View from 30,000 feet

GE is Crowdsourcing their next campaign

Congratulations to Judy Hu, Linda Boff and all of GE for taking this big risk.  They reached out to the community and asked the consumer to not only participate, but create the next campaign for the brand. What a wonderful way to create brand advocates and brand loyalty, it also takes such a huge brand and connects it directly to consumers (where it has typically been a very B2B business).

This is not only a very forward thinking move by GE Marketing, but it is also a true justification that real brands are looking at the crowdsourced model as a potentially viable way for sourcing creative ideas. . .

The proof will be in the execution. . .

Btw if you read here it says that the program is open to advertising industry professionals or startups as a way to win GE’s business. . .

GE + YOU = AWESOME – Google Moderator

GE + YOU = AWESOME
Let’s face it – when large companies enter the digital space, they are not always met with the warmest reception. (Translation: they tend to blunder in, mess it up, and get torn a new one.)

To make sure GE continues to succeed in new media, we’re going straight to the experts – you.

We want your best ideas for how to engage an online audience. Got a great idea for an ad campaign? A creative concept for a killer contest? A truly innovative social media program? With your help, we can avoid the lame and embrace the awesome.

Enter your suggestions for the next great new media initiative in the space below, or email us directly at ad.ideas@ge.com.

Before you post, please take a quick look at our submission guidelines at http://www.ge.com/adideas_terms/.

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Google Tv Just announced

The TV screen is the best screen for watching Video. . . most curious about the boxes that are going to be needed to execute.  But all in all I believe that the opportunity here isn’t about the on-demand HD lean back video experience, its about delivering more IP enabled media, targeted, focused, data driven and built on ROI. I would say “TV just got interesting” but I think we will wait and see.  I do love the idea of using Real-Time Bidding across multiple channels (Display, Video-youtube, Search, and now TV) to deliver the right ad at the right time to the right user for the right price.

This won’t be fun for the big media companies when true supply and demand for audiences dictate the price of premium television advertising on programming. . .

Google TV turns on at I/O — Engadget

Home Entertainment, HD Industry, HD Set Tops
Google TV turns on at I/O
By Nilay Patel posted May 20th 2010 12:23PM
Breaking News
As expected, Google just announced Google TV at I/O. There’s four billion TV viewers worldwide, making it the biggest market in the world, and Google’s after it in a big way — it’s a $70 billion ad market in the US alone, after all. According to Google, “video should be consumed on the biggest, best, and brightest screen in your house, and that’s the TV.” The idea is to merge the web and TV without compromising on either the web experience or the video experience, with a focus on discovery and personalization. Of course, since it’s Google, the interface is search-driven, so you can just type in things like “30 Rock” or MSNBC” to find channels and content — including upcoming content to record and content from the internet. Yeah, it’s kind of like the TiVo Premiere’s swivel search, but prettier — and there’s a Hulu logo on the screen, which is extremely intriguing.

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A good primer for basic knowledge of DSPs

Here is an interesting simple primer on the value and importance of DSPs for the ad space.  Worth a read.
DSPs: What they really are and why you should care – iMediaConnection.com

DSPs: What they really are and why you should care
By Eric Picard
May 12, 2010

Article Highlights:

* DSPs are advertiser/agency facing systems that let buyers do self-service media buying from publishers, aggregators, and exchanges
* Premium publishers fear there could be issues with real-time bidding on display inventory due to asymmetric bidding and low bid density
* It’s likely that high value impressions will go up in yield, while there will be a drop on the rest — the two should balance out

Recently on the Internet Oldtimers List, someone posted a link to a video mashup where someone had taken a clip from the movie “A Few Good Men” and replaced the famous “You can’t handle the truth!” dialogue between Nicholson and Cruise with a farcical semi-humorous debate about demand-side platforms (DSPs). What was interesting about this clip was that its central argument was that DSPs lower the CPM of premium publishers’ impressions (with Cruise arguing for the premium publisher and Nicholson arguing for the DSP).

The video is cute — pretty well done, and worth a view if you’re someone on the inside of this particular space online. But what really surprised me about it was that very few people seem to really understand what’s happening with DSPs in general — and there’s obviously misinformation going around. This particular debate about DSPs lowering the yield of publisher impressions was one I hadn’t heard articulated before.

So let’s get started digging into this by discussing what a demand-side platform really is. These advertiser/agency facing systems let buyers do self-service media buying from publishers; publisher aggregators (sometimes now being called sell-side platforms, or SSPs) like PubMatic, AdMeld, Rubicon, and others; and ad exchanges. The most important part of these mechanisms is that they enable real-time bidding against inventory on these sites. This is really important because in real-time bidding, the DSP can let the buyer specify business rules describing the value of impressions based on their audience attributes. That means the buyer can assign monetary value against specific audiences, and the DSP can bid on every impression in real time based on its actual value to the advertiser.

