I was at a shoot tonight at Wired and Fired, a client we started working with in October of 2008.  Erinn informed me that her children’s party bookings have been going through the roof since we shot and posted a video on her site.  I believe very strongly that there is lots of business out there if you market smart and can tell a compelling story.  Watch for Erinn’s comments (video) later this week.

In the summer of 2005 Rupert Murdoch’s company News Corp. paid $580 million for MySpace.com, a wildly successful social networking site.  Facebook, another fast growing 3 year old social networking site has turned down offers as high as $1.6 billion.  In a February 8, 2008 Business Week article writers Spencer E. Ante and Cathering Holahan say that “Generation MySpace is getting fed up” as MySpace, Facebook and other big social networking sites try to monetize their popularity and turn big profits by selling advertising.  These sites have gotten big by providing for free relatively simple web services that allow friends to connect.  The lack of a membership fee and ease of connecting with others has made them popular.  Without advertising there is no revenue to pay for the growing bandwidth and server space needed for all those pictures, songs and movies.  The question Ante and Holahan pose is a great one and one that we should all be paying attention to.  Is the sudden inundation of advertising on these sites turning users away?  This is a generation that has grown up with constant change and a generation with countless options.  Media sites are going to have to get smarter if they want to keep their subscribers and still make some money.   Five years ago Yahoo was the media darling.  Now all the talk is about how Yahoo is getting beat bad by the new kid on the block – Google. In an increasingly cluttered market where everyone has choices its going to become ever more important for companies to target specific groups and give them exactly what they want.  It’s just too easy these days to ignore advertising. And if this generation doesn’t get what they want, they know how to use technology to ensure things are corrected.  Witness what happened when Facebook tried to introduce a new advertising program that many users felt invaded their privacy.  Read one of the many written on the Beacon project on the San Francisco Chronicle site here. 

January 13th, 2007This morning I took a call from a Verizon Yellow Pages rep. She began her pitch by telling me that she wanted to verify all the information they had on Caffeine Group was correct. Phone number, address, area of business, website, etc. She made it seem that she was simply checking facts, not selling anything. Knowing better I finally broke into her pitch and asked the question – “so what is this going to cost me?” She then confirmed that yes, this was going to cost me – only $75 per month for the first 3 months and if I was not satisfied I could cancel.
The pitch is an aggressive, old school one that I am sure works. By the time people are done answering questions they almost feel obligated to give it a try.
The problem is, times have changed. Consumers are getting smarter and the bulldozer approach is becoming less and less effective. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth about Verizon that they feel that they can’t be up front about their call from the first sentence. If what they were selling was so good than why hide behind a façade of “just calling to check that we have the correct information”.
If an advertising medium wants my business or the business of one of my clients they are going to have to prove to me that my investment will make me money. Companies waste far too much money on ineffective advertising and they are starting to realize it.
With Google you pay only when someone that types in key words you have specified actually clicks on your link. Kudzu.com is a local services directory here in Atlanta – a modern Yellow Pages. They allow people to sign up for a free basic listing. I did and then a sales rep called asking me to try out their $50/month premium listing. I was skeptical. The sales rep said to give it a try for 30 days for free and if I liked it I would be billed $50/month. This was a can’t lose proposition for me. The ball was in their court to prove to me that they were an effective medium.
And effective they were. Within 2 weeks I had what turned into my biggest client of the year. I gained some smaller clients off of Kudzu and then in my second month of advertising what turned into our 3rd biggest client of the year called us.
Would I have placed the ad if they expected me to prepay? No way. Am I happy I am a paying Kudzu advertiser. You bet. The direct impact to Caffeine Group’s bottom line for our $300 advertising investment (we signed up halfway through 2006) at least $36,000. We typically keep our clients long term so return on this investment will be substantial over the coming years.
So long as Kudzu continues to be an effective advertising investment Caffeine Group will be a Kudzu advertiser. As for Verizon, they are going to have to make a commitment to proving themselves to us and be up front in their telemarketing before we are willing to invest even a dime in their Yellow Pages.
And on a final note, the second the telephone sales rep realized we were not going to advertise without them proving they would be an effective medium her tone turned frosty and she very quickly hung up.

July 31st, 2006Nike has long been a leader in making use of the web to build their brand. While many companies showcase their tv commercials on the web few allow you to download the videos. Not Nike. The company now allows you to download it’s Nike Air commercials in a variety of formats including Quicktime, iPod and PSP. It makes me wonder why more aren’t doing this. If someone wants to hear and spread your message don’t put up roadblocks, make it easy.
They have also made it easy for bloggers to talk about the spots, providing code for bloggers that want to embed the videos into their code!

July 19th, 2006Home depot announced July 18th that they would begin selling ads to their vendors. When customers click on an ad they are taken to a vendor branded mini site where they can view product demos, streaming video and other information.
With 4 million visitors a week this is a targeted opportunity that should prove attractive to Home Depot vendors. I also feel that this will improve the content on the Home Depot site. Providing detailed descriptions about products is expensive – particularly when you have tens of thousands of products. I think having mini sites paid for by the vendors will mean greater product detail and in the end, web users benefit. It will also force many manufacturers with poor sites and online marketing to start paying attention to the power of the web when it comes to marketing their products.
This trend will continue as other retailers follow Home Depot’s lead with the spillover benefiting web media developers everywhere.