Category Archives: Personal

Monday Night MLS Soccer

Posted by Andy Boyer in Big Businesses, Marketing, Media, Personal, Sports

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.

Andy 3, Bridge 0

Posted by Andy Boyer in Charity, Personal

Team "No Runner Left Behind" attacked the Beat the Bridge run for the 3rd time this weekend, and we’re proud to announce a clean sweep.  Everyone cruised across with no problems, (except for the guy pushing the baby stroller, which we are not counting as failure.)  In fact, we set a team record with everyone finishing between 42:00 and 47:00.

Make sure to book mid-May 2009 to join us next year for this event.  It’s a great time fo ra very worthwile cause.

Some Random Notes from Ad:Tech SF

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Personal, Social Media

Well alrighty.  My first trip to Ad:tech San Francisco is in the books.  They claimed to have about 300 companies exhibiting, and I think I talked to more than my fair share.  So as promised, here are a few companies I thought were pretty interesting.

1) Without a doubt, the guys at AdReady.com were the hit of the show.   A well funded company with a simple solution for a common problem.  That’s a pretty good formula for success.  Plus, I got to chat with a Senior VP.  When a Senior VP is schlepping time on a show floor, it shows something about the caliber of people they hire.  Check them out if you have a few minutes.

2) Before I go into all the companies that I walked away from thinking, “Wow, that’s cool,” let me throw out a caveat.  There were a lot of future unemployed people at this show.  My bubble alert would go off every time a company claimed they were a “revolutionary way to optimize your ad budgets” and you talked to some 25 year old who had just cut his teeth as a junior media buyer at a 3rd tier ad agency.  I saw a lot of companies, none of which I’ll name, that seemed to have the strategy of, “Well we have a Series A, and we’ll get some Series B funding in 2010.”  Except, there may not be any VC funding in 2010.  Plus, everyone seems to have a strategy of selling to Google, Yahoo or Microsoft in 2 years.  I think the best job you could get right now is a M+A guy at one of those 3 places…  

3) Ok, some things I liked:

  • SeeSawNetworks – Rep firm for all types of weird ways to advertise
  • SproutBuilder – I didn’t quite get the full concept, but looked like a cool way to make widgets 
  • LSNMobile – Serving Mobile Ads, but in a cool way and they are profitable.
  • IdeaLaunch – There were tons of companies offering Landing Page Optimization services.  I can’t remember why, but I liked these guys.

4) Affiliate Programs and Networks – It was fascinating to me how many new affiliate networks are out there these days.  Equally fascinating was the fact that all the big guys didn’t bother to attend the show. 

5) Final shout of annoyance: I’m going to express a little displeasure toward the Rubicon Project.  Only because, I RSVP’d for their party and they didn’t have me in the database, so I couldn’t get in.  Probably my fault for not noticing the lack of a confirmation email.  You see, since they weren’t sure if anyone was going to come to their party, they invited EVERYONE in the world.  Then when more people showed up than they expected, they had to adhere to the RSVP list, which caused an issue of portraying themselves as an internet company who had a internet sign-up form that didn’t work.   Now, I’m a nobody, so leaving me stranded outside is no big deal.  And there was plenty of stuff to do so I didn’t really care.  But here’s where I thought they looked kind of unpolished – the door people even refused to admit an extremely well connected CEO of a pretty strong VC backed company, while their own Marketing Coordinators and their friends drank free Grey Goose.  Bubble alert – when your junior level guys are getting drunk at a party you are hosting, and you don’t have anyone senior enough at the door to let in a CEO of a company you should work with, you need to re-evaluate why you are throwing a party.  Let your guys get drunk at home.  Use Ad:Tech to talk to the CEO that wanted to talk to you. Or, I guess you can be that cocky and see if it works for you.  I guess I just wouldn’t be that cocky in a recession.

6) Final note: I can only hope the Seattle light rail will be as efficient as the BART.  I was off my plane, on the BART and in my hotel in like 45-50 minutes, for a $5.00 fare.  Compare that to the $50 cab ride I would need to take to get home from Sea-Tac today.  Love that BART.

Kobe’s Big Jump

Posted by Andy Boyer in Personal, Sports

Ok, you are Kobe Bryant, And until you lead your team to an NBA Title without Shaq Diesel leading the way, what else do you really have to prove? Well, maybe you can try to jump over a moving car. I can’t tell if this is real or fake. Common sense says no one would risk their career for a YouTube stunt, but then, Kobe is no common guy. So, you tell me…

An Email from Mark Cuban to David Stern

Posted by Andy Boyer in Creative Writing, Personal, Seattle, Sports

So, here’s the email I’d love to see from Mark Cuban to David Stern…..

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: WTF?

David:

Hey long time no talk.  I really miss our meetings in New York where we talk fines.  It’s my fault – I’ve been busy with the kid and all.  Hopefully I’ll be more feisty in 2009 and get to see you a little more.  

But anyway, quick question for you.  We’re in the middle of the most fascinating "End of season" in NBA History, at least in the West.  We could have NINE 50-win teams out here this year.  It should be the golden age of NBA Basketball West of the Mississippi River.  But when I opened ESPN.com this morning, the lead NBA Story was "E-mails suggest Sonics were thinking OKC in ’07."

