Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Normal Order Restored?

It's a sign that the nascent world of networked media is maturing, slightly, that some traditional methods and techniques are creeping back into the area.  Albeit with a twist.  In the new world of mega-P2P-networks, BitTorrent and Joost are running a competition to see who can be the most respectable, in order to try and win over the old-school media barons like Viacom.  (Despite the fact that only a few years ago said barons were looking to wipe P2P off the face of the earth).  And in both cases it is very traditional run-ins with the law that have led to BitTorrent's Bram Cohen (post-Grokster) and Joost's Friis and Zennstrom (post-Kazaa) being so well behaved.  Indeed, BitTorrent came to agreement with its most powerful opponent, the Motion Picture Association of America (aka Hollywood) in November 2005, allowing it to announce it's very scrubbed up new Entertainment Network this week.  While the Joost founders go as far as saying about the new service, “It’s not Web video; it’s TV".  Meanwhile, over in the related world of user-generated video, a talent war has broken out for the most popular new video stars - motivated by good old-fashioned lucre and gelt.  The NYT reports that Revver has pinched LonelyGirl15...

Metric Meltdown

Nice quote from Shelly Lazarus, CEO & Chairman, Ogilvy & Mather, speaking in this week's Economist:  "We have gone from intrusion into consumers lives to extending an invitation to them."  However, some of those invitations are more expensive than others.  This weekend Unilever will be spending $1.7m on a 30 second, UGC-driven Dove slot during The Oscars, aka The Superbowl for Women with 40 million viewers, 60 per cent of whom will be female.  Metrics models all over the world must be exploding trying to crunch that type of spend into the same media plan as massive socially-driven, free platforms which continue to notch up huge audiences from people going and viewing content - because they want to.

Co-Creation Rules Feedback 3

We've had more great feedback on the manifesto - Co-Creation Rules - that I wrote with Johnnie for ChangeThis.  Brandbuilder says it's a 'must-read' and likes Rules 6 & 8.  The brilliantly named Craphammer, gives it the thumbs up and says the examples are really helpful, which is good because we tried to cram in as many as we could.  (Feel free to add your own on the wiki).  And Nick Wright says he found the manifesto helpful when thinking about how to up 'flow' in advertising.  Thanks guys!  We'll be presenting one or two rules at the Nesta Uploading Innovation event next week and then at this year's Market Research Society conference in Brighton.  Maybe see you there.

Upping The Hackability

In these days of networked media the classic 4Ps of marketing are as helpful as ever.  Even if the environment has changed the pillars of Price, Place, Product and Promotion remain.  So as Promotion fatigue spreads and consumers (aka people) try and take refuge from the onslaught of commercial messages in their lives, modern marketeers look to other corners of the matrix for inspiration.  One technique is to re-engineer Product to make it naturally more interesting to a world where powerful online networks driven by ordinary Joe's have the final say.  Or upping the hackability.  Two great examples of this are Open Cola and Free Beer, both Products which make their ingredients open and their recipes public.  Are we going to use this information to set up competitors?  No.  Are they both more interesting and therefore likely to engage an audience? Yep.

Eternally Onstage

Great article in The New Yorker about the way in which the modern web is changing perceptions of privacy, particularly among younger groups, thereby creating a generation gap in the way people view public life.   (I call it the X-Factor-Factor).  "Your life is being lived in public whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. So it may be time to consider the possibility that young people who behave as if privacy doesn’t exist are actually the sane people, not the insane ones. For someone like me, who grew up sealing my diary with a literal lock, this may be tough to accept. But under current circumstances, a defiant belief in holding things close to your chest might not be high-minded. It might be an artifact—quaint and naïve, like a determined faith that virginity keeps ladies pure. Or at least that might be true for someone who has grown up “putting themselves out there” and found that the benefits of being transparent make the risks worth it." (via MintDigital)

The Network Effect Explained For Marketeers

For geeks and engineers The Network Effect is something approaching The Holy Grail. However, as is often the case with techies, they use complicated formulae to try and explain it, when in reality it’s best understood through the medium of….restaurants!  When you walk past a restaurant that is empty and the waiting staff are sitting by the bar looking at their watches, it’s not so enticing. After all, it doesn’t matter how good the food is – who wants to eat alone?  So getting that first person through the door becomes very important.  And obviously, once the early birds are in and the sociability starts to notch up...

"YouTube Hasn't Got A Chance"

Continuing my current theme of TCS and their plans for world domination using the evil-sounding Global Index platform that has brought us Kazaa, Skype and now Joost, Wired's Spencer Reiss writes this splendid account that modern marketeers everywhere should pop in their reading lists - right now.  TCS may look very cuddly and friendly but they didn't get to trouser $2.6bn of eBay's auction dosh without a little flint in their hearts as illustrated by this brilliant quote from Joost CTO, Dirk-Willem van Gulik: “You can try to cut costs by allowing only crappy little images. You can limit the run times or make money selling hardware. But eventually the bandwidth bills will eat you alive. YouTube, iTunes, and the rest of them haven’t got a chance. We just hope they take their time realizing it.”  In the meantime, the anti-Joost fraternity (aka ISPs) continue to trash the new TV play as the end of the world as we know it.  Game. On.

What Marketeers Can Learn From Skype - Part II

This is the second part of an article looking at what the marketing industry can learn from Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the men behind Kazaa, Skype and now Joost.  You can find the first half here.   

So what can the marketing industry learn from P2P and the incredible journey of TCS? Well let’s take a flight of fantasy and instead of seeing those little nodes as technical points on an ubergeek wall chart, think of them as people.  Better yet, think of them as customers.  Now, until very recently those customers have been unable to easily find one another and relied upon brands to simplify a busy marketplace by providing trusted signs.  Supported by gazillions of media bucks, the brands became bigger...

Vista Is Evil, Bad And Available On BitTorrent

It's so easy (and so fun!) to see the emerging world of technology as open (good) vs closed (evil).  And, of course, it's made much easier by the richest man in the world, being head of the largest tech corporation, built on the most profitable stream of closed products since...well since nothing, just ever.  Which makes Vista a wonderful target.  But reading Bill Thompson's analysis of the OS as a dark plot to hive off part of the web as a closed network, and Joho's rant about it showing that Microsoft is firmly in bed with Hollywood, you realise that neither is it all just conspiracy.  However, stories like this show that, more than anything, this  battle is going to be very long and complicated.  And quite fascinating.

What Marketeers Can Learn From Skype - Part I

The story of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the men behind Kazaa, Skype and now Joost, is a remarkable one that writes large so many lessons about the modern web and its impact on business.  There are lots of interesting thoughts and notions that marketeers can take from their experiences and I have tried to capture a few in this longish article.  The second half will follow next week...

Those Clever Scandos (TCS) - What Those Clever Scandos (TCS) Friis and Zenstrom, have achieved with Kazaa, Skype and now Joost gives the marketing industry clues about the future.  The first thing you must understand is what TCS have done.  At the broadest level, they  looked at an industry, saw the centralised monster sitting at its heart and thought, “how can we never ever deal with that?”   In the music business it was the labels.  In the telecomms arena it was the operators.  In TV, the big hairy incumbents are studios and broadcasters.  TCS’ answer was  to create some software that allows individuals (and the super-duper computers now sitting in our homes) to take on the job of distribution - by joining them all up.  Which may all sound a bit dull.  But when a human, social dimension was added where people could chitter...