Facebook Launches New Features for Music, Movies, and More

Expansion of media offerings creates new advertising opportunities 

Following months of speculation, Facebook announced "a new class" of applications today at its F8 developer conference in San Francisco. The apps allow Facebook to make music, movies, and other media a more integral part of the social network. They're not exactly a Facebook Music service, but they're pretty close, and in some ways more ambitious.


Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the apps allow a new setof actions for Facebook users. So instead of just
hitting the "like"button, users can tell friends that they're reading an article,watching a movie, or listening to a
song. And that, in turn, opens upnew  opportunities for interaction—users could see, on Facebook


Facebook has been building up to these changes with a redesigned newsfeed, which has already created some controversy. The new changes will probably lead to more. Asked what he would say to users who feel Facebook doesn't listen to their concerns, Zuckerberg said, "I think we actually do." He noted that some of the new features have been in testing for several months, and that the additions will continue to be tweaked based on user feedback.


"At the same time, I think the world is moving quickly, and we want to be innovative," he said.


There's a long list of music services that have built apps using Facebook's new capabilities, including MOG, Rdio, and Slacker. Zuckerberg said all of them understand that "the key to making the music business work isn't trying to block you from listening to songs you haven't bought." Instead, these apps give people opportunities to find more music, which in turn makes them want to buy more music. Zuckerberg reserved special praise for startup Spotify, which he said has done a "particularly good job" of building a social music service. In fact, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings (who ison Facebook's board of directors) were the only two people from outside Facebook who were invited to speak onstage.


The new apps aren't limited to media. Many of the other examples that Zuckerberg offered onstage involved lifestyle apps; sharing exercise routines via Nike+ or foods via Foodspotting, for example. And Facebook can (hopefully) share more activity without overwhelming users by using that new newsfeed. The main feed highlights the most interesting activity from a user's friends, with a small ticker on the upper right showing "lightweight" activity as it happens, including items from most of the new apps.


After the main event, Gokul Rajaram, the product director for Facebook's ads, toldAdweek that the new apps will allow Facebook to "evolve" its advertising program. As Facebook users start sharing more of their activities, advertisers can turn those actions into "sponsored stories." So instead of just creating an ad showing a user that his or her friend likes the band Coldplay, a record label could create an ad that would include the specific Coldplay song the friend had been listening to on Spotify. Advertisers could also see an influx of new, more specific data with which to target their ads.


In an email, Forrester analyst Sean Corcoran said Facebook's developments "not only help trump rival Google, but will open up new opportunities for marketers with new kinds of customer experiences, long-term engagement, advertising, and customer intelligence."


In addition to the new apps, Facebook also announced a feature called Timeline, which allows users to share more of their personal history—even, possibly, their entire life—on the site. Zuckerberg said that the original Facebook profile represented the "first five minutes" of your conversation with someone you've never met, while more recent versions have expanded that to the first 15 minutes. With the Timeline, Zuckerberg said, the profile is able to go even deeper.

How Orabrush Got National Walmart Deal with YouTube Videos, $28 in Facebook Ads

Telling Walmart Employees They Have Bad Breath Leads to Distribution in 3,500 stores

Can a startup marketer of tongue cleaners get national distribution through funny YouTube videos and $28 worth of Facebook ads telling Walmart employees they have bad breath? Apparently, yes.

Orabrush, has had more than 39 million views and 160,000 subscribers on its YouTube channel but, until recently, very little distribution. This month, it's entered 3,500 Walmart stores -- without its executives ever stepping foot in the retail giant's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters or meeting a buyer face-to-face. Here's how, at least according to Orabrush, which has a video outlining the process:

Founded in 2009 in Salt Lake City, Orabrush last year was contacted by a Walmart store manager in Utah who wanted to give the product a try in his store. Under a policy revived under Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon, the manager had the authority to do so. He in turn persuaded about 20 others in Utah after a store tour to try Orabrush, which used the data from those sales to try to land a deal with the buyer at Walmart headquarters.

But not the typical way. Utah data or no, it was still hard to get an audience with the buyer. So Orabrush Chief Marketing Officer Jeffrey Harmon earlier this year bought $28 worth of Facebook ads targeted at Walmart employees in Northwest Arkansas reading: "Walmart employees have bad breath. Walmart needs to carry Orabrush. It will sell better than anything in your store."

The $28 spent on Facebook proved a lot more effective than $20,000 in print ads in retail trade magazines, which only generated calls from other trade magazine sales reps, Mr. Harmon said.

Within 48 hours, he got an e-mail from the buyer, who said her VP also had seen it and believed it was being directed at Walmart employees nationwide. The buyer, after also seeing a DVD and sales kit on the Orabrush story, placed an order for 735,000 tongue cleaners shipped last month.

(Orabrush also has a redacted version of the DVD content posted on YouTube).

A Walmart spokeswoman confirmed the distribution in 3,500 stores, but said she couldn't immediately confirm details of the negotiations or how the deal came about.

Mr. Harmon said it was never the plan to begin national distribution at Walmart, but "Walmart, because of their local program, are now more mobile than a lot of the smaller chains. They can learn faster and adapt."

National distribution with CVS begins next month, he said, and Orabrush already has distribution in the U.K., Japan and Canada, thanks largely to its YouTube following, Mr. Harmon said.

In part, the strategy harks to a bygone era in packaged-goods marketing -- the 1950s -- when marketers would force distribution by first turning on advertising and getting consumers to pressure retailers. Inquiries from consumers who saw the exploits of Orabrush's "Morgan the Tongue" on YouTube, for example, led U.K. retailer Boots to place an order, Mr. Harmon said.

