Category Archives: Business & Marketing

Leveraging your customers (fans)

Posted on by
2

One of the ideas Seth Godin talks about (on his blog, in his speeches and in his new book) is turning your best customers into marketers. Make it easy for them to tell your story. One of the examples: The Beastie Boys gave digital cameras to fifty of their fans and invited them to film one of their concerts. They edited the best of these into a film.

I’m only remotely aware of who the Beastie Boys are but I love the idea. I’d love to try this with one of our sports properties. Some big rivalry might be fun (Missouri vs. Kansas?). The idea isn’t to get great play-by-play shots, but tail-gate fun, etc. I don’t know what you’d get but you announce that the resulting video will be on the Mizzou website (brought to you by Sponsor To Be Named?).

A lot of work? Sure. Big money maker? Maybe not. Lot of fun? Maybe.

small is the new big

Posted on by
Reply

Just received my copy of Seth Godin’s new book, small is the new big and flipped it open to page 155:

“The number of channels of communication is going to continue to increase. And either you’ll have a channel or you won’t. Either you’ll have access to the attention of the people you need to talk with (notice I didn’t say “talk at”), or you won’t. So the real question to ask isn’t, “How much will I get paid to talk with these people?” The real question is, “How much will I pay to talk with these people.”

The title of the book refers to a blog post from June, 2005. Godin talks about the new book in a half-hour, moderated Skypecast this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. CDT.

Update: Poor old Seth had to introduce himself because the moderator has tech issues and was late getting into the Skype call. Looked like about 25 or 30 folks on the call and they never got around to taking questions. Typepad — which sponsored the Skypecast– plans to post portions of the audio on their blog.

The value of “influencers”

Posted on by
Reply

“I’ll tell you what executives from big companies (like Kraft, Procter and Gamble, GM, and others) who were at MSN’s OWN ADVERTISING CONFERENCE told me. An influencer is worth THOUSANDS of times more than a non-influencer (influencer is someone who tells other people stuff, which is why blogging is getting so much advertising attention lately). That’s why Google is charging more per click than MSN is (Google has more influential users).”

— Robert Scoble via Gaping Void

Ivy League Long Tail

Posted on by

The company I work for owns (leases?) the multi-media marketing rights for some of the largest collegiate athletic programs in the country. So this story in USA TODAY about smaller colleges and conferences turning to the web to to deliver football and other sports, jumped out at me.

“Northern Arizona offered webcasts of home football games last year. Using the four cameras already set up to provide replays on the stadium scoreboard, the school added audio from their radio broadcasts along with continually updated statistics. Fans will be able to choose which team’s audio feed to which to listen. Games will be archived and can be downloaded to portable devices like Apple Computer’s iPod.

This fall, ESPN’s new online channel, ESPN 360, will show 30 football games, 10 of them, involving teams such as Virginia Tech, Purdue, Miami and Minnesota exclusively on that website. The site, available to about 6 million homes, will also have such features as chat rooms, statistics and online polls.

The schools don’t see the Web replacing television. Major conferences make millions of dollars from their football and basketball television contracts, but many also plan to webcast other sports, such as volleyball or swimming.

 

The Big Ten Conference announced plans this summer create its own cable channel for minor sports. The Big Ten Channel also will be available through the Internet, iPods, cellphones and other technologies.”


Note to Learfield Senior Management: Read The Long Tail to understand why and how this is happening and what it might mean for those of us at the “head.”

Podcast monetization

Posted on by
2

From Podcasting News:

“About.com, a New York Times property, has launched a sponsored medical podcast about heartburn and acid reflux. Each podcast will be approximately three to five minutes long and will be introduced monthly. The series –the first of its kind on About.com– is sponsored by AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company that makes Prilosec and Nexium heartburn and acid reflux medications.”The podcasts allow us to provide educational information to patients in a unique and creative way,” said Dana Settembrino, brand communications manager, AstraZeneca.

