Age of Conversation - Bum Rush

Last year I had the honor and pleasure of contributing to a collaborative book effort that both highlighted, and represented, the power of social media. 103 bloggers came together for the project, entitled ‘Age of Conversation.’ We sold thousands of copies, with proceeds going to a couple of childrens charities. And, it was such a success, we are getting the band back together (plus some other contributors) to do it again this year.

Before we dive into the new project, however, we are trying an experiment. Today, the authors and community around Age of Conversation are launching a ‘bum rush’ — a one-day push to help raise the Amazon sales ranking of Age of Conversation. The more books we sell, the higher the ranking goes today and the more money goes to some very worth childrens charities.

So, please, go buy the book (use this link so we can track it):

And tell your friends to buy the book. Write about it on your blog. Make it your activity update on your Facebook profile. Hit your your Twitter account up with a post. Whatever you use to spread the word, please help us with this incredible effort.

Thank you.

Age of Conversation

Today marks the official release date of “Age of Conversation.”

What is that? It is a collaborative effort of 103 bloggers and online types – a book that we all co-wrote and are now beginning the effort to co-market.  It is also an experiment in distributed media, a test of whether a group is really more powerful than the individual.  The goal was painfully simple:

- Pull 100 authors together on a single project 
- The overriding topic was “The Conversation Age” — where you take it is up to you.
- The items are short - one 8.5″ x 11″ page — it can be words, diagrams, photos (again up to you).  If it is words - about 400, give or take a couple.
- We write it quickly and get it out there. We publish electronically.
- We make it available online for a small fee and we donate 100% of the proceeds to Variety the Children’s Charity — which serves children across the entire globe

It all started with an off-handed remark on a blog post and grew from there.  The credit for both launching and facilitating the project goes entirely to the editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McClellan.  I have never met either, but I was honored and flattered that they would let me participate.

All signs in this suggest that this crazy little experiment will be an overwhelming success… Age of Conversation is an interesting book and will get significant attention, hopefully driving good sales. 

More information, and the option to puchase the book, is available at www.ageofconversation.com.  Go buy a copy!

Superbowl Weekend Reading

(I will be part of a team of experts organized by the Boston Ad Club offering thoughts on the Superbowl advertising this weekend.  Some of our comments will be posted on the Boston Ad Club’s Superbowl Advertising Blog.  This post also appears there).

The weekend of the big game has finally arrived!  The Ad Club has pulled together a crack team of advertising and marketing experts to offer comments on the advertising that will play on Super Sunday.  We are making final preparations, reviewing our play book, stretching out, etc.  What’s my role?  I will offer insights and thoughts into the use of new media in relation to the advertising. 

To help set the tone for my part of the conversation, I have pulled together a quick list of articles from the past two weeks about the role that New Media will play in this giant advertising spectacle.  Here is a little weekend reading for you:

New York Times: Colts and Bears and Kevin Federline (February 2, 2007) 

Key excerpt: “Now, thanks to the Internet, Super Bowl commercials are like gifts that Madison Avenue tries to keep on giving. As soon as the game ends, video clips of the spots are posted online, on the Web sites of sponsors like fedex.com; the networks that broadcast the game like cbs.sportsline.com; and Internet media companies, among them ifilm.com, msn.foxsports.com, sports.aol.com and youtube.com.”

ClickZ: A Level Playing Field for Superbowl Ads (February 2, 2007)

Key excerpt: “This year, advertisers buying spots during Super Bowl XLI are frequently posting those ads online before they’re broadcast to try and create buzz. And one group of self-proclaimed “Web 2.0″ companies has formed to create spots that ride the wave of Super Bowl advertising — without actually advertising in the Super Bowl.  Knowing they couldn’t afford a standard Super Bowl ad, six start-up firms challenged each other to come up with Super Bowl-style :30 spots and upload them to a YouTube channel at SuperDotComAds XLI.”

iMedia Connection: Make Sure Your Website is Ready! (February 1, 2007)

Key excerpt: “Almost one third (30 percent) [of people surveyed] will visit the company’s website, and that same number (31 percent) will look for the ad online to view again. Marketers should make it easy for these people to find the ad by giving it a prominent position on their corporate website homepage. Without providing this kind of easy access to the advertisement, marketers will risk losing visitors to those sites clearly dedicated to Super Bowl advertising, such as Google Video or AOL. Along with providing access to the TV ad, these online destinations also provide message boards, voting and other community features.”

