Tim Armstrong

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Digital Publishing Heroes.

August 11, 2010 in Digital Publishing, Marketing | 0 Comments

Where’s the thought leadership in digital publishing? 

Magazines on iPads and other to be developed mobile devices are a nascent commercial endeavor.  At no time before have we had an opportunity to thread together storytelling with text, pictures, video, authorship and curation as have today.  If you think ad agencies haven’t figured out the silo-ization of marketing commerce, what about magazines and newspapers?

Once magazines were glossy and delivered weekly or monthly.  Newspapers were matted on inexpensive newsprint and more likely a daily, immediate vehicle. Today, digitally, they’re the same animal. And they publish and update with a simple click.   

When it comes to the information architecture, screen layout, art direction, usability, bounce-ability, brutally honest copy editing and the integration of advertising, who is leading the way?  To whom do we turn as we try to systematize the new digital publishing business?  Mssrs. McGraw and Hill?  Mr. Sulzburger? Ms. Huffington? Mr. Zuckerberg? Ms. Bartz? Mr. Droga? Mr. Arrington?

When hiring, one of my favorite interview questions is “Who are your heroes?” Well, it will be very interesting to watch the heroes emerge in digital publishing as we move toward a multidimensional platform.  Do you have any nominees? Peace.

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Aol Needs Talent.

August 5, 2010 in Brand Strategy, Marketing | 0 Comments

Tim Armstrong has a lot to do if he really wants to fix Aol, but he needs to start by hiring a chief talent officer. His executive suite — with all props and deference to those recently hired — has grown and become an enviable suite, but the big investment should be in Posters, original web content creators, not suits.  Creative people, writers, videographers, style queens, humorists, and the politically angry.  Aol must become more relevant to Teens, Tweens, Millenniums, Gen This & That, Boomers…and it has to start this quarter.

Don’t Wait.

Start the content strategy today. Hire Ochocinco. Hire Robert Scoble. Hire Kandee Johnson. Fab Five Freddy. Melting Mama. People with content game. Hire punk rockers before they’re famous. People burning with a point of view. People on their way up. A great talent officer will help today, but more importantly, will allow Aol to ride the ascent of future talent before it becomes expensive. As George Steinbrenner did when building the world’s most famous sports franchise, invest every penny in the players. This is not a markobabble post about teamwork, this rant is about players. Talent. Content. The right Posters will give you the inspiration to reinvent what content is.  Don’t rely on an “innovation team” sitting in a San Diego corporate resort.

With the right web talent, ad sales will come. Ding dong, money at the door.  Lined up around the block.

Get you first piece of talent this week. Celebrate it and start to build Aol momentum.  Content is not an algorithm, it’s talented people expressing themselves through words, song, poesy and art. Peace it up!

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AOL. Strong Armin’. Finally.

June 14, 2010 in Digital Strategy | 0 Comments

Cambio is AOL’s first big bullet in the content strategy war with Yahoo. It makes me think AOL just may win this thing. I love Carol Bartz’s decision to go with the content approach for Yahoo, but still think her approach a bit too diffuse. They still possess a start page mentality over there – start page meaning, set your personal home page to Yahoo.

AOL, on the other had, spent enough time with Time Warner to learn a thing about packaging content.  They probably own a camera or two and kept some producers and directors around, so by signing the Jonas Bothers and their music company to a deal with the new AOL online music channel Cambio, cranking up some new content quickly may be very doable.   This is a transformative move. It may be the first real melding of music and new media we’ve seen; think Little Steven’s Garage (dot com) for kids. And, with a big, scalable company surrounding it.

AOL, BTW, should bring Little Steven and his garage over to the fold. No brainer. Why?  Because he’s a great curator, a special personality and he has a loyal following. The radio doesn’t do his project justice. I like this move for AOL — and though Cambio may only be the learning ground for something bigger, it’s a great idea. Tim Armstrong is human, but he’s beginning to hit stride.  Peace! 

