been walking around scratching my head wondering how my wife and I and the one you'll be hearing a lot more about, is MayFlower moving... or really Unigroup, Inc. They own like Mayflower, United Vans, and VIP Transport.

My wife and I paid literally thousands of dollars more to use Mayflower for our move because one of her friends had a horror story trying to move out of New Orleans using some "unknown" company.

Bottom line is Mayflower lost a whole crate of our stuff (like 15 boxes) and it wasn't like our socks and towels, it was boxes of wine and cd's and such. Most of the other stuff that actually did make it was broke. Not like one lamp or a few dishes. I'm talking boxes upon crushed boxes arrived and it was like reverse Christmas. Everything turned bad and ugly.

Worst part about it all? Nobody ever said they were sorry. Nobody offered to help. Immediately, we were called liars and the company then cut-off most communication. To make things worst, they tacked on a mysterious $600 fee after we complained. Saying it was because their truck couldn't make it in our development and they had to go shuttle our stuff in on a smaller truck (and since we've seen two other Mayflower trucks in there.)

That's the thing. Somebody sold us lies. Once we figured that out, everybody packed up their suitcases and left the hotel lobby. It feels dirty. It's the epitomy of dirty sales. Something goes wrong and your ad rep. takes off on you. That's not how it's supposed to be.

So, now not only are we investing our holiday savings in to a top-shelf lawyer but we're spreading the word like it's the gospel.

Just an overall bad move on their part.

Why it happened? They subcontract your move to local companies so their brand/reputation is out of their hands. The goons who moved our stuff from VIP on the Maryland side were hitting on my wife and running to use our bathroom every 10 minutes (we suspect drug users.)
Employees are, according to Jim Collins book, Good To Great, your biggest asset.

We had nobody take the lead the second we complained. Address issues head on. Don't sweep it under the rug. In my next post, I'll put all the email correspondence I had with all the companies (ranging three states from coast-to-coast) to illustrate the lack of concern and the combativeness. When somebody goes through something this traumatic, all that should matter is that somebody is assigned to help them through it. We would have spread the word that way as well. We're talkers and very social. It would have been turning a bad thing in to a good thing. It could have been something where we were raving about how Unigroup pulled the big "U-Turn" and have been treating us more like the suspects than the victims.

You must protect that brand

There's a great article on www.streamingmedia.com that talks about measuring video ads. It's a great way to start understanding how companies use online video and why. It justifies the trend and points out some key facts about why companies are investing in online video. Here's a quick blurb just to lay down a foundation:

"Research firm eMarketer predicts that by 2011, 86.6% of the US internet population will consume online video. Agencies and advertisers are responding accordingly—Forrester Research says that online video ad spending will reach $775 million in 2007, growing 89% from $410 million in 2006, and it’s expected to approach $5 billion by 2011. Online video ad spending is also growing as a percentage of total internet ad spending, up from 2.6% in 2006 to 4.2% in 2007. At some point in 2010, one in every 10 dollars spent on internet advertising will go for video ads." That's from the article, "How to measure online video ad success by Max Bloom but you don't have to have stumbled across his insight to see this in action.

With YouTube at the forefront, more and more companies are tapping in to the trend that almost four in five Americans are watching some sort of online video. Even Fox got on board with understanding that companies now need to control their content (they started www.hulu.com) and the creators of South Park did the same thing. Heck, even ESPN told Ad Networks to take a hike and they'd sell their own ad space as opposed to letting third parties sell ads on to their online properties because they were worried it would affect the brand.

It's important to think about that. Companies are protecting their brands and affiliations and, even with more advertising options, companies are becoming more concerned about who else shares your eyes on their domains.

As companies begin to purge and merge, we're seeing what looks to be a modern day circling of the wagons. With all the online option, it's never been more important to protect your brand.

How Cars Sell 2001-2008

Ever since I watched my first series of short movies by BMW, I have been enthralled at how the auto industry is using the internet and advertising to sell cars. Most results won't be as amazing as BMW and most campaigns won't pull in 100 million views over four years.

I have outlined a few of my favorite things that I've seen done with selling cars. This includes anything online and especially the one's that converge the technology of today with their traditional ad placement. If you have any you suspect should be here in addition (or in place of,) I hope you'll take a minute to add them in the comment box at the end.

