media landscaping

Social Commerce at Ad-Tech

For me, the most interesting panel of the entire conference was the Social Commerce panel on Tuesday.  The speakers (from left to right) were:

Jeffrey Taylor, Founder of EONS and most famous for founding Monster.com.

Nathan Freitas, Co-Founder of Cruxy

David Andre, CEO Mall Networks

Geoff Donaker, COO of Yelp

Everything was kicked off by the Moderator, Stephen DiMarco (not pictured) VP of Marketing at Compete.com, saying, "There is much more for marketers to do with social networking than running ads on MySpace."  Truly getting involved in the social sites is what he defines as "Social Commerce." Most of the focus was really on how these guys got their networks off the ground and what makes them compelling. 

Yelp is a site I use myself and is a great user generated recommendation site for Restaurants, Bars and other local services.  Geoff from Yelp says the #1 secret to their success is focusing on the "yelpers" because the reviews they provide are critical to Yelps success.  He compared their site to zagat that puts the focus on the business itself and then offers up x reviews.  Alternatively, Yelp spotlights the reviewer first and the x businesses they have reviewed second, which feeds the egos of the yelpers.   His other main point was "Censorship Kills UGC."  Totally agree.

The show stopper for me was some information that Jeff Taylor gave on the ramping up of Eons.  Eons is "MySpace for the 50+ Segment" and Jeff proudly stated that he was able to book 6 brands for $1M in advertising each before they even had 1 user!  This is an amazing achievement!  He says this was possible because most advertisers and media focus on 25-49 and by attacking the 50+ segment he hit an untapped niche that is critical to the success of these unnamed brands. 

Intrigued, I went to Eons.com to see who these advertisers were.  What's odd is that I saw a lot more direct response advertisers than I expected.  With only 400,000 uniques right now and $6M in ads to deliver in the next 18 months for these "brands", I would expect to see more of those brands and no  companies like Blair.com that are totally direct response focused.   So whats going on?  Honestly, I think he stretched his definition of the term "brand" and I bet that this $6M is not CPM media at all.  He is counting his chickens before they hatch and they have a lot more to do before he will ever see any of that money.  Anyone can get large amounts of CPA and CPC media committed to run on their site...its nothing to brag about.  I understand that you need to start somewhere, but the way he pounded his chest on stage I would have expected a little more.

That being said, Jeff Taylor is a proven, successful leader and he will go a long way with this new venture.  I wish him luck.

Ad:Tech Day One Roundup

Not as many people blogging Ad-Tech as I thought there would be.  Here is what I can find:

Adrants covered the Opening Keynote pretty well.  As always, Steve covered the booth babes and surprisingly the dudes as well.

A Media Circus went to the Full Frontal Panel.

CenterNetworks took some photos of the vendor area and recorded a Mathew Lesko sighting!  More importantly, Allen had an interesting confrontation at the Google booth.

DTI covered the "Corporate Social Media Crossfire" really well.

Andy Monfried remembers Ad-Tech in 1998.  Very interesting.

Hirshberg Keeps them Amazed

Peter Hirschberg  (Chairman at Technorati) sits in for David Sifry on the Search Evolution Panel here at AdTech.  I took a phone call so I missed the others, but luckily didn't miss Peter.  He walked through Technorati and how it enabled conversations and I could see the lightbulbs going off in peoples heads.

The moderator, Rebecca Lieb of Clickz, asked Peter why he didn't talk about the negativity that goes on in the blogosphere?  Just go to Google and search for "Brand X" Sucks and see what you get.  Should brands be running from this?

Peter's response is summed up with one awesome phrase, "Its a really bad time to make a product that sucks."  The conversations have always been going on, they are just easier and faster now.  Teens are texting their friends while they are still in a theater to tell them that the movie sucks.  You shouldn't run from this conversation...you should join in it and do so authentically.  Avoidance won't help.

I Finally get to see Full Frontal in NYC

I missed Full Frontal this summer in Chicago and am excited to finally attend this in NY today.  The panel is without David Armano, but should be good either way.  I didn't realize until I walked that Jaffe was on the panel.  The room is standing room only and, being a lunch panel, the sound of chewing is muting out the voices of the panelists. 

The funny part is that the moderator basically had a muzzle on Joseph.  Yes, he can ramble a bit, but it was quite obvious that they had talked in advance that he needed to zip it quickly and a few comments were made on stage as well.

Disclaimer: the agenda nor the Ad-Tech website list the panelists names, so I will make all quotes anonymous.

The most interesting question for the panel was, "Branded Content, Can it Replace the Ad?"

Quotes:
"Don't interrupt the experience...be the experience."

"We are going back in time to the 50's when soaps where made exclusively for advertising."   However, another panelist said "Consumers are too smart for that now."

