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Church of the Customer blog has the lowdown on user-generated advertisements making it to the Super Bowl this year. But first, see this CBS News article for a view from mainstream media.

This is not good news. The shift from professionally produced to user-generated advertising makes us poorer in both economic and cultural terms. The arrival of user-created commercials at Super Bowl XLI represents the American Idolization of traditional entertainment — the degeneration of professional content into a “talent show” for amateurs.

In complement, CBS was really mournful in the rest of the reporting, with phrases like “the professional creator is being “disintermediated.”, the “tsumani” of downward pressure on wages created by new technology” because amateur productions cost a minscule fraction of professional ones.

Amid all the hoopla of traditional advertising agencies dying or making a renaissance with this new channel of ad-making, I found this excerpt from Church of the Customer insightful:

Madison Avenue is not in the business of creating fans — it’s in the business of widespread message distribution. But Mad Ave’s influence and energy are fading not just because technology-assisted creativity is commoditizing their business, but because citizen-created content doesn’t care about New York’s infatuation with status and positioning debates. The power centers of influence are shifting to Google’s server farms and thousands of online communities. The fans have co-opted Madison Avenue’s work. Super Bowl ads are a circus freak show, and that’s how about much influence they carry because the minutiae of product, brand and company discussions are being shaped in online forums, which Google follows like a studious court reporter. The points made in those forums are often carried forward to offline discussions, where they’re added to the mixing bowl discussions of personal experiences of people and ultimately, their purchase decisions. There’s your advertising.

Change is good if its for the better. The dynamic range of quality for amateur productions is undoubtedly way higher than professional counterparts. But feeling apologetic for slow-moving dinosaurs in the advertising world who do not understand the new realities of social media today is wrong.

Who feels sorry for retailers with great products who cannot afford the huge fees of ad agencies? Who feels sorry for the customers who pay inflated prices? Why feel sorry for traditional advertising when you can use web forums, blogs, podcasts to reach out and interact with your consumers directly and more personally?

An example of a user-gen ad here

For those who watched the iPhone keynote address at Macworld 2007, and even for those who didn’t, Steve Jobs had 3 different executives come up on stage to talk about their partnerships with Apple - Eric Schmidt (Google), Jerry Yang (Yahoo) and Stan Sigman (Cingular).

While Jobs was at the top of his game, and Schmidt and Yang weren’t too boring either, Stan Sigman stood out like the sore thumb he was, dressed in a suit and speaking from cue cards. Here’s what Presentation Zen thought of him (entire article here) :

I am tempted to call this the difference between “old school” business presentations (stiff, dull, cue-cards, etc.) and “new school” business presentations (passionate, interesting, conversational, etc.). But that would be a mistake because what seems like a “new school” approach is really not new at all. And what appears to be merely a conservative “old school” approach has never been recommended.

While the comment appears to be an affront to business school graduates like myself, I must sadly agree. Read the rest of this entry »

Rich Skrenta has this amazing article on his blog that proclaims Google as the undisputed leader of the Third Wave of Computing after IBM and Microsoft. According to him, the search industry has sorted itself out such that no other competitors, not even Yahoo or Microsoft, can face up to Google’s dominance in search technology, revenue monetization nor brand perception.

So, has Google really won the war?

No way. I am not going to argue that at this current time, Google search is superior in the 3 areas i pointed out in the last paragraph. But i dispute the fact that Google’s position as the leader in search is dominant to the extent Microsoft and IBM had for the PC and mainframe industries.

Search Market Share

Google’s next step: owning the rest of the page views on the netJust as Microsoft used their platform monopoly to push into vertical apps, expect Google to continue to push into lucrative destination verticals — shopping searches, finance, photos, mail, social media, etc. They are being haphazard about this now but will likely refine their thinking and execution over time. It’s actually not inconceivable that they could eventually own all of the destination page views too. Crazy as it sounds, it’s conceivable that they could actually end up owning the entire net, or most of what counts. — Rich Skrenta

For one, Google does not have dominant market share of the search market. According to the latest (?) Comscore ratings of August 2006, Google’s market share of search is just under 50%, while, dominating Microsoft and Yahoo in head-to-head comparisons (at 12.5% and 28.7% respectively), do not grant it dominance to the extent of Microsoft’s near-monopolistic share over PC software, or even IBM’s share in their heydays. Of course, Rich Skrenta cites Google’s true search market share at 70% based on his own analysis here, which makes for compelling reading as that is closer to my own analytics on this blog and elsewhere too, but its still hard to dispute comScore methodology without deeper analysis. Google has to fear a resurgent and cash-rich Microsoft buying over a Yahoo that is looking vulnerable after recent management revamps and strategic missteps in its bid to become an online media giant at the expense of search.

