seth macfarlane animates the king

I guess that whole Subway thing didn’t work out…maybe Seth MacFarlane just got sick and tired of drawing fat Peter Griffin slavering over the tasteless processed meats and cardboard cheeses that Subway puts in their so-called sandwiches.

Either way, he’s working for a new fast food company these days.

He’s working for the king. Burger King, that is. Though numbers weren’t released, you can be sure that Burger King paid him a lot of money to animate The King in a series of spots that will run before MacFarlane’s new online show, the catchily named “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.”

The MacFarlane-animated series of three ads will run as “preroll” ads in front of the “Cavalcade” clips and is a great example of how doing ads just isn’t considered selling out anymore.

“Cavalcade” is distributed exclusively through Google (though YouTube will have a dedicated page), served through its AdSense program, serving targeted websites with streaming video of an episode instead of a typical banner ad.

Burger King is along for the ride, and is doing it in a way that is as close to total integration with the show while still being separate.

It’s a fantastic idea…and about time, too. Crispin, Porter + Bogusky had been relatively quiet after taking the interactive portion of the account from struggling VML (not to mention that they hadn’t really hit any creative home runs on any of their brands recently)…this puts paid to rumors that the agency was too stretched to churn out their traditional level of work.

This is a great idea, a short lesson it what it means to do truly 360 cross-functional work.

Final thought: Maybe that’s why MacFarlane told Subway to shove it…they and their hack-tastic shop MMB, Boston just aren’t able to think outside their silos. Or maybe they’re just not able to think in general (

the new york times discovers women bloggers

Because I am feeling less than 100% after an afternoon and night of carousing, I am going to turn to some, er, outside sources for help with content creation (and, in this, I am no different than pretty much any agency these days…).

First up, my attorney friend from Connecticut, who takes time out of depositions and briefs and Sam Waterston-style lawyer stuff to comment on advertising from time to time, who was a bit disappointed in yesterday’s New York Times article about big companies flocking to run ads on homemakers’ blogs:

I am not entirely sure why the tone of the article is bordering on utter shock and amazement that lady-types know how to use (and access) computers to the extent that they can create blogs and other analogous lady-type-only content. What does the Times think that women do all day? Sit in obedient silence? Churn butter? Toil away at the spinning wheel? Seriously, was this article written in 1915?

Upon reading further, however, it got better….

– “I love women. Women are more than half the population, and they do most of the shopping,” said Tim Draper, the venture firm’s co-founder and managing director. –

(Draper went on to say that “Women also have pretty eyes, and their hair smells like cinnamon.”)

– Joni Evans, a literary agent who found a second career as chief executive of wowOwow, a site for women over 40, said the gender disparity comes from the fact that women thrive on sharing anecdotes. –

(They THRIVE on it? Really? Just imagine if Aesop was a lady. Dude would have lived til he was like 400 years old with all of that thriving.)

– At CafeMom, for instance, Wal-Mart Stores offered gift certificates to bloggers who write about Wal-Mart’s green products in exchange for writing about what they bought. –

(… I was really struggling with my postpartum depression this morning…… until I gloomily stumbled into my local Wal-Mart and saw the amazing 3-for-1 deal on tube socks they were running and then I decided not to off my kids after all)

– Shine from Yahoo initially vowed to cover current events and avoid the typical fare of sex and diet tips. But the most popular stories on a recent day were about racy photos of the teenage star Miley Cyrus and whether women were attracted to men with beards. –

(Men with beards?? Oh, women. You are adorable.)

– When Ms. Armstrong used a lewd phrase in the subtitle of her blog, two family entertainment companies removed their ad campaigns from her site. “I thought that was awesome,” Ms. Armstrong said. “I knew an advertiser would pull out, but I think advertisers are beginning to understand that people come to my Web site because I do that — the reason I have eyeballs is because of my irreverence.” –

(The racy pictures of bearded men also help)

social media: new tool, same function

Hot on the news that major Facebook stakeholders are selling stock below the hyped valuation, news that bodes really well for that whole Web 2.0 revolution and makes one thing that perhaps things have been a bit overhyped, comes a not-at-all-backed-up-by-numbers article that attempts to claim that social media jobs are here to stay.

The article was timed about as well as an Al Gore pronouncement on global warming…and was, predictably, ripped by Valleywag.

