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Kirt Gunn on un-Branded Content

This is the most eloquent account of the potential of (un)-branded content that I've come across. It's from a comment left by Kirt Gunn on Max Lederman's Experience the Message weblog, responding to criticism of the recent clips for Lincoln and Mercury (theneverything.com and lovelybysurprise.com).

Coming from the music industry and the world of (not very rich) independent artists and producers, I absolutely see the potential for thoughtful work to be done by smart brands to produce (for lack of a better word) this kind of entertainment.  It's a very succint summary of what non-interruption advertising can be all about when it is done well.  People will seek out the content if it's good (this weblog gets a lot of traffic lately with people searching for these clips, by the way), dialogue is initiated and the brand can hope to resonate with it's intended audience in ways that a :30 add cannot.

New marketing should be all about cultural relevance, real engagement, and thoughtful and appropriate content-not annoyance and interruption; that may just require brands to do the smart thing and get out of the consumer's face, and start putting their considerable resources to better use.

Here's an excerpt from Kirt's comments:

I believe that marketers have dropped a crucial tenet of the implied contract with the viewing public- reciprocity.

The fair deal that existed between the marketer and the audience began in the fifties with the concept of sponsorship. A program was "brought to you by" the marketer, and therefore the bond between the audience and the content often became a bond between the audience and the marketer. There was some allegiance to the sponsoring brand due to the fact the sponsor provided value by subsidizing stories they believed in. Its not terribly different from Elizabethan England, Italy during the Renaissance, or 20th Century China in that commissioned works of art were a good way for the government to develop a relationship with an audience that was otherwise disconnected from them. Brands took that model of the commissioned work, and extended it successfully into television- briefly.

Fuzzy Web 2.0 Talk

Kathy Sierra's funny chart reminds us that too much of Web 2.0 evangelizing is beginning to sound suspiciously like group-therapy speak. The horror!

Taken in the wider context of reality-TV, celeb-gossip saturation, postsecret and all the other expose-everything channels available, maybe it is time to check some of our assumptions, and not get too carried away with the vague notion of "Sharing".

Love this Penn Teller line:

"My favorite thing about the Internet is that you get to go into the private world of real creeps without having to smell them."
   -- Penn Jillette

Elements of Life, Absolut-ly

Wow, this was a surprise: Louie Vega remixing an original track recorded by Lenny Kravitz for Absolut.com.

Louie, along with nine other remixers (Ashley Beedle, Jazzanova are two others whose music I like) give their interpretations of the song, and the overall Absolut vibe. The site is really well designed, there are tons of downloads, including the tracks, and when you send the link to friends, the site graphically illustrates your network of people that have been contacted (very cool).

Nicely done, Absolut!

You Think You're A Man, But You're Only A Boy

Great article on pop culture, consumerism and masculinity. Here's a short excerpt, but try to check out the article in its entirety. 

popular culture continues to fetishize the traditional, ’50s model of masculinity, but in a distilled form—kick-ass machismo stripped of the accompanying values of honor, duty and loyalty. We seem to have carried with us the unreconstructed sexism of the past—the objectification of women, inability to connect or communicate—but discarded its redeeming virtues. Where traditional masculinity embraced marriage, children and work as rites of passage into manhood, the 21st century version shuns them as emasculating, with the wife cast in the role of the castrating mother. The result resembles a childlike fantasy of manhood that is endowed with the perks of adulthood—money, sex, freedom—but none of its responsibilities.

Joga.com

Niche social networks take a step forward with the launch of Joga.com, a Nike/Google collaboration. If any brand can pull of this kind of unique, specific community network it may be Nike, and soccer is definitely the platform for this kind of idea (yes, we're big fans and biased!).

A couple of thoughts: the Google log-in part of the site is an eyesore, otherwise the page is nicely designed. And why bother having a Google log in box, if that doesn't even get you into the private network? You still have to submit an address and wait for an invite. Come on Google!

It's good to make the network invite-only, but I wonder how long it will be before they send out invites?
Also, will be looking forward to seeing the kind of content users will be sending in.

From Business Week:

Unlike MySpace.com, however, Joga.com will be a community that focuses on one topic and one passion: soccer, or "football," as it is known outside the U.S. "As we saw the social networks grow in the U.S. and elsewhere, we asked, 'What if this was around sports, a specific sport?'" says Trevor Edwards, Nike's vice president for global brand management. "We are really excited about it."

BOOTING IT UP. Joga is a members-only portal community that will require an invitation to join. There is very little content right now, but Nike officials believe that will change shortly as word of the site spreads. So far, it is filled with profiles from Nike-sponsored soccer players and Nike employees who have created their own pages to get the network rolling. Based on how well Joga.com does, Nike and Google will likely create social-networking sites for basketball, baseball, skateboarding, and other sports, Nike officials say.

American Idol Contest

OK, here we go with another CGM campaign, this time from the kings of user-generated content: American Idol. Send in a 10 second clip, the best ones end up on air.

FMS London Review

As promised, the review I wrote of the Future Marketing Summit in London has just been posted at the fine ihaveanidea website.

Make sure to check out founder Ignacio's review of the New York installment, as well as lots of other goodies in the articles section of the website.

Passing the knowledge

A couple of good presentations from fellow webloggers to recommend:

Joe Jaffe's recent talk at the Boston Ad Club (pdf)

Modernista planner Gareth Kay at the VCU Adcenter

Time For The Movies

Really interesting study just completed by ScenarioDNA in New York concerning teens and college kids going to the movies. A lot of interesting stats that will be of interest to those thinking about getting people back into the theatre.

In addition to confirming that going to the movies is a social event, not so much a dating ritual, the most striking finding was that over-scheduling played a big part in limiting free time. This generation has been brought up with much more scheduled lives than previous generations, and this fact is probably completely overlooked by most marketers, or anyone trying to understand their behaviour.

Generally, going to the movies is less of a dating ritual, than it is a friends’ social event. Only (7%) attend movies with a spouse or date, whereas (87%) view movies with friends.

They also are in theaters regularly. 43% go to the movies once or twice a month. 13% go to the movies once or twice a week.

They are not theater snobs, but they are conscious of the quality of the picture. More than 89% see movies on DVD. A mere 5% watch movies on cable TV.

The critical factor that prevents them from attending movies in theaters is scheduling. 35% say their work schedule is crazy. 16% say other activities get in the way. 16% say schoolwork is overwhelming.

Medium vs. Message

The medium is not the message?

So much attention is focused on understanding and adopting new technology and wrapping heads around new media, but Gary Stein over at Clickz argues for a deeper understanding of marketing and consumers. What is the point of diving into new media with old marketing tactics and outdated  thinking on consumers? Sounds very reasonable to me!

So, I read Sorrell's comments, just as I read other marketers' comments, and wonder why he's talking so much about media. The thinking seems to be people are on the Web, not in front of their TVs, so let's buy us some of that Internet. The discussion is focused on new media and trying to understand them. The conversation really needs to be about new marketing and trying to understand that.

 

Understanding media is comparatively easier than understanding marketing.