I found these interviews with Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg & Mark Zuckerberg at FaceReviews.com. The interview was part of the All Things D Conference.
Very interesting interview that runs through the Facebook goals and vision, some insight into what they thought was important as they went from a 3 man side project to Media powerhouse, how FB applications will evolve, and some looks to the future.
Category: Big Businesses (Page 7 of 10)
I tell you what. You hear complaints about the mainstream media being out of touch at times. But thankfully the Wall Street Journal is able to restore my faith in their relevance by coming up with scoops such as this:
More Digital Ads Are Produced Offshore
Marketers Ship Work To Costa Rica, Bulgaria; AvVenta Reaps Rewards
Really? People are offshoring their creative? I had no idea. I mean, when I used elance.com last month to have 35 ad banners made for $400, and 25 different firms bid on my project, I just thought I was unique. It never dawned on me that there was an actual industry around connecting American companies to leverage affordable and talented creative folks from abroad. Thanks to the WSJ, my eyes have been opened to this 5-10 year old phenomenon.
Among the many sad parts of this article, is the fact that the story was obviously planted by a firm called avVenta Worldwide. So not only does this WSJ writer, Emily Steel, make it appear that she just found out about creative outsourcing, she also makes it appear that she thinks that avVenta Worldwide is somehow revolutionary in the space. The article basically tells this story. "Agencies needed a way to cut costs and bill their Fortune 500 clients the same amount. So they hire avVenta Worldwide, who has a team of creatives in Costa Rica, Bulgaria and the Ukraine. The agency margins grow, avVenta Worldwide margins grow and no one knows the difference."
Well, no one knows the difference until your PR team gets an article placed in the WSJ and all of those Fortune 500 clients who thought they were paying for Madison Avenue heavyweights with Masters in Graphic Design say, "Uh, WTF?"
Dear MLS,
I must admit, I’ve been trying to get excited about watching your games this year in anticipation of Seattle’s entrance to the league next year. But I’m having a hard time tracking you down on the TV dial. Also, it seems like your games are generally on in the middle of weekend afternoons, and frankly, there’s just too much other stuff to do.
May I offer a quick suggestion that would fit better with my schedule?
Monday Night Soccer. Remember the old days of Monday Night Baseball? Think back before ESPN, when the only ways to watch baseball were Saturday’s Game of the Week with Kubek and Gariagiola, and then MNB with guys like Cosell. Drysdale and Michaels.
Here’s why this works.
- Monday is a travel day for most basbeall teams, which leaves sports fans with not much to watch.
- You can start every game at the same time. You only have 14 teams so it shouldn’t be hard to build a schedule to get everyone within a timze zone of each other so that all the games kickoff at 6:15pm PST for West Coast Days and 5:15pm PST on days when they play on the East Coast. If you start 7 games at the same time, and lets say there’s 1.5 goals per game, then you are showing goal highlights from other games every 9 or 10 minutes. Every American can appreciate goals being scored at that pace.
- Here’s your opportunity to build some personalities into your broadcasts. I’m sure we all appreciate that the guys who used to play U.S. soccer need jobs now, but you have a sport with a lot of dead time. Where is soccer’s Howard Cosell? Bring me someone who can spin tales for 90 minutes. He should be able to quote from TMZ, Perez Hilton, the London Times and LeMonde in successive sentences. There would be no better place to have a real "character" to promote the games into living rooms.
- Monday is a huge day for adult soccer leagues, and these teams go to bars after games. Make sure your TV broadcast partner replays the broadcast, so guys who get done playing soccer can sit around watching MLS highlights rather than home runs. ESPN 2 should have no problem with this.
Monday Night Soccer. Excuse the mixed metaphor, but this is a slam dunk.
Here’s an odd report that comes out of England. Does it mean that pregnant women must add Cell Phones to the list of things they can’t use? Perhaps.