Of course, any article that makes claims like “Social media allows people to spread their message to hundreds, if not thousands, of friends, followers, and strangers. Some companies can only dream of that kind of reach, while others pay millions in advertising for the same effect” without actually putting numbers behind why, for example, the reach of a corporate blogger/twitterer/Facebook-updater might be greater and more efficient than a traditional advertising buy deserves its share of ridicule.

It’s not that social media or the much-hyped Web 2.0 doesn’t matter. It does.

It’s more that grand claims by people who, surprise, surprise, happen to make money by selling people on spending their marketing dollars on social media should be taken with a grain of salt…even when there are numbers to back up their assertions.

In the case of this article, which attempts to show the value of corporations adding jobs that are specifically focused on social media, numbers are necessary. Because the claim just doesn’t make sense.

Unlike an advertising agency, which is paid to be ahead of trends and understand channels of communication and the whole form/function of messaging, a corporation (and these comments, again, are focused on corporate social media jobs) makes it money by selling its product…I know that sentence is one of the more obvious ones I’ve ever written, but it’s worth saying it in plain language. Because so many people seem to ignore what it’s saying.

Sure, there are support functions to the production and sale of a product, many of them quite critical…many of them, if you look at Apple as an example, as critical as product efficacy.

Product efficacy is the cornerstone. A product just has to work. If it doesn’t, everyone is going to know and then you’re in real trouble…a product/company can’t hide on the internet.

Once efficacy has been established then the other roles make sense…but what does social media do that, from an objectives standpoint, is different than what an already-established function does? It is basically consumer relations/outreach/PR or whatever you call it, just with a new way to reach people.

To quote Valleywag, “Social media technologies are new IT tools for the same old roles.”

Social media tools are important to understand, especially from a marketing perspective and especially as they involve…but how do they make traditional vehicles like TV obsolete? How does social media require a huge new department and masses of jobs? And how would you prove the worth of jobs like these in a challenging economy when costs must be justified with actual numbers?

(crickets)

oh, to be plaid

There is a small agency in Danbury, Connecticut called Plaid that punches above its weight (especially if you consider that the combined weight of all – approximately – twenty employees is probably less than Mike Tyson before he got bloated, tattooed and crazy).

That small Connecticut agency really gets social media.

And yes, they get it beyond the Brand Flakes for Breakfast blog that just might be the best agency-run blog out there.

If I weren’t so lazy a blogger I would have gotten out ahead of their Plaid Nation tour, “a rolling celebration of creativity and a demonstration of social media in action” that is really a van full of Plaid employees taking to the street to make their pitch.

If you’re a small agency, you have to think differently.

This year the tour hit the California coast (with the obligatory stop in Las Vegas that may or may not have taken the live webcams down) from Oceanside up to Frisco with the whole tour broadcast live, twittered and otherwise leveraged by emerging media.

How’s that for a way to show that you get it?

The functional and attractive website lets you follow their progress, download freebies and listen to their theme song (why a theme song, you may ask? no clue…). It’s also a great way to sell the agency and their capabilities.

But will potential clients notice?

the goods on plurk

Despite what the fresh-from-college traffic manager said when I showed her how to use the fax machine (amazingly, she had never used a fax machine), I am not a dinosaur. I am not scared of new technologies. I am fully capable of picking them up and integrating them into my daily life.

It just takes a while.

That is why I am thankful for The Girl Riot and her post on the Good, the Bad and the Ugly about Plurk. Because if she hadn’t tried it and reviewed it for me, I would have had to do it myself.

I’m not sure my Commodore supports Plurk anyway…

Her review is a great first reaction response to Plurk and should be read not only by you but by Plurk’s developers as well…though if they can keep their system up longer than Twitter I think that they’ll keep people happy.

Beyond being a useful blog post, it’s also pretty funny. For example, the “Ugly” about Plurk is: “………..PLURK?! really? wtf name is that?”

All I know is that in college it was slang for something gross.

alan wolk, social media & being un-anonymous

Now that we all know that Tangerine Toad is really Creative Director Alan Wolk, most recently of FCBi, and the dust has settled a little bit on that revelation, it’s time to see if it was really worth it for him to do the big identity reveal and to ask other questions that I’m just curious to know the answer of.

