Making The Best Of Youtube

Your brand might have dipped its toe into Youtube but we’re willing to bet you aren’t making the best of this medium. Sure YouTube’s great for hosting existing branded content but there’s so much more this channel can offer. Thinking beyond your TV commercials, the following article shares ten tips for making the best of Youtube.

There was a time when Youtube was considered a wild-wild west of content — a place where marketers shied away from uploading their commercials, let alone building a branded channel. But these days, YouTube has become more mini-van than stagecoach. From Toyota Sienna’s high-profile television commercials urging consumers to visit their YouTube channel, to (what might be considered the anti-minivan) Harley Davidson’s fan-centric YouTube universe, there has been a noticeable shift in corporate adoption of the platform.

There are many companies now that are hopping on the bandwagon. Just about every corporation and small business is creating a branded channel on YouTube, but there are still relatively few marketers who have managed to harvest the full potential of the platform.

Whether your brand already has a YouTube channel that’s in need of a facelift, or if you’re interested in developing one from scratch, this article will provide some practical tips and valuable tricks to help you kick-start the process.

1. Test Tube On Youtube

Look at your YouTube channel as a new, exciting learning lab. Be malleable in your approach to both the content and design of the channel. Don’t be concerned with acquiring thousands of friends and subscribers right away. Use this time to test, gather insights, and see what works for your brand and what doesn’t. Unlike your company’s website and traditional marketing collateral, the look and feel of the channel can be changed, tweaked and optimized without a huge investment of time and money.

2. Plotting Global Domination? Check Your Swagger

Ideally, you’ll want to be goal-oriented during the launch (or re-launch) of your channel. Before your itchy little finger goes to hit that “upload” button, consider the needs and goals of your various target audiences, and keep reminding yourself that web video is distinct medium.

Next, think about your marketing objectives and overall brand strategy. Are you using the channel to attract prospects, provide customer support, or build a list of subscribers? Understand that there might not be “one size fits all” content if you are trying to accomplish all three.

Let your strategic goals drive the tactics you use to create and promote videos, and consider whether a paid sponsorship would offer an advantage. If you check out YouTube’s advertising channel, you can get a basic overview of what brands can do with the platform, but be forewarned — the information is a bit heavy-handed on the sales side.

3. Avoid Over Commitment Issues

Strongly consider outsourcing. I’ve never met a marketer who wasn’t time-starved. Let’s face it: You probably don’t have time to be uploading content, let alone coming up with titles, descriptions and tags, friending, rating, commenting and optimizing. And I’m giving you fair warning: Entrust this project to a summer intern at your own peril.

While you should allow yourself the flexibility to experiment, YouTube can be a high-profile place to make gaffes, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you’re going to outsource, you might consider looking for a specialist who is already set up and can implement your strategy. Creating web videos and knowing how to market them on YouTube requires a whole different skill set than web development — just because it’s online doesn’t mean that it’s a job for the company that builds your website.

4. Be A Social Media Butterfly

Think of your YouTube channel as an extension of your brand that lives and breathes. You’ll need someone who is dedicated to tending to that page, building your audience by reaching out to fans, and managing your profile online.

Start by searching your brand on YouTube and see what the existing conversation looks like. Then try reaching out to people who already have an affinity for your product or service by commenting on their videos and/or “friending” them. Remember that YouTube is an online community, and if you’re not participating in the dialogue, then you are missing the opportunity for true engagement.

5. Don't Just Repurpose Old Content

You should post your television commercials online, but don’t let that be the only content on the channel. Remember that television commercials are designed for a one-way medium, and that while audiences may want the ability to see your commercials on-demand, if that’s all you have to offer, they will never visit your channel again.

And don’t just post your commercial and 15 derivative videos about the making of it, or “director’s cuts” of the same, unless they have legitimate value as content in their own right. YouTube is an opportunity for your brand to go beyond traditional “push” marketing tactics and to create videos that address multiple audiences and a variety of consumer needs.

6. Broadcast Your Best Self

Make the feature reel on the channel the most entertaining or best piece of content that you have. If that means that it’s a cleverly written and witty commercial that was originally destined for TV, so be it. If a viewer visits your channel, you’ll only have one chance to impress them with your content, so if you don’t entertain them or offer some overwhelmingly valuable information, you’ll lose an opportunity.