If Microsoft and Yahoo combines, not only do they form a formidable threat in terms of search market share, they also bring large audiences and strengths in content (through the MSN and Yahoo sites) under the same roof. This effectively kicks the wind out of Google, especially if they intend to diversify into areas other than search, such as social media, photos, mail or finance (as listed y Rich Skrenta). We know how Google fares in those verticals currently, it has already exited the user-dependent Google Answers service while Yahoo Answers roars ahead. While I am a rabid fan of Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail still have overwhelming numbers of users that are unlikely to convert their loyalty in any significant way to Google soon.

Transfer of Brand-Trust

The brand perception of Google might be strong, but it is only limited to search, and not in email as yet, and similarly for other services other than search. How users will translate their trust in the Google search service to other Google-affiliated services is an open question even Googlers must be asking themselves too. As it stands, Google has launched an amazing number of services under its Google Labs, few of which have truly stuck on that metaphorical wall of user-consumer acceptance. While its culture of innovation is laudable here, doubts have crept as to how Google intends to curb its dependence, in terms of revenue, upon search as its sole revenue driver. If we are to take revenue generation as a reliable symtpom of brand equity, Google is only good in search, so far. Period.

All in all, I think its still premature to say Google is the dominant search engine for this Third Age of Computing. It has been the first to get search truly right (first-right-mover advantage) but the jury is still out on the success of Microsoft’s new advertising platform AdCenter and Yahoo’s Project Panama. Furthermore, the search engine marketing industry is not just limited to CPC ads which Google totally rules, but also CPM and CPA ads (Dave McClure made a strong case for CPA here). There’s still a long way for Microsoft, Yahoo or even NewsCorp to muscle in and determine the path for search engines to lead the evolution of its advertising-reliant monetization model. I think 2007 will shed more light on the final destination of the Crown for Search, especially so if Microsoft and Yahoo hook up.

The war for search engine domination is not over because monetization lies at its root, and the best man who figures out how to sell effectively (CPA ads) to an intent-based activity like search, wins.

Check out this series of videos depicting the history of menstruation in men starting from the cavemen era based on analysis of hieroglyphics to historical evidence that even include the Greek gods, Shakespeare, Napoleon and even the moon race.. Really makes you wonder..

The Cavemen Evidence
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgeO2BPFdh4] Read the rest of this entry »

I have officially become a Facebook junkie.. and stalker too, if you count the amount of times I have clicked on profiles and groups in order to identify patterns and behaviors for my thesis topic. Plus its an incredible time waster getting really distracted by cool stuff i find and not working on my thesis instead, thats the real killer.. I wonder how anyone doing research in this field can really do it without getting hooked eventually..

Maybe its not a good idea after all to write about about the web, cos I am really trapped in it now. =) But i’m luvin’ it. I also realize I am not an academic because all i can think of, while surfing Facebook, are not theoretical concepts but marketing ideas and revenue models.

My thesis topic is “Influence on Online Social Networks”. I am trying to investigate how information diffuses across virtual communities such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, by understanding individual motivations and also how social structure affects the desire to perform the action of passing along a meme. My goal is to work out a model for designing online marketing campaigns for online social networks. Particularly in the context of viral campaigns like the adidas world cup campaign on myspace that garnered thousands of “friends” within a week..

Such self-organized and organic evangelizing of memes hold massive potential for marketers. Being an avid user myself, I am  trying to think of a mechanism to ride on such trends as a marketer, but I cannot find a scientific way to re-create such viral behavior, much less find literature by academics who offer some insights. There are exceptions of course, Danah Boyd and Fred Stutzman. Which comes back to what I always believe in, only our own generation hold the key to the digital revolution. Online social networks are a slightly different ball game in terms of its sociological profile, they are not “real” and are only the “horizon” too what Fred calls the study of “socio-technical” behavior of web users on such networks. The disengagement of reality in some online interactions might just be turning some of us into cyborgs…

Back to the topic, some friends are asking me what I am writing about exactly. So here’s a draft abstract i crammed out of my confused mind:

In this dissertation, we will examine how ideas gain influence among members on online social networks (OSNs). An online social network is a virtual community of web users and is characterized by its consumer orientation and a platform that enables the creation and maintenance of web identities in addition to interactive features for the purpose of social exchanges between its members.