AdWeek: Snickers to Extend 30 Second Spot Online (January 30, 2007)

Key excerpt: “Masterfoods plans to extend the life of its 30-second Snickers Super Bowl spot via a microsite that will feature player reactions to the commercial and alternate endings. Up to three such endings will be posted, along with the version that will run during the game…. Masterfoods declined to provide the full spot before the game but a clip of the first five seconds is viewable on the microsite, www.SnickersSatisfies.com, which went live today.”

Washington Post: $2 Million Airtime, $13 Ad (January 31, 2007)

Key excerpt: “The YouTube Effect has crept into television’s mightiest showcase for advertising: the Super Bowl. For the first time, viewers of the biggest football game of the year, Sunday’s Super Bowl XLI on CBS between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears, will see at least four ads that were created by amateurs, rather than by high-end ad agencies. For advertisers, consumer-created content is a cost-savings bonanza. Advertisers are paying more than $2.6 million for the most expensive 30-second spot in this year’s Super Bowl, up from $2.5 million last year. Just to produce a top-level 30-second ad can easily cost more than $1 million. A commercial produced by an amateur, by comparison, can be had for the price of a plane ticket and a trip to the game for the winner and some post-production cleanup for the ad itself.  For the ad creators, it’s a shot at the big time and an end run around traditional barriers to appearing on advertising’s biggest stage. Indeed, it could be a career starter — more than 90 million viewers are expected to tune in to the Super Bowl.”

And a few more…

Ad Age: Measuing Bowl ROI?  Good Luck (January 29, 2007)

Survey: Sports Marketers Choose New Media Over Superbowl Advertising (January 29, 2007)

ClickZ: Very Different Superbowl Predictions (January 26, 2007)

MarketWatch: Moving the ball, beyond the Super Bowl broadcast (January 29, 2007)

Wall Street Journal: In Web Polls of Super Bowl Ads, Now A Word From the Sponsor’s Sponsor (January 29, 2007)

These are just a sampling of the articles that are out there.  But, I think you get a sense that the media is thinking the use of new media may just be the biggest story around the Superbowl advertising bonanza this year.

What are you thinking?

- By Brian Reich.  Brian is the Director of New Media for Cone Inc.

SRI In the Rockies: The Big Picture

I spent the weekend in Colorado Springs, CO attending SRI in the Rockies, the annual gathering of the socially responsible investment industry in the United States.  I was there to participate in a panel about online marketing and host a topic table at lunch on the same topic.  I also had an opportunity to attend some of the speeches and sessions — and learned some new things about climate change its impact on disease, micro-finance and, perhaps most interestingly, the future of the internet.

Bob Veres, an author, speaker, and one of the most influential people in the financial services industry (socially responsible or otherwise) gave a talk entitled ‘’The Next Society.’  The focus of his talk was how the world of sustainable investments has changed, and continues to evolve, and how the world is now following the lead of SRI - for the better.  He noted that a decade ago, social screens were seen as a depressant on fund performance while today, social screens are the very best way to evaluate corporate character and avoid surprises in your portfolio. 

Then he launched into a commentary on the changing nature of communications and how it relates to the tough work of changing the world.  Here are my (rough) notes:

- The media industry is in crisis.  Stories are covered and then disappear.  Stories are covered by people who don’t know much about the subject and who have a very short attention span.  The future of news will be an environment where you can access a lot more information, a lot better information, from people who know a lot more than reporters.  And it will make everything more focused, more meaningful, and more actionable.

- The web has created a hostile world for advertising.  As we move towards the web as a content delivery vehicle, corporate america will not be able to artificially create demand for their products and services.  It is harder and harder for advertisers to gain interest and traction.  That is why TV advertising is suffering and that is why the future of communications will be information/content-centric, and not marketer driven.

- We are experiencing the death of the consumer economic system.  Why?  It doesn’t relate to the issues that people actually care about most.  That has also given rise to the concept of “Life Planning.”  People are finding they don’t want more stuff.  They want more fulfillment from their lives.  How do they know? 

Ask yourself, if you had one day left to live, what would be your biggest regret?  Write down 30 goals you want to achieve this year (the first ten will be easy, the second ten more difficult, the third ten will make you did deep).  If you had all the money in the world, what would you want to do?   