7. Make A Menu Of Content For Everyone To Feed

Understand that YouTube is a search engine for video. Create tailored content that considers what consumers are searching for or need to know about your products and services. If you play your cards right, when consumers are searching for information about your competitor, they’ll come to your videos first. Instructional and how-to videos that show consumers how to use your product are always a good place to start, but also consider the value of integrating your product into existing YouTube shows and then favoriting those videos on your channel.

8. Juice Your Marketing: Extract Extra Value

YouTube does not exist in a vacuum. Try to integrate your YouTube channel into the rest of your marketing programs and cross reference/promote your content. You can extract more value out of your event marketing if you think about ways to co-produce video content. Remember, integrating marketing channels and initiatives is well known for producing a campaign “multiplier effect.” Whether it’s video shot at a trade show or a promo for an upcoming event, just make sure that the video is well produced and edited for length.

9. Be Home Grown

Grow your channel instead of “launching” it. If there is any medium that pays attention to grassroots movement, web video is it. And be patient — it takes time to spread the word about your channel, and it takes care and nurturing for it to catch on. Keep releasing content on a regular basis, integrate your YouTube channel into your other marketing efforts, bring your customers extra value, and your presence will grow.

10. Keep The Future In Mind

YouTube was started in early 2005 — look how much has changed in a five-year time span, and how fast web video has progressed. As new technology and distribution channels emerge (like the iPad), try to think about how you can create web video content that will serve your brand into the future. During the production process, you should keep user-experience in mind and plan for the audience to be watching your videos on screens the size of a TV, as well as on their mobile phones.

Source - Mashable

The Power Of Perception

There’s something to be said about the power of belief. According to a recent study, the simple belief in luck can have an impact on how we perform. Superstitions are a fascinating because they suggest that abstract perceptions can have tangible outcomes. We’re not saying you should pull out that old rabbit foot but this article is worth a gander.

Can luck really influence the outcome of events? That question has captivated otherwise rational people for centuries—and challenged scientists to somehow prove whether lucky charms, special shirts or ritualistic behaviors hold special powers.

They do. (Sometimes.) New research coming out in June suggests that a belief in good luck can affect performance.

In a test conducted by researchers from the University of Cologne, participants on a putting green who were told they were playing with a "lucky ball" sank 6.4 putts out of 10, nearly two more putts, on average, than those who weren't told the ball was lucky. That is a 35% improvement. The results suggest new thinking in how to view luck and are intriguing to behavorial psychologists.

"Our results suggest that the activation of a superstition can indeed yield performance-improving effects," says Lysann Damisch, co-author of the Cologne study, set to be published in the journal Psychological Science. The sample size, just 28 university students, was small, but the effect was big enough to be statistically significant.

Believing in their own good fortune can help people only in situations where they can affect the outcome. It can't, say, help people watching a horse race they have bet on.

While the findings have not been published, this study could prompt psychologists to explore ways to tap into people's belief in good luck. "Simply being told this is a lucky ball is sufficient to affect performance," Stuart Vyse, professor of psychology at Connecticut College and author of "Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition," says of the new study.

When Anthony Overfield rides his motorcycle, he carries two passengers on board: so-called gremlin bells. The 46-year-old runs a Web site, New York Biker, and sells merchandise at bike shows statewide. Gremlin bells are his best sellers. Many bikers believe these small brass bells, mounted near the back of his bike, help ward off accidents. "My bike's in good shape," he says. "I'm healthy. I haven't been involved with any altercations with vehicles." In short, his good-luck charms seem to be working.

Still, people often overestimate how much control they have over a situation. For a 2003 paper, researchers in the U.K. enlisted 107 traders at London investment banks to play a computer game simulating a live stock index. They were told that pressing the letters Z, X and C on the keyboard "may have some effect on the index," when in fact it didn't.

Nonetheless, many traders had an illusion of control. This characteristic could have detracted from their job performance. Traders in the study who held the strongest false belief in control had lower salaries in real life, suggesting that excessive belief in their own control of "luck" may have hurt their trading decisions.

"The idea that wearing a red shirt, saying some sort of incantation or prayer or carrying a lucky charm will bring good luck is very appealing because it gives people the illusion that they have some degree of control over future events in their lives," says Peter Thall, a biostatistician at the University of Texas. "The painful truth is that we have little or no control over the most important events in our lives."

