Mark Cuban- the guy who owns the Dallas Mavericks and HD Net- uses his blog to make him money. Not that he’s lacking it- he’s got enough to buy half of Dayton- and then some.
While offering jobs seems to be the thing for billionaires to do (Donald Trump and the Apprentice, Richard Branson and “The rebel billionaire” and Mark Cuban with “The benefactor”- c’mon- try to be more original) Cuban poses a very real question: How to market movies for less and drive people to the theaters.
Answer the question- and get a job.
So far- 568 applicants (give or take)- including The Next Wave.
His question is very much related to the topic “thoughts on TV” on this site- and how to get eyeballs in a Video On Demand (VOD) universe. It’s also why Amazon sells more than just books- since over time Nicholas Negroponte’s “Bits not Atoms” axiom will take effect.
Negroponte (head of the MIT Media lab, author of “Being Digital” and former back page writer for Wired magazine) said that converting digital bits to atoms- like newspapers, DVD’s and the like- doesn’t make sense- whatever is digital- should remain digital. So, the only thing movie theaters can do is take a lesson from Bookstores which have transformed themselves into social gathering places to survive. You may be interested in Hollywood Blvd. Cinema, Bar and Eatery in Woodridge IL- which seems to have mastered this (although their website needs a web 2.0 makeover).
We doubt we’ll hear from Cuban- but if you are facing marketing challenges in a changing world- consider giving us a call.
So the client looks at the proposed budget for the TV spot- and swallows hard. Those are big numbers- especially on the FX (effects) – green screen, miniatures, models etc- big cast- and then- they see- almost as much cash to make a “Making of the spot” documentary- and the clients says “Over my dead body.” So the agency account exec whips out a pistolo, shoots the CMO and off they go to make the spot- plus the documentary- which by the way- is only available online (not even on the clients site- click image on right to view in a new window)- and you have what Ad Age calls the most liked spot of the month: The Burger King Stackers spot- made by the hottest shop on the planet: Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
So- was this little documentary a wasteful indulgence? Not if it gets people to sit through 3.5 minutes of entertainment featuring your brand.
Would this have happened on a conventional compensation plan- where no media is bought to run this bit of agency extravagance- no. Would the brand have the buzz that BK is enjoying now? No. Is there hope for other fast food feeders to still own a piece of the “Meat head” market segment of men, aged 18-25 who are likely to eat fast food 3+ times per week? Not if you play it safe, and worry about offending some segment of the market. I can just hear a brand manager at P&G worrying about offending small people with this spot. Hence, P&G hasn’t been able to master the buzz machine of the Internet.
There is a burning question on my mind about Crispin’s Internet delivery strategy:
Are they purposefully avoiding putting work onto the client site so that it doesn’t seem to be delivered by the client (as a sort of distancing mechanism) and forgoing the measurement tools from the site stats-
-or-
is it that they don’t care about utilizing the information that can be gleaned from having the customer on their own server- watching where they go- and what they do?
To someone who believes in the power of webstats to provide insight into customers minds- the first option seems reckless. However, if the focus is on velocity of concepts- which seems to be a key to Crispin work (the factory concept)- measurement doesn’t matter- until they have a client that is actually selling online (like Gateway- who didn’t listen to their advice to streamline their product lines).
Either or- how a client justifies the expense of these can only be by one method- have sales increased – and word on the street is that Burger King is seeing results at the registers. Was it worth the extra money- absolutely, would most clients spend the extra money- no.
What do you think? Is Crispin missing out on opportunity to connect with customers by using Google video to distribute content instead of their own site?
As many of you know, we run a seminar on using a blog (specifically WordPress) as a content management system for a business website. The news section of The Next Wave site (where you are now) was added in January of 2005 and now accounts for most of the traffic on our site.
Although we got an early start on having a website (our first site went up in 1994) and we soon figured (back while everyone was still on dial-up) that Flash wasn’t the way to build an entire site (later we looked really smart- since search engines and Flash don’t go together very well)- we were pretty slow to realize how important webstats are to providing customer feedback and marketing opportunities.
The reason: when our content didn’t change often, neither did our web stats. That all changed with the news/blog- and analyzing web stats has become one of the most important parts of our seminar. As you add content- people find your site using different search terms- and link to you for different reasons- these are all opportunities to do business or learn about your customers.
It’s how we decided to begin the seminars- and it’s also taught us a lot about how to build websites for our customers- so they can get more customers. Just like there are keywords- or trigger words in print advertising (Free- being the “best” one), search terms can tell you a lot about your customers hot buttons. For us, guerrilla ad campaigns, viral marketing, and non-traditional advertising have been hot topics- as have low-budget ads. In a highly competitive media environment, it’s become obvious that just spending more on traditional media isn’t a cost effective solution. The flip-side is, many of these potential clients aren’t willing to pay for the services to get the “more bang for your marketing buck” to the agency for coming up with the “big idea.”
One of the places we find the big idea for a client- or at least get a start on the idea, is by searching through their well crafted website stats- where the search terms can show what’s on customers minds. Think of a website stats package as a way to eavesdrop on your virtual sales floor- as if you had a way to listen to every single customer that had an interest in your products.
When we land a retail client, we like to do site studies- where we observe customer interactions with our clients staff, the environment, the product, the sales process- and then make suggestions on improvements. We also visit the competition and do the same analysis. We want to discover what drives your most profitable customers to shop with you – and how to find more like them. We can do the same with visiting your sites backend- analyze, review, and build new strategies to connect and close the sale.
