Digital Hive

Who Needs TV When You've Got....Yahoo?

So Yahoo is broadcasting the premiere of Showtime's new series Fat Actress free of charge.

The Webcast marks the first time Yahoo will debut an entire episode of a TV series, making the program and its commercials available to anyone who registers and uses Yahoo's video player format. The show will remain on tv.yahoo.com until March 12.

According to remarks published in Advertising Age (you need a subscription to view the full article) Yahoo intends to revolutionize Web-based entertainment and bring a "big, signature event" to the Internet that will transform the medium much the same way I Love Lucy or The Sopranos transformed TV.

My question for you is: what transformation are they trying to make?

Alternatively stated, what significance does this have? Are we all going to start watching TV on the web now?

Or is this just a stunt to attract attention to Yahoo's other high bandwidth offerings? Weigh in if you dare............

The Medium is the Message

  For 3M's new outdoor campaign, $3 million in fake bills (with real bills on top) was placed between panes of transit glass treated with a shatter-resistant coating.

Yes they could've just done a nice poster saying "hey, trust us, our new glass is shatterproof, isn't that lovely." But they took it to the next level by engaging passers-by in the delectable task of trying to get the money out of the display. One can only imagine the attention this creative is getting.

Thanks to Brand Noise for flagging this Active Branding classic.

Here's another- in which a real $100 bill was placed behind shatter-resistant glass in a washroom ad. See more of this interesting work here: http://www.rethinkadvertising.com/

Show, Don't Tell - Brand Experience is the New Marketing Imperative

For all the talk about the behavior of consumers, there hasn't been much said about the behavior of marketers. It's time to start the conversation.

All these years we've been pushing information at our customers. Now we must make a radical shift - in both mindset and practice - and begin pulling customers toward us, with experiences that engage rather than repel and that connect them with the brand at their initiative, not ours.

The way to do this is by creating what we call "active brand experiences," using every customer encounter and interaction with your brand as an opportunity to show them - rather than tell them - why your brand is best. When customers experience for themselves why your brand is the preferred choice, a virtuous cycle begins, as the very process of engaging in the experience enhances and reinforces the brand's value. The cumulative effect of such experiences can be powerful and, in our minds, more effective than any other form of marketing today.

There is no formula for creating active brand experiences. There are, however, a few principles to guide you.

Differentiate Your Brand From the Competition. Much as you live your brand on a daily basis, it can still be tricky to figure out how your product or service is different from competing offerings. The answer, it turns out, lies within your organization - your entire organization. Many managers fail to realize that every division of the company can have an impact on how the brand is perceived. Expanding the discussion company-wide brings a new perspective - one that lets you begin to see as a company, not just as a marketing department, what truly sets your brand apart. This awareness, in turn, opens up new possibilities for showcasing those differences.

Translate What's Special about the Brand Into Customer Experiences. Copywriters can tweak copy to their heart's content, but words and tone will never be enough when consumers have their fingers firmly on the mute button. You must engage them first; earn their attention by making the brand part of what the customer is passionate about and already participates in enthusiastically. Think how effective this strategy has been for Apple's iPod. Music lovers found it easy to fulfill their passion by downloading songs from the Internet. They were so passionate that they continued the practice even after it became illegal to do so. Apple created a tool that allowed customers to experience their passion in a better, more convenient - not to mention legal - way. By harnessing what customers were already doing, Apple now boasts the lion's share (70% and growing at last reckoning) of the MP3 market.

Activate Those Experiences Across all Points of Customer Contact. A third principle of Active Branding is leveraging and reinforcing brand experiences across the organization. Everyone who helped identify how to differentiate the brand should gather together once again to identify ways each department can convey those differences. Sure, there's likely to be changes in copy and imagery, but that only "tells;" it doesn't "show." The hallmarks of your brand should reverberate across all departments of the company - in customer care operations, online, sales, manufacturing - in any and all ways that department can reflect the brand attributes. This is not to say that mass advertising doesn't have its place; it does, but only in support of the brand, not as definers of it.

To get the most for your brand dollars these days, give your customers experiences that bring the brand attributes alive.

Show them, don't tell them, and you'll be delighted by what they show you in return.

Originally published here: http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_BehaviorialInsider.cfm?fnl=050218

Color's new power: converting blue & brown into green

When New York's twice-a-year Fashion Week kicked off last week, designers from across the fashion spectrum were pushing deep blues and rich browns as the "it" colors for fall.