- How can we change the world?  He offered two directives:

1) Operate in your zone of personal genius.  Imagine a circle, with a circle inside that, and a circle in side that.  At the center of that innermost circle is a  blue dot that represents your greatest energy, focus, and passion.  That is where we must all operate - get rid of the distractions and just work within our blue dot.

2) Hire a coach to help you get there.  They will help you put aside all of the work you do for others and help you focus on just what you need.  The coach will nag you because they will present your own goals back to you in such a compelling way that you will do for them what you can’t seem to find a way to do for yourself.

- The way we work is changing.  You are going to see most of the world’s work being done by ad hoc teams who are experts in their field and who are operating within their blue dot.  You will see corporations (who right now have office buildings filled with generalists and inefficient information flow based in hierarchy not expertise) “melt like sugar cubes in the rain.” The people who own the assets will control them - you won’t need marketers, etc.

- The internet will become the superconductor of human and financial capital.
The speech made me think.  Not sure quite yet what it all means, but rarely does a conference speech make me think like this one did, so that must mean something.

I’m quoted in the Wall Street Journal!

The Wall Street Journal has an article today about the use of web video for marketing, and especially politics.  The main points of the article are summed up in this excerpt:

Politicians and marketers already make wide use of email lists and blogs, and it has long been possible to distribute information over the Internet while disguising its origins. But Web video operates on a different level, stimulating viewers’ emotions powerfully and directly. And because amusing animations with a homespun feel can be created just as easily by highly paid professionals to promote agendas as by talented amateurs, caveat emptor is more relevant than ever.

I got a call yesterday from one of the article’s authors, Dionne Searcey, and one of my quotes made it into the article:

YouTube has an estimated 20 million viewers daily, but with thousands of videos on the site, it can be difficult for marketers to reach their audience, says Brian Reich, a consultant for Mindshare Interactive Campaigns, who helps nonprofits and political candidates learn to use YouTube and other video sites effectively. “You still have to micro-target your information and make it compelling and relevant and timely to get people to pay attention,” he says.

The full article is here.

Politicians On Facebook

Time Magazine has a little blurb in this week’s issue about politicians using Facebook, the online social networking site, to reach college students.  It reads:

In the ’90s, the message was “Rock the Vote.” Now it’s time to “Facebook” it. Starting in September, politicians will be able to buy profiles on networking site Facebook.com accessible to its 8 million members. That should help pols court a group of voters who are hard to reach. Facebookers will be able to “friend” any candidate they like–linking to a profile as they would a classmate’s. Facebook says politicians won’t pay anything near the tens of thousands of dollars that corporate advertisers do to set up on the site. Politicians should log on, says Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos politiblog, because young people “hang out in places like … Facebook and MySpace,” which plans a similar initiative. They’re the new town square–great for any candidate who can figure out the online equivalent of a handshake.

This was bound to happen — young people are the future of our society and stillone of the largest inactive voting demographics in the nation; Facebook, meanwhile, is the largest, most concentrated network of voting-age (college and similar) people discovered to date.  The potential is huge.

But let’s be clear, political campaigns will not have an easy time engaging young people this way.  Sure, some campaigns (I predict Edwards, Warner, Kerry, maybe Clinton on the Democratic side of the presidential contest for starters) will buy their access, put up some information, and get an early buzz out of it.  But will they be able to take it to the next level?  Which campaign will hire a college-age coordinator who has actualy familiarity with Facebook, maybe even a profile of their own?  Which candidate will be willing to really spend time on Facebook, answering tough questions and promoting the issues that students in particular find important (not just giving lip service to educational funding and college access, assuming that young people oppose the war, etc.)?  And most importantly, which media outlet will actually take the time to learn what Facebook is all about and understand what makes it thrive, what defines true success for a candidate who is working within the network (hint: success is not measured alone by the number of ‘friends’ you have signed up), and stay with the story long enough to see whether the candidates can sustain momentum and turn it into actual votes when the primaries arrive?

Any volunteers?

iMedia Panel: Gaming Impact & Measurement

The last panel of the iMedia Breakthrough Summit was entitled: “Gaming Impact & Measurement”
Moderator:

Andy Fessel, Consultant, IAB

Participants:

- Michael Dowling, Senior Vice President, Nielsen Entertainment

- Amy Shea, Research Director, Ameritest

- Joshua Larson, Director of Industry Products, GameSpot, CNET Networks

Gaming has actually been around longer than the web.  The fact that advertising is joining the medium when its in a fairly mature phase is interesting.  But the space has much more room to grow and develop. All we really know about the game sector right now is how many games are sold.  There is no robust measurement for how much is played or how. 

