media landscaping

Viral Campaigns and 'Becoming a Genius'

Dave Weinberger at the AlwaysOn conference earlier this week said something to the effect of,

You can't create viral campaigns...they just happen, often by accident.  You must create something innovative or Genius and then it just becomes viral. 

Marketers all over the world are asking their ad/pr agencies to do something viral and that is the same as asking them to 'Become a Genius'.  Its ridiculous.  You can't just decide to become a genius..you either are one or your not.

 

Here is an example of genius.

Buzz Marketing Smack-Down at AlwaysOn

The AlwaysOn Conference was running super late yesterday and a lot of attendees left for the bar and missed what turned out to be the best panel of the entire first day.  A Jeff Jarvis moderated panel with Rick Murray (edelman), Gordon Gould (ThisNext), David Weinberger (All around guru, Cluetrain Manefesto co-author), Barry Reicherter (porter novelli) and Bill Cleary (Cleary Partners).

Jarvis, Murray and Gould.  Murray's quote of the event:

Its not Advertising vs PR, its messaging vs conversation.

Reicherter, Weinberger and Cleary.  Cleary's quote of the day #1:

Advertising is the lubricant for capitalism.

Cleary's quote of the day #2:

Jelly is the lubricant for peanutbutter.

Much of the discussion here was around Buzz Marketing, is it good or bad, can you or should you even attempt it as a marketer.  It was full of all the expected mantra's:  transparency, authenticity and creativity.

Obviously, the easy example for poor buzz marketing is PayPerPost and the trashing of PPP started off right away and continued throughout.  Finally, having enough of it, Ted Murphy, CEO of PayPerPost  chimes in from the back of the room.  I wish I could find the video of it because it was a great debate.  Ted was in over his head...you can't out debate Jarvis and Weinberger on this topic. 

Ted tried to make it better by saying that they require disclosure now...Jarvis gives him credit for finally coming around but what took so long?  The damage has already been done.

More coverage on this panel here and some on some other panels here, here and here.

No one thought to install power outlets?

The Mandarin Hotel is a beautiful place, but you would think there would be a freakin outlet somewhere.  I am now sitting in a hallway , on the floor, watching the conference via the webcast.  Glad I paid $1,800 to be here....

UPDATE: finally got a seat in the 'blogger bullpen'...I'm back in business!

AlwaysOn Conference - Online Ad Service Providers

Each CEO gets 6 minutes to talk and then the experts wrap it all up at the end.

Blue Lithium CEO, Gurbaksh Chanal is getting his 6 minutes:  Huge slide with way too much info on it...I am loosing interest quickly.  High CPM, Data Driven

Something fun: people are chatting on a screen next to the stage...debating the validity of his claims.

Jared Nichols: This tech sounds like it is based on meta data...can be flawed.

Derektut: Advertising is dead

Survived that one...now on to Keith Smith, Zango
Gives Free games and videos to people who install their toolbar.  Sell ads and create a "content economy."  21 consecutive qtrs of profit.

Pays publisher whenever a viewer installs their toolbar to see the video or play the game.  Once bar installed the user gets ads that are relevant to wherever they are on the web. 

Anand Subramanian CEO, ContextWeb.  We like him because he is sponsoring free drinks at the event tonight.  Applause ensues.   

Feels that the ad model today is upside down.  Ad landscape today is Closed Networks and Walled Gardens.  Claims that Google is a walled garden because once you join them you can't go to anyone else...(not true).   Says that all of the ad networks throw around a bunch of bull shit and publishers are really confused...(true).   Not a lot of choices because everyone is doing the same thing...thats where they step in.  Google model is flawed...they will redefine the value of the page.  Pay publishers flat CPM, not auction.   Auction devalues the page view.

Their advertiser benefits are: Transparency, you know where ad runs...Control - advertiser chooses where they run...Flexibility - ad vertiser chooses the model cpc or cpm.  Their publisher benefits are: publisher sets the price and get exactly what you ask for.

Steve Ellis CEO, Pump Audio

Demos his player that allows you to add audio to your cg video content...all of it is cleared and legal for use. 

Rovion CEO, Leonard Ostroff

Problems with his laptop and has to step down.

Turn CEO, Jim Barnett
Heard recurring themes when talking to advertisers.  Complexity, scalability.  Publishers had the same complaints.  Manual model is clearly broken so they apply search technology to standard display advertising.  No manual targeting is needed, no keywords or targeting needed. 