"We have a reverse marketing model, which means everything is backward from how you would normally launch a product," he said. "Normally you get distribution and your supply chain in order, all your packaging and everything perfected, and then launch an ad campaign and start branding it. We started branding, even changing our logo as we went along and getting everything right messaging wise, and then two years later we're in national retail launching to enough demand that the sales are blowing a lot of retailers away."

That has led to such oddities as nearly 40 million YouTube views, 300,000 Facebook fans for a brand that has sold only about 2 million units, mainly online. Orabrush also has generated about 30 million media impressions through coverage in such outlets as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and ABC "Nightline."

Mr. Harmon acknowledged that the tongue-cleaner business has been small and mostly unsuccessful for retailers up to now, leading to some skepticism. But he said YouTube has worked to get Orabrush distribution, and he'll stick with it to move product off the shelf, too. All the YouTube (and other) advertising has been done in house, mainly with student film makers from Mr. Harmon's alma mater, Brigham Young University.

Watching TV While Gulping Mountain Dew: A Fascinating Look at the Shows Dewheads Tweet About Most

'Problem Solverz,' 'Dude, What would Happen?' and 'Empire Records' Get Them Talking

Last week in this space I shared some interesting data about advertising-as-media -- data generated exclusively for Ad Age by Bluefin Labs, which looked at the social-media response to two "Summer Time is Pepsi Time" spots. I was interested in the fact that people who are engaged with social media are prone to treating both TV shows and the commercials that air during them as, well, content -- content worth commenting about. (As I pointed out last week, while everyone in the business continues to obsess about time-shifting via DVR, Hulu, etc., most people still watch TV shows when the networks first air them.)

Cambridge, Mass.-based Bluefin's expertise is in providing brands, agencies and media companies with real-time TV-audience insights through social-media analysis. It's been building a massive database called the TV Genome, which it defines as "data created by mapping social-media commentary back to its stimulus on TV." The science behind Bluefin's research is pretty heady -- Deb Roy, Ph.D., the co-founder and CEO of the company, is director of the Cognitive Machines Group at the MIT Media Lab -- but it gets really interesting (and accessible) when you dive in looking for relationships and affinities.

The chart below represents an exclusive first look at a fresh-out-the-labs Bluefin data-mining project. It shows brand-to-show affinity: what the people who talk the most about a particular brand -- in this case, Mountain Dew -- in social media (primarily on Twitter and Facebook) have also been talking about when it comes to TV shows that have aired year-to-date. Some notes:

• First, you may be wondering what exactly people tend to say about Mountain Dew in the social-media sphere. I was curious myself, so I culled several examples from Twitter this morning: @earthtoanneh: "Things i've bought this holiday: mountain dew, mountain dew, bag for ipad, mountain dew. #yay"; @wh0isjack: "Mountain Dew > Every other beverage"; @miaashamiss: "They don't have mountain dew?! Oh, my god. What am I supposed to drink?!"; @rstevens: "Captain Beefheart, Mountain Dew and Photoshop. Any sufficiently late work night is indistinguishable from college." (I can definitely relate to that last one.) It's pretty clear that people who think to tweet about Mountain Dew are generally fans and consumers of the product.

• According to Bluefin, over 2,700 different shows (including made-for-TV and theatrically-released movies) have aired in prime time across all U.S. broadcast and cable networks year-to-date. Which means the top 15 shows below -- the shows Mountain Dew commenters commented about the most -- comprise a very select list. The rings of the circle represent the social-TV rating scale: If a spoke tip approaches the outermost ring -- if a blue-green line is long -- it means that the show has a high level of social-media engagement in general (not just among Dewheads); short spokes represent a low level of social-media engagement in general. The 1-through-15 numbers rank the shows most commented on by Dewheads, with the Cartoon Network's comedic cartoon "The Problem Solverz" in the No. 1 spot.

• In the case of Mountain Dew, the top 15 affinity show all have middle-of-the-road social-TV ratings -- which means that although people who are prone to comment about Mountain Dew are also excited about commenting on these particular shows, the general population of TV viewers is not nearly so excited about doing so.

• The tightest clustering for Mountain Dew commenters is around comedy shows. This isn't a huge surprise -- Mountain Dew is positioned as an irreverent brand with a goofy, quasi-comedic subtext (and of course Mountain Dew buys advertising time on irreverent networks and shows) -- but taken together with the other shows and the kinds of movies Dew commenters comment about when they air on TV (including indie-ish coming-of-age flick "Empire Records," the Mickey Rourke drama "The Wrestler" and the Johnny Knoxville comedy "The Ringer"), you can get an almost instantaneous sense of the psychographic at play here.

• "We see different dynamics across different brands, even when they're in the same sector," Bluefin's Tom Thai tells me. "For example, the Diet Coke brand has tight clustering around reality shows, while Sprite has tight clustering around movies."

Gillette Paints, Then Shaves, a Giant Grassy Roger Federer

Gillette has gone from grooming to landscaping in England, where it painted, and then shaved, a huge portrait of Roger Federer in a field. The concept of the stunt, which promotes Gillette's Fusion ProGlide razors, was helped along by the company's Facebook community, who obviously enjoyed Federer's trick-shot video from a while back. The whole thing's a bit silly, frankly—a far cry from the recent Derek Jeter billboard in New York City, which shaved the Yankee captain daily. The only upside is that the giant grass-Federer has slightly more personality than the real thing. Anyway, Gillette won't really impress me until they try to shave Larry Charles. Via Copyranter.

                                

ABC News Takes An Investigative Look At Facebook’s Face Recognition Service

This is pretty interesting…. every photo that you upload to Facebook is analyzed and stored in their database which some say violates privacy standards and so forth. Watch this report!

