Category Archives: Business & Marketing

Mark Cuban: “Blogging is personal, traditional media is corporate.”

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“Traditional media has become almost exclusively corporate while blogging remains almost exclusively personal. (People in traditional media) get hired for a specific job and they have to do that job. They get hired by a corporation that is most likely public, which means their senior management , the people they ultimately report to, have to put getting the stock price up above all else. That is really what blogging vs traditional media in 2006 has come down to. Bloggers drive blogs, share price drives traditional media. Blogging is personal, traditional media is corporate. Which is exactly why blog readership is going up, while traditional media is consolidating, if not contracting. Traditional media goes to work, bloggers live their work.”

I encourage you to read Mr. Cuban’s full post. Say what you will, Mark Cuban has always been about five minutes ahead on the old “Information Highway.” And he understands blogging as only a blogger can. [via Scripting.com]

I can send you one of our brochures

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If you’ve visited smays.com more than once, it was because of something you read here. Some idea that I expressed or someone else expressed and to which I linked. Frankly, there’s nothing else to do on this blog but read what I have written or pointed to.

Our company just spent a few sheckels (I have no idea how many) on some new brochures for one of our new business units. They look terrific. And the copy is pretty well written. But —if we believe Seth Godin— nobody is going to read them:

The thing you must remember about just about every corporate or organizational brochure is this: People won’t read it. I didn’t say it wasn’t important. I just said it wasn’t going to get read. People will consider its heft. They might glance at the photos. They will certainly notice the layout. And, if you’re lucky, they’ll read a few captions or testimonials.

He’s right of course. And we all know this because we don’t read the brochures that others hand or send to us. We put them in drawer or file until the next “clean up” day and then we haul them down to the dumpster. So why do we spend the time and money? Because we need something that tells people about our company/product/service and a nice brochure can be farmed out and done once and everyone stays “on message” by reading or handing out The Brochure.

The best brochure is stillborn. Dead at birth. A good business (or personal) blog, on the other hand, is a living thing. It grows and changes and reacts and responds to the world around you. I happen to believe this is equally true of “brochure websites.” That’s why good blogs get so much more traffic than static, change-once-a-month websites.

Anybody with a copy of PageMaker and a color printer can make a brochure. Some nice photos…a cool font…a clever logo…we’re done. Blogs are never done.

But I’m betting your customers –current and prospective– are more interested in the idea you have today than the ones you had six months ago that made it into The Brochure.

Update: It took just a few hours for Andrew to demonstrate that there are times when a nice brochure or flyer is the way to go. In this instance, he’s developing a piece of property and he needs a way to show people where it’s located and what the site will look like once it’s complete. Today’s Lesson: Not everything is a blog (and I must not be so quick to generalize).

Are your campers happy?

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I seem to recall reading that JetBlue is one of those companies whose customers have good things to say about them. The MIT Advertising Lab blog posted a photo of a JetBlue booth at Rockefeller Center in NYC, where people can record their experiences and thoughts about the company. Perhaps for use in TV commercials or podcasts? One would think that JetBlue is expecting to get more positive stories than negative. This is what all companies and organizations should strive for, right? Loyal, happy customers. So I gotta ask myself, what would our clients (advertisers for the most part) say about their experiences with our company? Are we even willing to ask? The JetBlue booth offers a degree of anonymity. A less-than-satisfied advertiser probably wouln’t say so to the sales rep that sold the schedule.

My point is, if we really believe our product or service is good (great?) and it really works? Why wouldn’t we ask our clients? Now it’s starting to sound like a customer satisfaction survey and those are almost always bullshit. But if I were walking down the street and saw booth where I could go in and record my experiences with (Toyota, HBO, XM Radio, and now Mac)… I’d do it. I’d take the time. I want people to know I like these companies. And really shitty companies (and you know who you are) don’t even think about building little booths. Bottom line, it’s probably pretty easy to find out if your customers love you or hate you. Anything between is tougher. And I’m betting most companies really don’t want to know.

Communicate. Sell. Blog.

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I was talking with one of our advertising clients today and we got off on to the subject of how a blog could help him tell his story. He works for a state agency so it is unlikely he’ll get permission to blog because government department heads didn’t get where they are by trying risky new stuff. But the client said that when he brought up the subject of blogging with some of the foot soldiers, their eyes lit up. They got a little pumped at the prospect (or as pumped as government workers are allowed to get).