Some people say that this post is late to the game, I just say that it’s considered. I’m sort of like the lone Apache that followed behind the main group of warriors to kill those who came out of hiding too early…not that the analogy is totally relevant or even useful (not to mention funny) in this context.

Let’s just move on to the interview with Tangerine Toad creator Alan Wolk, shall we?

Alan, now that your identity has been revealed, has the response been what you expected?

It’s actually been a lot better than I expected. To begin with, a number of friends actually emailed to say they’d been reading me for a while and how funny is it that it turned out to be me.

“De-anonymizing” has also allowed me to converse with people in the field as me, not some “anonymous blogger.” That’s been a real plus and made me realize that I really did establish something pretty special with The Toad Stool and that people want to hear from me. (Well, some people, anyway.)

Blogs are supposed to be a “conversation.” Do you find that industry blogs are engaged in meaningful conversation?

There’s such a wide range of blogs that touch on the marketing and advertising industries these days. Some are very serious, some very light-hearted. There are blogs that analyze the ins and outs of user experience, blogs that review ads and blogs where you can gripe if you feel screwed over by your last agency.

But there are a core group of blogs, the ones I find myself gravitating to the most, where people have serious conversations about the changes going on in our industry. It’s been very edifying for me to find people willing to have these conversations and to really give some thought to solutions. I’ve made a lot of new friends through the blogosphere.

It also comes as a great relief to the people I work with, no doubt, as I can now have these discussions online with like-minded people (such as yourself) rather than coercing unwilling victims into discussing the possible future benefits of 3-D virtual worlds or whether Starbucks is proof that design has become more important than advertising.

If “your brand is not my friend” how can brands be successful in the social media space

Brands need to bring utility to people. A brand that isn’t a Prom King Brand can still play in social media if they realize that people are not going to seek them out, even if they like and use the brand. Non Prom King Brands need to provide utility and value to consumers. That can be as simple as going onto sites their customers already use and sponsoring some sort of useful tool or providing a valuable coupon—something that acknowledges that they are a brand selling me something, not a friend hanging out with me and that as such, they need to do something for me, not the other way around. That’s a huge paradigm shift for most brands—telling customers what they want to hear versus telling them what the brand wants to say. But it’s the golden rule of social media.

To take another of your phrases, if “social media is only social when you’re alone” what does that mean for a marketer?

TV is a group activity, print isn’t. We still read the internet more than we watch it, though that’s changing. But social media, because it’s aimed at me, rather than us, is something I’ll need to do solo.

For marketers, that means that you need to figure out when I’m alone (work? late nights?) and what appeals to each individual- not the whole family. It also means that while Charlene Li is correct that “social media will soon be like air,” the family is not going to be eating dinner in front of their Facebook accounts any time soon. So we’ve got to target social media engagements to individuals as opposed to groups.

What Web 2.0 elements are here to stay and what were just flashes in the pan?

Well Twitter’s going to be a flash in the pan if they don’t get their act together soon in regards to their ever-crashing infrastructure. But if they do, I suspect that Twitter and its offspring are here to stay. I’ve been describing Twitter as being like an all day cocktail party that you can wander in and out of at will. It’s a useful median between one-on-one tools like IM and group tools like message boards. It also allows for both business networking and personal connection. People are still figuring out the boundaries and of course there’s always the issue of how to cashify it.

Second Life is often derided as being a flash in the pan. And way too many companies did jump onto that like lemmings. There was a cool factor among agency types too, in knowing what it was, even if your only exposure was a demo at a briefing. But ultimately it was the wrong move for most brands. That said, I think the technology behind Second Life can be useful and that the idea of virtual worlds is still valid. It just needs a less fantasy-based framework.

Then there are things like BrightKite, a location based social networking service. Many people I know (myself included) jumped at the chance to join and then when we got there it was “okay, now what?” But many people had the same initial reaction to Twitter, and look how that’s grown.

What’s important to remember is that a lot of these technologies grow organically and their primary use is defined by the people who use them, not the people who create them. Remember- YouTube was supposed to be a place to put up videos of your dog for your parents to see.

Okay, let’s talk about how social media fits within an agency offering. Should digital be a seamless part of a traditional agency’s offering like TV, print and radio or does it need to be separate?