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HBR Followers vs. Influence, a popularity contest

An interesting article from Harvard Business review that compares “popularity” with “influence” on Twitter.  The article illustrates that follower count is not a sufficient metric in defining influence.  This is very important for marketers who are looking to reach “influencers” and are thereby focusing on finding those with the most followers for which to engage a strategy or leverage the ability of said user to sway the opinions of there followers. In actuality followers only shows how popular the user is (i.e., the size of her audience).

It does state a bit of the obvious that marketers/businesses, rather than trying to put emphasis on the follower count, could try to increase audience responsiveness and level of engagement by creating “conversations” around topics.

It is a shame though, and much like many academic research programs – which must have a very focused/limited thesis, the article only focuses on debunking the “influence vs popularity myth” vs creating a quantifiable answer to the real question of “how should one measure influence?”

Here is a kicker though, of the 52 million twitter accounts only 6 million are active. . .

On Twitter, Followers Don’t Equal Influence – Research – Harvard Business Review

On Twitter, Followers Don’t Equal Influence

9:30 AM Friday May 7, 2010
by Scott Berinato

It could be that Twitter research is popular because Twitter data is free and so accessible. That’s okay. Gift horses are just as good for riding.

The best, latest entry in Twitter research is the handiwork of Meeyoung Cha from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany. (Co-authors are: Hamed Haddadi, Royal Veterinary College, University of London; Fabricio Benevenuto, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil and Krishna P. Bummadi, also from Max Planck Institute.)

Cha called her paper, “The Million Follower Fallacy,” a term that comes from work by Adi Avnit. Avnit posited that the number of followers of a Tweeter is largely meaningless, and Cha, after looking at data from all 52 million Twitter accounts (and, more closely, at the 6 million “active users”) seems to have proven Avnit right. “Popular users who have a high indegree [number of followers] are not necessarily influential in terms of spawning retweets or mentions,” she writes.

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The data goldmine of facebook available everywhere

With the Universal Like Button, Facebook will provide its fingers and more so its data into all corners of the web.  While it gives publishers more traffic from users, it will also ultimately allow advertisers (through a facebook ad platform) to optimize and target truly deep user behavior, interests and social data to deliver the ultimate ROMI ad inventory. . .

Layer this onto Real Time Bidding of display media and this gets very interesting. . .

Lets not forget the user benefit for this – completely targeted content and personalization.

Social: Universal Like Button Spreads Facebook Across Web – Advertising Age – Digital

With Universal ‘Like’ Button, Facebook Spreads Across Web
Announcement at F8 Developer Conference Reveals Platform Designed to Draw in Vast Data

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Launching its universal “like” button, Facebook extended its tentacles across the internet today, setting up pipes to gather user data from anywhere on the web. And now that users can add what topics, products or content they like to their Facebook profiles, the social-networking site is sitting on a data treasure chest.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg presenting at the F8 developers conference.
AP
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg presenting at the F8 developers conference.
At the F8 developers conference today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a platform that aims to connect the entire internet through the social network. With those like buttons appearing on major publisher sites directly after the announcement, users can thumbs-up individual pages with one click and publish that to Facebook. Meanwhile, that Like is stored for later.

“[Zuckerberg] is using the like button as the glue to link Facebook to everything else and understand his users much more,” said Shiv Singh, Razorfish’s global social media lead. “It’s a data goldmine.”

Facebook’s new tools, including the like button, activity feeds for other Facebook users and recommendation engines, are designed to embed Facebook functionality on outside websites. With like buttons on 75 sites, including publishers such as CNN and the New York Times, from day one, Facebook expects to serve more than 1 billion buttons in the first 24 hours. Once a user likes a page, the publisher gets a link on the user’s page, and means to later publish to that user’s newsfeed.

Facebook made no specific ad announcement today, but the affinity data for the site’s more than 400 million users already has agency types salivating. A Facebook spokeswoman said its policy about developers or publishers targeting ads on their own sites has not changed with the new policies. Facebook will allow developers to apply user data to target ads on their own sites, but not elsewhere. Even though sites can’t share data, Facebook will be sitting on the mother lode.

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The iAd: an Ad Industry Perspective

The entire advertising industry lined up for miles for the iPhone; they pre-ordered the iPad months in advance without any data plan or even any real idea how they would use it; and today we waited with baited breath to see what Steve Jobs had in store for the intersection of our world and his…the iAd: Apple’s new platform for in-app ads. This just might be the exact stimulus mobile marketing needs to finally make it “the year of mobile”.