Facebook Is Losing UsersA drop in membership, but why?

By Kari Lipschutz
Courtesy of Adweek.com

In January of this year, we were faced with an inexplicable phenomenon. Birds were falling dead from the sky. Now we may be faced with a similarly baffling conundrum. Facebook is losing users.


According to Inside Facebook, a news service dedicated to tracking Facebook trends, the social networking site lost 6 million of its American users last month, bringing the U.S. total to 149.4 million and marking the first drop in membership in more than a year. Canada, the U.K., Norway, and Russia also experienced losses. Despite continued growth in worldwide membership numbers, the loss of users in early adopter countries could be a harbinger of things to come.

Facebook Insider observed that membership growth in a country tends to grind to a halt once half of the country’s total population is logging on. There aren’t many teased out explanations to the phenomenon just yet, but short attention spans for technology and increasing frustrations with privacy controls could be plausible causes.

LinkedIn Takes Its Shot at Facebook, Going Live With Shares and Sign-ins

LinkedIn's just launched its new platform to everyone online interested in hooking up to the business networking site's APIs. Useful stuff, for some, but what it's really about is trying to usurp Facebook in the enterprise social networking space.

Back in October, LinkedIn revealed some of its plans when it gave "over a thousand developers" early access to a new Javascript-based platform that would let third parties integrate more closely with LinkedIn's extensive business-based social graph. Since then, the site's had this team give the platform a rigorous test, and has now decided it's fit for general consumption for anyone who wishes to hook up to LinkedIn. In addition, there's also a suite of home-brewed plugins that can be customized and included on third party sites with "minimal effort."

LinkedIn says it's all about "building the professional Web," or, rather, aping some of Facebook's existing features and making it easy for developers to access LinkedIn's data in order to try to beat Facebook to creating a social network for the business world.

The new platform, according to LinkedIn's announcement, will bring "professional identity and insights" into third-party sites and applications. Hence, there's a plugin to let sites show their visitors if other people they're linked with professionally have also visited this particular site, and a widget that lets third-party sites contain supplementary data about companies they mention--borrowed directly from LinkedIn's extensive database of company information.

But it's three specific features that give away LinkedIn's true game: "Sign in with LinkedIn," "Share" and "Recommend." The first is yet another attempt to create a common login system for multiple websites that users may be a member of--handy for third-party sites who could benefit from a simpler login system, and useful for LinkedIn because it'll garner more exposure if third party sites do adopt it. "Share" is evidently a way for LinkedIn to tap into the other social networking memes that're out there--it's a "button which enables users to share your website with LinkedIn's professional audience." This is LinkedIn's take on a StumbleUpon, of sorts, for more serious business-related web content. Then there's "Recommend," which is "a button which enables users to recommend your products and drive traffic back to you." Does that sound like a Facebook "like" to you?

It ought to, because that's what all of this is for--to establish a bigger footprint for LinkedIn online, with deeper integration into third-party sites and services and thus more "value" delivered, which should drive more traffic to LinkedIn. It's trying to become the enterprise Facebook, and there're enough tools and bells and whistles in this new code to give the plan an actual shot at it. Maybe there's room in the social-media world for three big players: LinkedIn to keep up with work-related social interactions, Facebook for personal fun, and Twitter for news updates and rapid information sharing.

Electronic Arts CEO Riccitiello: Gaming Is the New Mass Media

Mobile Put Booster Rockets on an Already Ascending Business, EA Chief Says at Ad Age Digital Conference


To kick off Ad Age Digital Conference in New York, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello introduced the new mass media: gaming.
 

EA, the creator of game favorites such as "Madden," "FIFA" and "Battlefield," projects there will be 3 billion gamers globally by next year, up from 1.5 billion now and 200 million in 2000. EA itself has 230 million consumers on its web and game properties.


"As a marketer for many years, I've asked myself the question: Where has my target audience gone?" said Mr. Riccitiello. "They've migrated to gaming."

But gaming is a different sort of medium. While consumers often use the web or mobile devices while watching TV, gaming seems to keep more of consumers' attention. From self-reported media habits, EA found consumers don't text message, surf the web and watch TV while they're gaming. "People don't really do anything else when they're playing games, they're focused on it," Mr. Riccitiello said. "Multitasking is almost nonexistent while gaming."

By hours spent, gaming also trumps most major web properties. U.S. consumers spend 15 million hours per week gaming vs. 9.5 million hours on AOL.

The gaming industry started to go mainstream 10 years ago and, as a marketer, that's when EA began to run mass TV campaigns, Mr. Riccitiello said. "That's when it turned from a niche into something short of a mass market," he said. "It felt like a real industry, something that really mattered."

But that growth is skyrocketing now, largely thanks to exploding smartphone sales, which put a gaming platform in millions more consumers' pockets. "Anyone with a phone can play a game," he said. Gaming is the No. 1 category in the iPhone, iPad and Android app stores. It's also the top app category on Facebook. Even the first game offered on the grey-screened Kindle outsold the top book.

Watch live streaming video from adage at livestream.com

"Where we were once an industry that talked about having attention and lacking reach, we now have that attention and staggering reach," he added.


EA is now trying to figure out how to be both a major entertainment marketer -- keep an eye out for $100 million-plus campaign for the "Call of Duty" competitor "Battlefield 3.0" this holiday season -- and a major media company.

"We're at the very early stage as gaming as a media," Mr. Riccitiello said. "The numbers support that it should be, but frankly we've been more focused on selling our apps than our audience."