Keeping digital separate is pretty foolish. It was done by necessity as the talent pool—and budgets—for digital projects didn’t match up to offline ones. And during Web 1.0 there wasn’t a whole lot of creativity to be found in digital.

But that’s changed dramatically and the distinction is becoming less and less valid. The value of traditional media offerings is dropping too: people consume less traditional media and when they do, they’re more skeptical of the ads they see there. As I wrote in “The Real Digital Revolution” TV and print ads are just there to remind us to go online and check out if the product is really any good. People are not using ads as their primary source of product information anymore. What’s more, sixty years of Bernbachian advertising has left us somewhat immune to its charms.

Can agencies make an ‘ad agency margin’ off of digital or was it sold too cheaply for too long?

It’s definitely been sold too cheaply. But as the industry matures, I suspect prices will go up. If for no other reason than clients will start demanding better production value. Handheld, unlit videos are great for a tiny YouTube window, but as we move to full-screen video, we’ll want better production value and better looking film and someone will need to pay for that.

We’ll also need to pay the people who make the ads (especially that Alan Wolk guy) and if profit margins are low, agencies won’t be able to attract the right people. And finally, the rise of social media will make Web 1.0 formulas like PPC (pay-per-click) less prevalent.

Are agencies structured correctly to respond to the quickly-moving digital world? Could they be structured better?

Most agencies are stuck in structures that were put in place about 60 or 70 years ago to produce print and (later) TV advertising for large national brands.

That structure is totally obsolete these days and is why so many agencies have trouble adapting to the new digital world. We keep trying to force fit these outmoded roles and job titles to the projects we’re tasked with and what happens is we wind up with both a lot of overlap and a lot of gaps.

The traditional art director/copywriter team was a wonderful way to create a print ad and quite a revolution from the old days when the copywriter came up with the ad and slipped it under the art director’s door.

But we need a new revolution. Today’s digital marketing programs require a whole new set of participants. Everything from user experience to technology to content creation. It’s a more involved process than before and requires more input and testing. (Not the specious “do you like it” testing that’s inflicted on TV commercials, but the realistic “do people get they’re supposed to click here” type testing that improves websites.)

That said, we need to remember that the less people that own a creative project, the better and that anything created by committee will unfortunately reflect that sensibility. So while other disciplines need to be brought in, there still needs to be a core group of people who concept the project and own the vision. What that core group’s titles and day-to-day responsibilities are is something we still need to work out. But as with most things social-media related, I suspect that the users (e.g. the agency teams themselves) will wind up defining the process and the way things are structured.

So, what’s next for Alan Wolk? What’s next for Tangerine Toad?

Alan Wolk is going to find himself a gig where he can put his social media and traditional advertising skills to work. As someone who gets both worlds, I’m in a unique position to provide agencies and clients with a bridge between the two: the ability to engage consumers and provide them with something entertaining yet conceptual along with the ability to innately understand the digital arena and why certain formats work and how to use them. I’ve been calling it a “creative strategist” role – almost a cross between a traditional creative director and a digital strategist.

The Toad Stool blog will still continue to be an important factor in my life and in getting the word out. I’ve actually found it’s easier to come up with post ideas now that I’m me (as opposed to Toad) and that I can focus on ideas I feel strongly about, like the growing class divide in America and its effect on marketing and media.

people like brands more than celebrities

I’ve been putting some thought into The Girl Riot’s post on Noah Brier’s Brand Tags site…but before we get to my thoughts, for those that don’t know Brand Tags (and the associated CelebTags) let you put a one word or one phrase tag to brands. The tags then live in a “virtual tag cloud” that you can look through and see how people respond to the brands (and celebrities).

The most interesting part about the experiment is the huge difference in reaction between responses to brands and responses to celebrities. There is a lot of hate toward celebrities as evidenced by, to paraphrase The Girl Riot, every female celebrity getting tagged as a slut, whore or bitch.

Almost as a whole, celebrities are getting treated more roughly even than the corporations, like Wal*Mart, that everybody loves to hate.

Why?

For one, a brand logo is eminently less hate-able than a picture of a smug and fantastically rich no-talent, vacuous celebrity simply because of the emotional reaction we as people have towards other people.