Where did they get their inspiration?

Sure, their world-class imaginations play a big role. But if you dig beneath the surface, you'll see that the colors we all embrace as "it" aren't imposed upon us, they actually emerge from what we're already doing.

Case in point - brown. Today it's the new black. But back in the 90's it was black's dirty, messy cousin that you'd never consider wearing or painting your living room with. What drove this shift?

Pantone tracks color trends and tells fashion designers (as well as car designers, appliance makers, etc.) what's going to be hot - 2 years before we know it is. Pantone's color experts noticed the "Starbucks phenomenon" in the 1990s, when espresso, latte and other coffee colors began percolating into the design lexicon. In March 2002, United Parcel Service Inc. launched an ad campaign called "What Can Brown Do For You?"

Helped along by gourmet chocolates, like Godiva, and a recovery in fur sales, brown began to change its personality. Now brown is all about comfort and luxury.

We have technology companies to thank for blue - from Microsoft Corp.'s Windows to Apple Computer Inc.'s iMac. Estée Lauder Cos.' use of escapist imagery in ads for its Beyond Paradise fragrance.

Pop culture is embracing brown big time - at the Golden Globes Awards in Los Angeles last month, ginger-haired actress Marcia Cross, of "Desperate Housewives," and best-actress winner Hilary Swank each stood out in rich brown gowns by Richard Tyler and Calvin Klein. And Charlize Theron - last year's blonde Best Actress winner - has gone brunette.

But why should marketers pay attention to color? It drives consumer demand. Sales of light-brown luxury cars increased to 11% of North American luxury-car sales in 2004, up from about 1% in 2003, says Karen Surcina, color-programs manager at DuPont Automotive Systems, part of DuPont Co.'s coatings and color division. Blue-car sales rose to 9% of luxury-car sales last year, up from 4% in 2003.

And Kenmore has sold 10,000 of its first colored washers and dryers in Pacific Blue and Sedona, a rich, golden brown, that it launched in January (you might have seen the TV ads).

If you subscribe to the online Wall Street Journal, here's where you can reach the full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110747056079545488,00.html?mod=mm_media_marketing_hs_rt

Brand Cop: Retail bank busted for hostage-taking

The Defendant: The banker formerly known as Fleet

The Crime(s): Aggravated Telemarketing Assault, Hostage Marketing, Reckless Branding

While off-duty, the officer had to call his bank to activate new cards.  The reason for the new cards (there was nothing wrong with the old ones) is that we now have to start using the newly branded cards so we can expunge all memory of Fleet from the world.  I guess those guys over at thought it would be a good idea for everyone to get real up-close and cozy with the new brand.  I guess they were kind of hoping that the brand and brand cop would become good buddies. 

So, I called to activate my card and, instead of a rapid confirmation welcoming me to the new bank, I got marketed at for about 2 or 3 minutes.  Now, I know that is not very long, but I was pissed!  Bear in mind that I had two cards, so I had to go through this twice! I can't hang up until they confirm that my cards are activated and they are refusing to do that until they have pitched me some useless, value-free service....the message begins by trying to scare me into signing up, by pointing out how identity theft is on the rise and how their subscription service will protect me blah blah blah.  Just to compound the crime, when I pressed the "get lost" button the first time, they still did not let it go!  I had to listen to more drivel until finally I got the activation confirmation message.  Way to go guys!  The push-marketers response to the decline of push marketing is to assume you have permission to annoy people just because you have forced them to call you.  And the more they push, the more people get annoyed and tune out........

Original idea for brand cop inspired by Brian Sack's hilarious "Grammar Cop" found at Brian's site The Banterist. I would like to add that this is not an attempt to be as funny as Brian: such an attempt would be futile.

Which ads won the Super Bowl? TiVo knows. Or does AOL?

TiVo, our dependable ad-zapping friend, did some data crunching last night and came up with a top 10 Super Bowl Commercials list. As did AOL and USA Today - but the results aren't consistent across the 3.

TiVo says its audience measurement analysis is based on aggregated data from a sample of 10,000 anonymous TiVo households. The company gauges the interest in programming content by measuring the percentage of the TiVo Super Bowl audience watching in "play" mode.

