In Which I Attempt to Propose a New Law

We'll call this one "Tom's First Law of Ham-Handedness":

Upon the emergence of any new media type with significant penetration, the first attempts at corporate marketing through it will be marked by an attempt to adapt it to the broadcast model of advertising.

Earlier this year, I sat through an infuriating presentation at OMMA at which a marketer described how 100,000 people linked to a fake MySpace profile, thus "making friends" with the Wendy's Square. Great. That and a $2 MetroCard will get you on the subway.

At the time, I remember being infuriated at how this was actually passing for marketing, but I was further incensed by the notion of what Wendy's might have achieved if they had taken the time to actually talk to people through social networks instead of leaving a fake profile out there for people to link to. Through working with a few of our clients on Conversational Marketing initiatives, I know that actually taking the time to listen can result in a lot of changed minds. Now we've got case studies we're taking out to the market, and it's becoming obvious that the things that change minds are:

• A demonstrated willingness to listen
• A commitment to the conversation

So 100,000 people linked to a fast food mascot? Frankly, so the hell what? Did that make more people fans of Wendy's? Did it get more people to come in the door and order food? It's more likely that the people linking to the Wendy's square were already fans of the brand.

What if the Wendy's square was instead a guy named Bob who managed a Wendy's in Duluth, and he encouraged people to stop by his MySpace page and post suggestions there? Furthermore, what if he consistently demonstrated that he took those suggestions back to his restaurant and applied them, so the ketchup dispenser wasn't so gross and the bathrooms were cleaner. What if Bob demonstrated that he actually cared what his customers thought?

Well, then we wouldn't be having idiotic discussions at OMMA about how 100,000 people linking to a fake MySpace page is a successful marketing tactic.

Here's the thing that bugs me about the First Law. When marketers try to turn everything into a broadcast medium, they don't simply erode trust in their individual brands, they erode trust in companies in general. We're seeing a lot of talk about how fake profiles are ruining MySpace. It gets blamed on corporate intrusion, but what people are really pissed about is that it's corporate intrusion by corporations that don't listen.

By way of example, let's start with this article on iMedia about five corporate marketers taking a giant whiz on MySpace. It starts with a discussion about Jack In The Box's MySpace page, which as of this writing contains links to videos, a bunch of comments from people linking to the site (which, in a remarkable coincidence, are 100 percent positive), and some lame corporate attempt at copywriting for the young adult market. Here are a few lines from the site describing Jack's "interests"...

I like making people smile by serving them tasty fast food, served in a jiffy for a great price.

Now that we've got the corporate mission statement out of the way, let's see what Jack's musical interests are:

Few people know I used to be a rock guitarist. But all that playing was messing with my burger flipping hand so I had to hang up the axe (that's cool musician slang for guitar). My favorite song I wrote was called "Baby Got Jack". You might be able to find it somewhere on the web. It's really catchy. Now that I'm retired from playing music I like listening to Meatloaf. Go figure.

Cheesy copywriting alone won't make something lame. It's not the cheesiness I have a problem with. It's the lame attempt at keeping things "on message" I have a problem with. It's also the notion that even though people have gotten sick from eating Jack in the Box food on many different occasions, everything on the site seems to be positive. Where are the negative comments? Where's the discussion? Where's the dialogue with customers that would make this site have any sort of foundation in reality?

Of course, since fake MySpace profiles are so "successful" - as evidenced by the over 180,000 people linking to the Jack In The Box page - that other companies see this and decide they have to have a fake profile of their own. And then you have general distrust of companies all across MySpace because instead of a place for dialogue, MySpace is becoming a haven for corporate marketers wearing earplugs.

It's no wonder people have been saying MySpace has jumped the shark.

Bubble 2.0

A lot of my favorite bloggers, especially Jeff Jarvis and John Battelle, are talking about Bubble v2.0. From Battelle's blog:

I am noticing an uptick in the kind of behavior that got us into trouble last time - specifically, spending untethered to value by companies with unproven models.

and from Jarvis:

Now venture over to Steve Rubel’s Micropersuasion, where he got much deserved linkage for worrying that too many 2.0 media efforts are being supported by the ad spending of fellow (unprofitable but VC-backed) web 2.0 companies. That kind of rob-Peter-to-pay-Peter spending is, indeed, what inflated the last bubble and Steve wonders whether it is happening again.

To me, Battelle started on the right track, but went off chasing an unrelated rabbit. Jarvis got closer in talking about depending on ad revenue. I think Bubble 2.0 is going to pop after the VC market realizes that their assumptions concerning the passive consumption of video online are overblown.

As I've talked about before, advertisers are salivating at the notion of placing their television commercials online. Online publishers and technology vendors are racing to develop the critical audience mass that will be needed such that passive online video can take up the mantle of television. Here's the problem...

A lot of advertisers have deluded themselves into thinking that people want to see their commercials. They see nothing wrong with plastering the Internet landscape with pre-roll and standalone online video. We know from past experience that people flee from environments that contain too much advertising, and they find ways to unbundle content and advertising despite the advertising industry's insistence on the two being taken as a package.

In summary, mistake one is thinking so many people will want to be entertained passively by online video. Mistake number two is believing they'll continue to gorge themselves on video clips after advertisers put a :15 or :30 preroll in front of each clip.

In the end, the audience numbers are going to be short of what prognosticators thought they would be. Ad revenues won't remain stable and will slide downward just like banner advertising did. And if we're really unlucky, we'll fail to learn from the past and we'll go through another "online advertising doesn't work" phase.

Look at all these video companies with business models that are based on huge growth in syndicated research that says the number of people viewing video online is growing by leaps and bounds. Unsustainable. Especially once advertisers have slapped pre-roll ads on everything.

An interesting wrinkle in this is YouTube's decision to avoid preroll and instead support itself with branded channels and what they call "participatory video ads." It's obvious to me that YouTube isn't going to contribute to the notion of companies shoveling TV commercials online, which is good. At least they understand the difference between active and passive entertainment, which is more than I can say for a lot of advertisers.

Hats off to YouTube for not folding like a bad poker hand to advertisers frantically waving their checkbooks. I hope they succeed. God knows they're going to take a lot of crap for developing non-standard ad concepts that don't easily lend themselves to shovelware. But that's a good thing. No good deed goes unpunished.

To The Folks at Chitika

Normally, I'd post this at the originating blog, but comments are closed. I wonder why. From the post I linked above:

Chitika | ShopLincs will be offered to select publishers. At this time, ShopLincs are being offered on an invitation basis only. You will be able to apply for your own ShopLinc soon.

Really? So does this mean Chitika will take steps to make sure it builds a respectable network of publishers? Because right now I see it on splogs like this one. So here's my question...What will Chitika be doing to ensure its technology isn't used to support spam blogs financially?

Nice Going, Ad Age

Someone tell me how Ad Age gets away with this...

And recent data from word-of-mouth research group Keller Fay indicate 92% of brand conversations were taking place offline

...when their source is a company that's a member of the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) with its CEO serving on the WOMMA Board of Directors.

OF COURSE they're going to say a high percentage of brand conversations are taking place offline. They have a vested interest. It's as self-serving as when Skip Pile claimed the average agency/client relationship lasted 2.5 years. (This, too, was a load of crap.)

My experience with the entrenched marketing publications is that when they run "reality check" stories, they're really pieces of target journalism designed to take popular ideas down a notch or two.