Mathematicians have demonstrated the role that randomness plays in life—"there are no long-term successful craps players," says Harvey Mudd College mathematician Arthur Benjamin.

But don't tell that to the people who believe they can shape their own luck. They're well represented in games of chance, such as lotteries and casinos, and will be out in force at Saturday's Kentucky Derby, in which a favorite is named, what else, Lookin At Lucky.

On a recent rainy Sunday afternoon at Aqueduct Race Track in Queens, N.Y., Dennis Canetty was wearing a brown suit. Not an everyday, run-of-the-mill, ordinary brown suit. The retired Wall Street trader, age 61, was sporting his lucky brown suit to help the horse he co-owns, Always a Party, win the second race. The power of the suit is real and proven: Mr. Canetty was wearing it at the Preakness Stakes two years ago when Macho Again, another horse he co-owns, finished second as a 40-to-1 long shot.

"It's silly," he said a few minutes before race time. "My wife thinks I'm nuts."

Even some otherwise calculating mathematicians hold irrational beliefs about luck. "I tell my class, 'Don't bother entering sweepstakes; it's so unlikely you're going to win," says Joseph Mazur, a mathematician at Marlboro College and author of the book "What's Luck Got to Do with It?" coming out in July. But then his wife entered him in a sweepstakes and he won $20,000.

There I was for months afterwards, entering every sweepstakes contest I could find," he says. It was futile—he never repeated.

Investors also are prone to superstitions. For example, during an eclipse, which many cultures view as a bad omen, major U.S. stock-market indexes typically fall, according to research conducted by Gabriele Lepori, assistant professor of finance at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. This effect persists even after controlling for economic news and long-term trends. And the indexes usually bounce back soon afterward.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, known for basing personnel decisions on statistics, notes with bemusement the superstition of some of his highest-paid employees. "Every locker room has a comical procession of superstitions," he said in an email. "We have things based on time, on speech intonations and on specific conversation exchanges. If you look at the introductions of any NBA team and what the players do, you have an anthropologist's dream."

But Mr. Cuban is sticking with his stats. "When it's all said and done, it's about performance and data," he said. "Guys will change their superstitions, but the numbers don't lie."

Still, he says he has some superstitions of his own to give his Mavs a boost, "but there is no chance I tell you; that kills them." These may not have helped his team in the playoffs: Dallas trails San Antonio, three games to two.

And did Mr. Canetty's lucky brown suit prove to be lucky? His horse, Always a Party, was bumped early in the race and jockey Channing Hill went flying. "I threw the suit away," Mr. Canetty said on Tuesday. "I'm not wearing that suit anymore." For the next race, "I'll try out a new suit, and see if it brings better luck."

Source - Wall Street Journal

Interactions, Engagement & Ecosystems

A "media" model composed of paid, owned and earned efforts is nothing new - however it’s useful to think about this landscape in tandem with the different ways we interact and engage with branded communication. This article identifies three forms of digital engagement and proposes that each form tends to dominate the experience. Having intimate knowledge of how these ecosystems thrive (or not) will help us figure out how they can work best together.

A "media" model composed of paid, owned and earned efforts is nothing new—however it’s useful to think about this landscape in tandem with the different ways we interact and engage which are enabled through technology. There are essentially three forms of digital engagement which can often overlap (engagement in a single initiative can include all three types) but each form can tend to dominate the experience. It’s important to remember that the type of engagement is contextual to what a participant wants to accomplish.

Types of engagement:

Interactive
This type of engagement is, as its name suggests highly interactive by nature, though what’s worth noting is that there is no social component to it. The primary interaction exists between a person and technology or human to computer. Examples of interactive engagement could be an ATM, or an e-commerce experience or microsites. It can also be a game, video, or any other experience where users engage a system or interact with content. The key distinction is that interactive excludes social interactions between participants.

Social
Social engagement requires the interactions between live human beings (not machines) and/or groups with each other. Most common forms of social engagement can occur on off domain networks such as Facebook and Twitter but can also occur on domain such as corporate blogs or by using the integration of off domain services. The key differentiator for social engagement is that it goes beyond human to computer interaction as described in interactive engagement and usually involves social behavior such as “friending” or human to human direct engagement.