In a nutshell, the suprised researchers found that cell phone usage while pregnant leads to hperactivity wwhen the kids are born. Specific results:
- Mothers who did use the handsets were 54 per cent more likely to have children with behavioural problems
- The likelihood increased with the amount of potential exposure to the radiation.
- When the children also later used the phones they were, overall, 80 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties with behaviour.
- They were 25 per cent more at risk from emotional problems.
- 34 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties relating to their peers.
- 35 per cent more likely to be hyperactive.
- 49 per cent more prone to problems with conduct.
So if your kid is hyper – don’t blame them….it sounds like it’s your fault 🙂 Can’t wait to see the first lawsuit to come from this….
(And now we get back to this being a marketing and business blog…)
This article from the New Republic chronicles mistakes the Clinton campiagn made over the last 15-16 months. Note: I’m not saying that her campaign is over, but I think if you start as the overwhelming front runner, and then become a candidate struggling for survival, it’s fair to say your candidacy has underperformed.
While the article is interesting on a political level, it’s also a perfect example of simple business mistakes that can make you lose consumer confidence and fall behind in the marketplace. A couple of themes that transfer include the following: failure to recognize competitive threats, total lack of long-term focus, not taking care of the people who can give you free publicity, what happens when you choose the wrong message, and how the public turns on you if they think you are dishonest.
No matter how scummy Clay Bennett has been to Seattle, there was a tiny sliver of me that thought, "He’s just an Oklahoma guy who wants to bring the NBA to his hometown. At least he’s a liar who has a constituency in mind."
Well check out this article from NewsOk.com. Apparently, Bennett is now holding Oklahoma hostage as well, demanding tax refunds on payroll taxes, or he isn’t bringing the team.
" Lobbyists schmoozed lawmakers at the state Capitol and some received telephone calls and e-mails from Sonics owner Clay Bennett and other representatives of the ownership team a day before the state House is scheduled to consider final passage of legislation that will give the team a rebate on a portion of payroll taxes it will pay if it relocates.
Rep. Charlie Joyner, R-Midwest City, who also voted against the bill, said he received an e-mail from Bennett that said the team might not come to Oklahoma City unless the House passes the tax incentive. "I just don’t think this thing has been handled right. That’s kind of holding legislators hostage," Joyner said."
So, I was down in LA this past weekend for the wedding of an old college friend. A beautiful beach ceremony and a long day filled with great people who know how to have an even better time. So on Sunday, we had a day to kill and were looking to do something that would be much less destructive on our livers. And suddenly, we were in Disneyland.
Now you may laugh, as I did when we were heading there. Disneyland? What a cliche. Do the rides even still work?
But for the purposes of a marketing blog, Disneyland could not be a greater case study, and it’s time we all took a quick look at their marketing machine to pick up a few tips.
So, think about Disneyland as an amazing trendsetter back 50 plus years ago. But today, their image has morphed into one of family entertainment. Somehow along the way they realized they could not compete on a basis of building the world’s greatest roller coasters every 3 years, so they took their established product line and expanded it to the next generation.
I remember being much much younger and seeing Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, the Matterhorn, Pirates, plus all the tried and true Disney characters like Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Pluto. Well now you walk around Disneyland and those same rides are still appealing to dads and moms in my generation, while their kids are all over the newer characters walking around and the Buzz Lightyear ride.
You see this devotion from Yankees and Red Sox fans. Disneyland has doen such a great job of being cross-generational, that the revenue stream can almost be considered recurring. The brand loyalty is just amazing.
But what are some other aspects of this marketing plan:
- Price: $66 for a day at the park. Spendy, yes, but you get 10 hours versus the 3 you get at a football game. And for families who live in LA, spending $129 for a year long pass is almost a gimme.
- Product: Realistically, in those 10 hours you are on rides for about 20-30 minutes. But the detail is in the way they hide you in buildings and give you things to look at while you are waiting in line. Very few people walking around the park leave with images of long lines. And those 20-30 minutes are packed with cool stuff.