Barack Obama, when he was a distant third in the primaries during the last presidential election, took out ads in EA games such as the "Madden" and "NHL" franchises to reach youth. "That obviously worked out for him," said Mr. Riccitiello. EA is also using its own properties to promote its own brands, which will see 25 new products introduced in the next year.

But EA is still working on how best to work with advertisers, Mr. Riccitiello admitted, which means advertisers can enjoy bargains on new programs.

"It's not easy -- it's not selling a commercial on TV or fashion ads in a magazine," he said. "At this point in time, you can do really unique things. But those opportunities are going to be bloody expensive in three years. We don't know how to price them now. If you want to make a name for yourself to doing something bigger and better, you can make an impact here."

GUCCI TIMEPIECES & JEWELRY ANNOUNCES NEW PRESERVATION PROGRAM WITH THE RECORDING ACADEMY® AND THE GRAMMY MUSEUM®

Exclusive Collaboration to Preserve One of the Most Important Musical Finds in Recent Years



BASEL, Switzerland and SANTA MONICA, Calif. (March 24, 2011) — In light of the three-year partnership between Gucci and The Recording Academy® — and the successful launch of the Gucci GRAMMY® timepiece and jewelry collection — the two partners have teamed up to help preserve one of the most important musical finds in recent years.

The GRAMMY Museum® at L.A. Live is leading the effort in assessing a Muzak archive that was recently discovered in a warehouse in South Carolina. The archives included more than 20,000 never-released master recordings of American music dating back to 1934, from jazz to early spiritual. Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry is the first partner to help the GRAMMY Museum support the preservation of this historical musical discovery. The effort will be focused on determining the best way to house, digitize and ultimately release the collection to the public.

"It's remarkable that an entire chapter of never-released American music has been discovered in this way," said GRAMMY Museum Executive Director Bob Santelli. "To have the opportunity to release these recordings and help tell their story is an honor. Gucci's preservation efforts in other domains, such as film restoration, fit perfectly with The GRAMMY Museum's commitment to celebrate the legacy of recorded music. We are thrilled to be working with the Gucci team on this important project."

Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry and The Recording Academy presented the exciting new project today in Basel, Switzerland, in addition to announcing a Gucci GRAMMY traveling exhibit with interactive features and items from the GRAMMY Museum, including information on the preservation program. Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy, and Santelli joined Gucci CEO Patrizio Di Marco and Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry President Michele Sofisti in announcing the new collaboration.

About Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry

Gucci Timepieces has been designing, developing and manufacturing iconic Gucci watches since the early 1970s. Taking advantage of the worldwide recognition of the Florentine house – and its unique duality in brand positioning, pairing modernity and heritage, innovation and craftsmanship, trendsetting and sophistication – Gucci Timepieces is one of the most reliable and consistent fashion watch brands, with a clear design approach and positioning. Made in Switzerland, Gucci watches are recognized for their design, quality and craftsmanship and are distributed worldwide through the exclusive network of directly operated Gucci boutiques and selected watch distributors. Since January 2010, Gucci Timepieces has also been distributing the Gucci Jewelry collections, capitalizing on the expertise gained in the watch sector and leveraging the synergies between the watch and jewelry industries. For more information about Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry, please visit http://www.guccitimeless.com/.

About The Recording Academy

Established in 1957, The Recording Academy is an organization of musicians, producers, engineers and recording professionals that is dedicated to improving the cultural condition and quality of life for music and its makers. Internationally known for the GRAMMY Awards — the preeminent peer-recognized award for musical excellence and the most credible brand in music — The Recording Academy is responsible for groundbreaking professional development, cultural enrichment, advocacy, education and human services programs. The Academy continues to focus on its mission of recognizing musical excellence, advocating for the well-being of music makers and ensuring music remains an indelible part of our culture. For more information about The Academy, please visit www.grammy.com. For breaking news and exclusive content, join the organization's social networks as a follower on Twitter at www.twitter.com/thegrammys, a Facebook fan at www.facebook.com/thegrammys, and a channel subscriber at www.youtube.com/thegrammys.

Media Contacts:

Katia Cicconetti

GUCCI Timepieces and Jewelry

+41 32 732 05 55

katia.cicconetti@ch.gucci.com


Jaime Sarachit

The Recording Academy

+1 310.392.3777

jaime.sarachit@grammy.com

SUPER BOWL XLV :: "THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WHAT WERE THEY TRYING TO CONVEY EFFECT"

The Pittsburgh Steelers vs Green Bay Packers 2010-2011 Super Bowl XLV has made a lasting impression for at least the next 12 months and we are not just talking about the 31-24 victory by the Cheese Heads.

Advertisers, Account Executives, Copy Writers, Production Companies, Graphic Designers and Story Boarders have worked long and hard to launch campaigns by the Global Media platform provided by the National Football League and the FOX network.

According to USA Today's Ad Meter, Doritos and Bud Light tied for first of all Super Bowl XLV advertising.

In my personal opinion I think Audi and Chrysler provided the BEST Super Bowl XLV spots. The use of celebrity didn't really help marketers as it has in past years on the BIG GAME DAY.

Snickers should have saved the money and pulled out from the Super Bowl or used a totally different agency or a different creative strategy that would keep consumers engage into the brand. After the AMAZING success of the Betty White spot, I think the should have re-routed consumers to a digital platform maybe utilizing Facebook or an original domain that would've allowed users to take a deeper look into their Super Bowl XLV preparation and execution.  VOTE: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING

Sketchers and Kim Kardashian; though relevant to her brand and loosely-based from her past personal mishaps, I think it was too little, too late to actually resonate with target demographic in which the Sketchers was looking to capture. Though Kim was in a gym setting it gave no relevance to the actual product in which they are trying to sell. VOTE: BAD

In the world of Social Media (Twitter, Four Square, Facebook, etc...) I think only few marketers took an effective post Super Bowl XLV approach to give their brand and/or campaign extended life.