While it is true in a sense that people are brands insofar as they have public reputations and representations, The Girl Riot notes that it is impossible to have the same emotional reaction to a brand as you do to a person:

“Wal-Mart responses run the gamut from american to white trash, south park to nascar, affordable to cheap, evil to value. juxtaposing these statements shows the range of emotion and perception–all of which may be true, but certainly there is a range. things that are affordable to some are low quality to others. evil to some is a necessity in some areas where there are no other supermarkets.

yet, Paris Hilton responses are much more flat and one-sided, ranging from airhead, bimbo, and bitch to sexual references, skank, slut, whore, herpes, and blow job. “rich” appears but small, and “heiress” appears once, but even smaller–only one person said it. this does not by far offer the whole picture, regardless of how you feel about Paris Hilton.

The range of reactions is so one-sided because the “Paris Hilton Experience,” if you can think of such a thing without video cameras and sordid trysts also coming to mind…you can’t…I can’t either. Let’s rename it to the “Non-Sexual Celebrity Experience.” “The Non-Sexual Celebrity Experience” is one that is lived vicariously through their media presence. There is no interaction, their image and deeds and comments are just sort of shoved out at people.

Brands on the other hand require actual action. You can walk into a store like Wal*Mart and get a more real experience than you could have with a celebrity. Same with driving car, using a golf club or doing any number of things with any number of products – the very fact that they accessible to us to the point that we get an experience from them that is two-way makes our reaction more nuanced.

Not to mention the fact that, since we have spent money on those brands and, in many cases, wear the brands are expressions of our self, we react and want others to react positively to them.

It’s sort of like hoping your alma mater gets super-selective after you graduate so other people think you’re smarter.

You want people to respect the brands you purchase. You want your money to be well-spent. You are looking for positives because brands reflect you, as much as you may want to deny it (and, if you’re not a brand whore, in the very least you are looking for value in your purchases and thus have a similar emotional desire that others think you chose your purchases well).

Celebrities, they experiences just aren’t real. They don’t exist on the same place as brands because there is no connection to them outside of the imagined.

With no connection to them, it’s easy to trash them.

Which is what’s been done.

more video uploading madness

I have a friend who works at a company that is selling “user generated content solutions” which actually means that they have back-end technology for executing user-generated marketing programs be they contests or showcases or stuff like that. It was a great idea a while back and is probably still a money-spinner, at least for my friend and her company.

After stumbling upon yet another piece of consumer-generated video contest madness at Adrants today, this one by ForRent.com giving people a chance to win a $10,000 furniture makeover if they create a video that says why “through the eyes of their furniture” I had finally had enough.

I had to ask her how she could justify being an enabler for such feeble and thoughtless marketing.

UGC Gal: I am glad you called! You were ahead of the curve in ’06, now we have almost too much business. Perhaps I could show your team some of the new things we are doing.

Me: I think that user-generated as a marketing tactic is pretty played out. If I were you I would stick with it while the going is good while keeping my resume up to date.

UGC Gal: Is it a fad or an evolving space?

Me: User-generated contests are a fad. There is a significant first-mover advantage in the interactive space because so many tactics are new. UGC was new. Now the novelty was worn off and with it the marketing advantage and consumer interest.

How many brands have to hold contests or give consumers a chance to upload before they realize that not only is it not differentiating but that no consumers care (either to make the effort to upload or to go to a branded site to view amateur crap)?

Also, “evolving space” is a meaningless buzzword. Please don’t use it anymore.

UGC Gal: Contests are a fad, but community could be what this is
all about.

Me: Community of what? What would be the reason for a consumer to engage with a brand or with a group of fellow brand users online, especially if the requirement was for them to create something and then share it with others. What is in it for them as creators and viewers and community? Why is this something anyone would want to do?

UGC Gal: Look at it socially. People want to connect with like-minded people. UGC is about passion and intrinsic motivation; people want to grow the community of what they like or are committed to.

Me: First, most brands do not have any passionate enthusiasts. Second, even if I were, say, a passionate Duracell battery user, why would I want to join a community of other Duracell battery users? What could that community possibly do to make it worthwhile for me to create content for it and view content on it?

Even with a passion brand like Apple, what is in it for the consumer? Unless there is something in these videos or pictures that consumers create that shows me how to fix my Apple TV, someone like me, a passionate and long-term Apple user would have no use for it. Why would someone else?

