Andy Boyer

I have to write things down here or I'll forget them.

Category: Media (Page 6 of 12)

March Madness Ads, Hour 18

March 21, 2008 /

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.

 

“Stuff White People Like” Gets Unfair Criticism

March 20, 2008 /

A few weeks ago, a friend pointed me to a blog called "Stuff White People Like." If you have a sense of humor and can understand wit and sarcasm, you’ll find the site hilarious.  White people making fun of all the stupid things white people do.  Instant classic.

It’s also obvious that it’s just a site where a few guys like you and I started writing a few gags for friends and family, and it kind of went viral.  The site is still hosted on the WordPress.com domain, meaning they don’t even make any ad revenue on it.  It’s just people writing because they like to write, like most of the other 40 million blogs out there.

Well maybe they are a victim of their own success.  Or maybe the whole race issue has really gotten out of control.  But a Houston Chronicle article says, "Race-related Blog Causes Controversy." The article gos as far as to say, "It’s the latest in a string of racially charged blogs that act as a virtual shrink’s sofa for those tackling the tricky topics of race and class.’

Good god.  Are you kidding me?  When did white people making fun of white people become "racially charged."  The article’s author, Corilyn Shropshire, is really stretching when she makes claims that the site is anything more than what normal, well-adjusted people would find funny.

Check it out and tell me if you disagree. 

Turbo Tax YouTube Comedy Contest

March 18, 2008 /

Now here’s good marketing.  You take a product that is inherently boring, like tax software.  And rather than being all professional, you sponsor a user generated comedy contest on YouTube.  Now, I don’t know if it’s successful, but it’s certainly a smart attempt at reaching a younger demographic.

dimuro.JPG 

So check out the Turbo Tax Comedy Showcase.  But don’t just watch.  Make sure you interact.  And here’s a good way to interact. 

  1. Go to the showcase
  2. Click on the vote tab
  3. Search for "DiMuro"
  4. Watch the 3 minute routine
  5. Vote Thumbs up.
  6. You feel good, Turbo Tax feels good, and Greg feels good. It’s happiness all around.  

A Feel Good Story, Courtesy of the New York Yankees

March 18, 2008 /

Maybe it’s because the new Yankees regime is headed by the Boss, Part Deux.  Or maybe they just seem softer now that Red Sox Nation has taken over the mantle of "Most Obnoxious Fans Alive."  But for whatever reason, the Bronx Bombers trip from Tampa to Virginia Tech to play an exhibition game and visit the student memorials certainly feels like altruism and genuine caring, not a marketing stunt.  Amongst all the hate and rhetoric being thrown around the political fields these days, it’s nice to read something like this ESPN.com article.

Thanks to all the Folks at the SVC

March 12, 2008 /

I want to thank Larry Asher and everyone who attended the seminar on Social Media that Spring Creek Group principal Clay McDaniel and I hosted yesterday at the School of Visual Concepts.

It was really interesting to see a roomful of people who wanted to figure out how to promote their blog and social media presence, from perspectives as varied as ad agencies, design firms, newspapers, aspiring authors, philanthropic endeavors, small businesses, freelancers and giant medical centers.  I don’t think Clay and I expected such a wide range of interest.

(In a shameless plug, I want to extol the virtues of GotVoice’s Voice-to-Text service.  We were in the seminar about 7 hours and I never checked my voicemail.  It would have been a total pain if I had to listen to each one instead of being able to just read each voicemail as a text message.  Full disclosure: I do some work for GotVoice.  But it was very useful yesterday regardless.) 

It sounds like we may put another one of these together in April or May.  If you missed this one, hope to see you then.

Pity the Poor Guy Running the Wyoming Caucuses

March 5, 2008 /

Think about this.  As long as Wyoming has been a state, it hasn’t mattered one iota what happened in their caucus.  Heck, a caucus was simply a reason to get together in March and have a few beers and celebrate the coming spring. 

It’s not a knock against them, it’s just nature.  Being Wyoming, they couldn’t risk having a caucus in the middle of a January blizzard.  And since barely anyone lives there, no candidates were coming to visit anyway.  So they put some guy named "Joe" or "Steve" or "Sam" or something in charge of making sure ballots got printed.  And Joe or Steve or Sam had to call a bunch of buddies, or just the same people from 4 years ago, and find a few houses willing to throw a few caucuses.

