With only 27 days left until one of the most important elections ever, more people than ever are tuning in for their daily dose of politico. I too have given more time to my channel of choice, CNN. The more I watched the more I began to notice how well CNN has positioned themselves as THE place for politics. CNN = Politics. Their advertisements, blogs, and podcasts boast this online and on air the corners of the screen are graced with the CNN = Politics 97.6% of the time.
I think CNN has done a fantastic job of being the place for politics. Campbell Brown rocks Election Center , Anderson takes his 360 look at politics, and Larry King invites celebs and politicians to the show to voice their opinions about the election. Everything about their programming is tied back to CNN = Politics. It’s consistent, credible, and c’mon, they have Anderson Cooper!
But what about after the election? Will people think of CNN as their place for news after the elections are done? Sure, politics never go away, but how many people use CNN as their default news station? I think that CNN will either keep the viewers that have become comfortable with the network in the past few weeks or they will lose a significant share because they will lose their main source of content. What do you think?
The MN Twins are done. It's been a sad time but I still love my team. I also love what MLB has done with their mobile website/text alerts. I cancelled my subscription immediately after the season ending loss, but I actually had the option! So many text ads/games/promos don't give you the chance to opt out (even mid way through the $4 per month subscription) whenever I want to.
So the next Yaybia Brand Thank You Note goes to MLB/MN Twins for giving me real time game updates and letting me control the text messages that I get. 2009, boys. Let's do this!
This commercial made me cry every time I saw it. With this tear-jerking spot the Deutsche Telekom, Germany's biggest telecommunications corporation, introduced its new company-wide line "Experience what connects (us)". The copy translates: "Life presents us with extraordinary moments. How wonderful that we can share them with others."
I loved the original Paul Potts video. I forwarded it to many of my friends and watched it all over again and again myself. Perhaps I even cried once or twice. And then came the Telekom and ruined it all forever. I just don't see the "connection."
Maybe it’s because all summer long the really long spot bombarded me during every commercial break on every channel, before every movie I watched in theaters and even online (oh yes, singing banner ads). Your very own special moment – 20 times a day. That heavy rotation could have killed it even if I would have loved it in the beginning.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t like the timing. Paul Potts’ “Britain’s Got Talent” performance was back in June 2007 and his video became a youtube hit shortly afterwards. Somebody at Telekom should have listened to Nessun dorma (Italian for “None shall sleep”) much sooner. Besides, the spot always felt more like Christmas to me - too much opera and emotions for hot summer days.
Maybe it’s because the Telekom tried too hard to create a “real” Lady-Di(e) moment - everybody in Germany remembers what they did when they heard that Princess Diana was killed in a car accident. Many also remember what they felt when they first saw Paul Potts on “Germany’s Got Talent”. Oh no, wait… So, I wonder are all those people in the spot British? It’s kinda like if AT&T would air a Superbowl spot with Herbert Grönemeyer. See!
So us Germans either knew Paul from youtube - but then the whole clip with background story, uncut aria and real tears was much more moving then the commercial. Or we have not heard about that chubby, Welsh guy before...but without the Cinderella story, there is not much of a story. Thankfully, the Telekom presented us with a number of deeply-stirred people so even the dumbest Kraut must have realized that it’s time to be moved. You know, we are an uncaring people, so you better not trust us when it comes to feelings and all that crap.
But probably I don't like the spot because sweet emotions and the Telekom don’t fit. They supply wires and contracts, not content and contacts. The former state-owned company is notorious for its bad customer service and high prices, and recently it had to face a number of serious scandals. Hence their effort to improve their image. The question is: Would I like the commercial if it was for a likeable brand? Or are real-life wonder and authentic magic simply too big to be pocketed by any brand?
Undoubtedly the spot worked great. For Paul Potts at least - his album became an instant top hit in Germany. And the highjacked viral spot became a viral itself. For days, the blogosphere talked about nothing else –with mixed results. Even I love one thing about the spot: The fact that a crappy telecommunications company tries to improve its image with a guy who obviously was NOT very happy selling mobile phones!
Yaybies and Gentlemen, I am back. Not for real unfortunately, but with a vengeance.
For various reasons, mostly this and that, I have been silent for quite a while. Sadly, I can't sit and scrabble and sip with you on a regular basis anymore. And I can't realize the national ad trends and analyze the local ad scene with you, either. Thankfully, yaybia helps me not to lose my connection to all of that. On the other hand, I felt that I lost my privilege to contribute to it.
