Andy Boyer

Category: Media

  • If My Friend Does Something While Facebook is Down, Did It Really Happen?

    What did I do before mini-feeds?  I can’t remember….

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  • Paying Respects to Two Broadcasting Legends

    If you had to put together a TV newscast, and could start with Tim Russert on news and Jim McKay on sports, you could pretty much add Spanky the Wonder Clown on the weather desk and still deliver top product.  So this was a rough week in the broadcasting world, with the death of both these standard bearers.

    Anyone my age remembers the pre-ESPN days, when Wide World of Sports was this weekend sugar bomb of athletic events that you couldn’t get Monday-Friday.   Once cable took over, WWS lost its significance, but it was ESPN before ESPN was ESPN, and Jim McKay was its fearless leader. Plus, back in the day, Jim McKay was the voice of Olympic coverage, and I think even the current TV hosts would admit they have never quite filled his shoes.

    Russert of course,  anchored the "Meet the Press" desk for the last 17 years, and was one of the few remaining level-headed, unbiased, voices of reason during the election coverage. Every eulogy I have heard over the last 3 days has proclaimed him to be a great mentor and family guy as well.  Hopefully those mentoring skills will pay off and one of his proteges will admirably take over his place at the desk.

    Everyone who watches TV will feel the loss of these legends, especially when you consider the magnitutde of the upcoing 2008 Olymipcs in Beijing and November US Presidential Election. 

  • Interview With Facebook Execs at “All Things D”

    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.



  • Sounders Show Off New Microsoft Uniforms

    sounders.jpgThere will be no jokes about the Sounders having to restart the game every 30 minutes to reboot.  Nor will anyone talk about them having a bloated team of 476 players.  And certainly no one will complain that every MLS team must have 10 players from the Sounders roster included with every installation.

    No, we won’t make those jokes because despite getting Microsoft money, the Sounders now have the coolest sponsor in the MLS and the best uniforms in the league.

    In fact, I may go as far as to say that the MLS has the coolest sponsor in all of Professional soccer, with the announcement of Xbox 360 deciding to be the face (or chest as it were) of Seattle soccer.

    Think about the great teams in Euro soccer and then think about their sponsors:

    • Manchester United: AIG Insurance (On a scale of 1 to 100, they score 130 on the boring meter)
    • Arsenal: Emirates Air (borrrrring)
    • Chelsea: Samsung (boring, but at least they are technology)
    • RealMadrid:  BenQ Siemens (more technology, but from Taiwan)
    • Bayern Munich: T-Mobile (yawn)
    • Inter Milan: Pirelli Tires (ok, that’s pretty cool I guess.)
    • AC Milan: Bwin.com (online betting is pretty cool too I suppose)

    But until I see Sony, Gucci, Rolex, Ferrari, Gulfstream, Prada, or BMW on the front of a jersey, I’ll take Xbox 360 as the coolest sponsor in soccer.  (How does Apple not get that they need to do this…) 

    Even better, the sponsorship and company are here in Seattle.  And tell me it’s not a great looking jersey.  Just tell me how to order and I’m in.

    (This photo was taken by Courtney Blethen of the Seattle Times, and I grabbed it from this article. Seattle Times: If you need me to take it down, please just let me know.)   

  • Wall Street Journal Scoop – Agencies are Offshoring Creative

    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?"

  • Monday Night MLS Soccer

    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.

    1. Monday is a travel day for most basbeall teams, which leaves sports fans with not much to watch.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.

  • Hong Kong Marketing and Ads

    Since this is supposed to be a marketing blog, here are a few ads I saw in Hong Kong.  (I only have a few minutes, so I’ll add more later)sDSC00091.JPGsDSC00069.JPGsDSC00037.JPG


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  • People, You Cannot Control Social Media

    One of my favorite things to watch is when businesses choose to ignore a technology or shift in human behavior, and honestly believe that if they ignore it well enough, it will simply go away.

    We saw this in the music industry, where executives refused to believe that anyone would rather listen to thousands of songs on a device the size of a credit card rather than using a clunky cd player and devoting an entire wall for storing that same music. 

    The newspapers were no better, refusing to consider that carrying a dirty glob of paper with old news was less appealing than simply logging on to a computer and getting the freshest info. 

    This makes a story Garrett found even more humorous.  The Chicago Sun Times has some sports columnists who occasionally draw the ire of their readers.  Jay Mariotti is one such columnist.  Apparently, people were responding to his articles in a negative way, so the Sun Times made the decision to stop allowing readers to comment on his columns.  You can almost hear the conversation, "Well if we turn off the technology that allows readers to write negative things about Jay, then no one can write anything negative, and we won’t have to worry about it anymore. Problem solved!"

    Except of course, that it’s 2008 and the world doesn’t work like that anymore.  Maybe in 1970 that was a good idea.  But nature abhors a vacuum, so if people want to write negative things about Jay Mariotti, and the Sun Times won’t let it happen on their site, the people will find a new home for their vents.

    And they have, thanks to crosstown rival, the Chicago Tribune, who have geniusly embraced Social Media by developing a forum where readers can post comments about Jay Mariotti. And for that matter, other Sun Times writers. 

    And guess what, two giant ads on the page.

    So, you have one paper pretending that taking away the voice of the people would be helpful.   And you have a other that is profiting on the idea of letting people have their say.  By foolishly thinking you can control the voice of the people, you lose all control of the situation, because now you can’t even moderate out the particularly distasteful ones.  And your competitor gets the ad money. 

    Lesson to be learned here: No one has 100% approval rating.  The only way to have any control of the situation is to let the people speak on your turf.  

  • Classic Media Awareness Test

    Here’s a pretty interesting ad based on an old awareness test you may have seen before. I saw this on Seth Godin’s Blog.

  • March Madness Ads, Hour 18

    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.