Here's the best-of-the-best :

• The Oprah Show giveaway where her entire audience walked out with a brand new Pontiac G-6. The show came under some scrutiny because a couple of the ungrateful winners whined about the car tax they'd have to pay but, for the most part, it was an exacto-knife cut through advertising poopla. There wasn't a news broadcast - local, national, international, or otherwise - that didn't give the Oprah G-6 promotion some free press and it generated office cooler talk forever about how great Oprah was. Unfortunately, the G-6 and Pontiac could have sponged a bit more out of the campaign and demanded that "they" actually get the credit for supplying all the automobiles, but what of it. Pontiac reported that out of 52,900 total people who shopped the G-6 online the month of the Oprah giveaway, 51% shopped it either the day of the show (22%) or the day after the show (29%.)
  
• The Ford partnership with American Idol. Even though there's no way I can see David Archuletta rocking out a new F150, it has positioned the brand with one of America's top feel-good shows. The fact that you can watch the commercials of all the contestants running around and driving Ford's through paint online at www.americanidol.com or the music video breaks from the action on Fox, this one leaves its mark.
  
• On the partnership angle, some of my other favorite partnerships between automotive companies and movies/television are:
• The 1995 Goldeneye James Bond film with the z3 Roadster.
• Chrysler's cross-promotion with The Apprentice.
• Toyota's cross-promotion with The Contender.

• If you ever want product placement on a national scale, you need to go with one of these companies: AIM Productions, Hero Product Placement, Monkey Junction Entertainment, or Norm Marshall Associates.
  

• There are also several companies who specialize in measuring product placement for companies. You can use companies that track your return-on-investment (ROI) and get software like Compete and Nielsen Place Views Software.

• And, finally, my all-time personal favorite that got more media attention in 2006 than a tire could ask for is when Rip Hamilton (Detroit Pistons basketball player) allowed Goodyear to braid his hair in the style of their new tires tread (don't believe me, click here.) The results were outstanding and reached over 16 million people that week alone. And, according to the link to PRNews.com, "company earnings [for Goodyear] had a $35 million first-quarter improvement for Goodyear North American Tire, and Assurance has become the best-selling new product in Goodyear's 107-year history."

So, where next?

In 2005, BMW Brand Manager John Cappella (who did the BMW "The Hire" short film series) said in an interview with Digital Marketing (Digital Marketing, November 21, 2005) that he expects to see two things in the future. He looked forward to seeing where advertising would go with podcasting and also how product inclusion would be immersed in the online gaming industry.

In 2006, Wieden & Kennedy hit solid gold with Honda's diesel i-CTDi engine ad commercial that has been cleaning up in the advertising award arena. Here's the kicker - the diesel engine isn't ugly anymore and you can also play a flash-based game online to boot where you are a rabbit turning old technology in to lush environmentally-friendly landscape.

Guess we're on our way. Where's dem' Podcasts Johnny?

BMW got it right way back when.

Way back in 2001, BMW found that most of their male buyers who earned over $75,000 annually were watching high-speed Internet. They also found that, prior to most of them buying a BMW, they did some sort of research online.

BMW recruited advertising heavyweight, Fallon Worldwide, to put something big together. In Fallon fashion, they did just that and eventually put together a knock-out campaign of (8) eight short mini-movies (averaging around 7-10 minutes per movie) in a series dubbed, "The Hire," that was one of the most successful viral advertising campaigns put in place.

Here's why:

• The campaigns were exciting. They all centered around a central character, Clive Owen, who would play the part of the driver in all (8) eight episodes who was constantly ensuring that good-was-good and did it all in the drivers seat of a BMW;
• The campaigns were relevant. Each movie showed the car doing what car owners who drop big investment money on cars want them to do;
  
• They allowed online viewers to get involved more and, in return, the online viewers passed the branded-content around the online community to friends and family for BMW.

Fallon picked David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en) to produce one of the eight films but due to some sort of conflict it never got done so he oversaw production of the entire first season of films.

The series won awards at the Cannes International Advertising Festival and (in 2003) was inducted in to the Museum of Modern Art.

I highly recommend taking time to watch all of them if you never have. Here's the film library with a few highlights. It's the most fun you'll ever have learning about convergence in the media industry and how a big, risky, innovative project might look:

• Ambush, directed by John Frankenheimer, and features the BMW 7 Series;
• Choosen, directed by Ang Lee (and featuring his son), features the BMW 5 Series;
• The Follow, with Forest Whitaker and Mickey Rourke, features BMW 3 Series and Z3 roadster;
• Star, with Madonna starring and directed by hubbie, Guy Richie, features the BMW M5
• Powder Keg, features the BMW X5

Season 2 (all second season features the BMW Z4)

• Hostage, directed by John Woo;
• Ticker, featuring Don Cheatle and Ray Liotta, directed by Joe Carnahan;
• Beat The Devil (my personal favorite out of all of them) features James Brown, Gary Oldman, Danny Trejo, and Marilyn Manson, directed by Tony Scott.