But today is Reunification Day, my friends! I take Germany's national holiday as a reason to not just read but write again. In honor of my country's age of consent (18 years ago, two officially became one again), I figured it would be time to return to that country as well. Not only physically but mentally, too. Every decent blog should have its own foreign correspondent, right? Expect the best and and the worst, the funniest and the weirdest, the outdoorsiest and onlinest. And the smoothest English natürlich. I will try to present you the most interesting ideas, campaigns and brands from my top-brand state.
According to the recently published Nation Brands Index by GfK Roper Custom Research and Simon Anholt, Germany is a top notch brand among its fellow countries. What an impressive comeback! I take that as a commitment and incentive at the same time. Welcome to Germany, the "Land of Ideas" and serious, beautiful and smart girls in advertising.
Libby existed, barely. OtherYaybies did not. Sadly, no page on the entire Internet knew what Yaybia was. Google's blast from the past to celebrate their 10th birthday is only available for a few more weeks, so Google your favorite cultural phenomena while you still can!
My picks: 9/11, Barack Obama, Miley Cyrus, the company you work for...seriously, don't try this unless you have at least an hour to kill, because it's addicting.
Oh yeah, and Gov. Sarah Palin? She had been mayor of Wasilla for five years at this point, but Google didn't give two shits. Interesting.
Alright so I'm a week late to the party, or well, no I wasn't invited to any Ad Week parties. Minneapolis should have had their own celebration! Anyways, I was flipping through my OMMA Ad Week mag and found some ads that made me smile. Check it.
So Libby has a knack for showing the rest of us Yaybies up by doing sweet things like bein' on the Ypulse Youth Advisory Board. Read her bio and the others here. I'm just surprised "creepin' out in Erin's basement lair" or "singing Livin' on a Prayer" wasn't on the list. Congrats Lib!
She's rockin' the Ypulse Twitter account (go follow !) and stay tuned to Ypulse.com for more exciting info from the land of Gen Y.
My third Brand Thank You Note goes to Caribou Coffee. On Sunday morning my inbox was graced with the presence of a birthday wish and reminder to get my free drink at Caribou this week! Not only was I excited that my birthday was only a week away, but that Caribou treated my email address with respect. I didn't even remember until now that I had given my email address to Caribou, but they can keep it as long as they continue to use it wisely.
So thanks Caribou for not spamming the hell out of my email and giving me a solid reason to stop by one of the shops for a b-day drink. I'll probably be reminded of how much I love the pumpkin lattes. A win for both of us!
New York Times: "McCain Seeks to Delay First Debate Amid Financial Crisis" flanked by FIRST DEBATE FRIDAY NIGHT! CNN banners. Granted, this is breaking news. But somebody on the CNN media planning team needs to have their servers hold off on those for a hot minute.
Last year, Radiohead shook up the music industry by releasing In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-want digital download. Less established artists had already tried this format with some success, but it was the first time a band with a household name had bucked the distribution system. Though the financial success was debated, they definitely scored points for their brand. Loyal fans "donated," if you will, more than they would have paid in a store; first-time listeners skipped payment and sampled a new band, and Radiohead came off as a band that cared more about getting music to their fans than raking in profits.
Radiohead continued their fan-centric approach by asking fans to submit remixes of two of their songs, Nude and Reckoner. They've even made individual tracks of each instrument available to download on iTunes (for $1 each with Nude, $1 total with Reckoner) so that those without mixing experience can still fire up Garage Band and get in the game.
Loyal Yaybia reader t1dogg1 was personally contacted by Radiohead to remix Reckoner before the competition was made public. Please head over to the website and vote up his mix...and a big thanks to him for pointing Yaybia in the direction of this promotion!
So I was flipping through the 2009 Ikea catalog last month and saw their text-in treasure hunt game. Giving it a try, I texted in my responses to their painfully self-promoting questions. ("The RAMBURG bed frame on p. 98 is a) stylish b) easy to match with other pieces c) affordable d) ALL OF THE ABOVE!") I didn't win $100, but I engaged with the brand for a good 10 minutes and only exchanged about 10 total texts doing so. Success.
Fast forward a month, and my phone lights up with this:
My feelings: mixed. It's great that Ikea is approaching me with a chance to win cash moneys, but I thought I was done with the Find It Sweepstakes. And I am sure as hell not going to opt in to Ikea text messages. My beloved Twins alerts keep my inbox full, and I resent that Ikea didn't explicitly ask whether they could send me additional texts after the contest was over. This is why I rarely text for offers from any brand--I'm scared they'll start sending me more messages than E. Lam on Beer Friday (love you Ern).
