Remembering Madmen + Better value beats them all

What you see is greatness from one of the all-time great Madmen. This is Leo Burnett (1891-1971) in his farewell speech "Take my name off the door" which is shown to every Leo Burnett employee since. 


His Dad was a dry goods store owner and sold apples. Hence, Apples are still in the reception of Burnetts to remind people where they all came from. But this is about his principles and change as he left the Agency he started.

My Dad made Ads too, but he was no Leo Burnett, except to me. Commercials, like "on the telly" and as a kid I always saw him as almost a  movie director, or so I told my school pals.

"Better value beats them all"; "Get on the scent of the Cookstown sizzle"; "Fiat fights running costs" were slogans consigned to my memory for when I was asked what he did. I would do it casually, like it wasn't really important.

“Yeah shucks, that’s what he does”, as schoolyard pals were captivated and I would swop my Peter Osgood football cigarette cards for two Norman Hunters. Cigarette cards aged 10, talk about advertising regulation....

Our house was full of Oatfield Sweets, left-overs from some TV shoot or other and we were dressed by Dunnes stores. Better value after all, beats them all.

I would crawl out of bed late and unbeknownst sat on the stairs listening to my dad and another agency man, rehearse some presentation in the "good room" where we were only allowed at Christmas.

A bed sheet was sellotaped to the wall showing 35mm slides from a carousel projector whilst making their way through a bottle of Chivas Regal the night before the big pitch.

They'd laugh, knock over the carousel (or casserole as I knew it) and spend the evening putting them back in upside down, a bit worse for wear. Tomorrow didn't really matter because they knew what they were doing. Down to their fingertips.

My dad would truthfully recount presentations where he picked up fellow presenters from the pub on the way to it. Like actors, it didn't matter, because when they performed, they were perfect. And perform they would.

However, only one ego can fit into any one room and ego, or confidence, they had in abundance.

He was a salesman for sure, but a great one and advertising ideas is the hardest sell of them all. Adpeople are all ultimately salespeople or so they should be.

But then it all changed.

When I started in the late seventies, of about 40 Irish advertising agencies then, only 2 were foreign owned. Today it's exactly the opposite.

38 foreign owned and in affect, there is no indigenous Irish advertising business anymore. Pity, in a sentimental nationalistic sort of way, but smashing for the Irish agency owners who collected cheques, most of whom were simply, nicely, stark raving.

Ad agencies then, were never run by businesspeople but simply by pure admen who just did it because they were able to, nor should they have been. Most couldn't read a Balance Sheet and no bad thing either, but they knew their advertising onions.

What happened to advertising since, is that the bean counters took over as they acquired these local agencies as they've done the world over.

The business formerly run by admen, quickly became run by plc's whose concern was share price rather than output. You don't make stock market gains if you do good ads but you do, if you do good numbers.

Saatchi’s acquired OKB Dublin in the 70’s and my Dad was there. What made Saatchi’s famous was that they saw that growth wasn't necessarily organic but rather by acquisition. In other words, you could simply buy the business, buy the clients.

Indeed we all know the Saatchi’s story but you may not know that their financial controller was none other than “shorty”, Martin Sorrel, who went on to buy WPP and now owns major agencies such as JWT and Ogilvy - probably the biggest agency owner in the world today. He had a point to prove that the Saatchi success was not built on good advertising but rather clever financial leveraging.

Agencies with great long track records dissolved into being run by a financial guy. The lunatics had left perhaps, but the suits had definitely taken over.

The lunacy is that the advertising suffered and the "lunatics" were the great Madmen characters - their departure marked the end of real talent.

My old man would tell me about visiting clients who brought him with great deference to their Boardroom, took out the fine china, Marietta biscuits and listened. Because they believed the adman had the magic dust in their pocket, which they could sprinkle on their product, and it would sell. Respect.

It can be great again.
If we apply ourselves - online.

(you might also be interested in this, the legendary pitch for British Rail: http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/madmen-they-were-greatest-pitch-of-them.html)

At last. A great Ad online.

You know I often wonder about the demise of traditional advertising and what if, ad people like me, from traditional ad agency backgrounds, embraced the technology rather than dismissed it?


Honestly, I wish we'd stop doing dismissing it because it's like going out to Dollymount Stand and trying to push out the waves. To sound sophisticated I often say, we're like the peasants in Lamb's essay....we know not how to roast pork other than to burn the house down (good isn't it?)


What I mean is that the game is up. It's over - so now get involved or lose it all.


You see apart from being second generation adman and my son possibly being a third, I was also a spokesperson for advertising being a former President and Fellow of The Advertising Institute (iapi). It's been a long time in advertising - since the breakfast table.

So it's not that I'm critical of advertising agencies, it's more that I wished they just stood up and realised that this is the fun of the 'madmen' era and is actually the most imaginative, creative space they could be in. Instead of being a threat to their livlihoods, it's possibly the greatest opportunity for their talent.

