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News About Online Political News.

By
Steve Poppe
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“I want my news and I want it in my eyes now!” is a riff on something my very young daughter said when sitting at a restaurant, being told by her grandmother her tuna fish sandwich was coming. No doubt, for the 4th time.

When I was a kid, radio was the only place to get news in real time and it required having a reported on site – so it wasn’t really real time. Thanks to Twitter and video and camera phones, the news today is available in real time. And though it may not always be well-packaged, presented or analyzed, it’s available as it happens.  The news biz is a changing thanks to the web and technolo-yee.  It is always on. And way exciting.

Howard Kurtz

Howard Kurtz is a well respected political news reporter based in Washington DC.  He’s the shizz. When interesting things happen, he finds them.  Or they find him.  Mr. Kurtz is leaving The Washington Post for The Daily Beast online. Why?  You’d have to ask him, but my take is for freedom, excitement, a little bit of sexy, and the unknown that is real time reporting. His business card certainly won’t have the cachet it once did, but history is his to make…and report.

The Daily Beast, and its probable new partner Newsweek, are growing up and growing down respectively. If the two merge is should be exciting to see the morph. Were I Tina Brown (the Beast’s co-founder), the person expected to helm the combined enterprise, I’d lose the entertainment, the food and other ancillary things and go news and politics.  It’s a herd of cats that can be better managed. And a beast it will be. Peace!

Digital Agencies Less Profitable?

By
Steve Poppe
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Twitter and Skype just made executive moves at the top in efforts to take their fast growing, oft used businesses in the direction of profitability.  Both companies are moving past their infancy. The venture partners helping drive the strategy of these two exciting, brilliant tech companies are pushing for stronger, more “grown up” management.

This makes me think about digital marketing shops — other businesses coming out of the infancy stage.  Do big holding companies like IPG, WPP, Omnicom and MDC Partners cut digital companies more slack than traditional marketing companies? My bet is they do.   The young, filled-with-promise always get the benefit of the doubt. Plus, I’m guessing the financial people at the holding companies don’t quite know how to manage profitability of digital clients just yet.  Because digital is the fastest growing sector in marketing, profit blemishes are being masked.

Digital business people grouse that they don’t get a seat at the big person table when it comes to planning. Often, the “idea” is already cooked when the didge shops are brought in — the big expensive thinking complete.  What is left is the digital translation, a degree of digital creativity and execution… much of which can be performed by lower cost worker bees. If this thesis is correct, then the per capita payroll of a digital shop is lower than that of a full-service ad shop. This is why the profit margins are lower, why digital shops don’t scale past new business, and why they are not getting a seat at the big table. This will change, but will probably lag the pace of change at companies like Twitter and Skype. Peace!

PS.  RGA does not fit into this mold. They have strong highly paid talent throughout. They are the exception.

For Profit Browser.

By
Steve Poppe
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The online world is all abuzz about priv-ah-see. There’s a new icon that will be appearing on social sites soon that will allow visitors to turn off tracking software, making it harder for advertisers to target users based on behavior.    

Salesforce.com, a business software package growing faster than kudzu in Georgia, is an information gathering tool that lets corporations track their salesforce activity so that if a sales person leaves the company their records, communications and contacts don’t too.

Twitter.com plans to monetize by placing ads or links based on the likes and dislikes of its Tweeters. Instead of Burger King placing ads on Epicureous.com they will soon be able to place them among Twitter followers of Eddy Curry, the New York Knicks center with the penchant for caloric foods.

Research suggests that Teens, Tweens and Millennials aren’t nearly as anal about online privacy as are pundits, but that will change. There is already a cottage industry developing – advertised on radio of all places – whereby people can pay to wipe out their online doings.  We need a quick way to toggle between social and private. I think it should be a browser-based tool.  When I’m shopping, I want help. When I’m surfing, I’d prefer to be left alone.  And I might just pay for that type of browser.  Peace!

Doing Goods Work.