"You should figure out what is so interesting about your brand and then talk about that topic in a smart way."

"You are in the content business, not the ad or media business.  The consumer is very savvy...not as dumb as they use to be.  Direct to consumer is the next big thing...brands don't have to be held hostage by media to get their message out.  Learn to bypass the traditional distribution channels."

"There will be a lot of screw ups in this area...it is a precipice...some will succeed and others will fall to their death."

 

blogging ad-tech?

I was planning on blogging ad-tech this week and upon arrival it seems that my laptop is dead.  I hope to get it fixed but until then I will be using the bberry which is not ideal for blogging. 

Wish me luck on the laptop.

UPDATE: Its fixed....let the blogging begin.

Marketing money is a terrible thing to waste

Let me first say that we work with Revenue Science and appreciate all that they do for us.  But this button that I recieved in my bag at Ad-Tech is a joke.    I just have to ask why?  It is really 1982 again?  I gave my jean jacket to Goodwill 15 years ago.

Seriously now, marketing money is a terrible thing to waste.

TV is changing...

Steve Hall writes about a panel at Ad-Tech that provided some very interesting insights into TV and how consumers use of it is changing.  It is pretty technical, but worth a read if you are a media geek like me.

The highlight for me is this part near the end:

He also told the audience to, when in a Starbucks, dial 510-653-6473 and hold the phone up to the music. It's the Grace Notes services that provides song information. He says there's no reason this or similar technology couldn't be harnessed to provide a channel to offer people more information on ads of any kind.

I am definitely going to try this and will report back soon.

More thoughts on Engagement, from ad:tech

Keynote speakers are meant to set the tone of an event and offer nuggets of useful information, but I often find keynote presentations too general and lackluster. However, I was intrigued with the keynote presentation on day 2 of Chicago ad:tech.

Hunter Hastings, CEO, EMM Group talked about how marketers are in a frenzy to engage customers. Of course, "engagement" is the ultimate goal. We all want to create a product or campaign that is engaging, but how do you define engagement? Equally important, how can you measure engagement? Hastings attempts to answer these questions and suggests a standard and scientific solution for moving forward.

He defines engagement as "more than just eyeballs" -- a customer who actually feels or thinks as a result of their interacting. Hastings introduces "engagement points" as a way to measure engagement. These points are determined by number of customers and the value in which they related to their product or content. We can use surveys to determine how customers think, feel or behave as a result of that content. Buyers can look at those engagement points, compare them against competition, and finally measure whether behavior truly changed. He stressed that his theory will only work as a standardized, scientific process and until standards emerge, he will not be able to prove his theory's effectiveness. I suspect it will be quite awhile until we move away from the traditional models of selling and buying (not to mention using a salesforce) and the unpredictable nature of our business where we rely on a-ha! type of ideas and measure value with our gut. But I am curious to see whether Hastings' theory will strike a chord with industry leaders. His keynote presentation is outlined here.

Ad-Tech Day 1

As day 2 of Ad-Tech gets underway, I sit here anxiously wondering whether today will be a repeat of yesterday or if Ad-Tech will step up its game and deliver.  Don't get me wrong, there were some great sessions yesterday.  Here is a run down of the best and worst of Day 1.

Best:

1) Blogging/Podcasting session - We still have ways to go, but it is awesome to see brands like Purina, Duck Tape and J&J embracing new media trends.  Word of mouth is still king when it comes to Podcasting. J&J's word of mouth advertising brought more value to then any of its paid media to push the podcasts.

2) Disruptive Technologies - Keey takeway....Know your customers.  Just because MySpace is hot right now and Mobile is hip does not mean your brand should be advertising on it.  Know where your customers play, spend their time, etc.  If your customers are on MySpace, you should be there, if not, don't worry about.

Worst:

1) How to Think Creatively and New Product/Service Growth Strategies for Marketers - What frustrates me more than anything else in the world, besides bad customer service, are sales pitches disquised as learning and the sharing of dialogue.  The sad part is both had HUGE potential.

C'Mon, we keep hearing about how our industry has lots it creative side and face it we could all use assistance with our growth strategy.  But educate us, create a dialgoue, don't talk about complicated processes and drop terms that no one really gets (what the hell is a Platform and why do I need it for product development).  Also, when two people in the crowd ask the same question, it is obvious you did not answer it the first time.  Even further, when no one asks a question after the seminar, they did not understand it - step back and ask if you can clarify or simplyify it.

All right, enough of the rant.  Day 2 has begun.....

Full Frontal at AdTech

I decided to send my team to AdTech this week, instead of going myself.  After seeing this promo for a panel led by David Armano of Digitas, I wish I was going too. 

Armano was on Jaffe's ATS Podcast not too long ago and seems like a great guy.  Would love to have met him. 

Oh well...maybe the team will post some highlights for us.