And just when despair became bleak, up stepped McCanns of Israel and creative director Nir whose Facebook page is at the top and who deserves to have his pic repeated here. And no, I've never heard of nor met him, unfortunately. 

Funny too that at almost exactly the same time I was reading an article by Tonia Ries of Modern Media in Social Media Monthly - a publication run by Bob from his Apartment in Washington DC. And if you see it, buy it, it's smashing.

Basically what Tonia is saying, which she bases around a concept called "realtime", is that with the rise of social media, geolocation and realtime services, brands have a massive opportunity to target consumers in realtime, based on 'expressions of interest'. Consumers of course, constantly tell you things about themselves - "likes", status updates, comments, video uploads, location, relationships and so on. 


You know that. And you know that brands traditionally interrupt their day, frequently, not because of expressions of interests but because of their media habits only and they keep telling them about the brand. Shouting at them repetitively whereas this way means you target consumers with relevance.


For example, I tweet that "I'm on my way to the airport". Your brand sees that and Tweets back "flights delayed due to fog so take your time" from say, "Mr. Coffee", then I appreciate the relevance and am likely to remember you.


Or I have arrived late at the hotel (don't we all) in a foreign place and I check-in via Foursquare to see a restaurant on the corner opens late and will give me a free beer. Thanks, I'm there.


Yes it requires automated personal activity based on detailed analysis of activity (have a look at Klout if you think this level of detail doesn't exist because it does). The web is a network of computers so advertising can be as accurate as it wants.


So Nir Refuah, sitting in McCanns in Israel and his team, clearly gets that and he has a problem to promote his client 'Opticana'. So he designs a "banner" based around eye tests. It's called an 'iphone pinch banner'. But he links it to the most common expression of interest that we all do, squeezing the text on an iphone.


If you squeeze it you make it bigger. If you need to make it bigger, you might need an eye test. At Opticana.

So here's an Agency, McCanns, about as traditional as you can get, thinking in the new space and doing a wonderful job for their client. And more importantly perhaps, doing a wonderful advertisement for the ability of admen in the new space. 


Thank you Nir and the whole team at McCanns, Israel.
I hope the rest of us are watching.

Google Classic Ad Campaigns. Volvo updated.

You may have been reading my blog about how Google are trying to bring classic campaigns into the digital age.


Coke is a great story - "I'd like to teach the world to sing" and you can read it here: http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/ad-agencies-have-future-thanks-to.html

Next up was a classic Volvo Campaign from 1963, "Drive it like you hate it" and it's here http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/google-show-ad-agencies-have-future-if.html

That story was about finding a man called Irv Gordon who had a Volvo with nearly 3 million miles on the clock.


What's happened since is they're updating Irv's story on his way to the 3 million miles. A great extension and posting the new videos. I love this. Watch these two journeys, if you are interested at all. The first one is called 'Perfume' - "it's not about getting to the 3 million miles, it's about the trips that get me to the 3 million miles" - love it.

The second is a journey to Luray caves. Beautifully shot and great storytelling for Volvo.

Ad Agencies take note. A campaign with real longevity online and not a banner ad in sight.

Madmen they were. The greatest pitch of them all. True story.

Allen Brady Marsh was an Agency which started in London in 1965.

(My Dad was in Saatchis at the time and this story did the rounds. I have to say too, it wasn't unusual to see my Dad walking through the Agency after lunch with a glass of red wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The real era of Advertising.)

ABM was fronted largely by Peter Marsh, who sometimes welcomed visitors from a throne, they were song+ dance men. You might get a sense of that from them above celebrating winning Guinness and the "Guinnessless" campaign.

Top hats, tails and playing the jingle on a piano was not unheard of from Peter Marsh. In fact, you expected it. He had started as a writer and producer for The BBC. In 1991, the Agency was sold to Lowe Howard Spink.

The great story, which I'm often asked to tell to lonely advertising people, normally in pubs, is the infamous pitch to Sir Peter Parker and his marketing crew at British Rail. 

ABM at the time, were very much the underdogs on the list and unlikely to get it as it was a huge account. 

So ABM decided they may as well throw everything at it to get noticed because the reality was, they'd nothing to lose. And they did.

On day of the pitch, at 11am as agreed, the "serious" suited team from British Rail turned up at ABM, walked into reception to find it deserted. The stood at the desk and waited and the chairman, Sir Peter Parker, checked his watch. Yes, they were on time. He looked around, no one - just a very scruffy reception area. Crumpled newspapers, litter, cigarette ends on the floor, cushions with holes burned in them. This was the worst agency they’d been in. 

A young giddy woman appeared, brushed past them and sat behind the desk as if the receptionist. "Sorry", she said, "I'll be with you in a minute, have a seat" and proceeded to take up the phone and continue a chat with a friend about where they'd been last night. 

