The New Soap Operas

So I was having a conversation last week with one of my colleagues at Sapient, Rob Gonda, about the future of advertising. (Yes, we actually do sit around and talk about advertising, believe it or not). Most of the conversation was about more 'traditional' advertising, TV, radio, newspaper. We were discussing the ways we have recently seen some advertisers rise above the noise and the massive changes that have occured in those media. We discussed how TV advertising, in particular, would have to seriously change, with the prevalence of Tivo and DVRs, and the fact that there will sometime soon not even be a TV schedule or season. Nothing new for anyone who has even a little knowledge of what is going on in the industry.

One of the prognostications that we discussed was the probability (in my mind, at least) that advertisers would have to go back to actually creating compelling content where their products were interweaved into the plot. Just like the original Soap Operas, that (as you hopefully know) got their name from the fact that they were hour-long advertisements for detergents. I figured that they would come back in a somewhat different form, and be nothing like the massive amount of horrible product placement going on, which attempts to put the product into an already existing concept and plot. One of the worst examples of product placement that I've seen was during an episode of The Office. It was so bad that it turned me off the show (which had been one of my favorites to that point) for pretty much the rest of that season.

So I was flipping through the channels in the hotel I'm in tonight, and ended up on TNT watching a rerun. And, lo and behold, on came exactly the type of thing I was talking about. TNT has created a "micro-series" called Lucky Chance, which consists of 20 2-minute episodes, all featuring the Dodge Challenger. The 'minisodes' are played during commercial breaks on TNT shows such as Bones and Law and Order. And they are actually pretty good. And there's also a bit of a Web component, with a sweepstakes, and online game. I would have liked to have seen a little bit more of a web component, with maybe more of an ARG, which the format created almost begs for. But one step at a time.

Murder, Vice, Police Corruption

On my somewhat long drives to and from the office (see my bio off to the right), I will usually listen to a book on CD. I get them from the local library, and pretty much pick one at random (I have a system), and have never really been disappointed with the choice. Over the past 3 or 4 years, I've probably 'read' 50 or so books, if not more, of almost every genre.

The latest one that I just finished listening to today is Satan's Circus by Mike Dash. It's the story of the only police officer in American history to be executed, and chances are that he was actually innocent of the crime he was found guilty of. It's a pretty incredible story of what New York City was like around the turn of the century, leading up to about 1915. The police were totally corrupt, gamblers (as in, people who ran illegal gambling houses - that eras version of organized crime) pretty much ran the city, along with the likewise corrupt politicians and the remnants of Tammany Hall.

Hmmm, I wonder how much has really changed?

The name of the book, btw, comes from an area of town (also known as the Tenderloin) that ran from 23rd Street to 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue to Seventh Avenue, much of which is known now as Chelsea and the Garment district. It was basically the red light district of New York City.

The synopsys (from Publishers Weekly): The sole police officer to be executed in U.S. history, NYPD lieutenant Charles Becker died in the electric chair in 1915 for the murder of a lowlife gambler who pimped his own wife. Set apart from other, mostly Irish, New York policemen by his German ancestry and "markedly intelligent," Becker bribed his way in 1894 onto a force infected by Tammany Hall and worked undercover patrolling the crime-riddled midtown Manhattan district called Satan's Circus, the city's center of entertainment and vice. Acquitted in 1896 of charges of falsely arresting a woman for prostitution, a charge testified to by novelist Stephen Crane, Becker went on to commit graft, perjury and theft, but by 1911 he headed his own vice squad and by 1912 he had built up a vast extortion racket. Gambler Herman Rosenthal, one of Becker's victims, exposed him to the media and the DA, and when Rosenthal was shot to death, Becker became the notorious prime suspect although some doubted his guilt. Peopled by mobsters and crooked cops and politicians, and chronicling the early years of the NYPD as well as Becker's ruin and comeuppance, this engrossing, well-researched history by the author of Batavia's Graveyard immerses readers in the corrupt hurly-burly that was old New York.

My Rating: 4 out of 5. I guess the rating needs to be stars or something. Maybe steering wheels, as I'm driving while I'm listening to them. I really enjoyed the book, and will have to see if the library has any more of Mr. Dash's books. On CD of course.

Social Media

One of the projects that I'm working on during my day job is to create a social media strategy for my employer, Sapient.

During the research for the strategy (more later on about what our strategy will become) the first step was a catalog of the social media and networking sites on the net. With no trouble at all, we were able to find and catalog approximately 250 sites across a number of different categories. And this was excluding those that focused on teens or adult content. And I'm sure that this list is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the entire social media ecosystem that actual exists.

Now, don't get me wrong, but I had an idea that this whole social networking thing was big. I check both my Facebook and LinkedIn profiles a bunch of times each day. Even the Divine Miss J, who isn't the most web-enabled, has been using Facebook quite a bit lately and has gotten back in touch with a slew of her childhood through college friends.

But to me, the question is whether this is going to be the actual future of the Internet, or maybe it's already become the current state of affairs. Most major sites (from travel to eCommerce to News sites) have already added a social aspect, allowing everything from product reviews to forums to actual news reporting. I'm sure this isn't news to anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the past couple of years, but it does make one wonder what the future is going to be. It's all become about the conversation. The conversation we are having with each other, and the conversation a brand is having with its consumer. An interview with Google's Joe Kraus about this topic can be found here.

So, to paraphrase James Carvill, "It's the conversation, stupid."

What if B2C companies marketed themselves like B2B companies

What if consumer focused companies (you know, B2C) marketed themselves like business focused (B2B)?

I mean, have you ever really taken a close look at how virtually all B2B companies market themselves? The vast majority, if not all, really focus on the things that they think make them unique. Things that really aren't, or even worse, things that their customer base doesn't even care about. Like how many employees or offices or certifications or customers they have. Like the fact that they are members of their business partners' educational programs or advisory panels. Or that they are driven to deliver the highest quality for their clients, or the fastest growing in their industry or geography. Or that they have a methodology that they follow that allows them to do the things they do for their clients, or a process, even.

It would be like Toyota saying to consumers "You should buy our cars, because we use an assembly line to put them together. And our assembly line uses robots. Oh, and we use metal, plastic, and rubber to make the cars." Or it would be like Coca-Cola saying "Our product has carbon-dioxide in it, and when you open the bottle, you will hear a small hissing sound. And it comes in cans, too. And we also make a sugar-free version. And we have bottling plants in just about every country in the world." I mean, when you are thirsty, and standing in front of that cooler at the local Quick-E-Mart, do you really care how many countries Coca-Cola has bottling plants in? Well, why would a business buyer care how many countries you have offices in?

No B2C company would ever market themselves this way. They get to know their consumers, trying to understand the emotional triggers and the lifecycle of their customers, and create aspirational marketing programs and campaigns that connect those consumers to their brands.

I've never really seen any B2B (my own included - we do a great job of this for our clients, but for some reason keep resorting back to this when it comes to our own marketing - although we're trying) companies doing anything near an adequate job of this (if you find one, please let me know about it).

If you don't believe me, the next time you are at a business trade show, count how many of the companies there are marketing themselves this way. I bet that out of hundreds of exhibitors, it will be hard to find even one.