BMW saw their 2001 sales numbers jump 12% and the movies were viewed over 11 million times in (4) four months. They had over 2 million people register at BMW Films and those people started the viral success by sending the videos to friends & family.

The campaign was so innovate and successful that they actually received movie reviews from Time Magazine and The New York Times.

According to a BMW Films press release, "THE HIRE - THE ACCLAIMED FILM SERIES BY BMW - WILL END A FOUR AND A HALF YEAR INTERNET RUN OCTOBER 21st."

And so they did. BMW ended up doing another small series for their mini and some comic books as well for a few of their cars but the glory was all masterfully placed in the hands of that initial series because everything went right. They utilized a big budget, took advantage of an opportunity by making a move when the time was right, and stayed clear and concise with what they wanted to do. No shortcuts. By the time it was all said-and-done over four years later, BMW Films had received over 100 million film views (Here's what that looks like with all the zero's: 100,000,000.)

It was a great example of how, by using convergence in the media industry, big companies could make major waves.

When companies take advantage of all the ways that information can be passed and they stay focused on the goal and target a hand, there are many more gains than pure sales to be had. Product positioning and getting that visceral connection with your target audience can be a great way to get your product passed around online for you and a way for them to feel connected to your brand.

In my next post, I'll dive in to some case studies since this 2001 endeavor by BMW and find out what car companies are doing to brand their product using "unconventional" avenues of advertising.

Obama knows interactive marketing

The guy is good. Maybe the best. I might have a hard time winning many votes of my own in this internet high school but I am a super big fan of Barack Obama. This might seem a bit choppy but I'll work to be concise:

First we need to get some facts out:
1) Customer Relationship Management (CRM for short) is very important and some businesses have turned to technological superpowers such as RightNow Technologies for support;
2) Barack Obama has women wearing "Yes We Can" tee-shirts and parading around YouTube;
3) Despite what your momma told you: No, Al Gore did not invent the internet.
4) You can buy "Barack Obama is my homeboy!" tee-shirts (www.zazzle.com) if you aren't down with the "Yes We Can" tees;
5) Senator Hilary Clinton might pay with the election for not jumping on board with technology;
6) Obama will win this election because his camp united their followers and empowered them through the internet.

Now, back to #1. CRM is a lot of things. Basically, you can do things to help your customers and how you interact with them. You can manage sales leads, track your return on investment (also known as ROI), and you can send clents and your boss analytics to keep track of your progress.

Three more facts:
1.) Obama Girl's real name is Amber Lee Ettinger and her career just took off;
2.) E! just named her the #1 Hottest Woman on the Internet;
3.) No she didn't actually vote for Obama;
4.) #3 really doesn't mean anything.

Obama has created an internet community of followers and there are poems, rants, paraphernalia, and songs online to support him. Some of these being passed around by Will.I.am from Black-Eyed Peas (see "Yes We Can" video) but most of the viral Obama content is being passed around by regular people. Most of it is user-generated content (USG).

The Obama campaign made a "defining moment" when they grabbed RightNow Technologies to handle some technical behind-the-scenes to make certain parts of their campaign run.

RightNow can be credited for handling Obama's state-of-the-art answer center. If you have a question, you will undoubtedly be able to find the answer in no time. This is in no small part due to the software they use by RightNow. I'm pulling an excerpt from a great article ("Barack Obama: First CRM President? by Erika Morphy) that I think can explain the magnitude of this offering:

"The more comprehensive of the RightNow initiatives is the Obama Answer Center. This was mentioned in the Rolling Stone article I covered in my last post. When you come to the AnswerCenter the first question is, “What is the Answer Center and how does it work?” The campaign can then adjust the next questions depending on the topics of most interest. For example, when I looked the next question was “Has Senator Obama released his tax returns?” Clicking on this you go to a format used for all questions. This happens to be the standard RightNow template for answer centers so many people remark that they have seen this format before in such places as Environmental Protection Agency, Electronic Arts, and Nikon, understand it. There is first the answer. In this case, there is also a link to his actual tax returns. There is also the section, “Users who viewed this answer have also viewed.” And you see a series of related questions to encourage more exploration. Once you view a question, you also see your previously viewed questions. You can search questions by category and key word and browse the most popular answers."

