Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Official : The Web Is A Sink Blockage

If your sink is blocked for a few weeks and you remove the plug to dig out the obstruction, the offending mangled mess of soap, fish bones, human hair and other horrible gunk in which bacteria has set up home, is like the Web.  That may sound odd but it's how Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Web-inventor and all round good guy, described it in a talk I went to last night at NESTA (which is btw a client).  So that's good enough for me.  He was emphasising the complexity of his creation which he says will see radical changes in the coming months and years - not least the growth of open data.  To understand better the web's gooey tangled mess he has set up the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI), a joint effort between Southampton University and MIT.  TBL said Google's success in creating radically better search was the first serious attempt at web science and the WSRI will be applying similar methodologies.  (Made me wonder if he thinks the Messrs Brin and Page needs some competition).  Other highlights of the evening were his response to a comment that the semantic web was a 'top-down project'.  "Who told you that!?", he asked in disbelief, in a moment of clarification that will surely live with the questioner for some time.  In response to extending third-world web access, Sir Tim made the point that the current web is mainly text and therefore of little use to an illiterate farmer in Africa who needs to find out how to cure his sick cow.  The answer is video which could, TBL noted, mean a major retooling of the cloud.  The great man clearly isn't a fan of the latest release of top-level domain names which he likened to the creation of new real estate for 'boring' commercial reasons.  In fact, he said, he'd like to be able to buy URIs for hundreds of years and give over their management to a massive, slow, international bureaucracy, thereby safeguarding their existence through inertia!  And finally I thought his answer to the notion that too much is expected of the web resonated with everyone.  "The web is merely a reflection of humanity.  I think the danger is not that we expect too much of humanity, but that we expect too little."

Dear Mr Livin De Past

From Rory responding to Mr Livin De Past: "I believe that this is what Mr De Past was referring to. It would be worrying if the companies and authorities weren't such a bunch of utter muppets. Free Culture is too fast to be held back. Put in place a regulation, there will be a work around in days. Look at the 'unhackable' DRM on the HD formats, that one took about 2 weeks as I remember. You can make DRM stronger but the result is ever more resource hungry operating systems which burn up 10x as many processor cycles as necessary (Hmmmm - Vista is popular isn't it). So you get to destroy the environment and cost your customers unnecessary amounts of cash on hardware and power bills, in order that the behemoths can protect their precious IP."

TV's Present World Reality

TorrentFreak has an interesting little interview with Jesse Alexander who has worked on Lost and Heroes, two of the most popular downloads of all time.  “People watching shows such as Lost and Heroes on BitTorrent is the present world reality.  TV networks have to recognize this, give their viewers more ways to interact with the shows, and find ways to generate revenue from every member of the global audience.  It’s the same for music artists. The reality is, people share music. Artists now make money by driving people to concerts, through community websites, and by offering exclusive events. TV networks are focusing too much on one exclusive product, instead of building a community. This is a mistake I think.”

Do You Boil Down Or Boil Up?

Boiling ideas down in advertising planning is a very popular pastime - aka reductive thinking.  However, in networked media, the opposite is true.  The aim is for an idea to boil up - and preferably - over.  Both approaches have their attractions and are largely determined by their natural media.  TV and billboards are about the big punch.   The web is about seeding and weeding.  These different outlooks make a huge difference when it comes to preparation.  If you've only got one shot at getting your message across, then taking a lot of time to finnesse your plan is a must.  You want a bold flavour and it may take time to blend the ingredients, with plenty of mistakes made behind the scenes.  However, networked media is about many intimate fragments that on their own can be meaningless, but in time will build into something complex and alluring.  To succeed you must get chopping, chuck the ingredients around a bit, throw in a few random spices and maybe let other people make some suggestions along the way.  Indeed, the preparation may never end because the rich process is often the desired outcome - not the tasty dish itself.  Bringing these two styles into the same kitchen (or studio) is tricky.  While one chef is focusing on adding the final slither of vanilla truffle to their perfect white dish, the other will be energetically throwing spaghetti at the wall and asking passers-by for opinions on the sauce.  But now paymaster Big Brands want the sociability of Tapas mixed with the fine experiences of Haute Cusine.  So inevitably change is coming.  Although not without some pain.  Such a major redesign of the planning processes to mix styles is going to leave many eggs - and egos - on the floor.