When brands use your phone number against you, does it make you think twice about texting for any offer?
The folks at Wieden + Kennedy just took sports billboards to a new level. Their work for ESPN features astro-turf mats promoting Monday night football in bus shelters and along city walls in six major metropolitan areas. In my opinion, the billboards are clever and engaging, but that's not the point. People are jacking them at an alarming rate. In just seven days, nearly 10% of the mats were lifted in NYC. And not just in the Big Apple. Thefts also occurred in Boston (3), Chicago (6), San Francisco (2), and Washington D.C. (5). And this is no small undertaking. Some of the mats are 72"H x 96"W in size.
So now ESPN is halting the re-installation of the stolen billboards. So here's my question: Could encouraging fans to take your advertising just be a genius PR stunt?
Here are my points: -If they wanted to bolt those suckers down they would have -If they didn't want people to touch and interact with them they would not have put them at street level -What are they really losing? Both ESPN and WK are getting positive press from this
And even if ESPN is a innocent victim in all of this. Maybe there is a lesson for all of us.
Ladies and gentleman, we have a theme of the day here at Yaybia. It is "Fail Monday." Looks like something went wrong with this banner ad. In fact, I can't even click on it!
Note to banner hosting sites and advertisers: keep an eye on your stuff. Fortunately this one doesn't tell us who the company is or who the host is, but it is a pretty big fail.
A few weeks ago I tackled the first couple chapters of The Tipping Point and merged what I was reading to what I was absorbing online. I finally had time to knock out another hundred pages this weekend and here are some of my thoughts regarding The (Online) Tipping Point: Mavens.
Mavens, as defined in the book, are information specialists. They are people that we can rely on to connect us with new information about their specialty. They know their specialty inside and out and are eager to share it with others. Online mavens are much easier to identify than connectors and salesmen. They are the bloggers, the social bookmarking obsessed, and the shared friends on Google Reader.
Bloggers: These mavens often collaborate with other mavens on the same topic to share their thoughts and insights with their readers. We turn to our favorite bloggers because we trust their content, even if we have never met them.
Bookmarkers: These mavens have built a tag cloud of specialty information from the sites that they visit regularly. Labeling their specialty sites with keyword tags allows others to see which topics they are most familiar with. While social bookmarking sites are becoming more fragmented, the die hard users that are mavens are easy to spot.
Google Readers: I have about 15 people in my Google Reader shared feed. I'm sure many of you do the same or have a similar RSS sharing application. After a while, you'll begin to see that certain friends become notorious for sharing the most and best articles related to their specialty. Libby is the first to share the latest LOLcats (oh and media news!), Lindsay and Tyler know more about fashion than my brain can comprehend, and Lauren does her photo thing. These are all off line specialties also, but they are amplified online.
Unlike connectors and salesmen, I think it's definitely possible to become a maven online but not in real life. Someone could read every single blog/article about Twins Helmet Sundaes and make social connections and share their specialty information. Their ability to spread their information would be limited though because of their lack of experience at being a maven off line.
Next up: Salesman and Stickiness. Hang in there. Or sit, that's cool too.
As one of the largest aggregators of personal information, Facebook's ad-targeting capabilities should be second-to-none, or at least top 3. Sometimes, however, I am served an ad that just does not make sense (since when have I spoken Arabic, or whatever language that is?):
I haven't quite figured this one out - but it has happened to me many times. So you log in, and suddenly you get a redirect sending you to some other website. Now mind you, none of these are major websites, but if we are going to look at this from a marketing point of view: your annoying site just hacked my facebook experience. i will never go to your site.
I feel like I see one of these a few times a year...a completely inconvenient placement of an ad in a magazine. But sometimes it goes the other way - there is an article about teen pregnancy and an ad for birth control, or an article recommending various beauty products, and next to it a makeup ad. So if you can specifically request to have your ad placed somewhere, and someone checks that the request is met...why doesn't anyone catch something like this?
The Yaybia Brands in Action Contest beer drinking celebration was a success! Thanks again to everyone who participated, it was good fun. Keep your eyes out for the next Yaybia Brands in ____ Contest!
The writers of Yaybia are the most intelligent, creative, and passionate young women in Minneapolis advertising. Yaybia is our thoughts, frustrations, musings, questions, and opinions about our industry.
DISCLAIMER: Said opinions are OURS, not those of the companies we work for. We're not representing those companies, or their clients, or anyone but ourselves. Interested in contacting one or all of us? Yaybia [at] gmail [dot] com. <3