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Aol, Cisco. Feed the Beast.

February 4, 2010 in Marketing | 0 Comments

Cisco and AOL both reported earnings today. Cisco, maker of Internet plumbing, had a very nice turnaround ; AOL posted its first profit since de-coupling from Time Warner – a penny a share. Not bad, all things considered. 

Cisco Systems

If you follow Cisco you know they have invested in getting more people to push more bits over the Internet.  Think Gillette getting people to shave their entire bodies.  (Okay, bad analogy.) Cisco has pushed videoconferencing for years and not too long ago bought Flip the hot video camera company. The more digital info that goes over the net, the more routers and switches and stock Cisco sells.

Aol

This is exactly the approach Aol needs to take.  Aol makes money on advertising so it needs to create content that makes more eyeballs and fingers go to their sites. Right now that means hiring great writers, videographers, creative people and buying and adding to the fold well-trafficked sites.  Better content, better audience numbers.  But Aol is not really thinking out of the box yet. It needs to come up with content types that haven’t been done.  As the Brits might say, they need to be more inno-vit-iv. How about an easy to use, easy to read email device for the AARP crowd?  Or an educational games for infants?  Or a remote home automation portal that lets you turn on lights from the street?  Aol is still thinking in 2 dimensions, a la a publisher.  Like Cisco, Mr. Armstrong needs to feed the beast.  Let’s pick it up!

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Aol. vs. Yahoo

December 11, 2009 in Brand Planning, Digital Marketing, Marketing | 0 Comments

Aol. and Yahoo have both finally figured out that good content begets readership, viewership, referral, and participation which begets — the same.  These two seminal online brands will be dooking it out for years to come. They both took different paths to get here and both have CEOs with unique perspectives, but the battle should be fun to watch. Coke and Pepsi, AT&T and Verizon fun.

Armstrong vs. Bartz

My bet is on Aol. Tim Armstrong hitched his ride to a rising star (Google) and got that success smell on him — but I think he created some of that smell with his focus and good leadership. Carol Bartz’s career advanced by good blocking and tackling and good business decisions, something Yahoo hadn’t had for a while prior to her arrival.  Yahoo made lots of decisions, just not with a solid brand idea driving them. Until proven otherwise, I’ll give Mr. Armstrong the edge and write it off to “derring do.”

Ad dollars are moving online, no doubt, but those in the know will tell you the lion’s share are going to Google thanks to AdWords and their direct-to-consumer, DIY, analytics-powered ad model. As Aol. and Yahoo re-create their online brands and lead the market in the generation of original content (paid and contributed), search will stay a powerful, lucrative utility, but won’t be the best way to find good content. That will be the domain of Aol and, hopefully, Yahoo. Peace!

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AOL. All dot, no strat.

November 23, 2009 in Marketing | 0 Comments

AOL new logo

 

AOL announced today they will be introducing a new logo. It will include a dot at the end of the letters Aol, which will appear using initial cap “A”, lower case “o” and “l”.

That’s the post. That’s all I learned. See you tomorrow.

(Okay, okay, I learned a little more than that, but had to read between the lines to do so.)

AOL has a product strategy, which I’ve known for a while thanks to new CEO Tim Armstrong. It is “AOL is the place to be for the best online content, period.” Mr. Armstrong articulated this strategy early on in his tenure. It’s tight and smart.

What they don’t have at this time is a brand strategy. Had they a brand strategy they wouldn’t have only talked tactically about the mark in their announcement. To wit (from an article by Stuart Elliot in the The New York Times today):

“The period in the logo was added to suggest confidence, completeness.”

“The AOL dot is the pivotal point for what comes after AOL.”

“An advertising campaign to promote the new look is being considered — as is the role to be played by AOL brand character known as the running man.”

You feel me? All tactics (hat) no brand strategy (cattle.)

Changing the logo was a good idea, but doing so after articulating the brand strategy and brand planks is way more sensible. Peace!

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