Tacoda CEO Responds to Network Transparency Piece

Curt Viebranz from Tacoda also called out Advertising.com's Mollie Spilman, bringing up some interesting points about transparency in a piece on iMedia today. And, unlike me, he did it without saying the word "horseshit," which is admirable. Curt did, however, say the s-word (spyware), which is something I didn't address in my rant. I'm sure Spilman would respond by saying that good ad networks don't have spyware affiliates, but without transparency, how would a media buyer know? Certainly, ad networks in the past have bought inventory on spyware apps in the past, taking some agencies and advertisers by surprise. There's no reason to think a blind buy wouldn't represent a signficant risk of placing ads with spyware companies. A "no spyware" clause in the contract can't protect you if you have no visibility into network affiliates.

Kudos to Curt for responding in a very intelligent way to a very self-serving piece (of horseshit).

PeaceMaker Campaign Launches Tomorrow

I'm happy to say we're launching a campaign for our client, ImpactGames, tomorrow morning. The campaign is for their first game release, PeaceMaker.

PeaceMaker is modeled around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and portrays the dynamic of the conflict very realistically, using real footage from real events. You can play as either the Israeli Prime Minister or the Palestinian President. In either case, you have a number of diplomatic/political actions, construction initiatives or security measures at your disposal, and your goal is to solve the conflict by establishing a two-state solution to the conflict.

I played as the Palestinian President a couple days ago on a demo version ImpactGames sent over. For me, the value stemming from the game comes from understanding the dynamic of the conflict and how decisions will affect the stances of the various stakeholders toward you and your policies. And you can't please everybody. For example, when I played, there was simply no pleasing Hamas. No matter what I did, they hated me and what I was doing. I won't spoil the surprise by telling you how I resolved that - you'll have to play yourself. (The game costs $20, which is a lot less than I pay for games for that XBox 360 Lauren got me for Christmas.)
As far as the marketing goes, we're taking an approach that's consistent with the Conversational Marketing concepts I've been discussing here and elsewhere for the past couple years. That is, we not only want to sell games, but we also want to emphasize the value of the community that's springing up around the game. We're advertising with blogs and with news sites, and while we are advertising to drive sales, we're advertising also to drive participation in the community, specifically the blog ImpactGames set up to discuss the development of PeaceMaker and the gameplay experience.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict (IRL) is something that generates a lot of conversation across the blogosphere and online forums in general. It seems every political blogger and message board poster has their own ideas about how to solve things. We're hoping that our campaign will encourage people to play the game and discuss their experience with the game's developers and ImpactGames' founders. They all blog and they're listening to what people are saying about PeaceMaker.

If you're interested in hearing more, check out the PeaceMaker site, or read this review of PeaceMaker.

On "Eventness"

Brad Berens laments the loss of shared moments in media. He has a point, but I think he attributes too much importance to shared media experiences. A few years ago, I too was convinced the echo chamber effect was quite pronounced, but I saw a glimmer of hope when I took a look at some data from Claria that showed that even political blog audiences cross-pollinated points of view a lot more than I thought possible. I figured that if lefty and righty bloggers and blog readers - who would be my leading suspects as far as crystallization of the echo chamber effect goes - can voluntarily expose themselves to alternative points of view, other folks probably can and do as well. I haven't worried about the echo chamber effect much since.

While I'm at it, since I find it incredibly annoying when people take issue with tangential examples I use in my articles instead of attacking my main point, I figure I'll annoy Brad by ridiculing him for shutting off The Aristocrats after 20 minutes. Like Brad and his wife, I watched this at home and not at a movie theater, but unlike Brad, I LOVED it.

I first heard about the movie from my cousin Al, who appreciated it for what it was - not a comedy, but a documentary about the function that the aristocrats joke performs. At its core, the tragically unfunny joke represents a great way for comedians to compare comedic chops. It's a joke that comedians can take a great amount of latitude with, and the comedy comes from the setup. In the end, the joke is on the person who the joke is being told to, as they sometimes wait 20 minutes for a punchline that punctuates a truly shitty joke. The value is all in the setup, and a truly funny comedian can keep the listener engaged and expecting a big finish. Take Bob Saget, for instance. Most people think of him as a guy who would never say a dirty word in his life. In the documentary, he tells an over-the-top version of the joke that is completely out of character for him, and thus, funny as hell.

That's what it's all about.

Keeping the Lid On

We're getting ready to announce some major client wins here at Underscore.  It's always so difficult to keep a lid on things, particularly when you want to share your successes with the industry and when you want partners like sales organizations and technology vendors to get the heads-up so they can start applying their offerings to the new client's business.  I won't lie and say that ego doesn't play a role, too. We've contained ourselves, but it's also a bit difficult when you consider that your ability to hire new, smart people to work at an agency is hampered somewhat if you can't tell prospects what they might be working on or what new clients you've added to the roster.  We've worked around it, but I can't wait to see what other resumes will cross our desks once we announce the new wins.

I'm very excited.