TiVo's Top 10:

1. Emerald Nuts - "Unicorn"

2. Anheuser Busch - "Designated Driver"

3. GoDaddy.com - "Censorship Hearing"

4. Diet Pepsi - "Cindy Crawford Eye Catcher"

5. Ameriquest - "Robbery"

6. Careerbuilder.com - "Monkey Brown-Nosing"

7. Tabasco - "Burn"

8. Fed Ex - "Super Bowl Commercial Formula"

9. Paramount Pictures - "War of the Worlds"

10. Anheuser Busch - "Thank You to Troops"

USA Today also conducted its annual poll and Anheuser-Busch took the top spot in the newspaper's Super Bowl Ad Meter for the seventh year in a row. Anheuser-Busch's ad featuring a pilot who jumped out of an airplane for a six-pack of Bud Light was the most popular, according to USA Today's Ad Meter. Volunteers, who charted their second-by-second reactions to Super Bowl ads, gave the ad a score of 8.65 (on a scale of 0 to 10). The top five ads, according to the newspaper:

1. Anheuser-Busch - Pilot jumps out of plane for Bud Light - 8.65 2. Ameriquest - Trip to store gets rough after cell phone chat is misunderstood - 8.06 3. Anheuser-Busch - Returning American soldiers get standing ovation - 7.94 4. CareerBuilder - Guy sits on whoopee cushion as prankster monkeys laugh - 7.81 5. CareerBuilder - Guy can't get work done because he works with a bunch of monkeys - 7.77

AOL's top five included Anheuser Busch's spot featuring American servicemen and women, which scored the most votes, 15,204 or 14 percent of the voting; followed by Bud Light's skydiving spot with 12,637; Ameriquest's "Guilty" with 9,272; Ameriquest's "Robbed," with 7,932; and Diet Pepsi's P. Diddy red carpet turn with 7,189.

Why the different results in the different studies? I'll leave it to you all to pontificate.........

Borrowed with thanks from: http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_onlineminute.cfm?fnl=050207

Broadband's impact hits overdrive

Over 50% of households accessing the 'Net from home?  Old news (latest # is 55%, for those of you scoring at home).  Here's your new shocking broadband factoid, courtesy of Nielsen/Net Ratings:

69% of all online retail purchases were conducted via broadband connection in November.

Your worries about alienating broadband customers should be fading away by now.  It's time to take Woodward and Bernstein's advice during Watergate and follow the money:

• Broadband customers spend more than narrowband shoppers ($158 v. $117)
• They're more easily converted (26% v. 21%)
• They visit more often (18% v. 14%)
• They linger in the store longer (22 hrs. v. 18 hrs.)

We've spent ten years optimizing the shopping experience for dial-up users.  The fundamental need to have a clear, well-designed process won't change (that's a fundamental of retailing), but we now have the ability to add so much more:  branded experiences to enhance and differentiate, personal 1:1 interactions like chat, blogs, and comments to customize and convert.

The best analogy here is grocery stores.  Like that industry, we've spent years (decades in Internet time) refining the basic supermarket concept, which was a dramatic shift in its day.  With broadband's adoption, we can now offer so much more, like a Whole Foods, Dean & Deluca, or a Central Market.

If we build it, they will come.  If we don't, someone else will build it... and we'll miss out.

Sweden launches space program during Superbowl

As everyone (especially Tom P.) is aware, Pontiac raised the stakes for everyone in the fiercely competitive world of automotive marketing by helping Oprah give away 276 first-ever G6 sedans on her "Wildest Dreams"episode.

How do you top that?

Volvo thinks it has the answer:  to boldly go where no man (or at least no contest winner) has gone before... into space!

Adweek has the details, including a launch spot during the Superbowl.  The spot talks about the XC90 SUV's new V8 engine--"powerful enough to get you into space", says Richard Branson, who then offers viewers the chance to register to win a trip on his Virgin Galactic service, launching in a couple of years.  Provided, of course, you learn a little about the XC90 and give Volvo your e-mail address for terrestrial recontact.

I'm a big fan of Richard Branson, his penchant for boldness, and the power of the brand he's built (just not his reality show).  I adore the disruption of big, bold marketing moves in today's cluttered mediaspace, especially when brands challenge the status quo.  I'm even a space geek.  I should be thrilled to the point where I quit blogging and start writing a case study.

But somehow, this strikes me as a bit... off.  Specifically off-brand, for Volvo.  Sure, they nailed the V8 message, and we like V-8 power.  But "powerful enough to take you places you've never been before"?  Works well for an "authentic" off-road brand like Hummer, Jeep, or even Land Rover, where the promise of adventure and exploration is what you're buying, even if you never leave the city.  I know Volvo is working to move beyond its "safe/boxy" heritage and burnish its performance credentials, but does this go so far in the other direction playing Hummer on TV that the Volvo connection will simply get lost?