Types of in-game advertising
Big time product placement
Static billboards
Dynamic Ads
Unlockables/Extras
Mode/Level Sponsorship
Q: With gaming, we have an opportunity to measure around immersion.  What do we want to measure?

Joshua: We know gamers are a highly desirable demographic and they are playing.  We need to know if putting your brand in a game will impact it in a measurable way.  We need to look at effectiveness measures, as well as impression based measures to allow it to compare it across mediums.

Amy: What strikes me is how much the gaming community is re-teaching the advertising community about what they should have known all along.  Emotion and engagement and relevance all made good branded entertainment (aka 30 second ads).  They got away from that with the concept that you could push a whole lot of ads at someone.  And they failed.  Whenever you talk about what’s effective for brands - relevance, fit, emotional involvement.  Cognitive and attention pattern is important, but also emotional engagement will drive results (persuasion, purchase intent, etc.).

We did a study - looked at the MTV Video Music Awards to see if ad integration worked.  Some ads worked, some didn’t.  Was the audience engaged or not engaged? 

Q: Everything that is right about a game is wrong about television.  You have frequency, duration, immersion, a hard to reach audience.  What else do we want to measure?

Joshua: We really have no idea just how big gaming really is.  How much is spent with all these games.  Game play metrics.  How much time is spent doing all these activities is just really key.  It might take a few years, but soon a majority of consoles will be online - broadband connection - because then we can track real numbers.  Not self reported or diagramming, real numbers.  Not just for marketers, but I think the push can come from brand marketers.  The industry needs that info as well.

Michael: We do have new sales figures, but we don’t have numbers on rentals or pass around, borrowing games, etc.  Nor do we have info about the halo effect, the social impact of games.  Very different to see the reach of new sales vs. lifetime reach.  We need a stronger metric.  Even when we get 100% of the online universe we won’t have 100% of the universe online, so we will need some other ways.

Q: What does it do for my brand?  Brand impact and measurability.

Amy: When you think about brand integration and film, having the real values of the brand integrated into the story are key.  That is true for games as well.

Q: The gamer is elusive in terms of measurement

Josh: I’m happy to be the voice of the angry malcontents.  What we have done to date is just observe behavior.  Get out of their way, see what they are clicking on.  Message and brand is important.  Need the measurement ot get out of the way - can’t get in the way of their experience.

Study: Gamers are reception to in game advertising (sort of)

• 5 in 10 recall seeing ads in games
• 4 in 10 are likely to remember an ad they see in a game
• 3 in 10 learned about or became aware of a new product or service
• 8 in 10 are irritated by ads that get in the way of gameplay or aren’t a good fit for the game
• 7 in 10 would rather see ads in a game than have to pay more for the game
• Half say its really hard to see or pay attention to some ads
• 23% avoid particular games because of advertising.

We can’t just throw ads at them - there has to be some perceived benefit.  We receive advertising (gamers receive advertising) because it is free.  It has to add something to experience.

Question (from the audience):  How do you measure different types of brand integration (skiing through gates branded with ads, vs being surrounded by ads)?

Michael: Its as expected - if they don’t see the ad for a consistent period of time they won’t feel it.

Q: Will there ever be a way to measure in-console games that are not online?

Michael: Yes, through panels.  In the future, with online hookups, you will have enough of a census level measurement to project to the population at large.  And the big point is that we can have a much bigger sample that we have now.

Q: Community. There is a new and enahced way to get a message out.  How do we address that?

Amy: We saw a lift in measures (in the Video Music Awards study) when people watched the VMAs with others.  It made a big different in the length of the program - how much they watched - and whether they watched it with others.  The more social experience they were having.  If they were going online at the same time as watching.  That increased the awareness of the ads.

Michael: Did a study of 18-34 year old gamers.  50% played a game with someone in the room.  The halo effect of the social effects of game play are real, significant.

Josh: There are two forms of activity we can get — around the game (user profiles, chats, etc.) is captured well now.  In the game, the mult-player aspect, what are they chatting about, what is coming up - fascinating insight that we don’t have yet.

