Got it. What's Next?
I hate taking stuff off TechCrunch, since you probably already saw this report there. But you need to know these ad spending stats, so it’s worth seeing twice. So, here’s the question I have for you – Will Online ad spending keep going up, or are we about to get nailed by the recession so all ad spending, including online, goes down next quarter?
What did I do before mini-feeds? I can’t remember….
This Monday at 4:30pm, the Save Our Sonics Organization is hosting a rally on the courthouse steps (700 Stewart St., Seattle). Sonics legends Gary Payton and Xavier McDaniel are confirmed to attend and speak at 4:30 pm. Other Sonics Legends have been invited and are expected to appear.
Now whether you are a die-hard fan, casual observer or don’t even care and just live and work in Seattle, here are 5 (or 7) reasons you should show support.
Get there – do your part. Make it a huge rally that gets on the national news.
Ok, if you are the NBA, how do you address this PR nightmare? You already have an NBA official who has admitted to taking money to throw games. Now this official is naming other refs and other games that have been fixed – playoff games at that.
Anyone who has ever watched an NBA Playoff game has walked away wondering, "There were some weird calls in that game…" In fact, I believe Mark Cuban even hired his own stats guys to chart how refs called games, and which ones were more inconsistent than others.
Contrary to opinion, it really would be easy to fix a game. Consider that each team has the ball about two times per minute. And you figure almost every player touches the ball at least once per possession. And maybe 1/2 the touches result in some sort of light contact from the defender. A couple of quick innocuous foul calls in the 1st quarter put a player on the bench. A couple more in the second half keep him on the bench. And most teams can’t compete when they have a starter on the bench all game.
But the question is, how does the NBA respond? Do you believe the guy who admitted to being guilty? Or do you believe the guy who is moving a basketball team from Seattle to Oklahoma City for what he says is in the "best interest of the league." Who really has more to lose at this point? One guy who has no hope at ever getting his job back is trying to cut down the number of years he’ll be in jail. The other guy is trying to maintain the image and value of his billion dollar enterprise. Who do you think would be more willing to stretch the truth to protect their interests?
And just a side note – is there a coincidence that this allegation comes as the Lakers play the Celtics, a revival of when the NBA was great, and a chance to showcase the NBA’s heir apparent to Michael Jordan and coach of the century. Plus, many people wonder how a GM who was vilified by press and fans for being inept, managed to get Kevin Garnett from his buddy Kevin McHale and Ray Allen from an owner who wanted to move his team to Oklahoma City. Did the league orchestrate the move to bring power back to Boston? Maybe that’s the next revelation….
A few years ago, we had this crazy idea to build a monorail, that would start in downtown and brtanch out to two of Seattle’s far flung neighborhoods, Ballard and Seattle.
By most accounts, the whole plan was run by the guys who drive clown cars, and the money guys needed an abacus to count sea shells on the beach. It was the little engine that couldn’t even though all of us have spent about $1500 in taxes for the train that never ran.
But is it time to dust off the powerpoint, and re-run the Excel spreadsheet with new numbers? Interest rates have never been lower, so the money would be cheaper. Gas prices have never been hire, but will be tomorrow (and the day after, and the day after that, etc…), so you can assume ridership will skyrocket. And now we have a real crisis, and you see how civic leaders (i.e. Steve Ballmer) suddenly appear in times of crisis.
Sometimes great ideas have terrible execution, or poor timing, and all it takes is a different team on a diferent day to turn a dud into nirvana. Think the Smarte Car, which 25 years ago was a dog called the Yugo. Or the iPod, which in 1997 was a dorky thing called Diamond Rio. The Newton never made it, but pieces of it came back into every PDA sold from 2003-2007.
So, what do you think? Why not revisit this whole monorail thing, with a new team driving the project?
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.
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 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:
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.
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