By
Steve Poppe
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We had a tragedy in NJ this week.  A Rutgers University student took his life after having an intimate relationship with another dude secretly videotaped by a roommate and posted to the web. Prior to taking his life, the young man spent some time online talking about this invasion of privacy, presumably seeking advice and counsel from other young gay men. Sadly, it did not work.

What makes the web important is that you can go online and find communities of people with whom you can open up.  Because we’re human you’ll get good advice and bad but at least you can chat with those sympathetic and experienced – and not feel alone.  Mom’s with kids with allergies, for instance. This is a very good thing and we can thank the web for it.

In the case of the Rutgers man, the online community he turned to did not change the outcome but it could have.  The web may be vilified as the place to “learn how to make a bomb” or “place for pedophiles” yet that is glass half empty stuff. (I love Danah Boyd for her undying perspective on this.) Finding and talking to likeminds privately can be a very good thing.

Teen Suicide.

If this thesis plays out, the teen suicide rate will reduce in time.  People by nature are good — even callous, hurtful teens. To those kids on the website who tried to help the Rutgers student, I applaud you. You were doing goods work. Don’t stop. Peace!

PS. “Doing Good’s Work” is a line I’m recommending to a nonprofit in Brooklyn. (No poaching please.)   Is it better with our without the apostrophe?

Aol. Off to the Races.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Aol’s purchase of TechCrunch, the world’s most authoritative tech blog, is mad proof of its brand strategy to be the web’s content leader. Tim Armstrong, Aol’s chief, gets strategy. Claim: Be the content leader.  Proof: Ellen DeGeneres, TechCruch, local news with Patch. Using a TV metaphor, Mr. Armstrong is trying to create a lineup of talent not dissimilar to NBC’s “must see TV” on Thursday night in the 90s (or whenever that was). Buy and built the best visited sites on the web. 

The Web is nothing if it is not content.  TechCruch rocks its category not because Michael Arrington is a star, but because he is focused, a great journalist, and attracts stories like white on rice…before brown rice became popular. Aol and its similarly strategied competitor Yahoo realize the ad-supported model is viable, so it is looking to cherry pick the best talent on the web in every category and corral it. Hopefully, it will keep its hands off, as if has suggested, and let TechCrunch be TechCrunch.   

Patch.com

Patch.com – Aol’s localization play – is a neat idea but I’m not sure it fits this model.  A local reporter from Bumpus Mills, TN may not raise the editorial or content bar but we’ll see. Aol is off to the races – and finally it has a race track.  Yahoo? Not so much. Peace!

Aol, Yahoo and the Devil that is Advertising.

By
Steve Poppe
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It’s Advertising Week In NYC and Aol has launched a campaign (Product? Movement?) it hopes will make it more relevant.  I love their idea to have an idea. 

Aol’s declaimed strategy is to become a content leader on the web. Easily said. This campaign suggests they are serious.  Loosely called ProjectDevil, it is based on an insight that one-third of the web is advertising.  And poorly curated advertising at that.   A print ad in The New York Times today shows a side-by-side comparison of an old school website and a new school website.  Old is covered in ads and links, while new is elegant, clean and surprisingly magazine like.

If you go to the ProjectDevil site, which has been nicely cobbled together and targeted to an advertising audience, you get the sense that Aol is spending money, currying favor with smart digital people (a bit of a pander) and focusing on the presentation of content.  Compared to Yahoo, its closest competitor in the “content strategy’ strategy, this is a refreshing first down.

The “one third insight’ is a strong one.  The content strategy is a strong one.  If Aol gets better content and innovates with the delivery of that content, next year at Advertising Week you’ll see a very different company. Peace.

PS.  Last year I was walking around Advertising Week talking to Yahoo people who were oblivious to the awful Ogilvy work passing them by on the sides of buses.  Within weeks the account had moved to Goody Silverstein and Gareth Kay.  Yahoo is with a good shop, but their idea is still percolating.

Frank’s Red Hot Sauce

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

 

There is a radio campaign I’ve been hearing lately for Frank’s Hot Sauce – it’s actually red hot sauce, but my ears don’t hear it that way – and I absolutely love it.  There are snippets of video on the website which suggest the campaign may be on TV but I haven’t seen it.