This computer-mediated form of communication is wildly popular among youths today. OSNs have been lauded for the swift propagation of recent pop culture trends due to the enhanced network effects offered by the internet form of information transmission. By studying the many interest groupings and movements in OSNs, we build a model that allows us to understand the diffusion of information. In particular, we seek to explore how network independent variables such as personality and network-dependent variables such as connectivity, social structure has an impact on the formation, growth and influence of web-based ideas/ memes. We compare the studies of such groups across some of the most popular networks today and attempt to apply these findings to the field of online marketing.

Some questions simmering at the back of my mind:

1. What causes an idea to spread in online social networks?
2. What is the “DNA” (genetic structure) of an influential/ viral idea on OSNs?
3. Is it the presence of “power connectors” or does the topology of a successful viral movement reveal how social structure helps in idea diffusion?

Think about this: why did you join a particular social network? You were not forced to by the company itself, no way. There’s no one who can command you to press a button and fill up a tedious form over the internet. Its your choice. And a conscious choice at that.

You were most likely influenced by your friends, people you trust who had sold you on the benefits of linking up on that network. It could be humor, could be voyeurism, gossip on friends, sharing interests, keeping in touch.. There’s an immense social blanket we wrap around us and an OSN membership might just help provide that extra comfort.

So we establish that a social network membership was obtained due to viral, peer to peer marketing. Most of your friends joined, and hence you join, and you move on to ask others to join. The cycle continues. No external influence, its all intra-community peer pressure plus maybe that self-initiated curiousity and desire.

But membership does not equate active participation. Some people never upload photos, nor leave testimonials, wall writings or update their profile. These activities are important in filtering the active members from the passive ones. Its a volitional/ conscious choice again. These people may just be passive consumers or voyeurs of your updates or they just fail to log on after that intial spike of interest. A social network has no value for any user nor marketer without constant activity. Hence, I postulate on the existence of an “effective social network”, one that creates and communicates social value, or what Malcolm Gladwell might call the mavens, connectors and salesmen.

These connectors are the true engine of a social network which thrives on content and media generated by its own users. They lubricate the entire operations of the network by contributing, publicizing, modifying, “stealing” and criticizing all this social content of their own, of friends or strangers. It is them which spark off “flame wars” or the next meme that will fuel a huge flurry of online activity that makes social network contribution so fun.

The focus of my thesis is on understanding the topology/ social structure of these social sub-networks, (the groups of users who have consciously rallied and engaged in activity around common memes) and the roles and importance of “influencers” (mavens, connectors, salesmen). I will also be attempting to create a link between how the process of meme propagation can be extended for application to consumer marketing campaigns in the form of memes.

It all sounds rather scattered now, lets hear what you can make of it.

Ever worked or visited an IT firm and found it packed with more girls than guys? Yea man, you there nodding your head, the female gender is truly a rarity in the IT world. Lets forget even about the gender bias displayed by Lawrence Summers. Discriminating females based on demographic profiles in the male-dominated industries are not true reflections of the former’s aptitude in the math and sciences. There’s always Marissa Mayer, Caterina Fake if you ask me.

But SEX always sells, more so with the democratized tools of distribution in the form of the internet. Since no one have print calendars these days, what better way to get the word out using wallpaper-friendly formats and provocative photo ops to get bloggers and mainstream media into a frenzy?

Yes, WOMEN IN IT, we heard ya msg loud and clear.

No way in hell do i think young impressionable females gonna be convinced to take up IT because they felt inspired by these “role models” portayed in icons of pop culture? Well, it might be fun for the girls in those photo shoots but I think the fun factor is way higher for their male counterparts in the testosterone-fuelled environs of research labs and IT firms around the world. Not to mention reinforcing the stereotypes.

In fact, it appears some immensely unhappy female hackers tried taking down the side, or maybe some feminist rights fanatics. SUch violent responses do indeed help in promoting this message further. IN fact thats how I got news of it from here. The site weathered 3.5 million hits and also came under a Denial-Of-Service attack over the past weekend without crashing. Now, the host of the site Sauce Software is all over the media for a good job done in keeping the site running. Nice idea for a viral marketing campaign, i say.

Click on image to watch the video makeover of a “Microsoft-ed” iPod. Its a parody created by not Apple, but Microsoft workers.

Firstly, to my doubting friends, I played no part in the conception of the aforementioned ads. And saying this gives me no satisfaction at all for I am talking about my alma mater. But a line has to be drawn netween blind loyalty and rational criticism for the sake of betterment.

Secondly, I am highly disappointed in the storyboarding of this ad. I shall also avoid unconstructive criticism of this ad here because that has already been rehashed many times on the blogosphere.