That's pretty good, right? Well, Obama's camp didn't stop there. They have used mobile text messaging to assemble their voting faithful the night before the campaign. They even had the smarts to include a phone number in the text message so voters can find the nearest polling station. In several states, they used internet technologies to design call lists so supporters could make phone calls and motivate local teams to get out and paper the city.

In another effort, they created ways to donate online where you could "challenge" other people to donate money.

That's why he's the man. That's why he is changing the way politicians look at the new vehicles of marketing. Don't cut down traditional venues just yet (I do have a day job at a newspaper) and consider that a good chunk of the $400 million that he's ready to drop on national advertising will be with some radio, t.v., billboard, and newsprint.

After searching online for Barack and seeing all of the exciting voice for "move" and "change" I couldn't help but get excited. Now, once he can explain where the money will come from to support his ideas of:

• Every high school student that graduates with a "B" average will get a free ride to college;
• How everybody in the United States will really get free health care;
• Giving illegal immigrants social security.
  

I'll be all in. Until then, I'll just keep the 'hope' alive.

Interactive Media Essentials 101b

I compiled a list of notes from my lunchtime session with Congruent Media's Emily Chua (http://www.congruentmedia.com/) and think that this might help some of you who want a better "101" on some things like domains, emailing , search engines, and web analytics. But, like I mentioned before, if you need more than this research is key or just asked the pro's at Congruent Media.

If your company needs to host a website you should make sure that you don't under-invest. The old addage "you get what you pay for" applies here. Match your needs with the different capabilities of web hosting firms prior to signing on the dotted line. For example:

• How much disk space do you need to operate the website?
• How much control do you want over the website?
• Will you be selling stuff on this website? If so, you'll need a shopping cart or some sort of program to allow you to collect payment (i.e., PayPal)
• What kind of service response are you looking for?
• Know the reputation of the network you are considering

A quick reference to find out about who owns a domain is http://www.whoisdomaintools.com/. There are others as well and my favorite (due to their owner and image) is http://www.godaddy.com/ if you are looking to pay somebody right up front without looking around at all.

If your company is looking in to CRM suppliers and running email marketing campaigns, I definitely would suggest taking the time to talk with a professional first but if you aren't that type and need to get up and going right away, I'm a big fan of http://www.constantcontact.com/. I was put in a situation at a research firm where we cut costs and canned our "professional" and I had to sit down and figure out how to get a monthly email campaign to all of our bigger clientele. From the beginning, I knew nothing but Constant Contact had me up and running campaigns with pictures and anayltics (like: who opened my emails, who asked to be removed, etc....)

On a side note, if you ever need to run an online survey for your company and are in the same (above) situation where you are super-underqualified to pull that off. Don't fret and go run and tell anybody until after you've checked out http://www.surveymonkey.com/. Seriously, same results as Constant Contact. Both websites can make you turn out product that looks like you've been doing it for years and are a downright professional. I actually got asked to do some email "consulting" work after a few businesses received my monthly emails.

To really stay on top of your game, the guys at Congruent Media suggested a few websites (the first three) and I've added a few of my own. These websites will keep you in the midst of industry knowledge and show you how a few of the professionals are pulling off great campaigns:

• http://www.clickz.com/
• http://www.dmnews.com/
• http://www.marketingsherpa.com/ (this is one of my favorite's and they'll send out white pages every so often as well.)
• http://www.marketingpower.com/ (this is the American Marketing Association's website)
• http://www.brandweek.com/
• http://www.fastcompany.com/

If you are going to be the person whose responsibility it is to do your "search engine marketing" again, I say, consult a pro for this one. I talk to people who swear they know what their doing on this one and still have no idea how to get their company listed anywhere closer than page 9 when the keyword being searched for is their company name. Again, here's a couple to reference:

• http://www.alexa.com/
• http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
• http://www.searchengineguide.com/

Now, let's say you have a small business and you sell a niche item. For example, I have a product that is a boat docking device called the "Buddy on the Docks" or the Buddocks. We have a small website that attracts minimal traffic (http://www.buddocks.com/) and we're looking to try to pull some traffic by using "click through" advertising. In the lunchtime session, they discussed four of the Top Pay-Per-Click Networks, which were:

• http://www.adwords.google.com/
• http://www.searchmarketing.yahoo.com/
• http://www.adcenter.microsoft.com/
• http://www.ask.com/

I'm partial to Google so I used Adwords. Right before Christmas I put the Buddocks up on Adwords and did the whole thing by myself on my lunch break at work. You can set it to pace out your budget (since we know on the internet if you use the wrong keywords and don't have a spacial setting, you can go through your money with little to no results very quickly.)