Audi "Release The Hounds" spot was very direct, reflective of the demographic (age, income, celebrity integration and music) in which they looking to target. Implementing the likeness and music of adult contemporary and smooth jazz saxophonist "Kenny G" was right on time as well as sitting the product "Audi A8" next to it's main U.S. competitor the Mercedes S500 allowed viewers to spark an instant conversation and/or debate in why they would choose Audi over Mercedes and allowed them to back their arguments up with simple but effective extensive online execution and information. VOTE: GOOD

Chevrolet "Miss Evelyn"



Have you ever had a conversation with a buddy about how you would make a great Super Bowl ad if you just had the chance and the budget? Answer: YES... Well Chevy Camaro's new 2011 Super Bowl TV spot titled 'Miss Evelyn' does just that, as the fun ad features the running commentary of a couple of armchair ad execs ideas come to life. A clever idea as the spot has everything a Super Bowl car commercial should have; sexy girls, a desert scene with mirrors, a cool car chase threw city streets with helicopters and hay bails, and a slow motion shot of the Chevy Camaro flying off a building. But all great ads need a twist, and in this ending we all get schooled. VOTE: GOOD


Credits:


Advertising Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners,

Co-Chairman/Creative Directors: Jeff Goodby, Rich Silverstein

Executive Creative Director: Hunter Hindman, Rick Condos

Copywriter: Alex Flint

Art Director: Dino Spadavecchia

Producers: Susan Crimley, TJ Kearney

Better spots not beyond reach

Chevrolet also leverage it's partnership with the Transformer's movie franchise and the NFL MVP Award to effectively position it's self as a leader in American Auto-Makers.


THOUGHTS FROM ADAGE.com..... AND I AGREE 100%

Treasure was hard to find in last night's Bowl, it's true, but there were definitely some pieces of gold among the dross. Wieden & Kennedy helped power both Coca-Cola and Chrysler to memorable commercials. In one Wieden Coke ad, a small bottle of Coke helps de-power a fiery dragon who is about to lay waste to an entire populace, and in the Chrysler spot, the automaker ties itself not only to the fading metropolis of Detroit, but also to themes of economic recovery and getting up after taking a punch. You can't import a car from Detroit if you live in America, as Chrysler suggested last night, but it's fascinating that Chrysler has enough chutzpah to think its cars are worthy of such an image.

The list goes on. Volkswagen won the sentimental vote with its depiction of a young child as Darth Vader. The NFL effectively plucked nostalgia with its culled-from-dozens-of-family-sitcoms montage (although one wonders if fans will remember the good feelings conveyed by this ad if players' and owners' contract fight cancels games next season).

Simply put, Pepsi and Anheuser may have won the Ad Meter, but they seem to have lost the war. The Volkswagen and Chrysler ads are the talk of the town this morning, not the frat-boy antics that Pepsi and Anheuser dusted off the shelf yesterday and pretended were new.

Maybe the Super Bowl simply doesn't fit either company's mission and marketing method as much as it once did.

'Refresh' remembered better than ads

Pepsi pulled all its beverages out of the big game last year, citing the social-media, good-feelings-themed "Refresh" campaign it was launching. The company got as much as if not more attention for doing so than it might have gotten if it ran ads in last year's Super Bowl.

Anheuser, for its part, is now controlled by a much bigger, overseas brewer, and these days seems uncomfortable talking about the image that the old Anheuser-Busch spent decades building. What does it say that the best Budweiser ad last night featured the company's iconic Clydesdales making a brief cameo, but not taking up the main storyline?

A Super Bowl without Pepsi or Budweiser? Why, it sounds un-American. But it might be more fun to watch -- and give millions of viewers more advertising that's truly worth their time and, yes, later consideration.\

By Brian Steinberg


All in all I think these large corporations that hire these "power house shops" should look to pull creatives from college students and smaller shops who often get over-looked when it's time to take the big stage. Though they might be used for online, on-the-ground and experiential programs these inviduals are in the green room waiting to on their names to be called so that they have an opportunity to play on the big field instead of the practice squad.

I think last year's Super Bowl ad's took a better approach to it's programs and executions beyond the TV platform. They gave the consumer to do quick at home research with the use of social media platforms. I also think that the use of celebrity is outdated though at times if done right can be very effective. In a time where our economy is still in the hole the average consumer can not relate to certain celebrities using certain products. i.e. When was the last time TMZ spotted Kim Kardashian purchasing or even jogging in a pair of Sketchers.

FIRST ON FACEBOOK

Interpublic Group looked on smiling recently as the global financial elite clamored for a portion of the Goldman Sachs’ private placement shares in Facebook. The offering was rapidly oversubscribed, but IPG is enjoying the benefits of an early strategic interest that has quietly turned into a financial windfall.


In June, 2006, IPG paid under $5 million for a stake of less than half a percent in Facebook, a holding now worth around $200 million based on Goldman Sachs’ $50 billion valuation, sources said. They noted that much of IPG’s stake in Facebook has been undiluted since that original purchase.

Sources have also said IPG had no real idea of the growing value of the Facebook investment until October 2007, when Microsoft paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in the company.

When IPG invested in Facebook, it was just over two years old and still limited to college and high-school students, with only around 8 million users. (IPG employees remember dredging up edu e-mail addresses just to access the site.) At the time, IPG chief executive Michael Roth said the investment presented an opportunity to understand a new media, saying, “Young and tech-savvy consumers are increasingly shunning traditional media vehicles and defining themselves and their community online.”

