Author Archives: Andy Boyer

Olympic Dreaming

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

Let’s pretend for a moment that the Olympics were about pure athleticism, the thrill of amateur athletes pursuing their dreams, and the overwhelming sentiment that we CAN all come together as one world, free of politics or finance.

Well, if that were indeed the case, instead of the reality that the IOC is a profit making money machine intent on protecting it’s global monopoly; well then the image below would actually be an embedded video player, and you’d be able to watch Olympics video from any one of the millions of blogs that would be syndicating it.  Instead, this is merely a screen shot and when you click on it you’ll go to their site, so you can see a Panasonic ad banner along with your videos.  <sigh>

When Social Media Goes Meta

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

It doesn’t get much more meta than this. As part of a UW student’s project, in which he interviewed folks about Social Media, I got a side question about Social Media for personal brands.

So here I am, on the web site I keep to somewhat maintain my own personal brand, repurposing content from this site,which Derek uses to maintain his own personal brand, talking about why it’s important to have a personal brand.

(And a side note, apparently my personal brand is to have a huge head, tilt it at a 45 degree angle, and make funny faces at the end of videos.)

Forbes Super Bowl Ad Viewer

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

Thanks to Forbes.com for putting this handy Super Bowl Ad Viewer together.


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New Ad Report – TV $ Down, Social Media $ Up

Posted by Andy Boyer in Advertising, Big Businesses, Marketing, Media, Social Media

You always have to take these kind of reports with a grain of salt, but Mediapost reports on a new Forrester Research/Association of National Advertisers survey, based on responses from 104 U.S. advertisers in 21 industries, including Cisco Systems, GlaxoSmithKline, ING, Kraft, Marriott, State Farm and Clorox.  All told, they represent nearly $14 billion in media budgets.

Here are some highlights from the report, which kind of illustrates how many irrational people there are making marketing decisions: 

  • TV marketers plan to spend 41% of their media budgets on television in 2010 — the same level as a year ago.  (However, this is down from the 58% level of two years ago.)
  • BUT…62% percent of companies say TV ads have become less effective in the past two years due to increased advertising clutter. 

So, even though 62% of the marketers admit TV ads are less effective than before, they are going to spend the same amount as last year.  Read: “Buying TV is easy, and I like hanging out with ad agency folks on sound stages.”

More insight:

  • Virtually all advertisers believe the TV industry needs new audience metrics beyond reach and frequency; 82% of respondents would be interested in ratings for individual commercials.
  • BUT…While 78% are interested in targeting consumers more precisely, only 59% would be willing to pay a premium for it.

So, advertisers admit the TV spot is hard to measure.  But no one wants to give up any of their media buy to improve targeting capabilities.  Read: “Buying TV is easy, and I can blame the product guys if the ads aren’t working.”

More:
  • 80% of advertisers say future branded entertainment deals will grow. And in 2010, 38% say they will spend more on branded entertainment as an alternative to the 30-second commercial.
  • 19% say the 30-second spot will be dead in 10 years, down from 28% a year ago.

So, advertisers want to move away from 30 second spots and into branded entertainment.  But these same people think the 30 second spot will live forever. 

Now the good stuff:

  • Social media, Web advertising and search are stealing budgets from TV and other media. Of those surveyed, 77% said they would be moving TV dollars to social media this year; 73% plan to shift money to online advertising, and 59% will be spending more on search-engine marketing and 46% on e-mail marketing. Other non-TV traditional media doesn’t seem to be part of this trend. Only 15% said they plan to increase spending in traditional media such as radio, outdoor, magazines or newspapers.

Advertisers want targeting (online advertising, email and SEM).  They want stronger engagement (Social). And they don’t see much future potential in radio, outdoor, etc… The question is, do they expect lower CPM’s in these channels in comparison to TV?  If they want to shift budgets to mediums where they can get a direct measurement of success, why don’t they want to force TV to do a better job of measuring?

There’s an obvious part of this survey that is missing, which illustrates how there’s still a knowledge chasm.  No one asked how many of these companies are going to integrate their social and online campaigns with a TV buy.  It’s obvious TV is still needed – at least for the largest 104 advertisers – to drive awareness and brand.  But it’s not an either/or.  These guys have the chance to use the 30 second spot to drive branded entertainment deals online, and capitalize on an engaged social audience.  For me, how these 104 companies are going to integrate those campaigns is the really interesting question.

A Few Notes on Rob Glaser Leaving Real

Posted by Andy Boyer in Seattle

I was going to resist sharing any public thoughts on the end of Rob Glaser’s 16 year reign at the head of RealNetworks.  But as I read through some of the comment boards, trolls and scrubs who have never started anything in their life have taken some cheap shots, so I’m going to give my take.