The Digital Divide Is Now Closed

I went to the Cannes mega-bash this week and noticed something quite new.  Everyone was in agreement.  For some years there has been a deep divide in the marketing world between digital early-adopters and those who 'don't get it'.  But that divide is now closing fast.  In my view, the stalemate broke last year when MySpace TV started commissioning original drama with the involvement of Big Brands like Ford.  And, for the most part, it was well received.  Then Bebo followed suit offering Kate Modern to its huge following and creating a bidding war among brands looking to be featured in the popular plot.  The media world had turned full circle it seemed.  Even if the technical kit underlying it all would be unrecognisable to an engineer from the Eric & Ernie era - it's still commercial entertainment on a grand scale.  Since then, the launch of the BBC's  iPlayer (P2P!) has gone some way to giving people what they had been accessing illegally via Limewire or footy feeds.  And, Hulu, the iPlayer's US cousin run by NBC and Fox gained momentum by mixing a very groovy Ruby + Flash set up with a *shock horror* legal business model.  Meanwhile, iTV slowly builds its partnership with Microsoft to broadcast its content over the MS mega-web-structures.  And as 2008 is the year that the UK analogue signal begins to run down, the choices of viewing platforms is set to explode.  Hey, even Napster is back in its original form - but this time it's legal!  Clearly, the nature of new entertainment is different when it comes to levels of participation.  However, no one expects all TV viewing to become a participative experience.  And as Shirky points out, it only takes a small shift in the vast oceans of time spent glued to global re-runs of Friends for people to be freed up for the raising of experimental new global barns like Wikipedia.  So, is there really any point in talking traditional vs digital any more?  Even the purists are on board.  As the ever articulate Adliterate points out: "Never before has the primary determinant of consumer reach been consumer engagement rather than simply ratings. Only a few weeks into the launch of the Gorilla ad, the number of people that had seen the film was almost double the number that Cadbury’s had actually paid to see it."  Yes, the digital divide is now closed.  And this is where the story begins.

Think Pebbles Not Boulders

Networked media is all about small things.  A group of college buddies staying in touch via Facebook.  A lively community chat in the comments section of a blog.  The sharing of a family recipe in a forum.  Podcasted thoughts on the best musicians of a loved genre.  Documented gripes that other mis-sold souls can appreciate.  A trail of links displaying the interests of a hobbyist.  A stream of photos documenting a trip through foreign lands.  All personalised passions around which simple human discussion and connections can grow.  Sometimes these small gestures can become elevated and snowball into permanent specialised communities - or even going concerns.  However, they almost always start small and usually stay that way.  Which is fine.  Unless, of course, you're only interested in big.  And increasingly that's what brands and marketing want from the networked media space.  They want big built-in from the get-go.  Which is a problem.  Because the only way to get to big is to start small.  But most big companies aren't very good at small.  They are very good at big.  They have big teams operating big ideas on big platforms to reach big audiences.  All so that they can 'move the needle' on massive market shares where 'small' is actually gazillions of packets, dollars, sales or assets.  And if your primary view is through a big telescope pointing at the horizon you will probably ignore the small steps in front of you and start firing off howitzers into the distance.  So what to do?  In short, think pebbles - not boulders.  Resist the temptation to gather several hundred weight of concrete into a single block - and launch it at one networked media ocean or another.  Let go of the desire for a ROI mushroom cloud.  Instead, choose a pebble and skim it across a nearby pond.  Then do it again - making sure you watch the ripples that result. That way you can begin to understand the local waters and how the tides flow.  Of course, the really great thing is that this approach is 100 per cent scalable.  Just keep throwing pebbles.