- Place: Close enough to a major destination that you randomly pick up folks like me. Far enough away that you need to spend all day there. Tons of hotels across the street, and for some reason $11 for parking if you drive there doesn’t seem ridiculous.
- Promotion: The brand is ubiquitous. Every Disney movie promotes a Disney theme park which promotes another movie.
So since this post has taken no real shape or form, here are a few fun Disney facts we learned from riding with a Disney employee on his day off.
- Disneyland can hold 70,000 people, at which point they stop letting people in.
- Total # of "Cast members" is about 5,000.
- Every ride in Disneyland has at least one "Hidden Mickey," meaning if you look hard enough, you can see a Mickey Mouse face in every ride. True story – this guy showed us the one in the Indiana Jones ride.
- The Disney Pillars (in this order) are Saftey, Courtesy, Showmanship, Efficiency.
- Best time to go is late January and February. It’s the only time when all kids are in school, and all parents are paying off Christmas debt. The park is empty.
- People do get hurt in rides. What they do is shut the ride down, tell everyone it’s broken, get the paramedics in quickly and quietly.
- There is also quite the underground city which includes a full cafeteria, and other rooms for cast members.
And now here’s something else I found amazing. I’d estimate the crowd was 30-40% Hispanic. Remember, this is LA. Yet Disneyland does not have a single sign in Spanish. This is a park wher Safety, Courtesy and Efficiency are three main pillars, and they are making it difficult for a sizeable percentage of their audience to understand what they need to do onthe rides. i couldn’t decide if the company is telling Hispanic Americans to learn English, or if the company is just too ignorant to realize how much of their audience base may not be English speaking. I can’t believe it’s the latter.
Anyway, I had a blast there, despite the prices, the lines and the amount of strollers that were trying to knee cap me. There’s just something about the Disney model that works. They aren’t the best rides, it isn’t the cheapest thing to do, it isn’t the most convenient place to get to, and you have to wait around a lot. But it’s great. So there must be something to learn from them.
Ok, marketers: Here’s your project.
- A sport with huge appeal to a small niche audience
- One brand name that is more powerful than the league itself
- A product that is sub-par in quality in comparisons to similar products in other countries
- In other countries, history and tradition are built on rivalry and proximity, which your league does not have
- Established round-the-calendar competition from 5 mega-sports (MLB, NFL, NBA, NCAA FF, NCAA BB) and 5 to 8 mini-sports (NHL, WNBA, Arena, UFC, Golf, Tennis, Boxing, Lacrosse)
Now you see what the MLS is up against. It’s the equivalent of a European-wide Basketball League trying to compete against soccer in England.
But here’s the thing – For the first time in the 10 or 15 years the MLS has been around, I am actually aware that this is opening weekend. I actually am somewhat interested in catching a few games. I am going to be in LA and actually looked to see in the Galaxy or Chivas would be in town. Why? Several potential reasons. Let me know if you can think of others.
Since Seattle is getting a team next year, i want to learn about the league.- I’m growing tired of the other sports(?)
- I’m watching enough English League Soccer, that I recognize more players on more teams, some of whom who played in the MLS.
- I’m following the US National team enough, that I want to see them play a few times on their MLS teams.
- Fifa 08 for Xbox has consumed enough of my leisure time, that I want to see who these guys really are.
Anyway, the point is that I am fully aware that this sport has HUGE marketing and logistical issues in front of it, but I am slowly coming around. And really, I’m the sweet spot for their marketing. A small % of the country would come watch them play in a high school stadium. And you have a huge percentage of the country that wouldn’t watch if they served free beer and pizza all game long. But people like me, who spend too much money on the Mariners, who irrationally go to a bar to watch a college basketball game, and don’t think it’s weird to take a charcoal grill out of a pickup truck when there is a restaurant right across the street, we’re the guys the MLS needs. Sports fans – people who are there for the experience more than the result. And I’m coming around, even though I know the product will not be as good as one I could see on channel 401.