In 1994, we had 14.4 modems and something called Mozilla to surf the web.  Microsoft was finally rethinking their now infamous decision that the Internet wasn’t a place where they should concentrate. And Glaser looked into his crystal ball and said, “You know what, I bet some day we’re going to use our computers to watch programming more than we use our TV’s.” You have to remember, that back in 1994 that idea was akin to someone today saying, “I’m going to be able to take this IP signal from my watch and make it a holographic projector that plays HD signals against blank walls at 1080i.” 

Now, not every decision was right.  And plenty of smart people were under-utilized.  I was just a young Marketing Manager, and never in the inner circle of decision making, so I have little insight, and sometimes fell victim, to some head scratching decisions.

But at the end of the day, Rob built an industry from scratch, weathered recessions of 2001 and 2009, had to battle the full force of Microsoft’s vengeance when they realized it was a space they needed to be in, distributed more than a billion RealPlayers without much of a marketing budget, took his company public, changed his business model on the fly from software to subscription, and had to balance the public’s desire for free media vs the music industry’s desire to extort money from all of us.  That’s a pretty complex game of Lemonade Stand he had going.  Go through and name all the companies that you’ve seen in your lifetime that started before (or around) Real and have been more successful while staying independent.  Microsoft, Apple, Google, ebay, Amazon, Yahoo.  You can’t say AOL – they sold out.  Skype – sell out.  YouTube – sell out.  Netscape – gone.  Napster – gone.  Maybe Adobe and Oracle? Sidewalk – gone.  Expedia came out of Microsoft and sold out to IAB, so they don’t count.  I’m sure there are a few more, but the list is pretty small.

It would have been easy for Rob to sell to Microsoft in the late 90’s for a few billion.  We all probably would have made a few more short-term bucks.  And Microsoft would have had to spend way less money than they did over the next decade systematically trying to destroy Real.  But he didn’t sell, so we all took our sticks and bows to fight against the machine guns – and we did pretty well.

I have a lot of anecdotes about Rob that don’t need to be shared here, but I’ll sum it all up with this.  If you have the pleasure to run into him at an event, introduce yourself and say hi.  He’ll grill you on your business and ask 100 questions abut what you’re working on.  The conversation will move so fast that it will be hard to keep up.  But you’ll understand how smart the guy really is, and you’ll see that he simply wanted to win.  

My guess is that around the halls of RealNetworks this week, people are looking forward to change.  They see a happier, more corporate, less politically incorrect place where they won’t get yelled at for mistakes.  But the problem is that most of those people weren’t there in the 90’s.  To them, there’s always been audio and video on the Internet, and they simply don’t get why Real was such a big deal.  They don’t understand that they worked for the Web’s very own Marconi, they just want to complain about his flaws.  But around the city, you see Real Alumni collectively tipping our caps.  And I know a lot of people say this, but I still have more friends than I can count from my days at Real.  The people were there (with some notable exceptions) were fantastic.  Smart, gifted, ridiculously focused and cool.  There was something about that company, especially back in the 1990’s, that drew great people who were glutton for punishment.  I remember telling my dad when I first started there, “It’s pretty scary.  Every meeting I feel like I’m the dumbest guy in the room.” 

No one is perfect, and like everyone Rob has his flaws, but it was a real professional privilege to work down the food chain from someone who built an entire industry.  

Going Once…Gone. Seattle Loses Legend Dick Friel

Posted by Andy Boyer in Charity, Seattle

If you don’t know the name Dick Friel, well then you simply need to re-evaluate how much money you give to charity, because it’s not enough.  There’s a small number of A-list auctioneers in this town, so if your event was any good, you had about a 1 in 3 chance of seeing Dick and Sharon Friel at the mic.

The Puget Sound Business Journal reports that Mr. Friel has passed away at the age of 76.  I had the pleasure of working with him and his wife on the Cure Autism Now Auction back in the early 2000’s.  He was a genuine professional, with a jovial smile and demeanor that was all about business – the business of making money for charity.

I was naive to how auctions worked when I first saw him prepping.  He asked for the attendee list and list of items.  He then ran through his mental rolodex as easily as I remember baseball stats.  “Oh, Mr. Brown loves vacations.  He’s good for $1000 every event so let’s save this Italy trip and focus on him.” “The Jacobsons would go nuts for this necklace, but they always leave by 9:00.  Let’s move it to Item 3.”   “I know Mike and John are Pearl Jam freaks.  Let’s get a bidding war on that studio session and then convince Eddie to let them both in.”  From a marketing perspective, it was a thing of beauty to watch.  And the winners were always the charities.  

Farewell, Mr. Friel.