HORROR OR HYPOCRISY ?

The controversy swirling around CBS’s Survivor series move to pit different races against each other has provided a feeding frenzy for the media and has major corporate sponsors pulling out of the series.

I may be missing a point here but aren’t the Olympics, pitting one nation against another, country against country, tantamount to the same thing? Isn’t China against the United States, in the truest sense, a race competition? Israel against Saudi Arabia? Mexico against India?

For centuries, wars have been fought based upon cultural and racial differences, fueled by greed. The Olympics provided a safe playground for all nations to show their colors and standing in friendly world competitions.

We watch these competitions day in and day out, disguised as wrestling matches, movies, sports competitions and, yes, news.

Isn’t CBS merely providing yet another friendly “playground” as an outlet for competitive games? Let’s not make more of this than has existed since the first geographic boundaries were drawn.

CBS has its agenda for the series – ratings. How it goes about managing the selection of participants and competitions will be a challenge in and of itself. But, the network is also providing an opportunity, for those who believe in their cultural heritage, to shine.

Those who profess horror at the thought of what they accept wrapped in a different package need to sit and think of the hypocrisy of it all.

PING! – A RIVER IN THAILAND?

A relatively new startup out of San Jose just released a Beta version of its instant voicemail service delivered to any of your eMail contact lists. The company, PINGER (not the river in Thailand), is exclusively funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers.

Considered to be an “early adapter” I tapped into the site, registered and was up and running with several hundred contacts in just three minutes. The first voicemail was placed to my own eMail account at Gmail from my cellphone. The interface proved simple and easy to navigate. The pick-up on the other end was just as smooth with no prompting required by the recipient. Voice quality was surprisingly good.

Cost for the service, at least for now, is free. I suspect support in the form of text advertising will keep the service free for the most part with few, if any, complaints. Volume users will also be charged a fee for excess messages.

For now, it’s a novel way to send voice messages to a contact that might not otherwise want to be bothered by phone messages. Down the road, I can see its integration with a host of business applications. It can also be a boon to the visually impaired and those individuals that don’t have easy access to a PC.

Take Pinger for a spin …. www.pinger.com …. and PING! me with your comments.

OVER EASY, HOLD THE ADS


The versatility of the common egg, touted as a perfect food in a perfect package, was bound to hit Madison Avenue sooner or later.

A Boulder Colorado company, Egg Fusion, perfected a method to laser-etch the egg surface with expiration dates and, yes, marketing messages.

The CBS network will be among the first to use the technology to promote its Fall line-up. CSI – “Crack The Case”, The Amazing Race – “Scramble To Win On CBS” are but a hint of what we can “eggspect” this Fall.

Has Mad-ison Avenue gone too far? As a consumer, I resent the use of a food product that I purchased, with an “in-your-face” commercial message on it. If you want to place an ad on my property, then pay me for it --- or reduce the cost of the product. I can draw a close analogy to cookies placed on my hard-drive. Don’t put them there unless there is some kind of return or benefit in it for me….and ask me first.

The implied benefit in this instance is the ability to recognize an expiration date, etched in alongside the ad message. No thanks. Every carton carries that information on its side – I don’t need to be reminded twelve times.

The consumer will, ultimately decide if this is a passing fad. I trust the consumer.
As for CBS, it’s the perfect package -- Created By Sperm.

MONA LISA, STEP ASIDE

She's famous for her thin-lipped smile, hiding a secret only her creator knew. Today, it's no secret that Sandra Bernhard has no secrets.

When scheduled to board a plane post the recent security measures banning liquids, gels and, yes, lipsticks, she declared "try to take away my MAC PlushGlass and it's World War III!".

MAC brilliantly jumped on this to distribute a 2-minute video rant by Bernhard on the topic of lips. Who better?!

HIGH ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

AGENCY.GONE ?

As the pitch for the Subway Sandwich business moves forward, agency.com took a bold step forward in an attempt to let Subway's management peek under its covers and watch how an agency pulls its pitch team together.

It's a big gamble and likely a bigger mistake.

In a nine-plus minute video posted on YouTube, the agency serves up nothing more than a lame comedy routine a bunch of teens could have come up with. Getting behind the counter, serving up sandwiches as sandwich artists, the pitch team makes the process appear simple minded and non-professional. It's high school all over again.

The video itself proves to be boring, uneventful, complete with innuendos and insults. The management at Subway, in a smart move, made "no comment".

The seeming lack of organization on the part of agency.com to put its best foot forward can only help its competition. Wow me with consumer insights and buzz, research, and marketing prowess. Tell me about my competition. Show me how to leverage the dynamic shift in consumer marketing channels. Give me examples of success in my category. And create brilliant communications that embody these principles.

At the end of the day, agency.com did more to generate awareness of itself across tens of thousands of viewers. That's what they may have expected .... Ironically, it was attention drawn to a lousy execution.