Phone cradled between shoulder and neck, she went on to explain to her friend, whom she eventually "went home with", as she filed her nails with a nile file found by rummaging in a drawer. 

Sir Peter politely coughed, she ignored him. He coughed again, she looked up.

"Yes?" she said,

He said “Excuse me, we’re here to see….” but our ace receptionist interrupted, “Be with you in a minute love” and continued the conversation about last night but brought it to an end quickly.

"Yes, sorry" she said, almost apologetic, "you're from the rail people, aren't you...Mr. Perker isn't it? I'll tell Mr. Marsh you're here" and proceeded to phone 'downstairs' to let them know. 

"Coffee?" she then asked, which was greeted reluctantly by a positive nod.

Up comes a girl "from downstairs" with formica tray, 5 plastic cups, sachets of sugar (now wet from spilt coffee), plastic spoons and a small cardboard milk carton with the top roughly torn off. "Help yourselves" and she was off.

It was all becoming enough for Sir Peter Parker and his team.

Whatever Agency they'd seen, clearly this was not the Agency for them.
Parker turns to the team and they nod in agreement, that's it we're off.

So Sir Peter turns to the receptionist and explains;

"Please tell Mr. Marsh, we were here on time, we have waited 20 minutes and thank him for his interest in our business but that this is not the agency for us". And proceeded to leave.

At that moment a door burst open and out stepped Peter Marsh, as head of the agency. 

He’d been watching everything. He shook the chairman’s hand warmly. 

He said “Gentlemen, you've just experienced the problems at British Rail, now come down and see the solutions". And he took the British Rail management into their boardroom and went through an all-singing, all-dancing presentation of how bright the future could be, if ABM was their agency. Which, of course, it became. 

Madmen Series 5, starts Tuesday 9pm Sky Atlantic.
Those were the days.

Highlight. And how I'll know all about you... Yes, you.

                                   


Highlight. Honestly, I don't want anyone else to tell me about it. I know,it's interesting and very, very scary.


If you haven't heard the controversy, click the Forbe's video interview above with Highlight founder (is a user a highlighter? just sayin') Paul Davison, 32, Californian.  


Highlight is an iphone App (no android version yet) which logs in via Facebook and was the most talked about at the SXSW Conference in Texas (South X South West. SXSW geddit?).


Talked about in a "Oh, I'm not sure" kinda way but definitely talked about.


What happens is that you download the app to your phone and it takes all your Facebook information. Next time you're within a 100 yards of someone else with the App (basically a football field away), it tells you about them, and them about you.


What they like, who you have in common connections, their profile etc.

Walking down the street and just forgot her name? Not any more.
Have a secretive discrete dinner date? Not any more either.

But here's the OMG! moment. It seems (if you and I are both on Highlight) that you can see my friends and I can see yours. 


However what that means is that you might be notified that my pal Tom, who is also on highlight, is walking across the street from you right now and you think, "who the hell is Tom?".


Click and discover is that he's one of my friends and that's what we have in common. You can message him. "Hey Tom, I'm one of Stuart's friends waving at you". He will be pleased. Expect a visual answer.


But one sec, I don't want people whom I don't know, knowing about me in public because I happen to be someone's Facebook friend. David McWilliams has 176,000 of them. He won't be able to go out anymore. "Hey Dave, I'm a friend of one of your 176,000 friends!"


Pity Lady Gaga going incognito to the store in baseball cap and shades. Nope, not anymore, she has 20 million of them.


So now I'm unfriending my Facebook friends who are on Highlight. All 3 of them.


So it's this balance between being useful and scary. Do you want that person coming towards you to know all about you? well, do you?


This is not, strictly speaking, a location based App but it does work off GPS, something I am close to and understand, having tried to develop gps/gprs trackers some time ago.


What I do understand are two clear things that Highlight won't have sorted, when using GPS;


1. GPS (and so Highlight) runs down battery life when enabled. BIG time.


2. It's not good at locating indoors, at all. So when you hear the highlight users stories about tracking a pal in a porn shop, don't be so sure. Hard thing to do with GPS.


And I don't think Highlight has got around these issues notably the battery life drain which will really upset downloaders in time. 


The other issue that arises, is the same one that always does, privacy.
But that easily dealt with, they say:


You download Highlight, you're in. You don't, you're not so if it bothers you, don't do it, they say. If you decide to download to be 'cutting edge', you can switch it on and switch it off, they say too. Yeah, right. 


But not if I'm just someone's Facebook friend and now you know about me too. That's a big privacy issue. Big trust issue.


However, one commentator has said that the App is just "too early" and it's something "we'll all have sooner or later". And he could be right. But I've read that many reviews, almost all of them irate right now. Maybe they're just "too early". And I'm sorry, I'm with them. I think Paul thinks Paul is a bit too early too. Add to that, I hate the logo.