Mobile
Mobile engagement happens exclusively on mobile device as opposed non-mobile device such as a desktop computer. It also takes into context the user behavior of individual(s) who are in mobile situations such as traveling or moving from point A to B. Context in mobile behavior is critical as user activity is influenced by the actual state of being mobile. It’s also worth noting that “mobile” itself may gradually be re-defined over time with devices such at the iPad which blend stationary and mobile behaviors as well as geolocation platforms such as Foursquare which makes mobile activity hyper-local.

Where engagement happens:

Engagement can happen either on domain or off domain and initiatives which include any form of media or content can fall into the following categories:

Paid
Paid efforts always require some type of monetary exchange in order to have initiatives placed on properties whether they be traditional outlets such as display advertising or non traditional outlets such as blogs or advertising within off domain such as Facebook. Paid placement in search initiatives also falls into the category of paid as long as results are tied to non organic or paid searches.

Owned
Owned media typically does not require monetary compensation and can occur on both on and off domain properties that the organization has control over (Facebook pages are off domain, where Websites are on domain but both are owned). Owned properties offer organizations the most control as they can decide what media to promote although off domain properties must be monitored closely as they often support social engagement which cannot be controlled but moderated.

Earned
Earned media nearly always takes place on off domain properties such as forums, blogs, social networks and also mainstream publications. Media is typically earned through word of mouth or unpaid but highly visible results in both search engines and social media referrals. Earned media can also be amplified through outreach initiatives. The core distinction for media which is earned is the absence of overt payment to the property owner for the results.

What This All Means
As stated in the beginning of this piece—much of this should not be new, however it does present new opportunities and challenges for organizations looking to stay in lock step with their customers, consumers and employees. The media ecosystem must be purposefully orchestrated and appear seamless to the individual and groups you are hoping to reach. From a technological perspective, this means potentially adding systems equipped with workflows such as Social Talk or Awareness which allow you to better manage your entire social ecosystem. From a people process, this could mean training and staffing differently. But from the perspective of the people who you want to activate—it simply means that you are relevant to their digital lifestyle. This translates to the the following: we must better understand how people want to engage (IE their motivations and behaviors). For example, the context behind when they want to act "socially" or be left alone and when they are “on the move” vs. stationary. Also, each form of media is its own micro ecosystem within a broader macro media ecosystem—Facebook’s latest addition of community pages could potentially create micro-ecosystems within the broader Facebook environment.

Having intimate knowledge of how these ecosystems thrive (or not) will help us figure out how they can work best together. In other words, get ready to go both wide and deep as you plan digital initiatives. The future of communications will require organizations to be effective both in engaging participants via micro formats while taking a step back and managing media and interactions across the macro (all social, interactive and mobile touch points)—and that’s just on the digital front. The bigger picture? Integration between the digital and real world because this is where it all comes together.

Source - Logic + Emotion

Seven Psychology Tricks

Getting people to take notice of your branded content is a tricky task. In a world where people are bombarded with choice, why on earth should they engage with you? In addition to producing really great content, there are a few psychological tricks you can used to influence behaviour. Although the following article is written for content in social media, the learning can be applied to most consumer touch points.

One of the hallmarks of social media is content: creating it, sharing it and engaging with it.

The best content in social media inspires, informs, educates or entertains (and if you’re really lucky, it does all four!). But how do you create content that goes viral?

What follows are seven strategies you can employ to help your content succeed.

The idea for this post came from Jay Baer’s excellent article on creating reusable social media content, which defined how companies can generate more value by repurposing existing content.

Content Creation Is Easier Than Ever

With the growing number of social media tools coming online each day, creating content is easier than ever. You can grab a bunch of pictures from your camera and create an Animoto slideshow in just a few steps. You can also upload these pictures to Facebook and Twitter using sites like Twitpic or Tweetphoto. By adding captions and explanations, you help those in your network share the experience with you.

Will They Notice if You Create It?

Similarly, it’s reasonably easy to get started with blogging. The challenge is, even though content is easy to produce (and a lot of people are actively creating it), how do you create powerful content that actually gets attention?

The answer to this lies at the intersection of neuroscience, individual psychology and group dynamics. Here’s a bit more detail.

#1: The Cocktail Party Phenomenon

In terms of neuroscience, there are a few concepts you need to know. The first is the reticular activating system (RAS). The RAS is one of the structures in the brain responsible for orientation and attention. Most commonly, the RAS is associated with the concept of selective attention, which means that we naturally orient to information or ideas that we are invested in.