I took my time and set up a few keywords for the niche industry and picked what parts of the United States I wanted the listings to target (I looked at the top 5 states that had the most lakefront property since the device is for 28-foot boats or smaller.) Finally, over a few weekends I played with the header. I found this to be important. Since Adwords keeps a nice dashboard of your results, mark the dates you change your header around until you get your higher percentage numbers.

If you have a bigger budget and want to find out how to get your banner on hundreds of websites. There's a company that can maximize your budget and get you better results and (another homer promo) the company is Baltimore-based. It's http://www.advertising.com/.

And, to make sure I go full-circle, web analytics is of uber-importance if you actually want to measure any results. I stand by (and apparently so do the professionals at Congruent Media) Google Anayltics (www.google.com/analytics).

In the meantime my newfound fascination with Avinash Kaushik's blog (http://www.kaushik.net/) Occam's Razor will now rank up there with my most-visited website's along with Mike Doughty's blog, http://www.thephatphree.com/, http://www.sportsbook.com/ (gambling is an addiction), and http://www.perezhilton.com/. Of course, not one of those were actually pertinent to business and/or advertising.

Interactive media essentials 101

So, a bit of personal stuff really quick: I work all day in an advertising sales department and sell print and online advertising. I talk to ad agencies about ad rates, circulation numbers, market share, and click-throughs. I enjoy the creative side of it (though I rarely get to add much of that) and the fact that, in a small way, I'm helping a company achieve something through advertising.

I'm such the advertising nerd that I might as well have a picture on my wall of the advertising team from Grey Worldwide alongside Diageo North America's Dana Yerid (Senior Brand Manager) for their incredible holiday Tanqueray campaign. No seriously - you must check it out: http://www.effie.org/winners/showcase/2007/1844.

Anyways, so then I normally do one of two things: Hit a night MBA class (3x per week) or turn into an ultra consumer. Either way, from roughly 8:30 am to around midnight, I'm watching advertising, thinking about advertising or, as I mentioned, playing a tiny small part in somebodies advertising efforts.

With all the new advertising and marketing options open with the Internet, mobile advertising, web 2.0, social marketing, cause marketing, enviro-marketing, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Second Life, World of Witchcraft, Sex in the City, American Idol, Budweiser, crazy Burger King guy... etc., that it has gotten a bit overwhelming. I like the approach taken by Socrates in The Apology, "I know nothing except that I know nothing."

So, I took it back to basics and went to an "Interactive Essentials - Foundation" seminar in Baltimore hosted by one of the local pros, Congruent Media. They're specialty is Internet solutions so I was figuring to make out good and I did. If you ever need anything having to do with web design, website and database development, full-service Internet marketing and search engine optimization, or any kind of multimedia ad campaign hook up, check them out (www.congruentmedia.com).

The session was only about 2 hours long and the presenter was an account executive named Emily Chua. It was good stuff. Starter stuff. An easy "cheat sheet" came with it that showed all kinds of things you "should know but should have also learned it five years ago" along with some genuinely good tips to be more savvy and efficient when researching these kinds of things.

I'm going to lay it all out "note-style" in my next blog but, in the meantime, here's one of my favorite parts of the session - no, I don't mean favorite like the 2006 Budweiser pilots-love-Budweiser spot http://www.effie.org/winners/showcase/2006/686 - the favorite part of the session was when they went absolut101 with showing me where to find the blog by Avinash Kaushik (don't know who that is? yeah, me neither.) Mr. Avinash Kaushik is the Analytics Evangelist for Google. His blog is Occam's Razor at www.kaushik.net and I will now be a regular visitor there as I recommend you to do as well.

Stay with me and next week we'll really (finally) start to learn a bit here. In the meantime, drop a comment and let me know what your favorite all-time television commercials are. Thanks to the Internet and the fact that companies love the fact that we now search for commercials, they're at your beckon call.

Those kids can sing a marketer's tune

My wife and I recently have fallen in line and, every week, i now follow the remaining nine American Idol contestants. We argue over who's getting booted off the show, whether or not Simon is correct in his criticisms and what Paula Abdul is drinking that night.

The kids can sing. No doubt about it. But, they really are a marketers' dream come true. With everything from video games to mobile revenue-generating, from charity drives to commercial tie-in's, from websites against American Idol (http://www.votefortheworst.com/) to their record-breaking website (http://www.americanidol.com/) and their tie-in with Itunes (http://www.itunes.com/), American Idol has really taken the entire operation to the next level.