Here's the video if you can stand it for nine minutes .... be patient while it loads.

HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW ?

There has been much controversy surrounding a move by The Wall Street Journal to accept advertising on Page One. Soon, The Journal will also “downsize” the dimensions of its print version to offset increased overhead.

These moves underscore the need to cauterize revenue declines, for the print version, in the face of falling circulation. The Journal does not stand alone as the New York Times is also facing downsizing.

Note: Critics against Page One advertising claim it will somehow lessen the integrity of the national newspaper, maintaining the need for separation of “church and state”. Have these critics taken a few moments to examine the ads that appear on the Home Page of their Internet counterparts? What makes an ad on Page One more disingenuous than and ad on the Home Page?


Most, if not all, of this maneuvering stems from the tremendous and increasing appetite for news delivered via the Internet. Print, in almost all forms, is suffering circulation declines. The downward trend will continue for some time.

Fortunately, traditional media giants are recognizing the need to integrate digital versions into their product suites. Rupert Murdoch is leading that charge for News Corp. while The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal Internet editions are experiencing surging revenue increases.

Managing cost containment on one side while investing on the other is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. The business model for an integrated company like the WSJ must change radically.

Radical Solution for The Wall Street Journal: Force a downward circulation base for the Journal by increasing the subscription cost for the printed version to $2500 ($10 / copy newsstand), eliminating all but the cream of the reader crop while, at the same time, increasing the CPM for these readers to increase margins. Ramp up the Internet ad rates, allowing for increases in unique visits and an extension for mobile delivery options.

CEO QUICKSAND



Can today’s CEO’s cope with or even understand the shifting sands of digital media?

The largest media giants have been taken by surprise as young, empowered entrepreneurs sway the young, tech savvy consumer to social networking sites like YouTube and MySpace.

Although these powerhouse sites, capturing millions of users each day, have begun to overshadow even the major portals, and they have yet to introduce a business model that will wow! Wall Street, it becomes crystal clear that media is now a dynamic and fluid environment that will not bow to the traditional formats.

Keeping pace with almost rapid-fire changes in media delivery channels has the major media brands scrambling to grab their share of the future.

News Corp is still trying to understand what the tiger-by-the-tail, with its MySpace acquisition, is all about. It’s NOT your father’s newspaper anymore!

MTV is looking over its shoulder at YouTube, looking for its own version as it cries “video is our expertise …. We’re looking at acquisitions and builders”. And by the time it makes an investment, we are already onto yet another platform programmed by a few whiz kids in a garage.

With few exceptions, the visionaries in our business have strayed off their path. The next play and the play after that in the digital game is about the consumer …. the ability to easily search a world of information / entertainment and control the way it’s received…. paid or otherwise.

We can wrap the delivery of that information in a fancy package complete with ad messages …. and it will matter less. What will matter is how the commercialization of the delivery channel, whatever it may be, is accepted. That is the Holy Grail that today’s CEOs should keep their eyes on.

Shedding traditional methods can be a difficult and sometimes an impossible task when corporate America needs to be accountable to stockholders breathing down their necks. Most are averse to risk-taking, especially when risk is placed squarely on the shoulders of those who might be half, or even one third the CEOs age. I’ll proffer, however, that clinging to old ways saw the downturn in Newspaper, Magazine and TV revenues and glacial, albeit late, shifts in strategy to downsize the old to make room for the new.

Digital media will displace, not replace, traditional media. It will also play a major role in defining what advertising is and is not.

Fuggetabout IT !

The newest eBay ad campaign touts “Whatever it is, you can get it on eBay” in a variety of boring commercials.

In my book, IT always stood for Information Technology and was originally promoted as such in an ad campaign by Fortune Magazine in the early 90’s. Fortune positioned the magazine against a business / technology community with phrases like ….

What is IT?
Who wants IT?
Where is IT?
How can I get IT?

…. in both print ads and video shorts.

And just recently, Gatorade launched its version with “Gatorade IT”. “It’s here, it’s everywhere.”

We’ll I’m not buying IT. It is now about as overdone as “the art of….” tagline in countless ads.

Will the real creative geniuses step forward, give IT up and come up with more creative approaches.

Oh…by the way …. Type www.ebay.it into your browser and you’ll wind up in the eBay, Italy domain!!

BLACK OR WHITE ? The posting of a billboard in Amsterdam for Sony's Playstation with a controversial image and the copy .... "Playstation Portable. White is coming.", is unquestionably not for the US market. It is the first in a series of many images that play on the choice between a black or a white case for the PSP. Clearly a creative, if not brilliant, debut for Sony's campaign will evoke emotion. Sometimes harsh, sometimes quizzical and often shock and outrage. One comes to realize the creative genius as the series of images plays out ... sometimes Black as the aggressor and sometimes White as the aggressor. Kudo's to the creative team at TBWA and the marketing team at Sony.