An example of the RAS at work would be in a crowded room where you can’t hear much of anything, but you suddenly turn to someone who has just used your name in conversation. As our names are one thing we are clearly interested and invested in, we naturally focus more fully when someone mentions us.

One strategy is to create content that is relevant and meaningful. Sounds obvious, right?

But the trick is that it needs to be relevant, meaningful and usable. Adult learning theory says that adults are much more interested in content that addresses a specific problem they are having right now. If you want your social media content to stand out, don’t be afraid to get specific and target your audience very tightly. The more relevant your content is to a specific group of people, the greater attention it will receive.

For example, let’s say that you’re a time management expert. You have productivity tips that would help everyone, but you’ll get more attention and notice if you target the tips to a specific group, such as “time management for working Moms.”

#2: More Formats: Better Learning

The second concept related to neuroscience is the idea of assisting people to interact with your content in multiple ways. The concept of “multimodal learning” explains that people are more likely to learn and retain information when it is presented in multiple modalities such as written (visual) and aural (auditory) at the same time. Your content will get more attention if you offer people multiple formats by which they can consume it.

Edgar Dale’s Cone of Learning demonstrates this concept well:

#3: Emotional Narratives Are Remembered Best

As we turn to human psychology, we can find a few ideas that are useful in terms of content creation. First, remember that people tend to respond more strongly to stories and to find meaning in narrative. To the extent that your content is logically presented, sequential, easy to follow and includes emotional elements, your audience will pay more attention. Use stories in your marketing to make it more relevant and personal.

For example, when sharing content on social sites, include case studies and examples of how your concepts or ideas were applied successfully with good results. People remember narratives better than a series of facts.

#4: Familiarity Fosters Likeability

Another concept from human psychology comes from Swap (1977), who found that familiarity fosters likeability. The findings of this study suggest that the more exposure we have to someone, the more we are predisposed to like them, especially when we feel they are giving us value or rewards. For your content, this means you should syndicate your content widely and be out in front of your target audience every chance you get. As people see you “everywhere,” they start to pay more attention. And as they pay more attention, you become more familiar. And as you become more familiar, they like you more. We all are more inclined to do business with people we know and like.

#5: People Want Shortcuts

A third concept from human psychology that we can apply is the idea that people want shortcuts to help them make good decisions. As Barry Schwartz points out in his book, The Paradox of Choice, we all want lots of options—but, paradoxically, the more options we have, the less able we are to decide. This means, as a marketer, your content has to filter, not aggregate.

While people do appreciate resource lists, and you should use these in your marketing, it’s also important to include some suggestions and ideas for how people can benefit from these resource lists. Guide your visitors to make good decisions, filtered through your expertise. This is a powerful content—and persuasion—strategy.

#6: People Take Advice From People They Don’t Even Know

Turning now to group dynamics, let’s talk a bit about social decision-making and the value of social proof. Social decision-making is a term used to describe the idea that we are looking for ways to make good decisions without extraordinary effort. One way we do this is by asking questions of our social group. Sites like Yelp.com (and other review sites) tap into the wisdom of the crowds, to help you make a better decision about where to eat and where to shop.

A study completed in 2008 by Jupiter Research found that 50% of people consulted a blog before making a purchase. This means that we are basing our purchasing decisions on the wisdom of the group and can be influenced by people we have never met and hardly know. This growing focus on social decision-making has an important implication for you. You must position yourself as an expert resource for your clients. When you do this effectively, clients are more likely to trust, and act on, your recommendations. When your potential clients are ready to make a buying decision, you want them to think of you as the best solution.

#7: Engage, Captain!

As a content creator, it’s important to seek out comments and feedback from your audience, because not only do you connect with them more deeply, but you also start building your group of true supporters. These true supporters will look to you for guidance, information and assistance in making crucial decisions. As you gather more true supporters, your status grows. And, as your status grows, people are naturally more willing to listen to what you say and act on your suggestions.

So your content is powerful when it moves people to take action for personally positive results. Social proof is activated when others start talking about you, and sharing positive experiences with you. This naturally builds your credibility and visibility, and makes it more likely that people will pay attention to you and your content.