But not this year.  All of a sudden, Wyoming’s 12 little delegates matter.  And now you have a whole bunch of guys named Jack or Jim or something calling Joe saying, "Uh, I only have room in my living room for 12 people.  On the latest evite, it says 237 people are coming…"

As my friend described it, it’s like being the kid in school who forgot about his science project, grabbed 5 leaves from outside and taped them to construction paper, only to find out everyone has to present in front of a live televised audience, and Hannah Montana and LeBron James are the judges. 

Look at Texas, where the Democratic Party had weeks to see that there would be a huge turnout.  Yet you have the biggest mess ever imagined, a caucus that people compared to a rodeo.  You think those guys are the only ones who are going to be stuck with their pants caught in their lassos?

I mean, pretend you volunteered up to run your kid’s Little League tournament, and then 6 months later you find out the other teams will be from Iraq, Dubai, Pakistan, Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia and the US teams will be coached by Brad Pitt, Bono, Rosie O’Donnel, David Duke and Louis Farrakhan.  It’s not your fault.  You aren’t prepared for this.  It just is what it is.

So pity the poor guy running the Wyoming Caucus.   And make sure you tune in.

 

Are Lower Clickthrough Rates a Problem?

March 3, 2008 /

Business Week asked the question this week:

"Google: Are Ad Concerns Overblown? – The number of ad clicks fell in January for Google and Yahoo. But how important are those click-through rates, anyway?"

"comScore (SCOR) said clicks on ads placed on Google were little changed in January from a year earlier, and that they fell 12% from the last three months of 2007. For Yahoo, ad clicks fell 3% from the fourth quarter."

According to Google and Yahoo, Internet Advertising is alive and well.  But others have questions.  The detractors say:

  • "Advertisers are simply bidding on and buying fewer keywords."
  • "Credit-strapped consumers are simply doing less shopping online, and therefore clicking less often on the ads that direct them to retail sites.
  • "We remain concerned that a slowing U.S. and possibly global economy could further hinder Google’s growth," Stanford Group analyst Clay Moran wrote.

But Google, Yahoo and their friends say:

  • Google co-founder Sergey Brin, contends that an economic downturn will accelerate a shift in spending from radio, print, and TV advertising to the Web. "It makes a lot of sense for advertisers, if they want to be careful about their spending and they want to make sure they are getting a good ROI to use the exact kind of advertising that we are offering.
  • Barbara Baldwin, senior director of Polycom’s global brand programs, says her company has no plans to reduce spending in 2008. "During a recession it’s really important to maintain a consistent presence, rather than dropping your campaigns and then trying to restart," she says.
  • "I think click-through was not a great measure to start with," says Michael Leo, co-founder of Avenue A/Razorfish, which was acquired by Microsoft (MSFT), and current CEO of ad software and consulting company Operative. "I don’t think clicks tell us what is going on."
  • "This myopic fixation on clicks really does a disservice to the publishers who are putting together the inventory and the advertisers who are not getting a real sense of the performance," says John Chandler, principal analyst at Atlas, a division of Microsoft’s advertiser and publisher solutions business.

What do you think?  Will a decrease in ad clicks torpedo the ad sales industry, and cripple all the new start-ups relying on advertising revenue?  Does the loss of these start-ups spell major doom?  Or does it merely allow for consolidation?  And is this consolidation needed anyway?

The Fight to Keep the Sonics – A Hero Emerges

February 29, 2008 /

simmons.jpgThe sad story concerning the absolute theft of the Sonics from Seattle by Oklahoma oilmen has gotten almost no publicity to date.  Considering we are the city that launched Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft, RealNetworks, Cranium and Pearl Jam, you would think collectively we might have the phone number of one PR person in town.