Figure this: Out of all the major network's, according to a recent Nielson Report, American Idol's website got 32.96% of the market share. That's almost three times the number of the second place finish by Deal or No Deal and Dancing With The Stars got a cool 9.31% of the market share in third place.

American Idol is currently the number one ranked show on television and is making all kinds of strides to capitalize on its current fame. When I watch American Idol, I can:

• Vote on my mobile phone, house phone, or online for my favorites;
• Jump on ITunes and buy both the in studio version of a song or the live on-air version (which, mind you, is always about 2 minutes long);
• Watch all kinds of in-show tie-in's for ITunes, Ford, and Burger King;
• Follow all the action online and even buy gear and tickets for the follow-up Idols Tour (http://www.idolstour.com/);
• And, I can purchase my American Idol video game and compete with friends online.

All-in-all, it's pretty impressive. I was trying to figure out whether you have to be this good at marketing a show like this or are they just really good at marketing this show? The answer is both. According to a Colorado Marketing Association's current speaker on television marketing, I Love Lucy, when it was the number one show in the 1950's reached 45% of the U.S. market. Today, American Idol, while far-and-gone the biggest show on television, only reaches about 5% of the U.S. market.

That means the marketing executives have to embrace all the opportunities that come with advertising and marketing this show in all the various ways that technology will allow. Online contests, tie-in's, and viral marketing all pay serious dividends for the show.

Plus, these are only the directly owned moneymakers. I'm a member of http://www.sportsbook.com/ for the occassional "recreation bet" and I can bet on the winners of American Idol as long as they get their 10% juice.

I'm not complaining though. I'm really not. A year or so back, I complained about a friends chicken burrito because, well it had no chicken on it, and I realized that wasn't my fight to fight. I see American Idol's marketing team as a sort of virtual Iron Chef. They know that right now they're cooking up the best mix of marketing that any television series has done in a long time and they don't necessarily "need" any one company helping them out. They're just simply saying get on for the ride or don't. Either way, somebody will be singing about something at the end of the day. Which is good news for them considering (to the best of my knowledge) that the winner of American Idol has never sold less than 2 million copies of their first cd release after winning the competition. That's no chicken burrito.

Is Dove For Real?

Dove has a campaign called "Campaign For Real Beauty" and it's supposed to help the self-esteem of millions of teenage girls to free them from the restraints of the beauty industry. To let them know: You have real beauty.

That's right. You have real beauty before you buy your $20 shampoo. Before you put on that eye liner, and lipstick, and blush, and foundation, and eye shadow, and lip liner, and anti-shine cream.

You have real beauty and Dove (owned by Unilever) thinks it's about time you knew it.... Of course, the problem some industry experts see here is that Dove (eh, owned by Unilever) is the mass marketer and producer of most of these industry products.

Nonetheless, the campaign has been a searing success so far. Dove has released two very well-done, and sometimes criticized, commercials for their campaign. To really get the feel, you got to take a look....
Dove "Evolution" commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U&NR=1
Dove "Onslaught" commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaH4y6ZjSfE

Those are some pretty heavy commercials. Pow! Right in your face, especially "Onslaught," it's like hey everybody out there is talking to your kids about looking good and we're going to sell the crap out of her if you don't take a stance.

So, there's the tyranny of the situation. The Yin and Yang aren't really panning out on this one. I mean should we mind that Unilever also produces the Axe commercials? I guess we should distinguish between the product branding of both Dove and Axe.

But, here's what we're learning in advertising school about using information systems to get your products point across:

A) It works - more people are increasing the amount of time they spend watching online videos - that includes product commercials. After watching "Onslaught" I actually took myself to ITunes and did one more consumer step: I bought Simian's La Breeze (which just so happens to be the commercials music soundtrack.)
B) It can reach lots of people - As of March 2, 2008, when I just checked www.youtube.com, The "Onslaught" video had rung up 1.3 million views. That's not bad for free press. As for "Evolution," 6,232,000 views and counting! That's just unfair. Spell it: F. R. E. E. advertising
C) You're going to open yourself up to criticism. I also noticed plenty of professional and not-so professional knock off videos which were actually worth seeing as well.

Either way, you decide on this one - let me know. My thoughts are that you can't fault a company for trying to get involved in something "bigger." Whether that's the Internet or the cause they are supporting. Everybody is trying to make something bigger. Using information systems like the Internet, companies, campaigns, television shows are all becoming bigger than real life.