With Pontiac and Oprah, there was a brand connection beyond the buzz--giving credibility to the new power of Pontiac and an all-new model, the G6.  I can see the linkage and the strategy behind Volvo's move, but I find the connection hard to believe.

Which begs the larger issue for us as we strive for the next big idea:  is it enough to generate monumental buzz (as this will) and lots of e-mail captures if you don't activate the brand?  Can you have one without the other, if it's big enough, or does the bigness of the move compound the failure to activate?  Please opine in Comments: I know you have strong opinions on this.

Blogging, In Control Consumers and the Brave New World

I half-Inched this article, but it's good...

Before we get into the article, I want to hit you with one conclusion for us as marketers.  We need to start talking to Bloggers.  They are not hard to find, and they are the 'new press'.  While we can't control them (that's the point of blogging!) we can try to be their friends.  That means give them what they want, e.g. juicy stuff to blog about, on their terms.  The onus is on us to locate them and engage with them.  Remember when "The Tipping Point" came out? Everybody was looking for Mavens, Influencers and Connectors.  Well, now we can find them, they self-identify every day on the internet.  Here are extracts from the article....

THE GROWING IMPACT OF CONSUMERS' WEB PUBLISHING Why Advertising Can No Longer Be a One-Way Monologue November 01, 2004

By Rance Crain

So marketers want consumers to be in control, do they? "Truly the consumer wants to be in control, and we want to put them in control," General Motors marketing executive Roger Adams told the Association of National Advertisers' annual meeting.

Be careful what you wish for. What most marketers haven't come to grips with is just how much consumers are now calling the shots. They have the ability to change the way ad messages are being received -- and even come out with their own counter-messages.

'iPod's dirty secret'

....the Neistat brothers, created a Web site and film to protest that Apple's iPod battery couldn't be replaced and lasted only 18 months. The film, ipod's dirty secret (using iMacs to produce it) showed the brothers stenciling their findings about the iPod battery all over Apple's poster ads for the product. The Web site generated over 15 million hits from around the world and forced Apple to change the battery.

Another IAA speaker, Kolchi Yamamoto of the Dentsu Communications Institute, called the influence of Web logs "the strength of weak information." After Coca-Cola premiered its new C2 Coke product in Japan, Mr. Yamamoto said consumers created the better part of 40,000 Web pages about the product.....Mr. Yamamoto said opinions about C2 from these "weak information" sources had a greater impact than the opinion of friends, who all tended to think the same way.

Influencers

The blog creators are influencers -- people who pride themselves on knowing all kinds of arcane, insider details about the product, hence giving them credibility with consumers.

What's clear is that advertising no longer has the luxury of being a one-way monologue. Consumers, much like voters, have the ability to not only absorb advertiser messages, but to change other consumers' minds about the message content and the product itself.

So marketers must now be ready to change their communications based on consumers' own feedback. Political ads have long adapted to what their polls show voters are most concerned about, and now consumers have the same opportunity -- only consumers, through their blogs, are polling themselves.

.......Will consumer blogs bypass professional advertising agencies? As I said, be careful what you wish for.

It sings, it dances, but does it sell?

Subservient chicken - Burger King's online mega buzz generator from last spring. Sure we were all talking about it. But are there tangible results, and did these results drive the business?

First, some interesting background on how this thing was distributed. Crispin Porter Bogusky (the agency who created the compliant fowl) apparently sent it to (just) 20 individuals who are friends of the agency. And it grew from there.

The results:

• On Thursday, April 8, just one day after the site went live, Crispin reported 8.2 million hits, with the average viewing period hitting 8 minutes and 52 seconds. The traffic hit a whopping 12.4 million hits on April 14, with an average viewing period of 6 minutes and 56 seconds.
• Total hits through April 21st (first 2 weeks) were 142,996,967, and average session length was 7:17 minutes (that’s 7.3 x 30-second commercials for anyone keeping score).

Sounds like pretty meaningful engagement, with a lot of people. Burger King was thrilled, I'm sure. But was there increased store traffic? Were more chicken sandwiches sold? Did perception of the brand change? Are these business results even appropriate to expect from viral?

And why was this thing so darned popular anyway?

Let us know if you've got the scoop or want to share your opinion.