Anyway, MLS starts up this week. Take a peek if you get a chance. And if that doesn’t grab you, start with some EPL and Champions League Games on TV, or even better, at the George and Dragon.
Now this may or may not have existed when I ws a kid, but today there are exclusive soccer academies for youth players, boys and girls. I was talking to a parent of one of a player in one of these elite programs last week, and fascinated by all the expenses. Monthly dues for coaches salaries, several hundred dollars for travel, and sveral hundred dollars for a complete kit.
The kit is what made me laugh (in soccer a uniform is called a "kit"). Home and away jerseys and shorts, practice kits, 5 pair of socks, warm up gear, sweatshirt, jacket, bag, etc…and they all are NIKE.
Furthermore, don’t even think about showing up onany field with your team in anything other than Nike. Let’s say by chance, as you are putting your socks on, you rip a giant hole in the heel and toe. So mom runs down to the local sporting good store to get you some new socks. If they don’t have Nike socks, you will not get to play that day. That goes for games and PRACTICE. No Nike, no play. (Thankfully, for safety reasons, shoes are a player’s personal preference.)
Now, I get what Nike is doing. They must provide some equipment or something to the program, and in return, this academy becomes a running, shooting, tackling billboard all over the state. But I have to wonder if it’s effective. If kids see Nike as a "uniform" that they have to wear (and buy), is it the same as "choosing" to wear something? When they get older, will they choose Nike because it is ubiquitous in their mind with "Soccer gear" or will they choose another brand that represents "going against the grain" and "not what your mom made you wear for soccer." And the other teams, the ones who get beat 8-0 but this Nike wearing machine, does that leave them with a feeling that they want to wear Nike as well? Or does it make them mad that Nike is sponsoring kids that aren’t them.
I’d love to see research into this.
Ok, so I am justifying my near addiction to watching March Madness by doing “research” on national TV ads running non-stop on CBS. Now while they are all interesting the first time you see them, here are my reviews 18 hours in:
1) The “What does your creative team actually do all year?” Award – Enterprise Rent-A-Car: Seriously guys, who’s sleeping with the head of the agency you are using for these predicatble, lame ads. Your as are on ike 20 times a game. And there’s a hand written sign that says, “Repair Shop” in frame in case we can’t figure out why there is a mechanic working under a hood. You’ve been doing these ads for 10+ years, spend a couple bucks and get a real creative team.
2) The “Thanks for The Cool Highlights, Do You have Anymore” Award – Again, Enterprise. 4 or 5 awesome college highlights. But only one spot? You can’t find another 40 or 50 cool highlights and splic ethem together so I get new highlights all the time? Please?
3) The “Best New Ad Tagline I Remember So Far” Award: I dig the new AT&T ad where everyone says hello in a different way.
4) “Best use of a Single Letter” – I can’t remember which car the are promoting, which is a problem, but the visual concept of a world without the letter H is clever.
5) “Second Favorite” – The Bud Light “Dude” campaign. It works because you get it whether the sound is on or off.
6) “Favorite Ad” – This ad isn’t exclusive to the Tourney, but I love the Nike Sparq, “My Better is Better than your Better” campaign.
Other Ads I have positive feelings toward: I think I remember liking the CBS shows (Brittney Spears on next week), DiGiorno, Papa John’s and State Farm.
Sunday Aternoon Additions:
- Ok Enterprise, your ads just get more annoying with every watching…
- Why does State Farm think it’s cool for a groom to be wearing tennis shoes?
- I’m almost compelled to join the Marines or Army.
- I’m also getting ready to jump on Rhapsody and listen to the Apple Air theme song in its entirety.
- Finally, the Saturn ads make me laugh every time.
In conclusion, I guess I don’t understand enough about brand marketing and TV ads to know why you would buy and entire weekend worth of ads, playing for people who will see them over and over again, and not really spend a lot of time or money on top-notch creative. Congrats to the companies who put in the effort.