Age of Conversation - Bum Rush
by Brian Reich | 29 Mar 2008, 2:00am
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.
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: Age of Conversation Citizen Marketing Free Advice From the Trenches
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Age of Conversation
by Brian Reich | 16 Jul 2007, 2:00am
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!
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: Age of Conversation Blogging Citizen Marketing Event Coverage Marketing Public Media Shameless Self Promotion
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SRI In the Rockies: The Big Picture
by Brian Reich | 30 Oct 2006, 2:00am
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.
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: Advertising Citizen Journalism Citizen Marketing Conferences/Events Event Coverage From the Trenches Journalism Marketing News
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iMedia Panel: Gaming Impact & Measurement
by Brian Reich | 29 Mar 2006, 2:00am
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.
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: Advertising Citizen Marketing Conferences/Events Event Coverage Games Marketing Technology
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