Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Adland - Gotta Love 'Em

I'm not sure she means to, but writing in today's Independent, Clare Beale (an unusually insightful member of London's advertising fraternity) sums up adland's dilemmas nicely:  "There's no doubt that for most big brands, advertising's still the cake. Have you seen the full-length version of Carlsberg's Old Lions TV ad, featuring the best crusty former footballers playing in a pub team? Check it out on YouTube."  Meanwhile, writing in The Guardian Naresh Ramchandani demonstrates a more *ahem* widespread understanding of modern digital trends from the perspective of the ad industry: "There are tech-heads who criticise Google as offering an incoherent ragbag of cobbled-together products. I don't know if that's right or not; what I do know is that, sonically, Google joins so nicely to words like "images" and "video" and "maps" and "earth" that its products sound like a family even if they're not."  Bless 'em.

From TV Ads To YouTube Anarchy

Why is it that a professionally produced video of a semi-clad Kate Moss should only be viewed 75,000 times on YouTube, whilst a home video of a giggling baby attracts more than 8 million viewers?  This is one of the questions that Colin Donald over at Futurescape aims to answer in a report about the world of video-focused, social networking sites.  It's a very helpful read for anyone trying to understand what distributed online video is - user generated or otherwise - and its role in the marketing mix.  Colin, an ex-FT staffer, has included a nice mix of best practice along with some detail about the innards of the beast that is Youtube, and despite its relative youth, how the sector is already segmenting.  There's even a new word (to me) - "communtainment".  So if you are struggling with the exploding world of Video 2.0 and what it all means go here and buy a copy.

Chinwag Unspins PR

If you are a London based PR interested in social media get your self down to an event Chinwag are running on the 24th April - PR Unspun.  The Chinwag dos are very informative and run by people with some of the best social media connections in the UK.  And if you are feeling a bit in the dark about the subject, don't worry, they are a friendly lot.  It's being chaired by journalist Mike Butcher who knows the UK web scene as well as anyone and will keep the panel on their toes.  It's still a very reasonable £20 until the 19th of this month.

AdSense - Media Neutral?

Google continues to invest the massive profits from AdSense back into the diversification of the service. Having planted a stake in TV, Google grabs a slice of radio action and continues its testing with newspaper print ads.  Whilst all the time ramping up its infrastructure.  Now then, some major blue-chip clients would be handy to plug into the machine.  Where could we get those?  Ah yes, thank you Doubleclick.

Terrifying Transparency

Transparency is one of those words that everyone can nod about happily but is terrifying for some who think it's about giving up secrets.  To my mind, when used in the world of marketing, the term means the end of the gatekeeper mentality and the gradual paranoia that it can instill.  But it's also just pragmatism and living in the modern world, not some sort of branded happy place construct where it's good - because you say it's good.  In this Wired article, Clive Thompson writes brilliantly on the subject: "Transparency is a judo move. Your customers are going to poke around in your business anyway, and your workers are going to blab about internal info - so why not make it work for you by turning everyone into a  partner in the process and inviting them to do so?" (via Martin at TMW).

Fact Realignment Experts

The consumer-in-control is one thing, people organising themselves into forums to share information about your products is another, but customers surveying each other about how lame they think you are and publishing the results is something else.  Especially if your product is the coolest thing on earth.  Has there ever been a marketing campaign as destructive as that managed, or should I say waged, by the RIAA?  "RIAA fact realignment experts have turned a straightforward commercial concept, copyright infringement, into a major crime on a level with robbery".  Innovate or litigate - the choice is yours...

Second Life : Geek Heaven

There is no doubt that Second Life is a wonderful creation which demonstrates some remarkable innovation - not least its own economy.  However, mainstream it is not.  Whenever people talk about the environment for marketing purposes I always wonder if they've actually spent anytime exploring the metaverse.  The reality is a wonderfully mad but stuttering world, especially on machines with processors more than a year or so old.  A bit like dial-up, in fact.  Unlike Hugh, I don't think it's creepy but I do think it's mostly inhabited by alpha geeks.  This GigaOm article nails it for me: "To play in Second Life, corporations must first come to a humbling realization: in the context of the fantastic, their brands as they exist in the real world are boring, banal, and unimaginative. Car companies are trying to compete with college kids who turn a virtual automotive showroom into a 24/7 hiphop dance party, and create lovingly designed muscle cars that fly, and auction off for $2000 in real dollars at charity auctions."

Google Targets Tired TVRs

News that Google has finally extended its ad management system and attached it to US Satellite TV operators EchoStar's set-top boxes will undoubtedly send shivers down the spines of media executives everywhere.  However, it shouldn't come as a surprise to any of them. The Nielsen Ratings systems which effectively directs $70bn of advertising cash around the US networks has looked very tired for many years.  Any system that measures people's viewing habits, even partially, by asking a few of them to fill out a diary is just not trying hard enough.  And with such a huge prize up for grabs is it really any wonder that Google has set its sights, brains and brawn on controlling the world's most valuable media market?  Anyone from BARB out there?