Apple and Google have fundamental beliefs on the best way to engage users, and both are right. Google is betting on the web browser, and that browser’s evolution into an OS (Chrome) and all the channels within it – Video, Search, Display, etc. Jobs believes that the best way to engage with users is through the iPhone and he is building a fairly closed, but large and already viable ecosystem, with the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, etc.

The iAd is another new revenue stream for this ecosystem.  In the past developers had two options; charge for their applications and have a small distribution, or don’t charge, and have a large distribution but no revenue. What the iAd brings to the table is the option for free apps that allow the developers to make money and create new business models.  More than that, an ad-supported component to the ecosystem will drive innovation around the platform, and a lot of people are betting on it. One example? Kleiner Perkins just raised $200m for their iFund.

Let’s look at the stats from Steve Jobs’s presentation today – there are over 450,000 iPads sold to date, over 50 million iPhones, 35 million iPod Touches, and over 150,000 applications in the iTunes App Store. The average user spends 30 minutes a day interacting with applications. Those are some really compelling numbers

Lets discuss the logistics of buying, placing and building iAds – Apple will host and sell the ads. They are going to give developers 60% of the revenue and developers will be able to integrate them within their apps using the iAd SDK.

For the advertising agencies, since the iPhone and iPad still don’t support Flash, all development will have to be done in HTML5 (given that Flash isn’t very SEO friendly and now completely mute from the iPhone OS, it might be important to continue to migrate from the platform).  Given that much of web development is moving to HTML 5 the developers at our firms should port over easy to this platform.

For marketers, it will be exciting.  We will have a great opportunity to reach this enormous and growing audience in completely new ways.  Ways in which, Jobs says, will be the intersection between the emotional power of television with the interactivity of the web. The iAd displays full-screen video and interactive ad content without ever leaving the app, and lets users return to their app anytime they choose. The more I think about it the more it makes sense:

Imagine watching American Idol on the Fox App on your iPad, when you notice a branded entertainment piece on the Ford Focus.  Just by touching it, you can engage with the product including a virtual test drive of the vehicle using the game mechanics of the iPad without ever leaving the app.

Here’s the question: Will Apple provide access to the audience and data, or will the brands and agencies be precluded from leveraging this wealth of information about our customers and their experiences?

Another thing to think about is that as Apple scales the iAd Platform and the many application providers using it, there will be the need for an exchange, and the opportunity to plug agency Demand Side Platforms like MDC Partners’ Varrick into them will be significant.

What remains unquestionable is that Steve Jobs has built the ultimate platform in the iPhone OS for consuming media, engaging with content and connecting with the world.  And the iAd is a game-changing marketing opportunity.

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Redefining Navigation Simply by Nokia

The World’s Biggest Signpost from adghost on Vimeo.

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The corner bookstore and the amazon partnership

If you enjoy reading, as much I do, and even more so with my new Kindle, you will realize that the challenge of finding books is still the biggest problem even though you can get them instantly anywhere, even with Amazon’s recommendation engine. Now Kindle (probably the iPad will do the same as well) has literally transformed how I read, because its the ultimate reading user experience – On the subway, I can sync to the page I was on at home and then continue to read my book on my Kindle Ap on the iPhone, on the airplane, I can download a couple books preflight, or just sitting on the couch or the beach and I can read my kindle like a book, and when I am done with that book I have access to entire bookstore at my command.

But it isn’t the reading experience I struggle with, its finding books.  You see this is exceptionally complicated for my family, as we all have Kindles and we all have multi-discplines of categories we like to read.   I find the best way to find books is the old fashion way word of mouth or walking into a bookstore. But with Kindles we can no longer share books, so finding still requires word of mouth and then going out and buying. But walking into Barnes and Noble is basically the same as logging onto Amazon and finding that perfect book, is exhausting and its not very efficient in terms of user experience. Its not like having my mother-in-law who is a veracious reader, is on the board of a Detroit book event group, and knows both my wife and I well recommend x book because she knows we will like it both after reading it and knowing us personally.

I am not sure if either technology or bricks and mortars can ever get achieve the recommendation engine of my mother in-law, but just like a date recommendation it requires someone who knows both parties intimately to make the perfect match, and that’s more than your last purchase through a single channel (ie amazon.com)

Living in New York, especially in the neighborhood we live in, we have the wonderful opportunity to browse local bookstores, and yesterday we went into Posman Books in Chelsea Market. I have to say that instantly this became one of my favorite bookstore. The difference between Posman Books and Barnes and Noble is that like a niche museum or art gallery, Posman Books is curated, its curated looking at books as art, and creating an environment that supports that methodology.  The books are basically the same price as Barnes and Noble, but the quantity is a fraction, and the size of the space is but a corner of one of the larger B&Ns. But you don’t have to fight through crowds of people, climb over people laying (sometimes sleeping) in the aisles, or hike 20 miles and speak to five people to find that copy of a small run publisher that fits your needs, most likely you might not even find any of that (including that niche publisher, unless the folks at Posman choose them), but you will find an environment and a collection of books that will satisfy any of  the world’s literati.

