media landscaping

Wanted: Widget Advertising

Brands that are truly embracing todays world of social media are experimenting with widgets because they know that people will evangelize and spread their love of a brand if given the tools to do so.  One good example is the Purina Pet Weather Widget.

The one thing that I am seeing very little of is actual advertising in widgets.  With the popularity of widgets growing like wildfire, I suspect that media companies who are creating these widgets will start selling a portion of the space to advertisers.   Here is the first example that I have found:

Notice the Lenovo Sponsorship at the top.

They also produce some video highlight widgets with ads from Sprite in their Video Blog, but the code didn't work right.  Here is an image of it on the left.

I think that there will be a few challenges for this type of advertising.  First of all is size.  Widgets are small to begin with, so adding advertisements runs the risk of seriously hurting the experience.

The second challenge will be my Theory of Widget Advertising Elasticity and its affect on widget adoption.  As the % of space allocated to advertising  increases, it will decrease the willingness of publishers to place that widget on their site.  This is a very important thing for media properties to consider and I believe it is the main reason we aren't seeing much of it yet.

Due to the fact that the NBA is a very premium content owner and you cannot get this content any other way, I think they have a very high widget ad elasticity.  Therefore, these ads are probably not impacting their adoption by bloggers and other publishers.

If you notice any other widgets with ads like this, let me know.  I want to keep a close eye on this topic. 

More to come...

Testing out the new 'share' video syndication tool on washingtonpost.com

Hasbro Lets Consumers Design New Game

Hasbro is designing a new UK Edition of Monopoly and is reaching out to consumers for input on what cities should become properties on the board.  They are offering live results and it appears that 1,000's of votes have already taken place. 

What I like about it is they have an entire "Join the Campaign" section of the site where they offer PDF versions of posters and provide a whole list of ideas for you to spread the word and get the vote out for your locality. 

Here is the list:

Organise a rally in a public place – make your own placards to ignite the passion of your fellow citizens

Contact your local paper or TV – get the media involved and the message will spread far and wide

Write to your MP, Mayor or council

Tell your friends and family to vote too – every vote helps!

Got a website? – use the buttons here to link your site to the Monopoly one – make sure you tell people where to vote for through!

Start a blog – find fellow citizens to get involved

You can leave a comment on why your city should take the top spot when you vote!

I found a few sites in technorati that are already campaigning, like this one. 

One site, Ordo Ab Chao is discussing the viability of a script that could be written to game the system. 

I found a bunch of blogs complaining that the site was down and it turns out that it is a result of this other guys attempt to stuff the ballot box.

Sad...you can't even have a silly contest like this without hackers trying to screw it up just for the fun of it.

 

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.

Lets Say Thanks - Xerox

My grandmom, who is now an email/internet guru at 80 years of age, has gotten into a very bad habit of forwarding all of the stupid chain emails that have been around for years.  I think the only thing she hasn't sent me is the Nigerien Check Scam and thats because I've warned her about a 1,000 times.

Today she finally sent me something interesting.  Its called LetsSayThanks.com and is a site put together by Xerox.  Here you can pick out a greeting card, type in a message and then Xerox will print it out and send it to troops serving in Iraq.

Of course, each card states that it is, "Printed on a Xerox iGen3^® Digital Production Press."

 

Coke Makes You....

This is a hilarious Coke Spoof made by some students at the VCU Adcenter.  Way to go guys...

(VIA Advertagg, a Digg Clone for advertising, which was created by Luis Carranza of the AdCenter)

Bank of America UGC

I am so amazed that this is from a bank.  (Via Jaffe)

Lucasfilm acts dumb then gets smart about UGC

Saw this on digg.  Looks like LucasFilm lawyers got a little excited and sent a legal nasty-gram to YouTube to remove all fan films with trademark references to Star Wars.  Then, just as NBC did earlier this year (see previous post), they changed their minds.   

This just shows how torn media companies are on this issue.  The silos are not talking to each other. 

We were torn on this ourselves for a while, but finally started submitting videos on YouTube here.  This is the only one so far but I am confident this will increase.

Funny story, a few months ago I uploaded one of the Washingtonpost.com video podcasts to YouTube.  A few days later one of our editorial people saw it and was going to have legal contact the person to make them take it down.  This person and I happen to be in a meeting together that same day and he told me his intentions to contact this "infringer."  When I told him it was me we had a great laugh.  This started the conversation around uploading the video's ourselves and I am glad to see that we were able to make the right decision on this.

4x4 guy shunned by co-workers

Apparently, environmentalists don't need GM's help to make anti 4x4 video ads.  They do a pretty good job on their own.  See this as an example.