But I always believe that transparency is key and I anticipate certain sensitivities may be broached by this post. However, if we are to be a world-class business school, we should expect every action and policy of ours to be scrutinized in a fair and open manner befitting a globalized, frontier-less business environment our graduates will face once they leave the confines of the college campus. The Internet is the best example of an open, inclusive channel for undiscriminated communication of diverse opinions.

Let me also say that I think the online community, and most importantly, my own NUS Business School admin, deserves to hear from a NUS Business student's mouth (albeit digitally) instead of outsiders.

From Straits Time June 4, 2006 article,

The dean, Mr Christopher Earley, who came up with the concept for the ad, said that a lot of the criticism was a product of Singaporean modesty.

This is not an excuse. We boast when we need to, but look at the context we were boasting with respect to: Wharton, University of Chicago and Sloan… My question: where's the justification?

To be fair, the commercial ranked high on the visibility factor. If the purpose was to get the name out and create the viral marketing effect, the commercial succeeded immensely. Recall rates must be immensely high for these commercials, not totally impossible if we really had primetime slots during TV ratings winners like Singapore Idol.

But to market well, the visibility is not the sole component. The rule that any publicity is good publicity DOES NOT apply to an incumbent, mature business school like NUS. Acting young and rejuvenating our staid, old image is fine. Pple will at least say we dare to change, although some will say this smacks of copycat behavior of SMU marketing. But gloating about our status and saying we r truly the best up there with the Ivy Leagues of Wharton in an effort to differentiate ourself was the wrong strategy. People know NUS is better than NTU and SMU in terms of world rankings. But to elevate our status artificially and inflating our status to "world-class" alongside world-renowned business schools is something that is better off as a buzzword on school prospectuses and not as taglines on mass-market TV commercials.

The messages sent out in our Suburban American commercial was wholly wrong. Through the role-playing of an American girl preferring to come to NUS Business School, we implicitly sent the message that local students should choose NUS because overseas students are doing so and they should learn from them, if not copy. This is derogatory. This form of persuasion is too blatant. Local viewers immediately see a brain-washing attempt here. Trivalizing the ad with "cute boys" was uproariously cheesy, and "chewing gum" makes me think this ad was actually targetted at overseas audiences as locals have already forgotten this foreign stereotype and connotation with Singapore.

Hence the question, why air this foreigner's perspective view of Singapore within Singapore. Wrong audience, dun ya think so?

I think this ad will better serve its purpose overseas, but even if shown overseas, it would have fallen flat on discerning audiences. Hey, college students-to-be ain't fools.

But if we apply the visibility factor above, this ad will succeed in increasing mindshare among foreign audiences and the viral marketing via word-of-mouth or the Youtube effect (which is already happening) would have been to the benefit (if somewhat dubious) of NUS.

Having said that, its still a tasteless ad.

As for the "Hometown Singaporean Boy and his Lil Brother" ad, "huh??" is the first response. Its a highly convoluted and confusing way to waste precious TV airtime when the only meaningful message was to tell viewers that "NUS is preferred by elites all over the world". What a wasteful way to spend our college tuition fees on an expensive TV ad. Again, visibility might be high here due to the strategic time slots of the TV ad placement, but the message fails to hit the sweet spot inside the viewers' mind.

It merely raises one question, why is the adult protagonist considered an "elite" in the first place and why "all over the world" when he's already in Singapore?

Suggestions:

1. Do not waste these commercials. NUS Business School should turn these commercials into teaching material for our marketing classes. Make them a valuable case study.
2. Self-sustenance. Use these commercials to connect with our students. In lectures and tutorials, the instructor should be saying: " Alrite, students, we screwed up. But beyond your snide critique which is easy to do, CAN YOU DO BETTER?" Issue this as a personal challenge and make this a project. Get students to create new storyboards on how they can design and conceptualize better ads and put together a proper marketign campaign with right positioning statements for NUS Business School. I think this has magnetic appeal. We develop ads by students for (new) students. No second-guessing by marketers with no feel or connection to our generation. THe students will have an incentive to do better than their own dean who came up with the current concepts. Now, that would make me respect the courage of the staff and administration, not to mention reaffirm my faith in the pedagogical objectives of our teaching stuff as opposed to them covering up valuable teaching material.
3. Implement Suggestions #1 & #2 next semester to maintain currency of content.
4. Focus Groups. I believe I do not speak for myself, but for most Bizad students, that we can contribute much better to future Business School adverts. Such cringe-worthy commercials cannot possibly escape the criticism in behavioral marketing labs.

If NUS Business School students are truly world-class, lets see what the students can come up with.

Related post(s) here by Vox Iuvenium, another great post here too by SG Entrepreneurs one more here by PortalofLife.