You can’t miss the radio.  It’s typical actor product banter but punctuated by line “I put that bleep on everything.”  Whatever word you think is bleeped out is up to you, but you just know it starts the “shhh” and rhymes with “hit”.  The line is delivered by a granny-sounding actress and you can’t help but giggle (out loud). Even moms of the Southern Christian Right have to twinkle a wee bit.

The strategy is straight forward – use Frank’s on more dishes in more dayparts – but the humor is wonderfully disruptive.  It’s the best radio out there. For me, though, the jury’s still out on the TV. If the website videos are representative I think the TV will fall short.  The acting performance isn’t the same.  The surprise isn’t there.  And it almost demeans the radio. As a branding idea, I don’t see it translating in print either.  But enough darts, the radio is killer.

If you know the agency and the creative minds behind the work, please share.   I smell a Mercury Award. Peace!  

T-Mobile’s Brand Redirect.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

T-Mobile has made a very smart marketing move by offering kids ride free on the family plan.  In our house, mom pays the phone bills for all family members so T-Mobile has done its homework when it comes to the whole decision maker buying experience.  

What’s smart about the promotion is that most plans now offer unlimited texting at a flat fee and since kids only text, this is win-back play of some marketing magnitude.  In print ads, T-Mobile compares their $59.99 plan for 5 lines to AT&T’s $59.99 Family Plan for 2 lines (mom and dad). 

T-Mobile, who still has the nicest brand color palette on the market, has locked up the phrase “The Family Network” with its logo in print advertising in NY, yet the website still publishes “Stick Together” as the corporate line. I smell a bit of desperation amidst this new kids-for-free tactic. No doubt, the new idea is working and kids do grow into loyal adults if well-treated, but flip-flopping brand strategy and taglines is scary stuff. 

I’d like for T-Mobile to stick around; it’s good for competition. And carving out a space as the “family” network is quite doable, but it will take more than one price promotion and some cutting and pasting. It’s going to take a massive plan. Peace it up (in the Middle East)!

Ear buds as noise cancellers.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I don’ know about you but I can’t read on the train if there’s someone nearby shouting into their cell phone.  Hate to admit it but I can’t concentrate if there are people sitting on that same train yapping at a certain decibel level. How about trying to read at the beach next to someone with a loud radio? Am I alone?

Enter video on NYC subways. This is half a good idea.  As an ad person, I like the medium and its ability to provide meaning sponsored entertainment and information. As a reader I don’t like it because it’s going to be more than a nuisance. 15 years ago, everyone read on the subway.  Yesterday and this morning everyone had ear buds. Later today and tomorrow, with Kindles at $139 and other tablets ready to land, many will be reading again.  But with the new advertising and programming din on subway cars (now available on NYC’s Number 7 line) it may be difficult. And are other commuter trains be far behind?

 

Plastics.  That’s the answer. Soft, sanitized, polymers that fit into the ear. Once reserved to combat snoring and chatty jury rooms, ear plugs are a business with mad upside. You laugh.  Mark my words. Peace!

A Small Business Business Idea.

By
Steve Poppe
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Though I don’t completely understand what goes on behind the walls of the Dachis Group in Austin, TX, I’m a big fan of their consulting practice and pursuit of Social Business Design.  Having lived in the space contiguous to the one they’re trying to reinvent — creating more effective businesses through improved web 2.0 collaboration – I like how they have outlined the category and believe their Social Business Design terminology will stick. Like ERP.

They have money, are willing to spend it, and have a client list to die for.

Peter Kim, an early group member, wrote a post talking about the speed with which some companies are implementing social business change.  Much of the work his company does is with large enterprises but large enterprises are like battleships when it comes to new stuff.  I wonder if the Dachis Group might speed up adoption of its services by serving early adopter small and mid-size businesses – the first to rebound in an economic recovery.  Talk about the need to do more with less.  A small business practice at Dachis might also help inform the enterprise group and cover more of the business ecosystem.  A thought. Peace!

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