Fact Where There’s Only Fiction
As we continue our pursuit to set a new bar for our industry, I too relate to the main protagonist in this series who is “on a mission to civilize”. And I suppose it should not be surprising when people we encounter are confused by this approach, but it is a little saddening when someone doesn't understand your business model when you say, “we are not looking to take advantage of you”. I kid you not; people can't quite seem to get how we could operate with this mentality. It's an explanation I'm all too ready to share every time I meet with a prospective client.
Competitive rates and good work do not need to be at odds with one another. At the same time, just because something costs a lot, doesn't necessarily mean it's the best. Take a page from the creators of the Newsroom and give yourself a second look at the processes of those around you. In business – notice quality of content and attention to detail, these things are most important. Money is how we all survive; yes, but don't judge a book by what it costs. And, furthermore, just because people aren't talking about it yet, doesn't mean they won't… it could simply be because they haven't heard of it yet. Let's civilize up folks and start getting things done right.
The Foreign Nature of Foreign Marketing
Case in point… The first advertisement that stood out to me in Italy was a HUGE ad for shopping mall outlet stores (keeping in mind that the entire ad was in English – which is a completely different topic altogether) it was on a drop cloth, suspended in the beautiful San Marco Square in Venice. It was brought to my attention due to my mother's complaints that the gigantic poster was taking away from the beauty of the square. She asked why anyone, in their right mind, would drape an enormous ad over the front of such a beautiful and historic building… I then noticed, as we looked closer, it appeared they were doing some restoration work on the building, so the facade was already covered. But this brings be to my point… the advertisers took this opportunity to use the already covered space and pay, what I can only assume would have been an exorbitant amount of money, to place their “English targeted” ad in the most touristy spot in Venice. Good show indeed – but interesting tactics – no room for your regular billboards there. With all that being said, I actually found myself almost ignoring the ad due to its size alone. And due to the fact that the square is so beautiful, my eyes were hardly drawn to the gaudy draping down at the end.
One effort that did catch my eye, however, was a picture hanging in one of the restaurants. It was a splendid example of a company using the surroundings to impart their message, in an entertaining and intriguing way – instead of an 'in your face' large draping that covers up half a building side. The black and white photograph showed San Marco Square (known for its many pigeons) with the large words Coca Cola, somehow shaped on the ground in the middle of the square. It was only when I looked closer, that the words were in fact spelled out by, none other than, the pigeons themselves! Coca Cola, cleverly, must have spread out bird feed so precisely, to entice these birds to do their flash mob style bidding. Now, that is resourceful advertising. No wonder Coke is the only American made soft drink I saw when in Italy…
Stay tuned for more observations from abroad…
Playoffs?! You Kidding Me? Playoffs?
This is a great day for College Football fans. We get our playoffs, and maybe now we can agree on who the best team in the nation is at the end of the year. As of now, we will have the 4-team playoff beginning in the 2014 season, and maybe down the road it can grow to 8 teams, or even 16. The only problem with this is that there needs to be at least a week off in between games, which can deter us from ever getting a larger tournament similar to the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I think 4 is just fine, with 8 being perfect. In the 4-team playoff system, we can sometimes get a mid-major school in there to please everyone.
This change will bring in a ton of money to College Football, on top of pleasing the fans. Networks will bid on the rights to the game soon, which itself will bring in boatloads of money to College Football. For example, ESPN signed a deal with College Football in 2011 for a 4-year contract worth $500 million. That $500 million could be the new price of getting the game on your network for a year. And on top of that, ratings are expected to go up for these games which also brings about the questions of rates for ads during the games. Super Bowl ads have been around $3-4 million per 30 second spot recently, which isn't expected for the new College Football Playoffs, but the prices will be steep.
Although they have made the decision to hold a 4-team playoff, a lot of things still need to be ironed out. Such as, who will be a part of the selection committee. It seems to be headed for a change from what it was in the past for the National Championship game. That was part of the whole reason why we wanted a playoff, because a lot of the fans agreed that the former selection committee didn't do a good job of selecting the right teams. Last year for example, they chose Alabama and LSU. Not only did these two teams already play earlier in the year during the regular season, but they are also in the same conference, the SEC. Now, I know the SEC is a superior conference (and that's coming from someone who graduated from an ACC school), but we don't want to see a rematch from the regular season in the National Championship game, unless the first matchup was a great game. But it wasn't, a final score of 9-6 isn't that exciting. A matchup of their field goal kickers doesn't make for an interesting game. And because of this, the Nielson ratings for the game was 14.0, the third lowest ever for a BCS National Championship game. The new playoff system looks to change that, and will.
Foreign Ad Market
As I head to Italy – I will be on the lookout for all sorts of traditional and nontraditional media expressions and impressions alike. I'm looking forward to report on my findings, so as this initial set-up may seem short, the American market will get biweekly updates from me abroad as I observe, react and report on how those Europeans do it differently.
Stay tuned for an exciting adventure through the World of Advertising!
A World Without Internet
The internet has allowed us to do many things, talk to friends, share pictures, shop online, check out the score of the game last night, blog, email, and get pretty much any information on anything that you would possibly want. The internet is a beautiful thing, and life has changed drastically because of it. So, here are some internet facts that truly show how important the internet is and what life would be without it.
1. Since 2002, the number of internet users has quadrupled, an increase to 2.3 billion people worldwide.
2. The internet has allowed us to connect with virtually anyone, and has given us access to an infinite amount of information.
3. There are approximately 550 million websites, with 300 million sites added in 2011.
Imagine a world without the Internet
4. The cost of a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica is $1200
5. Paying for stamps instead of sending emails would cost the US $6.3 Trillion
6. The cost of online content is $0
7. Your favorite internet companies would have never existed: Facebook, Twitter, Ebay, Groupon, Google, Amazon, etc
Nobody would have an internet job
8. Facebook by itself created 450,000 US jobs
9. The internet creates 2.6 jobs for every job it makes obsolete
10. The spread of information would come to a screeching halt.
11. 65% of people get their news online
12. 1 minute of Twitter equals 100,000 tweets
13. In one month of Facebook, 30 billion pieces of content are shared
14. Revolutions would take longer: The fall of the Berlin wall took 4 months, it took one week for 90,000 Egyptians to organize a revolution and only 18 days of protest to overthrow 30 years of dictatorship
15. Collectively, we spend 35 billion hours on the internet every month
16. Every day we consume 3 times the amount of information that we did in the 60's