To repeat what we’ve said before- it’s imperative for a business to post all marketing materials online, in a place with a unique url link, and in a format that can be shared. Let the customer print your ad, own your TV spot, be able to listen to your radio spot over and over if they so choose. Even better- let them link back to your page, comment on the ad, be able to find out everything they can about it- because it most probably is what brought them to your site in the first place (isn’t that the reason you ran the ad in the first place). One of our most popular posts was where we scanned and posted a BMW motorcycle ad, and placed the copy in a Google friendly format (remember, search engines can’t read flash- or the text in the contents of a jpg file) – another was where we compared an Apple TV campaign to a Burger King TV spot- which brought us mad traffic for information on the BK spot. For all the creativity Crispin Porter Bogusky showed in the BK spot and the strategy, they made it hard for people to find out where “I am man, hear me roar” came from.
So instead of driving people to Burger Kings site, where they could have been rewarded with a special offer, or discovered additional information about the product- like the exact ingredients in a Texas Double Whopper- they were on our site.
One of the outcomes of the BMW ad- is that when people search for “BMW motorcycles in Dayton” they end up on our site- and are disappointed that we were mentioning that our market has lost it’s closest dealer- partially because BMW hasn’t been successful at driving traffic to the shops- in our opinion, because of lackluster advertising and a poor web strategy.
We are now getting a lot of traffic on our site for people searching out answers to marketing questions- so we’re starting a new category: Practical marketing 101. We will be writing about ways to build successful marketing plans- utilizing well built websites as a basis for formulating sales plans that generate high traffic- especially for smaller businesses- independent businesses and our favorite type of client- the underdog.
We hope this helps you understand what The Next Wave means when we say we aren’t just an “ad agency”- but a source for marketing and innovation.
What do you think?
The idea of the 500 channel world should be long purged from anyone’s vocabulary at this point- there will be content to watch until the world goes into self-cleaning oven mode- or freezes over like a hockey rink- but, there may not be many humans in the actual show. Take a look at Animusic videos of music making machines- or go rent the movie “Final fantasy” or start looking into virtual worlds like “Second life” and you realize- we can do much cooler things in a virtual world. By taking scenes from video games to illustrate stories, Machinima, anyone with a creative bone in their body will be able to create stories with a look equivalent to a Hollywood movie.
The big question will remain- what to watch? This is where the power of crowds and agents of influence will come into play. The best advertising agencies will be the ones who can guide the masses into unwittingly being their agents of mass propaganda. Strike the right nerve- and the reaction is exponential compared to the force of the first strike.
The key to the future will be how will these provocateurs be paid- in the free wheeling virtual world? Agencies have relied on the idiotic media commission system for too long. Will it come down to some kind of pay-per-click (or the 2.0 version- commission on sale)- or some other formula?
Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami has started to take equity positions in companies they work with- which should make people in corporate marketing positions start wondering how long they will be able to hang on to their cushy “C” level jobs where they just play General to the mercenary agencies that are hired to do the job or be the scapegoats.
Big changes are coming- all thanks to the shift in power from the ones with the most money- to those with the best ideas- and tools that put the power in everyone’s hands.
I admit it- I’m a sucker for Rockstar Supernova (and Rockstar INXS before that). Now that we’ve gotten that embarrassing part out of the way- let’s look at why it’s absolutely necessary to have your show available for download at the same time it’s being broadcast- that is if you want to keep your audience.
Last night was only the second week of the elimination program- had it been the final there might have been mayhem, because, viewers in Dayton OH and Southwest OH, had the show at first interrupted- then preempted by a tornado. WHIO-TV, Channel 7, the CBS affiliate in Dayton, in their haste to be “The Leader” had their “Newscenter 7 team” showing off their latest Doppler radar- for over 50 minutes of the show. This guaranteed that the viewers wouldn’t be able to see the performances – or vote- or be a part of the “Rockstar” community- which is what makes these shows so popular and successful.
Tonight’s elimination show will mean nothing to the viewers here- and some may not come back next week, because once disenfranchised- it’s easy to find something else that holds your interest.
If the show was available over IP- viewers who weren’t in the danger zone- wouldn’t have been lost- and or driven to something like Bit Torrent to get the content. Unfortunately, Mark Burnett productions is tied in with MSN- and the site Rockstar.msn.com is biased to Windows- and Windows media player- leaving us Mac users having to suffer through poor streaming video downloads- and no access to the forums (where they claim to support the latest version of Firefox- but not on the Mac). I have also just found that when using flip4mac to view WMV – that I only have access to Magni’s performance off the site- once again, a developer who ignores all 508 standards (tagging and navigation for the blind).
When this show began last year- they had a 3-episode week on Network, which quickly shifted to 2 network, 1 cable, and this year- it’s 2 network and one download. The question to ask Mr. Burnett- with running the risks of local preemption- and having to fit into the networks time slots- why not try a complete online, on demand program? Your ability to build community, individually target ad messages to your viewers- and offer interactive sales opportunities for the music, clothing, and products that are showcased on the program could be huge.
I’m sure I’m not the only viewer in Dayton that’s ticked, or the only Mac user that’s left out- but, more importantly- I’m an advertising target who just got totally missed.
The Blogospher seminar was profiled today in the Dayton Daily News. The seminar teaches businesses how to use blog software (or content management system software) to manage content on their site and optimize it for search. One of the reasons this site has seen it’s average monthly unique visitor-ship rise over 800% is the use of WordPress to manage this part of the site.