Putting it all Together

So as you focus on building content, keep in mind that it should:

• Be relevant, targeted, and usable
• Be offered in multiple formats
• Use stories and sequencing to appeal to emotions and logic
• Be consistently delivered
• Guide your visitors to make the best decisions for them
• Focus on building your true base of fans
• Move people to personally positive results

When you use these principles in your social media marketing, you’ll be benefiting from the convergence of neuroscience, human psychology and group dynamics, which will call attention to your content. And getting attention is the first step to making anything happen.

Source - Social Media Examiner

Facebook & The Continued Decentralization Of The Internet

The structure of the Internet resembles a collection of walled gardens. Organically, countless website and platforms such as Twitter have emerged yet there remains little interaction between these individual “walled gardens”. The tides of changes are upon us. Recent changes to Facebook have greatly accelerated the erosion of these walled gardens furthering the decentralization of the Internet. Take a peek at the changes Facebook released at the F8 conference.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his pal from the recently acquired Friendfeed, Bret Taylor, showed off a whole bunch of new features that'll impact your entire Web experience today at the f8 developers conference. Here are the highlights.

• The death of Facebook Connect. No longer do you have to deal with a middleman forcing you to confirm Facebook Connect every time you want to use your Facebook login at another site or service. Facebook is moving to a one-click authorization, so once you're logged in to Facebook, you don't need to log in again and again and again. That leads into the next point...

• Open Graph. The number of sites that use Facebook and Facebook's collected data in extensive, interesting ways is about to skyrocket. So once you're logged in to Facebook, if you go to Pandora, you can see what your friends are listening to, what they like, and see recommendations from other users with similar taste. And it goes both ways--you can "like" an artist on Pandora, and that artist will show up in the "Favorite Music" section of your Facebook profile. And that's just one of 30 partners who will be part of the launch, including other online services like Yelp and IMDb, news organizations like ESPN, and Microsoft--which is going to offer Web-editable Office 2010 documents (read more about Microsoft's Docs here).

• Incredibly easy plug-ins. Since the new API is so easy to integrate into any site (it's just a few lines of HTML), you'll start seeing Facebook integration everywhere. Go to CNN, which has already integrated the new global Facebook authentication across its site, and you can "like" a story, which posts it to your Facebook stream. But you can also see a little pop-up showing what your friends have liked. This is different than the deep-diving Pandora integration. It's the easiest integration Facebook has ever offered, which makes it much more likely to spread fast.

• The social bar. Remember Digg's floating toolbar that appeared on lots of different sites, allowing you to use Digg services from anywhere? If you do, it's probably because you hated it--Digg eliminated it after a torrent of anger toward the bar from Digg users. In that proud tradition, Facebook is introducing their own floating toolbar, which gives access to services like Facebook Chat and friend updates. You will likely start seeing this on poorly designed sites soon, with backlash to follow.

• Credits. Facebook will start using a single currency, to be called Facebook Credits, for all in-Facebook purchases. This is likely to be a bit of a pain, since the currency will have to be converted from real currency like dollars or euros. Microsoft used a similar idea with its "Microsoft Points" currency, to general consternation, although it had some success with the system on Xbox Live.

• Location was a no-show. Despite the wide assumption that Facebook would roll out an oh-so-trendy location-based service (a la Foursquare or Twitter), there was no such announcement. Facebook even teased us with fun little check-in points via the RFID chips in our press badges, but it was not indicative of any new location-based features. Zuckerberg declined to speak in much detail about future location plans, except to confirm that it is being worked on.

Source - Fast Company

Mass Media 2.0

Digital media is revered for its sniper like ability to serve up targeted, relevant content. If you are looking to speak to people aged 41 to 43 who have an interest in cross-eyed cats and claustrophobic gophers, the opportunity is there. But what happens when you forget “laser focused targeting” and take a mass approach within the digital space? It’s the 1970s all over again!

Reckitt Benckiser ("RB") made ad trade headlines last week when it announced a record-setting $40 million web video buy for 2010. What shocked everyone wasn't the dollar amount but rather that the company pretty much doesn't care where the ads run.

"This kind of strategy echoes planning/buying 101 back in 1970," said a comment on the news article in Advertising Age, "It's a senseless approach that abandons all facets of leveraging for optimization and efficiency." Spoken like a true technonut, I say. At risk of overly analyzing the move I wonder if it heralds a realistic approach to web advertising.

Say hello to mass media 2.0?

