“Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup…”
When they first hear about Twitter and the prospect of sending 140-character messages out, most people go, “Why the hell would I want to do that?”
After you play with it for a while you begin to get Twitter: It’s your own channel, to which you may invite whomever you want.
So what kind of bite-sized programming would you put on your own 140-character- at-a-time channel?
If, for instance, you are:
- One of the millions who have lost their jobs in the last few years
- Running a business that’s stuck or not growing as fast as you’d like
- Someone who understands the power of having a network and a personal brand
Then you probably see how Twitter could become an effective tool.
A lot of people using Twitter are following (or have following them) a ridiculous number of people. Once you get past 20 or so, it’s like watching channels on TV — you have to make choices. It’s just not possible to stay current with every station.
“In its latest concession to the worst revenue slide since the Depression, The New York Times has begun selling display advertising on its front page, a step that has become increasingly common across the newspaper industry.”
– The New York Times, Jan. 5, 2009
It’s a sign of the times, pardon the pun.
There was a day, not so very long ago, when a virtual firewall separated the advertising and editorial functions of every self-respecting newspaper.
It was understood that editorial space (aka, “the news hole”) was not for sale, ever – that even if you were CBS, Ford, or the Coldwell Banker Broker of the Month, you could not insert yourself onto the front page. That space was reserved for what the editors judged to be the most urgent matters requiring the attention of the community on that particular day.
No part of that space was available to the highest bidder. Not even the bottom inch of the page.
Times change, of course (ha ha!)
I like magazines; anticipating them, and finding things inside that inform and entertain me. I was a Runner’s World reader for years, I still get Men’s Journal, although I’ll probably let it lapse, it’s become too focused on adventure travel for me. I used to get Esquire but I canceled that years ago, I finally found it overly effete and too East Coast-centric for my taste.
But during the years that I subscribed to Esquire, I developed a ritual. It began with my annoyance over those stiff, postage-paid cards intended for would-be subscribers. They wedged about a half dozen of those cards into the spine of every issue, and they stuck out in a way that prevented you from properly flipping through the magazine. That was annoying in itself as it interfered with the serindipitious nature of good browsing, and as I was already a subscriber, I resented being pitched to again. So every month, as soon as I retrieved Esquire from the mailbox, I’d start tearing out those cards. With glee, I must admit.
We’ve been hearing for years about the coming convergence of computers and television — and handhelds and GPS, voice recognition, biometrics etc. My household is still TiVo-less, and much of this still seems like abstract hype to me. Until yesterday, when my neighbor showed me the what The Convergence looks like.
The beer company ads featuring out-of-context post-game press conference clips of retired NFL coaching legends Bill Walsh and Dick Vermeil have started a lot of conversations — like one I had with some football-watching buddies.
First, people wonder if the clips are real (they are, I’ve been assured). People discuss the ages of Walsh and Vermeil; how long ago they were actively coaching (longer for Walsh) and when these clips were taped; and finally amusement at the way the beer company’s marketing team has taken comments about games and players, and misappropriated them for their product.
The campaign turns on its head the press conference sound-bite phenomenon we’re all familiar with. It’s slyly subversive in hinting at how we’ve all been manipulated by mainstream media’s selective use of sound bites — we never really get the whole picture on the nightly news, only what’s deemed to be significant and in the context that someone else decides upon…
It’s also a remarkable campaign in that it reaches beyond the 18-34 demographic that this beer company has targeted in previous campaigns– in ways that went too far in glorifying binge drinking for my taste. Football fans of all ages revere Walsh for his gridiron genius, and many fans have a soft spot for the effective but more-often-tearful-than-usual-for-an-NFL-coach Vermeil, portrayed recently by Greg Kinnear in “Invincible.”
What makes the ads work as attention-getters (that’s not to say they actually help sell the product) is that they let us, the viewers, in on the joke. They require you to think critically and determine whether or not they are staged, and that gives you an appreciation for the cleverness (or, um, duplicity?) of creatives at the ad agency. Good marketing starts and furthers conversations — it gets people talking…
The rules of PR are being rewritten. Honesty and transperancy carry more weight now, just ask Richard Edelman, head of Edelman PR. He blogs an acknowledgment that his agency blew it by fudging on the identify of who was authoring a Wal-Mart blog. Thanks to Google Cache, you can see some of the history here. Click on the first item to see how transparently bogus this thing was. This is one arena in which “fake it till you make it” doesn’t work.
BusinessWeek fills in the backstory here.
Playing catchup to Google, Microsoft is planning to become more of a player in the advertising space, today launching its Digital Advertising Solutions, which will enable companies to target audiences using the Xbox, MSN, etc.
It makes sense…
“As today’s consumers spend more and more time online across various digital devices like mobile phones and video games, advertisers are finding they can no longer reach their entire target audience by advertising on a single medium,” Joanne Bradford, Microsoft’s vice president of global sales, said in a statement.
How will this change advertising? We can expect online ads to become more targeted, thus more relevant. Will ads become more provocative, which has been one of the ways that advertisers have tried to reach increasingly jaded viewers? Or less provocative but resonant in other ways?
Maybe we’ll see the product-placement dynamic come online, with more and more staged product appearances in blogs, forums, etc. Personally, I don’t think that will work, as audiences will see right through it and react loudly against it.