Location based applications haven't really had traction yet ('Foursquare' to a point) and there's an evens bet that they will. Highlight is first in if that's the case and readily positioned to become dominant.


And location based applications are great for.....Ads. 
Ads as you shop, Ads as you walk past the store, Ads as you visit the bar....
So what happens when Highlight starts suggesting where I should go for coffee because I've been there 3 times already?
Hmmmmm.....Now there's a thought.

"Draw Something" just sold to Zynga at 210 million

Sorry this is probably more of a Tweet than a Blog but after my blog today http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/instagram-apps-and-100000-dollars-in.html where I suggested that Zynga might be buying the "100,000 dollar a day App" Draw Something, they just have. Rumour is 180m usd + earn outs bring it up to 210m. 


Think I might have been one of the first out with The CNN Mashable deal too. So sorry, bit of a good feeling. Forgive me! 


210 million dollars. Not bad for an App that launched in February 2012. Not bad at all. Ad Agencies take note.

Instagram, Apps and 100,000 dollars in advertising every 24 hours.

Instagram. Yes indeed another file sharing, photo sharing, media sharing proposition and App. Like the world needs another App, I hear you groan. Seemingly yes, it does. Badly.

But what makes Instagram different is that it's purely mobile based (and iphone based only with an Android version promised soon). 

What it does is that you upload it to your phone, take a picture and through many different effects, enhance your picture. In particular they create a more "olden times" feel and in some ways create that Kodak nostalgia. You then share those Instagram pics across all accounts, as you do.


If you search it through Google "images", you'll see what I mean and stunning photos a lot of them are. Ideal for Pinterest pinning for example.

Sharing pics is important because as we all share our pics more + more, we want them to look, well, nicer. And it does work, really well, with more and more effects coming along each week.

So this is an applicaton based entirely on Social media activity. Social Media on top of Social Media.

But it's a great story too with the marketing initially driven by celebs (Justin Beiber being the winner as the first to reach 1 million followers last Tuesday. Want to see Justin's pics? Nah, me neither).

Started in March 2010, Instagram raised 500k usd in seed capital and a further round a year later raised another 7 million usd. 'Techcrunch' reports a more recent round raised as much as 40 million usd so it has got its "fans".

In December 2010 (9 months after launch) it had a million users, 10 million by September 2011 and now a reported 25 million users with over 200 million photos downloaded. That's what I said, 200 million. And was Apple's 'App of the year' for 2011.

So a massively succesful App that's only mobile and as yet, only iphone based. Wow.

Which brings me to Apps of which there's 500,000 in the Apple Store and Google with less, but catching. 

Story of the week was of course "Draw Something" a "pictionery interactive" style app launched early in Feb 2012 which has gone straight to the top of the charts.

And not suprisingly.

Yes it's free but revenue is generated from ads on the free version (you can upgrade to a non-ad version) giving a billion impressions a day. And wait for it, the revenue a combination of both ads and upgrades, is a cool, 100,000 usd a day. That's 700,000 usd a week and growing. It became the biggest game on Facebook last week.

Zynga, the biggest social media gaming company in the world) are talked to be a purchaser potentially paying 150-200 million usd. Not bad for an App started in February.

According to 'Techcrunch' (whom we bow at), there's others interested too so the talks have not yet hit that crucial "exclusivity" stage. 

But the point here is that 100,000 usd a day is Ad dollars that would normally have been spent on Tv, Press, Radio, Outdoor.......

One wonders if Ad Agencies had not spent their time more constructively building Apps? 

So ladies and gentlemen, the advertising model is changing.

The world is changing.

Live Streaming. What it is and why Content is still king.

Content is king. Probably the greatest cliche in internet history. But for a reason, because it's true. 

The best way I can explain why, is to take you on a short journey of my experience going back 15 years. Only, 15 years which really is, yesterday. But I hope it might explain the transition to content.

What I'm trying to show (yeah, probably badly...) is the manner in which the web started and the stages since then to today's stage, content. It started as connectivity for the chosen few, then search, then web design, then social media and then video/live streaming. So by telling the history, I can explain why we are where we are. Or so I think, so here goes.

At that time in the late 1990's, me and a man called Tom Kelly set up an 'isp' - internet service provider - largely giving internet access to the domestic market, called 'Club Internet' (club.ie). We were second out of the box in Ireland following another isp 'Ireland-on-line' (iol.ie) which was a soundalike of AOL and had, 100 customers. Possibly then there were 300 people with email access - the killer app. I nearly knew them all personally.

It was all Cisco routers and the "new" Microsoft (1985 ships Windows version 1) and becoming largely MSDOS based, it was really about business/corporates scrambling to get a presence online then. Simple web design of 2/3 pages consisting of the classic "brochureware" with a huge 'contact us' button and nothing more. 