As part of its original commitment to Facebook in 2006, IPG also committed $10 million in advertising support. “It was the pre-Beacon Facebook era and they were knocking on a lot of agency doors. That amount was very important to them back then,” recalled a source.

Interpublic agencies quickly learned that “boring, plain-vanilla display ads” weren’t working on Facebook, remembered one source. Instead, IPG companies began experimenting with other ideas. Lowe, for instance, created the site’s first game-like approach for client Sharp, with its “Life Changing Box” and electronics prizes.

“Our early association with Facebook was a strategic decision. We didn’t take the stake as an investment alone,” said Roth.

'BIG TWEET' STARRING BRANDON T. JACKSON & SYDNEY POITIER

Big Tweet from Brandon T Jackson

Up-and-coming actors Brandon T. Jackson and Sydney Poitier (yes, daughter of Sidney) star in this short about the ultimate face-off between Twitter and Facebook. Check out the synopsis below.

Big Tweet’s power on Twitter has become a threat to celebrities, advertising agencies, network television & Twitter’s main competitor, Facebook. Online followers are the new currency. And Big Tweet has them all. A billion. Whatever he says is heard. By millions. And his unmatched internet influence has now made him (and his main girl) the number one target of the corporate underworld and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Big Tweet and his girl are about to be DELETED! Ordered by an underground secret corporate society, a group of Mexican gangsters have been hired to kidnap Big Tweet and his girl. Their mission is simple: they must delete them both.

Facebook Poses Serious Threat to Google

New analysis claims search giant's traffic, revenue dominance in trouble

Facebook poses a serious threat to Google’s Web traffic and revenue dominance. And Google needs to respond by aggressively targeting the mobile search ad market. This is according to a report issued on Monday (Jan. 3) by J.P. Morgan analyst Imran Khan.


Khan noted Google’s continued prowess in monetizing online searches; the company handles 66 percent of search queries in the U.S. and generates 36 percent of all U.S. online ad revenue.

Facebook—which just received a massive $500 million cash infusion from Goldman Sachs—reached 70 percent of the U.S. Internet audience in 2010, up from 48 percent in 2009, per the report. Google’s U.S. reach climbed from 79 percent to 81 percent over the same time period.

But Google’s prominence as a traffic source is waning. According to Khan’s report, in 2009 Google accounted for 20 percent of Amazon.com’s traffic. Last year that number dipped to 19.6 percent.

Yet over the same period of time, the percentage of Amazon traffic coming from Facebook jumped from 1.8 percent to 7.7 percent. A similar pattern occurred for The New York Times’ Web site and eBay. Overall in 2010, Khan noted, “We think that Facebook is becoming the tollbooth of the Web, [and] Facebook Connect is the new discovery engine."

So what should Google do to fight back? Attack mobile search, a place where no clear leader exists and Google has underperformed to date. Per the report, 15 percent of Google’s search traffic comes from mobile, yet just 3 percent of its revenue is derived from mobile searches. Meanwhile, there are 233 million mobile phone users in the U.S., according to the report, and just 18 percent of those are smartphones—a category that is growing rapidly. Smartphone users are three times as likely to browse the Web via their phones, according to comScore.


“We’re bullish on [Google’s] ad growth…but it will be very hard for them to grow fast in this market [as in recent years],” said Khan. “Mobile could offset some of their challenges.”

Display will also provide Google with a boost in 2011, predicted Khan. In fact, the analyst sees display advertising growing 13 percent this year, at the same rate as search.

While the display ad space has suffered from a prolonged inventory glut over the past several years, which has placed downward pressure on CPMs, “we think we’ve turned the corner,” said Khan. Why? Advertisers are gravitating to more brand sponsorships and more data-driven targeted ads.

Overall, J.P. Morgan forecasts that advertisers will spend $18.7 billion on search ads in 2011 and $10.2 billion on display ads. One company that has to worry about threats to its search and display business: Yahoo, which faces “tremendous risk” in 2011, said Khan.

Besides social and mobile, Khan identified the TV marketplace as an area facing tremendous change in 2011—particularly as consumers embrace more direct means of accessing premium content—or as Khan termed it “over the top” video consumption, with Netflix being the prime example.

Instead of fighting the trend, Khan urged content producers and distributors to partner with the Netflixes of the world, or launch competing services, because consumers are increasingly disloyal to the current cable model. J.P. Morgan found in its research that nearly a quarter of pay TV subscribers would consider cord cutting.

Another trend to watch for in 2011 is the mergers and acquisitions market for digital. Per Khan, Microsoft and Apple alone have $150 billion in cash that could be used for acquisitions.

Lastly, Khan pointed to local online advertising as a sector to watch this year. While overall local advertising represents a healthy $82 billion market, just 15 percent of those dollars went to the Web, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson.

Facebook Second to Google in Driving Video Traffic

Facebook now drives more Web video traffic than any other Internet property other than Google. Most video is consumed during the week, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. But people watch longer videos on the weekends, with the lengthiest Web-video sessions happening via videogame consoles rather than PCs or mobile devices.


Those are some of the findings from the latest Online Video and the Media Industry Quarterly Research Report jointly issued by the online video technology firm Brightcove and the analytics company TubeMogul. The companies said they pulled video-usage data from close to 2,000 news and entertainment sites during the third quarter of this year.

Among the more interesting findings was that Facebook now refers 9.5 percent of all video traffic (meaning that Facebook links to a whole lot of videos, not that the site necessarily hosts those video views). Previously Yahoo held the No. 2 slot in this category, according to Brightcove and TubeMogul’s data. However, both companies trail Google by a huge margin, as the search giant accounted for more than half of all video referrals in Q3 (though that number was down versus Q2, when Google drove over 60 percent of views).