This Message Is Real

Historically, marketing has been about crafting key messages and handing them over to creative teams to wrap up in powerful narratives.  This approach has worked well and in many cases still does.  However, increasingly, the style of the modern web is challenging this process.  People find the social web attractive because it's a very personal sphere where they can share the reality of their lives - without a key message in sight.  And that spontaneous vitality is tough for even the best creative departments to fake.  In other words, it’s difficult to craft 'real’.  But that hasn’t stopped some brands trying.  Take the latest social content from Coors Beers which has created a team of lads who hit venues and parties to demonstrate their beer-pouring skills.  “We brought the Coors Lights,” they announce before going onto perform tricks, including standing on the roof of a house and pouring beer into a glass 30 feet below.  Without spilling a single drop!  But despite their efforts to disguise the keyness of their key messages, they resonate with all the  authenticity of William Hague’s baseball cap.  “It’s not me, it’s the vented wide-mouthed can,” declares the leader of the Smooth Pour Crew.  However, the difficulties of brands trying to enter personal communication environments, such as YouTube, are really brought into sharp relief by the responses to the Coors film.  Because, of course, when people are left alone with beer they don’t run to the nearest bar or BBQ and demonstrate the product's key differentiators in an eccentric, quirky manner.  Nope, the reality is much more random.  For example they may try and disprove what you have told them - in an eccentric, quirky manner.  Or have a detailed technical discussion about how it could have been done better.  They may create imaginative ripostes.  Or ignore your key messages about the new style pouring top, and instead rip the bottom off and shotgun the contents.  And then run to the toilets to throw up.  They may provide product reviews using some very real language.  Or, natch, take your new can into the desert and destroy it with a semi-automatic weapon.  So what to do?  Well there are many exciting creative techniques that will work. However, above all, when it comes the modern web, be aware that while you may supply the beginning of the campaign, the rest of the world will provide the conclusion.

You Can't Make Money From Social Media - But They Can

The FT reports that "Web 2.0 fails to produce cash".  And it's right.  But only if viewed through the narrow lens of traditional media.  In theory, vast social networks offer buckets of reach and frequency.  Which in media terms means dollars.  But in practice the tiny CPMs don't add up - even when they are scaled across empires such as MySpace.  So the verdict is in.  Web 2.0 might be significant, but Cash 2.0 it is not.  However, if you take off those old-school media goggles for a second and look around, the world looks very different - and much more profitable.  Pro-Blogs, such as Boing-Boing and Craftzine, are gathering under ad networks like John Battelle's Federated Media and charging fat CPMs.  Likewise, Nick Denton's Gawker stable pulls in about $15m per year.  How about Last FM which is doing very nicely thank you selling tunes to its music community?  Or YouTube?  It may not be a lot of money compared to the shekel-printing machine that is AdWords - but it's declaring revenues of $100m this year.  Then there's SixApart which collects small monthly payments from millions of bloggers.  Or Flickr Pro accounts at $25 dollar per year?  Let's not forget Etsy with its 1 million dollar profit in '07.  Or SkinnyCorp's Threadless which is turning over $20m a year by helping its community create T-shirts and then whizzing up the ones they like.  And then there's Craig's List which will generate about $80m revenue in 2008 - with 25 staff and no business plan.  So the FT is right.  If you are counting the Web 2.0 beans using the same old metrics - it's not a place to make money.  However, if you are prepared to try a fresh view and some different dynamics - the modern web is full of treasures.

No One Is In Control - But That's OK

David Weinberger has a great habit of throwing light on thorny issues that arise on the modern web and does so again in this Supernova interview with observations such as: "Explicit governance is a second resort online."  It may  sound like a grand statement but it's quite the opposite.  He's simply saying that if it's not fairly clear what's going on in an online group or community after a few minutes - a rulebook probably won't help.  I think we all know the feeling.  You wonder into any social situation and instead of being given time to check out the surroundings and the people there, to see what they are saying and wearing, you are given some directions about how to enjoy yourself.  Certainly a good host to show you the ropes and explain what's happening can be very welcome, but being asked to spell your name, postcode and exact purpose upon arrival feels like Organised Fun.  In fact, encouraging people's willingness to participate in some way, even if that's just an invite to hang around, is better than handing out leaflets about preferred objectives.  "That's why lurking is so important," says Weinberger.  However, no one is saying you can't do anything to help an online network or community develop and grow.  It just requires putting your efforts into the right places.  If your community is flat and you want to encourage participation, more direction probably isn't the answer.  But a greater focus on visitors' behaviour, clear invites and permission to join in may do the trick.  And this all goes for design and coding too.  Focusing on an intuitive space is better than creating a chrome and glass box with extreme signage.  In short, Weinberger suggests, if your online social network is refusing to go social don't reach for the rulebook.  Take a deep breath, drop the clipboard and let The Ooomph Factor grow...