About six months ago I posted on how I might use blogs and podcasts if I were still doing affiliate relations for our networks. Today’s conversation started me thinking about this again.

If I were a sales rep of any kind, I’d have a blog. I’d post about things of interest and use to my prospects. My blog would be how my clients (current and prospective) know me. If I could make it relevant enough, useful enough… my clients would come to me (or my blog). I wouldn’t have to constantly be begging for appointments. They’d call me up to do a lunch and talk about some idea I posted about.

Blogosphere bullshit, you say? Perhaps. My co-worker David has been posting on a new Learfield blog that illustrates this idea. His posts are informed. Passionate. They deliver value.

Selling has always been about communicating. Wanna communicate in the 21st century? Better learn to blog.

One in five say web ads most effective

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More than one in five U. S. adults, or 22 percent, say the Internet is the most effective way to grab their attention about a product or service, according to a report released this week by Burst Media. The report, based on a March survey of 3,700 adult Web users, also found that magazines, newspapers and radio lagged behind both the Internet and TV, with 12 percent, 10 percent, and 6 percent, respectively. [Online Media Daily]

I guess I’m more disturbed by radio’s ranking than the overall validty of the research. The part I have no trouble buying is 57 percent of respondents saying that the Net is where they turn first to research products they might purchase. Absolutely.

Now that I’m thinking about ads, here’s something I wish I had time to try: record all of the commercials on one of our local radio stations between say, 6am and 9am. Then just mash ’em up in a montage of 10-15 seconds per spot. Just to get a gestalt of the commercial messages. Maybe I’ll do an hour. Somebody remind me.

Mark Cuban says bring back live commercials

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Dallas Mavricks owner Mark Cuban says bring back the live commercial so neither the viewer (nor the advertiser) will know what to expect until it happens. Calling them Reality Commercials, Cuban claims implementing such a thing would not be a technical challenge or a creative one but it would entail a whole lot more work. I don’t watch TV ads now but I just might watch a few if they were live. Could we make this work in our network newscasts? Doubtful. Our clients probably woudn’t like it. Our sales reps wouldn’t like it. Our anchors wouldn’t like it. But our listeners might. [via AdRants]

Net ad spending to overtake radio in 2008

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Zenith Optimedia Group has revised it’s global ad spending outlook and now predicts the Internet will overtake worldwide outdoor ad spending next year, and will catch up with radio (which will have a 7.9% share, down from 8.5% in 2005) in 2008.

If you’re a radio station manager, you a) do not believe this forecast for one minute; b) think it might be true but have no clue what to do about it; c) don’t care if it’s true or not because you plan to retire in a couple of years anyway. [Radio Business Report]

Shop Talk: International Sports Properties

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The company I work for (22 years in June) competes with –and partners with– a company called International Sports Properties (aka ISP). ISP has the rights to UCLA who plays in the second game of the Final Four semi-finals tonight. Which brings me to a story I found on the Winston-Salem Journal website. A well-done profile on ISP and the “elite-college multimedia-rights niche.” (Alternate link) I learned some things about collegiate sports marketing which is now, far and away, the largest part of our business. For example, corporate spending on college-athletics programs is expected to reach $458 million this year, up from $415 in 2005.

When I joined Learfield in 1984 we had the rights the Missouri and had just acquired the rights to Iowa State and…Kansas? Anyway, sports was a small piece of what we do. No longer.

Posted by Clyde

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It’s a little too early to say that our company is blogging (corporately). But there’s a teensy, weensy spark that could become a flame. Clyde Lear –our CEO/President/Founder and All Around Good Guy– has dipped his toe in the blog pond. Several us always thought he’d be a natural and today’s post would seem to confirm that. For reasons known only to him, he asked a few employees at random what they were reading and posted the results. Why do I think this is worth a mention?

No news release. Nothing about our company’s growth. Just a little nugget about the people that make up our company. He didn’t ask the senior management staff what they were reading. He walked down the hall and asked the folks in the cubes. Clyde was once a journalist and has always been a good writer. I hope he becomes a regular blogger. He’ll have interesting and important things to say.