Interestingly, while Web users are doing a lot more video sharing with friends via Facebook and other social sites, a lot of that socializing appears to be happening at the office. The report found that video usage peaked on Wednesdays during Q3, though average minutes per view spiked on Fridays.

Yet when users want to lean back and watch longer pieces of video content—it happens mostly on the weekends, the report found, on devices other than computers. Game consoles, which are increasingly being connected to the Internet and TVs, averaged 2:45 minutes per viewing session in Q3, found the report. Web video sites came in second with an average session of 2:27 minutes per view.

Coca-Cola Wraps Largest Social-Media Project Ever

Global Program with Local Activation, 'Expedition 206,' Comes to Close


NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- More than 275,000 miles, 186 countries and 365 days after embarking on Expedition 206 -- Coca-Cola's largest social-media project ever -- the company's three "happiness ambassadors" have completed their journey.


On Jan. 1, 2010, armed with laptops, video cameras, smartphones and plenty of other gadgetry, the three 20-somethings set off to visit 206 countries and territories where Coca-Cola is sold in order to document for the masses their search for happiness. They arrived back in Atlanta at the World of Coca-Cola Dec. 29, 2010, just before the dawn of the New Year. Their journey, tracked at Expedition206.com, as well as through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, has racked up 650 million media impressions around the globe and engaged billions of people.


In China, for example, instant-messaging service QQ received a billion visits related to Expedition 206, said Anne Carelli, senior communications manager-digital communications at Coca-Cola. Ten billion virtual stamps, created by the ambassadors in each country using Haibao, the mascot for the 2010 World Expo, were also traded through QQ.

"We have been extremely pleased with the success it's had in the different markets," Ms. Carelli said, noting that the program created more visibility for the brand in key markets like China. "It's really provided a platform for the different markets to activate as they see fit."

The program -- conceptualized as a global effort that would be coordinated by a team in Atlanta but actively managed by individual markets -- forced many local markets into the digital and social-media space for the first time. It also required increased collaboration among the communications, public relations and marketing teams, something Ms. Carelli says will be instructive for future programs. And it furthered Coca-Cola's goal of creating global programs that are locally relevant.

"It was intriguing how each market went about it in their own special way," said Tony Martin, one of the ambassadors. "We never knew what to expect. In some places we'd go eat with a family. Then, in the next place we'd hang out with a local, legendary surfer. Or we'd show up at an airport and there would be these local traditions."

The group also made appearances at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Canada, the FIFA World Cup in South Africa and the Shanghai 2010 World Expo in China.

The campaign bolstered Coke's Facebook presences in markets like New Zealand, and in other countries -- such as Argentina, Ukraine and Uruguay -- local teams connected with influential bloggers as a means of promoting the program. Still, there were areas where the program didn't take off. On Twitter, the main handle boasts only about 1,800 followers. Coca-Cola execs stressed that the measure of success was based more on local-level engagement, pointing out that the Dominican Republic and other countries started their own Twitter handles specifically to document the visit.

"We made the conscious decision at the beginning that this was a local activation," Ms. Carelli said. "Equally as important were the relationships formed with influential bloggers and communities. We tapped into [areas] where we might not have had as strong of a presence previously. ... It pushed a lot of markets to start [new] relationships."

The ambassadors also arrived with built in fan bases, having competed for the opportunity to be part of the program. Coca-Cola reached out to the likes of Lonely Planet, as well as its own agencies, including Ignition, an experiential marketing firm, and WWWINS, its digital agency in China, asking for recommendations. It received about 60 candidates that it then narrowed down to 18 individuals who were brought to Atlanta for interviews. From here, nine candidates, three groups of three, were ultimately tasked with promoting themselves to consumers, who determined the winners in an online vote.

Ms. Carelli said the program has exceeded expectations. Just the fact that the year-long trip was completed with the same three ambassadors, Mr. Martin, Kelly Ferris and Antonio Santiago, is an accomplishment, she joked. But that doesn't mean there weren't snafus along the way.

The trio made it to just 186 countries, not the 206 the company had planned on. Part of that was due to security concerns in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. And part was due to logistics. Each ambassador required about 85 Visas and numerous passports, which caused the group to miss some countries. Mother Nature was also a challenge. An August trip to Bermuda was rescheduled for December, thanks to a hurricane. And Christmas was spent in Ireland when snow stranded the ambassadors last week.

Your Followers Are No Measure of Your Influence

Popularity on Twitter or Facebook Is Just That; It's the Ability to Drive Behavior That Matters

By Matthew Creamer


Published: January 03, 2011
 
Since Malcolm Gladwell began popularizing his "Tipping Point" theory 14 years ago, marketers have fantasized about a world in which they can identify a small number of influential folks who can credibly, effectively and cheaply push product for them. In the '90s, that meant makers of the "dead chic" Hush Puppies brand had to channel their inner Margaret Meads and go on "cool hunts" to trendy shops to understand how their oxfords had become suddenly stylish. These days, faced with similar challenges, they might just try to get people with large Twitter followings to post about it. Which would be a really bad idea.


One of the nasty side effects of the rapid growth of social media is that it threatens to warp our understanding of influence. It's only natural that Twitter has given rise to any number of applications that rank users for various criteria, including their overall influence. Many of the 150 million or so of Twitter accounts contain multitudes: a feed of interests, passions and expertise, in many cases attached to a living, breathing, identifiable human whose popularity is neatly summed up by follower counts, the lists he or she is on, and the number of times he or she has been retweeted. But a marketer has to wonder what all that information means, if it adds up to anything more than a popularity contest and what, exactly, does a tweet influence a person to think, believe or do?