TBL At NESTA

I went to the NESTA Innovation Edge mega-bash yesterday and caught Sir Tim Berners-Lee making a great speech via an equally mega live video screen.  Firstly, he was asked about his reaction to seeing the feedback, 'Vague, but exciting,' on the first paper he wrote about the web, and revealed that this was in fact a personal note scribbled down by his boss Mike Sendall, and only discovered following his death ten years later.  He said the key to such an ambitious project growing was that, while no one had said yes to his revolutionary idea, neither did anyone say no.  He was just given time and space to play around with the notion of hypertext and to 'generalise' a specific problem ie how to let distributed machines share data.  Quoting Einsten, he said that if you know the outcome of a research project before you start then it's not really research.  So 'a long leash' and letting people play around is really important.  His focus is now understanding the different type of 'societies' appearing online and how they affect human behaviour.  Sir Tim then issued a word of warning about the 'stability' of some areas of the web including blogs - or 'social machines' as he calls them.  He wondered if they may eventually become flooded by commercial spam and go the way of email.  Looking ahead, Mr WWW went on to say that he hoped his invention would let people around the world share their thoughts and in doing so tackle some of the really big problems, including AIDS, climate change and poverty.  Or to 'connect humanity' and start a global creative process.  It's amazing to hear an individual talk of such esoteric ambitions and know that he has pretty much delivered!  And it was only afterwards that I realised he hadn't used a single technical term or piece of geekery.  He sounded more like a humanitarian than a technologist.  An amazing man with an amazing story.  (Whereas Johnnie enjoyed the one man life-force that is Geldof.)

So, Is Google Bigger Than TV?

"Let's not kid ourselves, Google is the most impressive and important development in the history of marketing since the invention of television. And I'm not overstating it," said John Battelle last week.  Now he may not be completely impartial but he's got a point.  Which is amazing not least because TV is an industry whereas Google is a single company.  A few figures make the point.  In the UK, it looks like more will be spent on web advertising than on TV ads next year.  And a good chunk of that will be Search revenues of which Google will trouser the lion's share - £1.75bn this year alone.  Or look at the the four main ad groups plying their TV trade.  IPG, WPP, Omnicom and Publicis are together are worth about $40bn currently - by market caps.  Whereas Google is worth more than four times that amount at $180bn.  And Google's revenues continue to grow at 40 per cent while the Big Four Agencies are happy with single figure growth.  Innovation wise ITV brings back Sir Trevor McDonald while Google tries to rewire the industry's business model by sucking it into the AdWords programme.  The only company with anything like the firepower to compete is Microsoft with a market cap that dwarfs even that of Brin & Page Inc - at $282bn.  However, in recent weeks we have seen that even Ballmer & Co has struggled to get to grips with the online media market that Google currently rules.

Spectrum Free TV

I met Miles 'LG15' Beckett last summer to chat over the launch of Kate Modern in the UK.  Gazillions of page views, millions of users and many rave reviews later, Beckett is seen as one of the pioneers in the morphing world of TV.  The LG15 team is now a company called EQAL which has just signed a deal with CBS to build on their vision of community-driven drama.  In the announcement, I was struck by the simplicity of Beckett's vision about what he does: “It’s incredibly exciting how you can take existing TV, make it interactive and create communities around it.”  Makes it sound easy doesn't he?  In my chat last year I was struck that, while it involved huge amounts of work by a group of very clever people, the plans for KateModern weren't complicated.  A couple of backers, some young actors, the starting point for a script, a flat in Whitechapel and some handheld cameras.  Oh, and a deal with Bebo on the back of the LG15 story.  But the really big thing, the broadcasting or spectrum to share stories with the world - that was a given.  It's a kind of if we've got it, we can share it mentality which is hard wired into the brains of webizens and everyone under the age of about 25.  Clay Shirky illustrates the point when he says that the hardest time he has with his students is explaining that (only) ten years ago, you couldn't instantly share your ideas with the world.  This is one of those far-reaching changes that can be difficult for people still stuck in a world of spectrum scarcity to fully understand.  Just compare the ease of Beckett's vision for a brave new world of TV with those of his now boss, CBS Interactive president, Quincy Smith said: “These guys have cracked the code.”  There's no doubt that Beckett and his crew are super-smart and have learnt a lot about the world of community-driven story telling, but I didn't get the impression that they think of themselves as code crackers.  They are just playing with the new toys available to us all.  And having fun along the way.