Will the days of centrally-planned marketing campaigns that views you (the customer), as a target board ready for bombardment by million-dollar ad campaigns end? Where tons of brochures, pamphlets and other marketing crap all seek to brainwash u into thinking Company X's new product is the best thing since sliced bread.. 

Apple's iPod leads a new wave of marketing, one that seeks to place the customer back into the saddle/ dominant role of the firm-customer relationship again.  A new way which is called a more pull-based marketing that depends more on the customer reaching out and asking for a good because he/ sghe really desires it and has a perceived need. Well, some brainwashing might still eb responsible for the "perceived need", but in pull-based marketing, the influence of the marketer is more subtle and sophisticated, i might say. I am a sucker for Apple products. Keep ur new 7th-generation iPod under wraps and that immense shroud of secrecy for months and chances are i will still buy it. =)

 An excerpt from this article:

This leads to the third, most important and least obvious of the iPod's trumps: the power of 'pull'. Most companies distribute their product by 'push'. They estimate demand, build according to the estimate and then sell ('push') what they have built. This is essentially business as central planning, and it works little better at company than at country level - hence the need for advertising and promotional price-cuts to reconcile sales with estimates, extra features to help sell the product and, finally, huge computer power to keep track of all the product variations, sales estimates and production plans.When, as with iTunes, the product is 'pulled' by the customer, on the other hand, the engines required for 'push' are redundant. It's like using gravity instead of fighting against it. Pull inherently uses fewer resources; tells managers directly what consumers want; and above all delivers on customers' own terms.

In their book The Support Economy, Shoshana Zuboff and Jim Maxmin charge that the rising tide of consumer discontent amid material plenty is the result of companies failing to change along with their customers. People are no longer grateful for what companies give them; they want what they want, in the form they decide. Part of the iPod's phenomenal success is that as one of the first of a new breed of products to put customers on equal terms with producers, it begins to respond to this need.

Here's some truth about marketing from Futurelab, its a response to Guy Kawasaki's lies which is profile below. I am summarizing the points that I really like.

Simplicity rules!

Advertising and feature overload is making consumers “tune out” (now even proven by neurologists). Real marketers respect this and focus their messages on the essence of what they’re trying to say, simply deleting all the rest. They also avoid countering marketing immunity by bigger doses of promotion, yet focus on timing their message only at the most relevant moment (ironically saving a bundle of budget in the process).

Trust customers as much as you expect them to trust you.

In the social media space reputations can be made or broken in the blink of an eye, and there’s nothing a brand can do about it. Real marketers see this and proactively open up their treasure box to their community of users. They publicly own up to mistakes and involve consumers in creating promotions and even products. Above all, real marketers understand that love for a brand starts with trust, and to earn trust you first have give it.

There’s nothing wrong with hard work

For some, marketing is a profession which is 90% about coming up with ideas and then farming out the “doing” to agencies. Real marketers see this differently. They implement rigorous processes to ensure initiatives get executed on-time, on-budget and with maximum financial impact on the business. They go along on sales calls, not to talk about their latest campaign, yet to listen, learn and help the account manager get the business. In short, they roll up their sleeves and work.

CLick here for the whole article.

And on to the top lies from "whistle-blower" Guy Kawasaki: Love the definition of "viral" and totally agree with the Microsoft "innoculation". Dun those guys EVER GET IT???

4. "We're confident that our product is extremely viral." Steve Jurvetson best defined virality as "the involuntary adoption of a product." The key word is involuntary–for example, in the early days of instant messaging, ICQ was a viral product because if you wanted to instant message, you had no choice but to install ICQ. Any decent product can generate word of mouth advertising, but very few products are truly viral.Anti-example: Have you ever wanted to post a comment to an MSN-hosted blog only to be confronted with the message that you have to sign in with a Microsoft .NET Passport? That's not virality–that's innoculation.

9. "This is how we are going to position the product." This is a lie of naivete that indicates a lack of real-worldliness and experience. You might try to position your product in a certain way, but ultimately customers, not you, position your product. You take your best shot and then you see how customers react–if, frankly, they react at all. But, at the end of the day, you're hardly in total control of positioning.

"Our product is so unique that it has no competition." (Maura Welch). It has no competition for two possible reasons: (a) You're clueless and don't know how to use Google; (b) there's no market for it so no one else is dumb enough to do the same thing.

I included the last point cos this is a common lie many business plans presenters or entrepreneurs refuse to believe. I included it so i can remind myself again. There's no more ideas thats new in this world. Idea generation is dead, but idea conceptualization and execution can be innovated upon.