RB isn't a household name but Lysol, Woolite, Clearasil and many of its other consumer products are well-known. These are "low involvement brands," which means that consumers aren't necessarily looking to have conversations or meaningful relationships with them. They're also low cost, high frequency purchases because most of them get used often and need to be replenished.

RB is in the business of selling lots of bottles of French's mustard and Air Wick freshener sticks.

So it's not wholly surprising that it has rejected the conventional wisdom that drives most Internet marketing, which dictates that technology enables brands to target consumers with laser-like focus...and then requires companies to talk with those consumers incessantly. Experts are shocked that RB isn't interested in appearing before the high-quality eyeballs that watch videos on high-quality web sites, like Hulu, and instead is willing to put its spots just about anywhere. We're talking a difference in cost of $40/thousand pairs of eyeballs reached (or "CPMs") and $2.

RB's media buying company will have its hands full avoiding joke videos in Esperanto and snuff films with that low a placement threshold.

Worse for the new media lobby is that RB will measure ad efficacy by using reach, frequency, and gross-ratings points just like it would a TV buy. "We very much look at this as TV advertising, just on another screen," explains a company spokesman, risking excommunication from his favorite web gurus' RSS feeds.

Ad views or impressions have always been imprecise metrics; you could buy a demographic for your TV spot and presume you knew who was behind those eyeballs to witness your brilliance, but it never took into account the context that influenced that consumption:

• What else is going on in the room, on the airplane, or along the street on which the consumer you’ve paid to reach is living.

• Where else that consumer just came from/is going, which has significant impacts on how and what gets experienced when you've paid for the privilege to participate in it.

The web ad model has never really challenged this worldview even though the influences on consumption have gotten infinitely more numerous and varied. Instead, it has evolved comfortably with the presumption that some sites should charge more for reaching eyeballs that are in some way better than others. RB isn't buying this rationale and instead just wants eyeballs. Lots of them.

I don't think it evidences any return of mass media advertising as much as it's proof that it never really went away. We just started calling it something different.

Large audiences matter, at least somewhat irrespective of demographics. That's what drove TV advertising for most of the last century; it was fine-tuned and otherwise confused by claims of slicing-and-dicing which eyeballs watched what programs, yet those viewers swore undying allegiance to their favorite programs compared to the fickle and fractured commitments of online consumers. RB is betting that its target consumers will likely visit a variety of sites and that it'll catch them at one or another.

This mass media approach has always lurked behind the measurements offered up by web sites daring to aspire to profitability, and it's why the trades have said that RB's approach "...breaks the backs of publishers with onerous terms."

My opinion is that it's just further proof that mass media deserves more credit. I'm not surprised by this week's news that the TV upfronts could be very healthy. For a dinosaur the beast still seems to have a lot of kick left in it.

A couple of other quick observations about RB"s announcement:

• It's elevating the importance of content by being so broad in its buying purview; since it won't be catering to the presumed proclivities of individual site viewers (and thus engaged in creating gigantic insider jokes, which is what qualifies much of online content today) it'll have to find messages that are more fundamentally memorable and compelling. A mass media approach isn't as easy or lazy as it might seem, at least from a creative perspective.

• It'll be more interactive. It has to be. So Spot X runs on fishmatingcalls.com and there are two visitors who might be Calgon water softener customers on any given day. The execution has to be something utterly motivating...vote, register, do something that matters...or it risks getting missed altogether. Maybe this mass media approach yields lots of more meaningful direct-to-consumer dialogues? RB says that it'll look to measure interactivity as part of its buy, which means it recognizes how crucial it will be.

• It doesn't challenge the alternate model for buying space online, which is all about addressing spots to particular customers at unique moments in time with special content customized exclusively to them. Phew. This web marketing wet dream is still very valid, but when it comes to low involvement brands I still don't get how it amounts to anything more than distributing discount coupons.

So forget Mass Media 2.0. I think RB is simply saying hello to reality, and it's doing what it can to sell stuff. After all, that's probably the best metric for web advertising.

The ingrates!

Source - Jonathan Salem Baskin's Dim Bulb

10 Points For Brushing Your Teeth

Social gaming has made a big impact this year. On one hand the massive adoption of social games such as Farmville can be linked to the entertaining and social properties of gaming. On the other hand, companies, governments and marketers are leveraging the foundations of video game design to alter behaviour. This fascinating video that explains how social gaming could be a part of every aspect of our lives.



If you are interested in checking out the entire video.