Even domain registry hadn't started so you couldn't promote your own site name as such. It was all sub domains (www.clubi.ie/xxxx). So it was www.clubi.ie/ulsterbank or clubi.ie/irishrail and hence the need initially for search. Mad isn't it? Mad that it's only 15 years ago.

So it was about getting content up in some shape or form and I recall doing two sites - one for RBS/Ulster Bank and the other for the national railway, Irishrail.ie - which brought us the envy of our peers. We actually made the front page of a national paper, me and Tom, as the new internet pioneers. Swear. 7 html pages and we were front page news.

Of course too, there was no room for content, because of no bandwidth and so a new surge came in bandwidth providers as everyone wanted to get on board. Which was the second surge - connectivity and bandwidth. A surge that goes on and you'll have noted The Virgin announcement this week of super fast download speeds. Bandwidth is now a competitive issue rather than an availability one, exactly the same as the business of hosting. Anyway.                 

                                              

            

I recall well the first ever internet exhibition in a small hotel in London where we took a stand. 20 stands maybe in total, largely selling modem technology-based products such as modems, routers etc  (!) and beside us a strange looking man starting a search business. After the show we went with him for a few beers and Jerry Yang asked us would we like to get involved in his new search business. "Search? search what? some of these people are crazy" we laughed and we stayed in touch with him for years after. Until of course Jerry got a jet after the huge success of his search Yahoo! It was the dominant search engine quickly.

See, we were true visionaries....doh.

Once bandwidth arrived and people got more access to the web, the growth was in web design (or web authoring it was called) bringing sites from 3 pages to 10 and this time with navigation! Bandwidth moved on from the 14.4 and supreme 56 modems over dial-up. Remember the dial up sound? I do. But this was the design surge - the ongoing demand as corporates sought out better, more comprehensive web pages.

There was so much activity of all sorts, we floated the business on Nasdaq in March 2000 - the first bubble. So did 26 others on the same day, all tech companies. Honestly. Our IPO was done by none other than Lehmans. 

So now there was a base of content (websites) and then along came interactivity. Websites became a bit dull to look at it. After seeing one set of annual reports & accounts on one site, you kind of get bored.

We started to look up to myspace, started in 2003 and sold to Murdoch/News Int for 530m USD in 2005. Yep, that much and that's 7 years ago only. We saw Bebo (supposedly 'blog early blog often') and blogging started too. Michael Birch started Bebo in 2005 and sold it to AOL in 2008 for, wait for it, 850m USD. 

But the web had become content driven and entertainment became a use. People wanted to share chats through IRC. Content. Share photos through Flickr and now the Facebook wall. Content. Share videos through YouTube. Content. Got into search with Google to find content. Share locations on foursquare. Content. Share thoughts on blogging, vlogging on Blogger.com, on Tumblr. Content.

Content had become the driver whearas email had been the cliched killer app to start it all.

And then came more content in the form of Social Media notably of course, Facebook which, as you probably know, was started by two twins in 2004...Ha. 

Social media is of course content sharing at its best. I won't go on about Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and so on but you get the point. Facebook is 8 years old and valued at 100 billion USD. The second bubble is coming and it's about content. Mashable (only a "blog" they say but it's more) sells last week for 200m USD. Blogging is real content too so that's going to have real value. Or video blogging, vlogging.

                               

So now that we've done all of that and got so used to clever web design (cool example is see www.takethislollipop.com), photo sharing, social media sharing, tv iplayers, ipads apps, video sharing... the next wave is live streaming sharing. Which is what we now do at Streamabout.

So what is live streaming? 

(actually that's the highest search term in our category currently "what is live streaming?". 250,000 searches last week so you get a sense of the interest).

It's taking events you're already doing - awards, dinners, conferences, press conferences, staff meetings, garden shows and so on, and then companies like us streaming them live globally online. Sometimes free, sometimes to generate revenue from the viewer paying.

You need production (filming) expertise, technology (4G/Wifi/Wimax and knowledge to bring the live feed robustly to a server) and a streaming backbone platform support (livestream.com, justin.tv, ustream.tv etc). So not something a corporate can do themselves.

As an aside, that's even changing as we speak.

You can stream for free on your Facebook page - imagine the interest and traffic that would bring - and YouTube announces 100 pro-channels for free in the US last week. After all, look at their slogan, "broadcast yourself". Google+ have 'huddles' and they won't be far behind since they own YouTube. A serious head-on threat to livestream and those backbones but it's because YouTube want content. They want your content to become a big TV online broadcaster. So it has value.

What's happening too is that you can create an event to generate streaming. In other words, don't wait for something to happen, make it happen.

Your own cookery programme from your ecommerce enabled Facebook page? No problem. Get your friends to pay to view and download your recipes. Or a former stock market buyer gives tips online? people will pay for that.