Question (from the audience): What are the thresholds for an ad being highly pervasive?  How many times do I have to see a game in an ad for it to work?  How many impressions do we need to have to know we are going to get enough.

Michael: We believe anything above a .3 is signifant.  We need to do more testing.  Test in the home.  See what the impact of 20, 30, 40 hours of game play over a few months will have.  Haven’t yet looked at frequency caps and such.  Don’t really have the answer just yet.

Clips and Tips: March 27, 2006

If they make it, they will watch (Detroit Free Press)

Major League Baseball Steps Out As Coach in the Game of Web Video (Wall Street Journal)

Survey offers ’sneak peak’ in to ‘Net surfers brains (USA Today)

A Web Site So Hip It Gets Laddies to Watch the Ads (New York Times)

The Founder of Heavy.com presented at the iMedia summit today.  They have been ahead of the broadband revolution and now that the rest of the world is catching up, they are ahead on the creative side as well - understanding what it takes to get attention, keep it, and motivate people to action (i.e. to buy something).

“Pandemonium and the Rise of Unpaid Media”

I am blogging my notes from the Ad Club Symposium (”The Changing Face of Marketing”) here in Boston.  First up on Wednesday (for me anyway, I was late): Larry Weber from W2 Interactive.  As you probably know, Weber sold his Cambridge public relations firm to the Interpublic Group in 1996 and then helped build it into Weber Shandwick, one of the largest PR firms in the world.  Now he has launched W2, a new media venture combining The Digital Influence Group, Racepoint and a minority interest in Third Screen Media.
 

Here is what I heard:
 

- He starts with a story about how the fastest growing title in America is CMO (Chief Marketing Officer).  This is part of a larger observation that whenever things get really screwed up there is a new C title.  So I guess that means the marketing industry is really screwed up.
- He predicts “No newspaper in five years with a circulation over 1 million, no 30 second spots, and no nightly news.”  Lots of people have predicted the first two.  This is the first time I have heard anyone suggest that the Nightly News is done for.
- He says the latest big trend is social persuasion and influence.  Right now we are the beginning of the ’social network’ phase - and he believes this is the direction where all marketing is going.
 —–
- He says the job of a marketer is to be an aggregator: pull together all the information about the product, the trends, the issues, the events, and the communities who might be interested.
- He believes the metric for success online has shifted: from transactional sites to social networks; from stickiness and eyeballs to engagement; and from direct marketing to aggregation.  The role of advertising is to bring online and offline traffic to these aggregated communities.
- “Brand is about conversation: The stronger the conversation…the stronger the brand.” 

—–

- The audience is changing.  The old audience includes: Publishers and media, Analysts and opinion leaders, Shareholders and financial leaders, Customers and partners.  That’s very firm-centric.
 

Today’s audience includes: Blogs and online news (cNet, Corante, digg), Reputation aggregators (google, pubsub), the E-community (CIO, epinions, ivillage), and Social networks (Vault, friendster, orkut, etc). 

——

- He says there are two ways to generate content today: Citizen Generated Media and Enterprise Generated Media.  Companies - like Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and media sites like the New York Times online are generating a lot of content.  They represent the best of Enterprise Generated Media — and he says they are an important part of the conversation. 

——

- As a former PR person, he is equally focused on the tactical element of online communications.  He offered this old tool/new tool breakdown.
 

Old: Press release. New: RSS Feed
Old: Marketing Collateral. New: Blog
Old: Interviews.  New: Podcast
Old: Media Tour.  New: Webcast
Old: Event.  New: Social Network
Old: Customer Reference.  New: Community Advocate
Old: Data Sheets. New: e-Newsletters 

—–

- He says the future is seamless travel between physical and virtual.  “In a true social web, consumers will enter and leave at will.”  Experiences that start offline will end online and vice versa.  Naturally, this requires a new set of skills and discipline - not only for the marketing industry, but for consumers as well. 

—–

His closing comments…
 

- Get rid of the CMO title.  Make marketing everything, because that’s what it is.
- Content will be king.  The question is - What’s the marketing model? 
- It is not the death of TV - but the rise of creativity.  How do you make something compelling to a customer?  How do you put a product (or issue) around something when the traditional ad channels disappear? 
- The agencies that are most creative about the new mediums will succeed.   Media and creativity need to merge - what it looks like, and where it fits.