Tells a great high level story of complete and total optimization at the ad level and publisher level.  The system has complete control to serve ads totally based on results.   All CPA based that means zero risk to advertisers.  Sounds great in theory...probably not great for anyone who has a brand.

Rovion is back - Human media is the buzzword...humanization of ad impression.   Brings spokeperson to the web. 

My opinion...they are a technology that is done by many different companies (eyeblaster, unicast etc) and are mainly just a creative way to use it. 

Slide with tons of logos....mostly publishers that accept them on their sites.   I wonder how many of these companies have actually served it?  Another really loud slide with benefits...god this guy talks fast.  I wish them luck...but not too excited.

Ron Conway - Angel Investor, Kip Sheeline - Levnsohn Venture Partners and Jay MacDonald - DeSila & Phillips are the industry pundits who now share their opinions after this showcase.   They weren't given much time, so they did not discuss any of the individual companies.

AlwaysOn Conference - How to be a Power Blogger

Stream of consciosness at this 9:30 panel...How to be a power blogger.

Steve Rubel is moderator:  Jeff Jarvis, Peter Rojas and Elizabeth Spier   (I would love to link out to one of Elizabeths sites from Dead Horse Media, but it seems that they are down right now...I think she has much more important things to do than be on this panel)

Rubel asks Rojas "what is a blog?"  He says who cares...sort of like the argument he had in High school about "what is punk rock". 

This room is way too small...I snagged a table, but now there are 50 people outside the room trying to get in and they just can't fit.

Elizabeth's Spiers turn: DealBreaker got launch sponsors who are taking a risk because they didnt know who the audience was until a survey 6 weeks in.  Dealbreaker.com audience is: 79% work in financial services, 12% makes over $2M.   Better than expected.  Gratuitous plug.

Jarvis:  Davos Kerfuffel about big bloggers linking to smaller bloggers and traditional media giving bloggers credit for breaking stories.  Jarvis says no one can tell you who to link to.  Blogger choice, but you could do better at linking.  Blogging is not an orthodoxy...links to what he sees and finds. 

Interacting with PR community.  How many contacts a day do you get? 
Peter says a few hundred to his group as a whole...he gets dozens directly to him alone.  2% are relevant and considers the rest of it spam.   Most don't even read the site.  PR people will call him after he posted about their product, not knowing that he already covered them.

Elizabeth - Fashion blog gets a lot of attention from PR.

Can a blogger start within a big company as an in-house blog and then become a huge brand on your own?  Jarvis says yes, siting Scoble as an example.  Jarvis' question is, can you be transparent with an in-house blog and he doesn't think you always can be.

Rojas: does being within AOL affect him and he says no...in fact he just trashed their personal video player and does bash Time Warner cable.  They have never attempted to effect his postings, but did say that Microsoft looked down on him a few times when he wrote for Slate (once owned by Microsoft) way back when.

Church and State:  a lot of bloggers are both...many take advertising from agencies (not just google) and how is this handled/balanced.  Elizabeth says that this is important for her news sites (so its OK on the other blogs???).  They will use keywords to prevent airline ads from showing up on a crash story.   Jeff says these conflicts happen in more places than just advertising.  It all boils down to personal integrity and transparency.  Disclosure of these relationships is a must.

Audio and Video:  Rubel thinks that blogs lean heavy to video/audio or not at all.  No one does both text and multimedia well.  Jarvis thinks its time to start and he is attempting it. 

Will we see bloggers on TV?  Not through networks but direct from Blogger to TV.  Rojas says yes and sites rocketboom as todays living example and this will continue to grow.  Video is much more difficult to create and manage and transcripts are required in order to maximize search for it.

What is your best tip for building audience?:

Elizabeth: Great content and a lot of it...publish 12 a day.

Jarvis: Link out or you are not a part of the conversation.  He taught About.com how to do it and they are happy with the results.

Peter: pick a niche to focus on.  Pick the smallest you can find and own that niche.  You will become an expert over time, even if you aren't now.  He wasn't a gadget expert when he started.

Question from audience about search.  Rubel talks about getting a lot of irrelevant traffic.  Jarvis said he wrote about a "big ass ad" once and still gets a ton of traffic from people searching for "Big Ass".  Very funny.

Rojas posts about products before they are launched and when the company finally announces it, engadget is always higher in google than they are. 

Another funny story, Rojas once posted "I'd give a kidney for X" and because of search, the comments in this post turned into a black market for selling organs.  Someone in the gov't contacted them to make them aware and they pulled down the comments.

Overall, very good panel.

UPDATE: for more coverage on this panel read this on ZDnet or CenterNetworks