So the question then is what happens when I only buy on Kindle? Or I only buy on Amazon or Apple? Its simple. . . Posman books suffers and runs the risk of disappearing.  But this doesn’t need to happen! Posman doesn’t need to be just a bookstore tucked away in a corner of Chelsea Market.  They can be a curator, a brand, and an ambassador for the perfect books, and so can 192 Books, Biography Bookstore, or any of the wonderful bookstores in the world. While yes maybe their revenues at their bricks and mortar stores may fall, but they can simply diversify this revenue. They should partner with Amazon and Apple vs fear it.  And Amazon should leverage the foundation they have of an affiliate marketing program (like the one where if you chose to buy the kindle from my link above I make a small commission) and create the small bookstore sales platform.  The program should allow Posman Books or any other bookstore to create a page that when people are browsing their site or have been in their store and want to remember a book, they saw can simply go to their new ecommerce site (funded and hosted by amazon) and buy the book directly from Amazon’s fulfillment platform, either via download or hardcover, and in return Amazon can design the program so that it delivers a similar margin on the book to the retailer as selling it in their stores.  This allows the retailer to continue to deliver their valuation of curation of books as a small bookstore, but ultimately they can extend their brand beyond the single retail environment, prevent themselves from loosing money on the movement to more books being sold or downloaded via the web, and ultimately scale their business far beyond one or two single disconnected local stores.

Just a thought. . .

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Apple to ship tablet in March

Although the tablet has been around in many reincarnations, and many different CE developers have tried,  the fact that Apple is launching a version is a validation that that platform and form fact is ultimately the next evolution in how we consume our content.

Apple to Ship Tablet Device in March – WSJ.com

By YUKARI IWATANI KANE And GEOFFREY FOWLER

Apple Inc. plans to unveil a new multimedia tablet device later this month, but doesn’t plan on shipping the product until March, people briefed by the company said.

All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher joins Simon Constable on the News Hub to discuss a major product announcement by Apple, which many believe to be the much-awaited tablet computer.

While the shipping time hasn’t been finalized and could change, people briefed on the matter said the new tablet device will come with a 10- to 11-inch touch screen. An Apple spokesman said the company doesn’t comment on rumors and speculation.

One of the people briefed on the matter added that Apple was working on two different material finishes for the tablet, though it was unclear whether the Cupertino, Calif., company was just testing them or planning to come out with multiple versions of the device at different prices.

Analysts currently believe an Apple tablet will be priced at about $1,000, possibly including a subscription to a nationwide Wi-Fi wireless service.

The tablet is expected to be a multimedia device that will let people watch movies and television shows, play games, surf the Internet and read electronic books and newspapers. People briefed by Apple also say that the company believes it could redefine the way consumers interact with a variety of content. Textbooks and newspapers, for example, could be presented differently through color screens, a touch interface, and the integration of live up-to-the-minute information from multiple sources.

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Complaining about AT&T? There’s an app for that.

I am not completely sure if they is application is really a crowdsourced maintenance tool for the AT&T network, a way to manage the huge inflow of negative customer service calls and emails to AT&T wireless, or really a brilliant idea.  But what I will say is that if AT&T does make the effort to reduce dropped calls, upgrade the network based on feedback, then all I have to say is Cheers AT&T, I will stick around even after your network looses the iPhone contract.

Lets see how much better Union Square (an iPhone dead zone) in NYC gets in the next couple weeks.

AT&T’s New iPhone App Lets You Complain About AT&T

AT&T’s New iPhone App Lets You Complain About AT&T

December 7th, 2009 | by Ben Parr20 Comments and 555 Reactions

iPhone owners may love Apple’s sexy mobile device, but they absolutely can’t stand AT&T. It ranks dead last in customer satisfaction for dropped calls and spotty 3G service, a sore spot that Verizon has been poking at with new ads.

Now the U.S.’s second largest wireless provider is looking to turn things around, hopefully before it loses iPhone exclusivity rights. Its newest strategy is especially unique, though, because it comes in the form of an iPhone app called Mark the Spot [iTunes Link].

The free customer service app is really quite simple. Whenever you experience a problem with your service (e.g. a dropped call, bad 3G connection, poor quality), you can open up the app and report the issue right where you are. Once you cite the problem and add additional info, it gets submitted to AT&T’s customer support team. The key to the app is that it’s location-based, meaning that AT&T can aggregate this data to find dead spots and trouble areas.

This app is simple but smart — it provides useful data to AT&T while giving customers an outlet for venting about their hatred for AT&T and how they wished the iPhone was on Verizon. Still, it may be too little, too late.

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