Big Kid Gaming

A while back I was the marketing manager for a 400 person sports bar/nightclub and there was a continuous challenge to keep the place busy during off-hours. For example, outside of football season and before baseball season there were a lot of weekend days that there were no events to drive traffic in to our business.

That's when I found that video games could not only attract an adult crowd but bring in big profits as well. It started off like most promotional ideas sitting around the bar talking to customers (this should never be overlooked since they are the one's who ultimately decide on whether or not your promotions will be successful.)

We started with a group of guys who were excited to get out and golf but the weather wasn't cooperating so we decided to do a Tournament-style Tiger Woods tournament. The first weekend we had about 10 people sign up. We started getting phone calls for it and soon started getting requests for Madden Football tournaments. About two months in, suddenly we had about 25 people every Sunday coming in for a Tiger Woods golf tournament. We also had a Madden tournament every Tuesday night (another slow night) and had about 40-50 players showing up. Not bad when you consider two beverages and an appetizer equal about $15 dollars. Right there we just added $600-750 a night on a Tuesday.

Eventually, we started doing a Halo tournament on Saturday mornings and had filled some of our vacant revenue slots with a good, steady and loyal, crowd following.

Now, as I watch Sony open up their in-game advertising platform, I can see that they have been foaming at the mouth because of the increasing popularity of online gaming.

What does this mean? Now Sony's Playstation3 system will allow outside companies to sell ads in to the PS3 games that people are playing online.

This isn't exactly new. Many games sell sponsorships, especially sporting games (For example, Madden 2007 has their "Snickers" player of the game.) But, with the video-game industry now worth about $400 million dollars annually now and a growth rate of 23%, it seems the stakes are getting a little higher (according to a recent article in Advertising Age - "Game-Ad Boom Looms as Sony Opens Up PS3 by Abbey Klaasen.)

It seems a far cry from our sports bar and nightclub promotions pulling in crowds and this is, by far, much more appealing on a larger scale.

The major difference is the two types of advertising that can be done now on the PS3. There are dynamic in-game ads and ads that are a permanent marker of the game (Snickers "player of the game.") The dynamics of the dynamic in-game ads are that marketers can purchase buys for multiple games and not have to make the final decision while the game is in production. Companies can sit back and wait to see how the consumer feels about the new games and then run the numbers to find how many are playing it and who the buyers of the games are (most likely the impressive 18-34 adult male that makes over $40,000 annually).

Seems like the Internet and gaming industry are about to get in to a very competitive advertising dual. The good news right now is that there is no lock on any one company owning this advertising channel as of yet with PS3.

So, next time you're playing some guy in a match game of Tiger Woods 2008, make sure you have your player equipped with the Nike hat and shoes, the Slazenger three iron, and the Ray-Ban sunglasses but then sit back and wait as you turn on the back nine for a little word from your "other" sponsors.

My tickets to Opening Day

Please understand. I skip work every year for one early afternoon in April to breathe in the spring air, have an excuse to swill a beer at 1:35 p.m. on a Monday afternoon, and hear how the Baltimore Orioles will have another outstanding, albeit building, year.

It's probably the greatest time of year outside of the NFL Draft, Wildcard weekend, March Madness, and the World Cup.

But still, I wouldn't miss it.

So, this year I think I'd like to get tickets to the "real" opening day between the Oakland Athletics and the Boston Red Sox. Thanks to technology, I already eyed up a destination package (all the goods: Airfare, hotel, tickets, etc.) for only $4,999. Barring my current reality, I'm really looking in to it.

No matter. Even though the game will go off at around 6 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, I'm sure I can access it. I looked over the web to see if there is indeed a market for people like me and to no surprise, there is. I can get two different packages this year thanks to mlb.com.

Mind you, I'm not a Red Sox fan so my money will be well spent trying to help the Orioles find their way out of the AL East this season. The Baltimore Orioles and Major League Baseball want my fandom to be appreciated and recognized. They are offering season packages to watch all of the 162 Baltimore Oriole games online. I called MLB.com to ask about pricing and packages and it sounded like a great deal (and also like they have a very sophisticated online purchasing system. With all of this, it surely takes a great information system to make sure when the first pitch is thrown, everybody who signed up for these packages are getting their baseball fix.

Packages were $119 per year or $19.99 per month for the 700k streaming video that the guy on the phone guaranteed me would be worth it. Or, for all you turtles out there: Only $89.99 per season or $14.95 per month for the roughly 350-400k streaming video. I'm sure you'll lose a bit on your fast ball watching on that one.