It's hard to imagine that Justin Bieber, with his 6.4 million followers, is driving much behavior other than getting people to talk about Justin Bieber, frenetically retweet him, and possibly buy a record. Is that influence?

Klout, an online service that describes itself as nothing less than the "standard of influence," thinks so. Its algorithm gives Mr. Bieber a perfect score of 100. "You can't get any more influential than this," reads his summary. "People hang on your every word, and share your content like no other. You're probably famous in real life and your fans simply can't get enough."

Indeed, Mr. Bieber is famous and, as a YouTube discovery, his fame has been built on social media. He has a prodigious understanding of how to use these tools that helped him rise out of Canadian obscurity before he had to shave. Yet it's hard to imagine how he is a paragon of influence. He simply seems popular.

Some recent research by Duncan Watts and three other researchers shows the problems with popularity. Mr. Watts, now a researcher for Yahoo, caused a stir a few years back with work that challenged the validity of "Tipping Point"-style thinking about the way influence works. Equipped with evidence that showed cascades -- chain reactions where one user passes something to another, and so on -- are nearly impossibly to predict, he argued that, rather than focus on finding a few, highly influential people to spread a message, anyone who wants to "go viral" should be on getting a message to as many people as possible. In other words, you have to hedge your bets and not simply rely on your models of influence, however finely honed they might be.

In a 2009 experiment in Twitter, Mr. Watts found that those findings were transferable to the then 3-year-old microblog. He and fellow Yahoo-er Mr. Mason looked at more than 1.6 million users and 74 million instances of sharing of something, known as "diffusion events." In many cases, the most popular Tweeters generated the biggest cascades. That's no surprise. "However," Messrs. Watts and Mason wrote, "we find that predictions of which particular user or URL will generate large cascades are relatively unreliable. We conclude, therefore, that word-of-mouth diffusion can only be harnessed reliably by targeting large numbers of potential influencers, thereby capturing average effects." In other words, reaching a large number of more ordinary Joes and Janes with a message might be more effective than trying to tap into Bieber fever.

When people try to think past follower count to a more nuanced metric, they might end up with something like what Twinfluence, a rival to Klout, describes as social capital. That metric combines the influence of a tweeter's followers with his followers' followers. Or they end up with something like Klout's amplification metric, which charts the likelihood that a tweet will spark some action. All this sounds nice, except for the fact there is only so much you can do with a tweet. You can retweet it or you can make the tweets one of your favorites or you can use the tweet as a stepping-off point for a conversation. And that's about it.

For those of us in the content game, that's fairly useful. The same goes for marketers who want to talk to their customers or give the appearance that they talk to their customers. For parties with other kinds of goal, that utility is less clear.

Think of Twitter as a game with just a few objectives: earn followers and retweets and clicks on your links. While services like Klout are wonderful at judging the winners on those rules, they're not as good -- even useless -- at providing a means of understanding how that particular performance might be extrapolated out to something as broad as influence. Thinking about this reminds me of studying for the SAT and coming across this bit in a Princeton Review book: "We're not big fans of the SAT. It doesn't measure intelligence. It can't possibly measure your future success in college. The SAT measures one thing, and one thing only: how good you are at taking the SAT."

The same might be said of many current ways of looking at effectiveness on Twitter: They have little respect for how an action on one of those networks might relate to behavior beyond Twitter.

Earlier this year, you may or may not have been swayed by Mr. Gladwell's controversial examination of the limitations of social media to formant consequential political activity. A similar argument can be made for marketing. There's a vast world of behavior beyond the retweet, from verbal word-of-mouth recommendations to actual purchases. Except in few cases, we struggle to monitor them. More than anything else, the limitations of a service like Klout might be a stand in for bigger problems in understanding how social media fits into the marketing's big picture.

I'm not totally sure why I came to remember the SAT line, but it may have to do with the fame-for-fame's sake quality of social media, the best/worst example of which can be found in a marketing stunt from the magazine Fast Company this summer. The Influence Project asked readers to create a profile with a unique URL to be shared by as many people as possible. The winner would go on the cover of the magazine as the most influential person on the web.

The project sparked both an enormous amount of tweeting and Facebooking and a rather nasty backlash. One newspaper dubbed it a "botched social media campaign." A few folks plotted to hijack it. One blogger asked, "What happened to the days when having influence meant producing thought provoking ideas and reactions?" Another, Amber Naslund, VP at the social-media monitoring firm Radian6, wrote: "To me, influence isn't about popularity. Or even reach. It's about the trust, authority, and presence to drive relevant actions within your community that create something of substance."

The final argument against looking at Twitter as a de facto measure of influence is so steeped in common sense, it might offend the intelligence: Simply look at who doesn't spend much time there. One of them is Seth Godin, by any measure, including Ad Age's Power 150, a thought leader for marketers and entrepreneurs and a popular blogger who uses Twitter (and Facebook) only for rote repostings on his blog posts. Celebrities like Kanye West are routinely late to the game and don't seem to suffer much for it.

And then there's Apple. Every marketer's favorite brand to this day still doesn't give a Nano about using Twitter proactively. There was a brief flicker of excitement in July when Scott Forstall, the senior VP in charge of Apple's mobile operating system, signed on and, rare for a less-than-household-name business executive, received a verified account. Today, Klout gives Mr. Forstall a score of 59 and credits him with "high percentage of amplified content." Thirty-six thousand people follow him, while he follows just one, Conan O'Brien. Guess how many tweets the appropriately-named Mr. Forstall has posted.

Not a single one.

How's that for influence?


Courtesy of http://www.adage.com/