Or a former Advertising Agency guy? well, yeah fair point, it's not for everyone....

A show in February live streamed, got 321,000 viewers. Nope, it wasn't about porn, it was about coffee. Look at the success of Netflix and Amazon's Love Film as streaming. The story this week was about Amazons deal with The Discovery Channel. Why? Content.

(And I'm going to bet now that this is a play on Kindle Fire (E books) by Bezos. They're developing that device as a low cost ipad that gives all content easily. So now they're starting to accumulate content such as The Discovery Channel. Why else? Watch this space.) 

Last week's other story was also about buying content when Twitter bought Tumblr's biggest rival 'Posterous', launched 2008 again to give them a bigger focus on content. Nevermind the sale of The Huffington Post to AOL 315m usd last year.

Live streaming - not video - is the new content and what you need is an A to Z (filming to broadcast) business like Streamabout wherever you are. They're growing but there's only a few now. 

The second bubble is starting. Get your marketing into gear. 

Create interest in your site by providing better content and right now, that's live streaming.

It was only 15 years ago when it all started and boy has it changed.

But what hasn't is content and that old cliche, content is king.

Windows Version 1. It's been with us for 25 years and now it is an opportunity to do something great online and I have never seen it all change so much as in the last 6 months. It's now really at a hot pace.

Get thinking - get streaming - or get something else that draws attention and traffic. There's people out there getting ready to buy it.

St. Patrick's Day tomorrow! Ah, begorrah. Okay? I did the oirish twee bit. "D'Arby O'Gill and the little people".There. Happy? Okay so no more emails of drunks then. AAAhhhh. I got them all in 74.

I will blog again for Tuesday am about Content and Live Streaming. I can't wait, can you? Ha. 

Because this is St. Patrick's weekend so no work Monday and a big shout out to my Irish pals in Aus, NYC, Chicago, Moldova, Ukraine, UK who get this. Good luck boys! So I avoided all the stereotypical drunken Irish stuff - how many more emails do I have to get? I know already, we like our pints! Got it!

It's a big weekend because Ireland play England in rugby in Twickenham London on Saturday, Paddy's Day. I really hope England score, just to make it look fair.  


So here is another friend, Mr. Gerard Ryan presenting the still amazing Irish Eurovision Riverdance 1994 and yep, I was there (well, not exactly there, just in the Hotel bar beside it watching it....really was). Terribly, Gerry Ryan died in April 2010, god be good to him. I can assure you, he's up there smiling. Slainte Gerry! And if you haven't seen this, or haven't in a while, "'tis worth the watching" as we say, all the time, like "top of the mornin'"..

Google+. And why I'd say you need to know about it.

Oh okay, it's hard to make it the most interesting blog about Google+ but it is the talk of the town, like it or hate it. It's also going to be so big, brands need to know about it and use it. Get on it and try it. But don't give up because you'll have to get to know it. Sorry but you will.


"Google Plus, What the?"...."The world needs more Social Media?"....seems to be the reaction. "Not another place to advertise" aaaargghhhhh. Yep, but it's here to stay. 


Mind you, shocking name. I can't imagine the meeting but possibly it went....


"Hey you crazy guys, Let's brainstorm Googlers! what will we call this new service?"
"Hmmmm. Google Prime?" 
"Nah...."
"Google Premium, Google Gold, Google Extra??!!"
"Sounds a bit like a new Bank Account from the 70's".
"I have it! Google Plus and we can put a + sign beside it!!"
"Brilliant!"


I mean really. Should have got an Agency to do it - but that's the only downside. Because Ladies and Gentlemen, this is here and I think it's a brilliant twist on Social Media. Not that it matters what I think, it doesn't, but the point is that if you're into marketing, you'll have to get to know it.

The Beta launched on June 28th 2011 and ever since it's come in for a lot of criticism. Like Coke Versus Pepsi. It's Google+ Versus Facebook. Larry Page Versus Zuckerman.


Maybe call it the "Facebook backlash" and clearly it derives, they say, from  Larry's Google "obsession" with Facebook (remember Google Buzz? Orkut? Friends connect? they quickly point out). 


Or perhaps, might I venture, it's actually to compete with Fbook and intended not to let Facebook just get away. After all with a Fbook 100 billion valuation, so would I and Google needs to be in this space more..


It's not obsession, it's good business. All they have to do now, is make it better.


Forgive my heresy but I can't help thinking the more recent launch of Facebooks "timeline", was an attempt to tackle Google+. 


At the launch, Google CEO suggested that criticism was because "you weren't using it properly" which reminded all of the Steve Jobs Iphone antenna issue where he suggested "you weren't holding it properly". Snigger. 


But I know what he means because Google+ takes a bit of getting used to. Like the first Fax machine, you'll get over it.


A survey of Streamabout colleagues (yeah I know, not exactly scientific) suggested that they "don't like it" because "it's hard to use". 