Now, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but………………….. WTF?!?!?!? 

Ok, look, I know Clay Bennett is an oil guy and oil is like $2000 a barrel right now.  And I can’t disagree that having some oil money would be good for the league.  Look how well it worked for the English Premier League when they got that Russian Oil Baron, Abromovich.  Now Chelsea’s payroll makes the Yankees look like the Devil Rays.  Win-win all around, except for all the former KGB agents walking around Stamford Bridge these days and that goofy radiation murder.

But I digress.

I need to have a heart-to-heart with you about part of this whole Sonics hijacking.  I mean, let’s look at this on its surface.

  • We lose market #12 for market #50
  • We leave the entire Pacific NW to Portland
  • Our Northwest Division now has a team whose natural rival is Dallas.
  • We could be embroiled in a 3 year lame duck situation, where attendance falls to 254 people a game.
  • We gut a team with a 41 year tradition.
  • We have to induct Gary Payton into the Hall of Fame in a Miami Heat jersey.

I could go on and on. But I think you get the point.

EXCEPT……….this whole thing now has you in an awkward situation.  You see, dear Mr. Bennett has forced you into a corner.  I read all of those emails the Seattle Times and  ESPN published.  Not pretty.

So, from what I gather, one of two things happened: 

1) Clay-Clay and you have some kind of buddy-buddy thing going on, where you and he basically lie through your teeth all day long.  Which makes of you guys both liars, and I’m not sure how I feel about paying big fines to a liar.  Plus, you would be willingly letting a dishonest ownership group into our little clique.  I’m not sure how I feel about guys with more money than me looking for ways to screw me over.  Especially when they are under the watch of another guy who wants to screw me over.

2) OR – Clay-Clay lied to you about this whole Seattle stadium situation.  I know from experience, you don’t screw with King David.  So, I would expect you to fine or punish Clay-Clay the same way you would if any of us tried to pull something.  I mean, you went ballistic over the Kevin McHale / Joe Smith deal, and he was lying to make his team BETTER (at least he thought he was.)  If Clay-Clay really lied to you, well, you better nail him to the wall, because there are 31 other sneaky owners in this league, and we can smell weakness.  Wait till my spin machine gets going if I find out lying to David Stern is not a capital offense, but one that is remedied with a simple apology.

BTW, that wasn’t a threat.  The point is, we have a problem.  Either you and Bennett are be the slimiest people alive, which makes me question my investment in the NBA.  Or Bennett is a liar that is going to go unpunished, which makes me wonder why I get so skewered by you.  I mean, I’ve said a lot of inflammatory things, but they are all TRUE! I questioned the integrity of your refs, you fined me, and your ref ended up in jail for fixing games.  Shouldn’t I get my money back?  I mean, you fined me for being right!  And now we have this Oklahoma yahoo running around telling you lies.  If he doesn’t get punished, well, then I just have to wonder about this whole thing.

Maybe I’m just bitter about Dirk’s injury, but I am really concerned about this whole situation.  I haven’t even asked about how you could possibly ignore the desire of Steve Freaking Ballmer to join the NBA.  Good god!  He’s like the 6th richest guy in the world.  Why the hell wouldn’t we BEG for Steve to join our club?  A guy with lots of money who knows nothing about sports.  HELLO!?!?!? It’s like letting a blind samaratan sit down at a poker table.  C’mon man…This is the kind of money the NBA needs.  Clean, technology money from a global titan.  You want to expand internationally?  I think Steve might know one or two heads of state.  This guy is going to be CEO of Microsoft in 4 months.  The man has some pull.

In conclusion, I hope I haven’t said anything that will cost me another check.  But really, we need to talk about this before we look any stupider as a league.  I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but oil guys are only slightly ahead of steroid dealers and Iranian prime ministers in popularity contests right now.  And the country is in a recession.  Is this really the time to bully a bunch of unemployed people who just lost their houses, to buy a stadium for an oil tycoon while 50% of their kids aren’t graduating high school? Maybe we need to look around and pay attention to what is happening around the rest of the country….I’m just saying….maybe we can think of a way to show why we’re such a smart league, and not a bunch of billionaire morons.

Regards,

Mark Cuban 

 

Mickey Mouse Marketing

Posted by Andy Boyer in Big Businesses, Marketing, Personal

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.   

Looking for fun startups?

Posted by Andy Boyer in Entrepreneurism, Marketing, Personal

killer.jpgHere’s a neat little web site that you can get lost in for a few hours if you aren’t careful.

KillerStartups.com says they review 30+ sites a day, so that database gets pretty big pretty quickly.  The site prolies a wide range of companies, from the goofy to the geeky, and they mostly accentuate the positive.  After all, no start-up isperfect, but you have to root for someone willing to throw it all out on the line like that.  Plus, it doesn’t look like you need a +$10k a month PR firm, work at a VC firm or be a close friend of Michael Arrington to be profiled on KillerStartups.com, so it’s almost like the "anti-TechCrunch."

 

Dickipedia – Wikipedia with humor

Posted by Andy Boyer in Personal

I love when I run across something hilarious with a Google Page Rank of 1.  It makes me feel as if I have found something before anyone else.  Such is the case with Dickipedia.

Word of warning – If you start reading this site, you may not stop laughing for a few days.  Take in small doses…