And why is this good for a brand, especially is everyone else is doing it?

UGC Gal: The space is morphing into a utility-based marketing vehicle.

Me: But what is the utility?

UGC Gal: Utility is the combination of brand generated content and UGC. That is where we are headed. Content management.

This more than just creators of UGC content. Its about spectators and critics that also want to be involved.

Me: That seems like an awful broad definition of UGC, but even if we take it at face value what about the plethora of brands that people just don’t care about? What about the brands that don’t have spectators and critics that want to be involved?

UGC Gal: A brand manager is charged with speaking to and listening to its customers. Video content is and will be a more important vehicle. But video is just one part if it. It’s interaction that is the key, and how do you facilitate that interaction and how do you make it positive for the brand when blogs and comments aren’t controllable and agencies and other fronts just enrage consumers. We see ourselves as broader than just video contests.

Me: What does it really mean when you say “facilitate brand interaction” because it sounds an awful lot like an empty business phrase.

UGC Gal: Brand control. Brand authenticity. Review and approve. That is what our company stands for.

Me: So you create a place for people to connect and be honest about the brand…but then you control it for content. Why wouldn’t a consumer just go to their own blog? Why wouldn’t they read an independent blog?

How do you manage what is, by nature, an uncontrollable space?

UGC Gal: By creating brand-built and managed sites for consumers to give an honest dialogue to a brand where the brand can put their best foot forward.

Me: How is it honest dialogue if brands control it? And again, why? Why would a consumer want to do this?

UGC Gal: Research shows that they do.

Me: Common-sense shows that they don’t.

UGC is so dead that those stuck schlocking their wares in that arena are forced to try to broaden the definition to cover anything that a consumer says about the product…and to monetize it they have to tie it to a brand. But the key lesson that has to be learned is that, with the unlimited non-branded sites and contents, you have to have a compelling reason to go to something branded.

“Sharing” and “uploading” just aren’t compelling on their own.

twistori and a view from the bottom

One of my new favorite blogs – I have to replace the old ones, right – is View from the Bottom, written by a young copywriter who I am jealous of because she is prettier than I and, according to advertising tradition, that makes her a more viable source of information. Seeing how I just yanked that last bit of information from her site, it must be true. The site is definitely worth checking out.

Yesterday (it doesn’t look like yesterday because she uses the British dating system, which I always hated even when I lived there and is my one complaint about her blog, but I swear that it is a post from yesterday) she posted about Twistori and echoes my thoughts when she says “I am in love with these sites.”

The site takes simple phrases from Twitter that start with one of I Love, I Hate, I Think, I Believe, I Feel, and I Wish and combines them one after the other in a scroll across the page. You can look at tweets in each of the categories…things like “I LOVE the pretty ae” and “I HATE that she just isn’t into me” and “I THINK it is time to let that thing go” and things like that.

It’s a semi-voyeuristic way to eavesdrop on the basic emotions and feelings of people that you don’t know.

Picking up from View from the Bottom: but what does this mean?

it means i can reach out to people and find reassurance without their knowing it. without having to consider how they might feel about how i feel about their words. it’s a selfish act of self-therapy, to, at its basest, simply know i’m not alone. i can know that i share so many things with so many people i’ve never met, and moreover, never have to meet.

i don’t need to share my life story with them on Facebook chat…i can just watch the world unfold around me in this faux sense of digital peace. it’s pixelated zen.

spreading std’s on facebook

An astute (and hopefully not afflicted) reader tells me that April is STD Awareness Month and the American Social Health Association is using the MorphMonkey Facebook application to raise awareness of that fact.

As a rule, I am careful how I use Facebook and its applications. Going overboard could get a little weird and I do have an addictive personality, so…you know. At any rate, the Morph Monkey application lets you morph people’s pictures together on Facebook.

It also can infect you with Chlamydia:

This is definitely worth a chuckle and gets its message of easy infection and easier spreading of STDs in a wink and a smile sort of way. It may not change behavior, but it did made me cognizant of chlamydia for the first time since 8th grade health class and anyway it seems like awareness-building was the objective.

The key here though is that this message was tacked onto an application that people enjoy using, so there was a reason for them to engage with it, and was not overly intrusive. Just a simple message, albeit in a pop-up style form, and that was it.

Well done.