Google+ features include Stream (a newsfeed), 
Sparks (a feed for recommendation but which dishes up content based directly on what you listed as being an 'interest'),
Hangouts (a, wait for it, streaming video chat. see? told you about streaming), 
Huddles then will let you video chat with your circles (anyone feel that between this, Skype and voice-over-IP/VOIP, telcos are stuggling?), 
crap Games, 
Photos (like your Fbook wall to upload your pics), 
Video (your favourite YouTube video which is also owned by Google as is this Blogger site in case you didn't know) and perhaps, best of all, Circles.


Circles are a way to define your people and message them differently. In other words you put different people in different groups and then talk to them differently. 


"Baby, can't wait to see ye later x" perhaps should not go to business connections/circles and maybe you don't want your fabulous business updates to go to friends. Hey, who wants your friends to see you crawl like a nerd. Of course, you can just post to "all". Watch the mistakes here though - it's going to keep YouTube going for years.


It's this circle sharing, or control, that's the killer app.
It allows segmented messaging, differentiation or in plain english, sending relevant messages to the relevant people. 


With the power of Google search behind it, being on Google + will have a dramatic positive impact on your search as Google will force the spiders to seek out these pages first in order to promote them. Which is one brilliant strategy that the power of Google has. Keep dishing up Google+ pages early in search and you'll have to have one. This alone will own the world.


If you're a blogger for example, activate/click your 1+ button at the bottom of your blog - it helps always to improve your search. And lastly it will all translate in the cloud through auto updating.


Industry wide reports are an expected 400m users by end 2012 (versus Fbooks 800m). That's mad. It will way exceed all expectations.


And Facebook? Kinda rhymes with 'MySpace'?
(okay, okay, Facebook is magic. There.)

Google show Ad Agencies have a future. If they could forget the past. Volvo.

Amil Gargano was born in 1932.
In Detroit (Motor City ironically) in the middle of the depression.


In 1959 he began work in an agency called 'Campbell Ewald' where he met Carl Alley and went on to set up their own Agency with one client - the unknown Swedish car maker of all things, Volvo. It was the era of Madmen and Don Draper.


They also began to be recognised as a team creating great work and in 1963 produced one of the all time great American iconic campaigns "Drive it like you hate it".


In fact it launched Volvo in the US and sales went crazy.
This TV spot was aired too with a great endline 'cheaper than psychiatry' and became pretty famous.....and I've worked on cars (BMW/Mini/Suzuki) so I know the car is the star. And this campaign was using the classic marketing trick - demonstration...

So Google set about bringing this campaign into digital, into today and got Amil involved (looking good I have to say, for nearly 80).... In doing it they found, through Google Search, Irv Gordon a man with a 1966 1800S Volvo with, wait for it, nearly 3 million miles on the clock. So they thought that's interesting and went to meet Irv.


Here's how that all starts....

Now they have something magical. Great stories from 1962 and then they show how to apply it to online. I think they could have done better in some ways. Although the GPS tracker is great to follow IRV as is of course, the streaming video from his car (but they I would say that wouldn't I?).


Still, the idea is strong. Here is a further follow-up....


                                  


If you think about it, it's still great and the whole Project Brief is a smashing idea. I frankly prefer the Coke Hilltop idea which I blogged before (http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/ad-agencies-have-future-thanks-to.html

But it's pretty good to try and demonstrate to Ad people that the web can be a terrific medium and engender goodwill. In other words, stop them bitching. 


Which of course, if you're watching posts and blogs, they haven't. They've used this to criticise Google for making a mess of a classic Ad campaign.


Interesting too that these beautiful films are on Google's YouTube which I blogged yesterday (http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/youtube-is-new-tv-keep-calm-people.html).

Ah well, you can take a horse to water. 


One last thing. Amil was inducted into Advertising's Hall of Fame in 1983 and well, here he was.

YouTube is the new TV. Keep Calm people.

Yesterday I posted some comments about YouTube and the future of television ("YouTube, mashable, the death of TV and Henry Ford's horse") which prompted some discussion amongst my fellow Ad Agency colleagues. Serious stuff!


(And I should say thanks for them. Honestly I'm very grateful. And to you who read this. Thank you.)


Anyway, what I got was that YouTube could never be TV because it was a place where you only got "Candid camera videos" and "mad crazy stupid people" and that I should "know better". After all, they go on, "content is king" and other cliches. 


So I think that's wrong. Completely wrong. And I'd like to try to prove it if I could.


Here is a poster at the top of the page which you all know well. From a design perspective, beautiful typography and an enchanting message. Especially to those who really ranted against YouTube.


Here is a YouTube video. Actually forget I said that. Think of it as more a programme from the new TV channel in the "history" section. Yeah, Like 'Sky Discovery' (funny too, isn't Sky a collection of niche channels itself? Just sayin'). Imagine you're watching 'The Discovery Channel'. 