But amazingly, for the most part, no one outside of Seattle seems to take note of a very simple story:

  1. In 2006, Oklahoma guys buy team that’s been in Seattle for 41 years  A team that plays in a 17,000 seat arena, in the middle of downtown, that was renovated 10 years ago.
  2. New owners demand $500 Million new arena from taxpayers, an arena that would cost more than the 70,000 seat football stadium and 47,000 seat retractable roof baseball stadium.
  3. City tells Oklahoma City guys to stick it.
  4. Oklahoma guys claim they can’t be successful in Seattle and announce they have remarkably found a city willing to take the team – in Oklahoma City.
  5. Local Billionaires who were asleep at the switch in 2006 say they will buy team to keep it in Seattle.
  6. Oklahoma guys, who now have Kevin Durant and six 1st round draft picks in the next 3 years, tell the local Billionaires to stick it.
  7. David Stern looks at Seattle fans, and tells them to stick it.  Then stick it again for good measure.
  8. Everyone acknowldges the only question is whether they leave in 2008 or 2010.

Thankfully, one national reporter has taken up the cause.  And the amazing thing is, he is the Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, as influential as any writer in sports today.  His letterbag column is a must read, and carries with it the potential that NBA fans from across teh country could tell David Stern, "Hey, this isn’t right.  I support the Pistons, but damn if I’m going to support a league that will let some oil baron rape and plunder a 41 year old legacy."

So please, read Bill Simmons.  Send an email to thank Bill Simmons.  Join the Bill Simmons Facebook Group.  Send the Bill Simmons column on to your friends.  Blog about Bill Simmons.  Because this Bostonian has emrged as the only sportswriter who seems to care that the Sonics belong in Seattle.  

Digg the Bill Simmons article here.

Dirty Rotten Comcastic Scoundrels

February 27, 2008 /

Net Neutrality is a term that isn’t sexy enough to get the iTunes, MySpace and Facebook crowds excited.  But thankfully, we have a bunch of watchdog technologists keeping a close eye on this.

In a nutshell, as I understand it, Comcast and other Internet Service Providers want to control how fast certain web sites can deliver content.  Think about Web site content as a car.  Right now, every car has access to every super wide highway, and there are no speed limits.  But if Comcast and its friends get their way, they would get to decide which cars get to drive on super highways, and which ones have to drive on pothole filled dirt roads.  They argue this would allow them to control piracy. 

But most others argue that its a way for them to effectively shut down blogs and alternative media.  For example, my blog could be stuck on their "dirt road" list and take 2 minutes to load, effectively stopping anyone from reading it.  They could charge millions o fdollars for super highway access, and only the major media outlets and super corporations would be able to deliver content quickly. It would be impossible to launch a small web business, because your site would take much longer than the established ones.

Since most people don’t follow this too closely, most people don’t really think it’s a big deal.  So here’s evidence that it is INDEED a big deal.  

How big are the stakes in the so-called network neutrality debate now raging before Congress and federal regulators?

Consider this: One side in the debate actually went to the trouble of hiring people off the street to pack a Federal Communications Commission meeting yesterday—and effectively keep some of its opponents out of the room.

Broadband giant Comcast—the subject of the F.C.C. hearing on network neutrality at the Harvard Law School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts—acknowledged that it did exactly that….

Be sure to read the whole article on Portfolio.com.  Very shady, very corrupt, and an indicator of the lengths Comcast and others will go to  control what web sites you have access to. 

A Web Show About Web Celebrities

February 27, 2008 /

A few months ago I was at Blog World Expo in Las Vegas, and I was amazed at the cult icon status some of the influential bloggers had achieved.  It was really quite cool to see these bloggers in person, and to see them interact with their readers.

So now we see the rise of a new web startup based on this phonomenon.  You have your tech moguls like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.  You have your giants without household name recognition like Larry Ellison, Sergei Brin and Jerry Yang.  And then you have your web celebrities who are really only famous inside the Web 2.0 community.  And darnit, these guys deserve press as well.

This is the theory behind Pop17.com a webcast dedicated to the semi-stars of Web land.  So if you have your Andy Warhol 15 minutes of tech fame scorecard, you can now add the hosts and writers of this webcast to the list of semi-celebrities who all of us in this alternative world love.  Please someone create, "The making of Pop17.com – Behind the Show."

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