Of course, then again, if I'm watching the Orioles play the Red Sox on my 350K streaming video that may mean the scorching fastballs might lose a bit and we'll actually hit some of that Red Sox pitching this season.

Play ball.

How to make sure your favorite player makes the All-Star game.

Here's what the City of Cincinnati wanted the the all-star ballot to look like in 1957:

Johnny Temple, 2B
Roy McMillan, SS
Don Hoak, 3B
Ed Bailey, C
Frank Robinson, LF
Gus Bell, CF
Wally Post, RF
Stan Musial, 1B

Interesting? Only that everybody listed there outside of Stan "The Man" played for the Cincinnati Reds at the time. Good power move by the fans, yet the commish stepped in and raised a heavy hand. The Commissioner, Ford Frick, decided there were two other player in the league that might also deserve a chance to participate in baseball's mid-summer classic so he added Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. Subsequently, Bell and Post lost their spots.

Now. Outside of that being good fodder, it's a nice set up for the here and now. There are several things that can be learned from this. They are:
1) Ballot box stuffing has been around for a long time;
2) Fans are loyal and rabid;
3) The players don't have to be the best at that point in the season to be elected to the all-star game.

And, now we have the internet. Don't worry about getting caught and realize you are not the only one doing this. You just have to have the will and a little time on your hands.

It also helps if you are from a big market like New York or Boston. Two years ago, the American league only had one starter that was not a member of either of these juggernauts.

And it helps if you are really good at working with computers. If you can use internet technology to fool the MLB's information system to let you vote multiple times, all the better. Somebody pulled that trick off in 1999 for Nomar. Yup, gave Nomar Garciaparra 14,000 automated votes. Don't worry though. You can match that with a little resourcefulness. Just start a chain email that "cannot be broke" or everybody will get "seven years of bad luck" or it will snow seven feet in seven hours like they claim it does in Oswego, New York. Just make it really serious and remind them that your guy would NEVER do that kind of stuff and attach a link to some nice non-profit website that he donates money to.

The point is, with the internet, the fix is in already. Big market teams have more fans than your team probably does. (I am one of the few believers that actually believe you small market teams even know how to use the internet.)

With it being a good possibility that over 20 million people will log on worldwide this year to vote on the all-star balloting, it is going to take some unfair play to ensure your guy gets in.

O.k., so, if you've read this far it's fair to assume I can up the ante and we can add on some severity here. Major League baseball teams use their ad dollars, their stadiums and their mascots to push their best players up in the balloting but it's going to take YOU the fan to break that horizon line. Here it is: you gotta take your plight to YouTube. Get on there and do whatever it takes to get your guy in the all-star game and, do me a favor, drop me a link in the comment box beneath this so I can see how good it is. You got from now until May 2008. Get on it little Paduan.
***
(Thanks for my fact-collecting resources. They're great for any and all about the great game of baseball: www.mlb.com, www.about.com, and www.wikipedia.com)

2.4 million dollars later and what do they have

And there it was for all the world to see: Danika Patrick and her beaver. Very impressive. Not really the fact that Danika Patrick was talking about her beaver but the fact that GoDaddy.com played it pretty well during the SuperBowl. Considering that GoDaddy got all of their ads nixed by the FCC, they found a way to use modern technology to actually DO something.

For a cool 2.4 million dollars (that's like 42 zillion peso's, right?), GoDaddy bought their ad space and submitted their 11th and 12th ad creations to the FCC for their SuperBowl ad and used it to generate web traffic to www.godaddy.com.

They were dubbed, "Spot On" and were a television teaser to get the audience to actually go online to watch their ads that didn't make the FCC-approved cut list.

GoDaddy is no newcomer to SuperBowl controvery and has used this opportunity to, again, create word-of-mouth water cooler talk and web visits to their web hosting website.

Just go to www.bobparsons.com where GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons runs his own website. You can catch yourself up on all the details of this story there.

If anything is to be clearer the day after, it's that perfection isn't easily achieved... GoDaddy knows it, The Patriots know it, and the general public knows it. That's why over 100 million people (that's my guess since the numbers aren't in yet), watched the SuperBowl and why advertisers are now turning to the masses to push their products (i.e., Dorito's and their "create a commercial" and "American Idol" type ads).

With advertisers searching to find that elusive visceral connection with their audience, we are beginning to see the most hands-on advertising yet.

Just ask Kina Grannis. She saw herself playing guitar during the Super Bowl thanks to Doritos.