See? When did you last see something like this on TV?
YouTube can be interesting, magic, brilliant, amazing, and as it develops it will be. Content is king + content gets better. Might I say live streaming will add a lot to it. YouTube just announced they will allow not-for-profits to stream live for free. So they do some good too!

Sorry.

200 million Pete Cashmore. Mashably Fab.

Just in ....as per my Blog yesterday....he sold Mashable to CNN 200 million dollars.


Good man Pete Cashmore 27, from Aberdeen.
Cool ironic name too 'cashmore'. 
Although I guess he'll be "spending more time in LA".
Top bloke. 

Youtube, Mashable, The death of TV and Henry Ford's horse

This is Pete Cashmore of mashable.com which he founded in 2005 at 19, in Aberdeen. If the online rumours are true, he's likely to be selling to CNN for 200 million US dollars this week. If.


Mashable started as a blog, like this.
But the interesting bit is that it's CNN.


Because what we're seeing is the massive change in TV and potentially its death (as we know it) due to online and social media. What's happening is that the audience has shifted and terrestrial traditonal TV broadcasters have seen their audiences depart.


The growth of broadcasters iplayers signify the high level of viewers preferring to watch online and not, as they'll tell you, the popularity of their broadcasts.
That view that it's an example of popularity, is the fundamental mistake of the decade. I've seen data produced by traditional broadcasters that actually shows TV viewing is increasing. It's not, viewing through iplayers is because it's all we've got just for the minute.


The growth of Netflix (reported to have 229,000 Irish viewers after a 4 month launch) signifies that viewers are saying yes to a service that's ONLY available on Smartphones + Tablets. You can't get Netflix through traditional TV. Just think about that? a quarter of a million people think it's okay to buy a video service that they can't see on TV.



And you will never buy another TV again - you'll buy an internet ready TV - now think why?


Equally Jeff Bezo's Amazonian Love Film is doing the same. And live streaming brings events to you as they happen which a broadcaster can't do because of their scheduling.


So what are broadcasters doing about it?


Well not unlike Newspaper publishers, they're simply reposting their content online which is exactly the wrong thing to do - as Newspapers have discovered (see my other post here "difficult times"). Lessons have not been learnt.


UK Channel 4s launch this week of online service '4seven' is at least an attempt to do something different and more Social Media savy.


But they're all missing the point.
And forgive me, it's not that I'm against traditional broadcasters, having spent a life making TV commercials, it's just that I think they need to think to preserve themselves.

YouTube is the winner here and with 4 billion hits a day (as per The Sunday Times), its rollout of 100 pro-channels will be the winner. Originally started in 2005 as a sharing site for home videos, some still think it is. Dancing babies and office spoofs. Not any more.


Bought by Google in 2006 for 1.65 billion USD, it understands that the web is distribution. I remember that acquisition being ridiculed at the time....


Youtube uses niche interests overlooked by traditional TV.


One of the stations is a news channel from WSJ (print becoming TV?) and a music channel by Vice Magazine. Another is the legend Charlie McDonnell (Charlieissocoollike) set up in 2007 with some videos getting 200m dowloads and he's generated enough through advertising to buy himself a house.


Wifi at home enables us to view this kind of Television and not the stuff that broadcasters try to push to us at a time that suits them. It spells the end and a new era of broadcasting.


Broadcasters need to stop and think. Doing just what they've been doing but simply doing it online, will not be enough. Imagination and innovation by definition, requires you to think completely new.


When they asked Henry Ford should he not have researched the need for his invention he laughed. "No", he said, "they'd just have told me to build a better horse".

AD Agencies have a future. Thanks to Google.

I know Ad Agencies don't yet get the power of online which is a pity.

Because instead of mourning the passing of advertising, they could use their talents in this new and far more exciting way. This is a time to get onboard.


Embrace it instead of rubbishing it.

So I was stunned to see this truly magnificent idea which frankly every Adman should see. You should read this here first.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/business/media/google-remixes-four-classic-campaigns-advertising.htm?_r=1 

It's a project created by Google in conjunction with an Ad Agency and some advertising legends to see if they could take classic ad campaigns, add a dash of online and make them better. In other words, bring classic advertising into the digital space.

So they took the Coke commercial created by McCanns and a Director called Harvey Gabor "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" (or "hilltop" as it was called) which I remember as a kid being glued to in 1971. And so was the world. It became a huge hit in 1973 for The New Seekers.

Now they wanted to see if they could add anything to it that might make it better and more "today" using online. And boy did they. Sit back, watch this and understand. It's 11 minutes but I promise you, you'll be amazed....

So Advertising has changed. For the better.
All we need to do is to apply the great talent in Agencies to prove it.


If you liked this I've an update on a Volvo campaign http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/google-show-ad-agencies-have-future-if.html