Topics to be covered include: What Causes Heartburn; Acid Reflux and Your Diet; How to Talk to Your Doctor about Acid Reflux; Exercising with Acid Reflux; and How Stress Affects Your Acid Reflux.

According to Marjorie Martin, general manager, ABOUT Health, “Podcasts provide an exciting new format for delivering trusted health information. Users can now choose to listen online or take the information with them. This series on heartburn and acid reflux disease should provide the millions of sufferers with the tools to better manage their condition.”

Dr. Mona Khanna, M.D., M.P.H. is the program’s host. “Dr. Mona” is a quadruple board-certified practicing physician and Emmy award-winning medical correspondent.”

We covered heartburn on the Living Healthy Podcast back in February.

I find Henry’s conversational style more to my taste than Dr. Mona’s scripted read, but I’m hardly objective. Would love to know what AsstraZeneca is paying for this and their expectations. But one can assume they think this makes more sense than 30’s and 60’s. About.com seems like a good fit. You go looking for info on heartburn…and find a podcast on the subject.

But how sustainable is this? I think sponsoring something with broader topic scope might make more sense.

KATG: Please watch this trailer

Posted on by
Reply

Keith and the Girl fans received an email today, touting a new movie coming out in a couple of weeks. Crank stars Jason Statham (Snatch, The Transporter, The Italian Job) and opens September 1st. The email pointed me to the trailer:

“It’s a cool ad, and it brings KATG a little scratch whenever it’s viewed. So take a look-see and pass it to your friends. And then get back to work! How are we gonna survive as a society if everyone’s watching movie promos all day?!”

I really like Statham so I was glad to know about the movie. And I’m even more inclined to watch the trailer (and tell others) because it helps KATG… and I’m a fan. Do you see how this is different than just running the ad on one of the TV networks? Would love to know how much KATG got for this. Hope it was a lot.

Niche audiences

Posted on by
Reply

“While Rocketboom reaches a mass audience, Baron sees his next opportunity in niches. As an example, he suggests a program to target “high-end tennis players.” It would be natural for Wilson Sporting Goods to advertise tennis racquets and “Viewers might actually be interested in the commercials,” Baron said. He believes that while only 10,000 people might watch, it’s so cheap to do Internet video that such programming is economically feasible.”

— Rocketboom’s Andrew Baron on possible sponsorship opportunities

The radio ads I want to hear

Posted on by
1

Tod Maffin is looking forward to the day his satellite radio delivers ads he wants to hear:

“So, let’s take this to its natural next step in, say three years. You call up XM or Sirius and activate your radio. Besides asking for your billing address, they also seek out some basic demographic information. How old are you? What are your interests? Suddenly, your radio begins playing ads that are aimed at you and people like you. With my demographic profile in hand, the satellite service could have screened those (crappy spam-like ads) out and sent me ads specific to my interests.”

I sort of dread going through some long “check the products and services you’re interested in” procedure, but you’d only have to do it once and then keep it updated. Then, maybe once a month, they send me a link to a web page where I see a list of all the advertisers that hit my reciever in the past 30 days. I remove any that I don’t like. Sort like signing up for Netflix. Or, maybe they just have a bot crawl this blog and figure out what I care about.

Average U.S. household credit card debt: $8,000

Posted on by
7

Seth Godin observes there are more than 3 million millionaires in the U.S. (8 million if you count real estate). In the same post, he says the average household has $8,000 in credit card debt.

I clearly remember when there was no such thing as a consumer credit card. You paid for the things you purchased with cash or a personal check. Perhaps that’s why I have never failed to pay my credit card bill. As soon as the bill came in, I paid it off. Period. And that was true when I was living on small town DJ money back in the early 70’s.

I consider myself fortunate that I come from a time and place where you paid your bills and you paid them promptly. (And if you feel the need to email to tell me I’m an insensitive prick, please attach a scan of our credit card bill. We’ll go over it together.)

I’m just saying… the way we view debt has changed. For good reasons or bad.