The
Wall Street Journal on Tuesday zeroed
in on mobile ad provider Third
Screen Media as the company of the hour, seeing as they are in the midst of
talks with AOL Time Warner. And
what, might we ask, are they talking about? What
else but acquisitions.

What I wouldn’t pay to be a fly on the wall at that meeting.

TSM:
So, how much will you pay us for, well, us?

AOL:
That’s a good question, Third Screen. And we have an answer. How does one
dollar sound to you?

TSM:
Horrible. This isn’t Ebay. Or The Price is Right. C’mon, we’re worth at least
80mil, plus a couple of Benzes. Don’t play like Microsoft; we wanted their
top-secret Vista hacks and they wouldn’t bend, and now
you can get them off the Internet. And did you know we’ve got MSNBC in our
pockets?

AOL:
Okay, then, how about (hem, haw) two dollars?

TSM:
You have got to be kidding me. Average mobile campaign budgets have risen
practically tenfold, everyone is predicting massive growth of the industry, and
you’re sitting here telling me that you’re gonna let us slip through your
greasy little fingers? Fine, buddy, we don’t need you. We can do this act
alone.

AOL:
No, wait. (Mango!) Don’t go.

You
get the picture. In the meantime, big guns like Ford are experimenting
with mobile campaigns and finding them successful, adding fuel to the fire.
The general consensus seems to be that mobile ads are indeed the next big
thing, what with geographical targeting and the personal nature of the medium.
Dare I say that a consumer in the hand
is worth two in the bush?

Still, questions remain standing about how much The People will stand for. Will cell phone banner ads be the next pop-up? Wendy Davis
of Mediapost ruses,
“For now, mobile ads don’t seem to have sparked much of a backlash. But whether
consumers will accept such ads after they lose their novelty remains to be
seen.”

Yahoo!’s
much-hyped release of their new ad system upgrade, dubbed Project Panama,
was set amidst the hoots and
hollers of plummeting – or at least under-performing – profits. Everyone
was crossing their fingers in hopes that the new ad ranking system would help
the portal to gain some ground and close the Google text advertising gap.

Conceived
9 months earlier, Panama was the baby that Yahoo! had pinned their hopes on, predicting that that
overhaul would increase profits by at least 45%, taking effect by mid-2007.
Loren Baker had remarked
on Search Engine Journal:

Yahoo’s new Search Marketing technology should come more relevant
advertisements across keyword searches and the Yahoo Network, leading to more
clicks and in turn; more revenue.

Coulda,
woulda, shoulda. We awaited the results with breath that was bated. Finally,
comScore released
preliminary data analyzing the changes in Yahoo!’s click-through rates for
sponsored search ads. The results? Positive.

However.
Someone here in the Digital Axle office, cleverly disguised in Diesels and blue
Vans, has the observation skills of a KGB spy. He noticed something very fishy
about Yahoo!’s supposedly new relevant advertisement keyword search. Being: they are
not as on the ball as they think they are.

At
precisely 3:15 pm on the fateful day
of Thursday, February 8th, he took a screenshot of both Google and Yahoo’s
search results for “Anna Nicole Smith”. Note that the ads for Google include
relevant hits like TMZ.com and PETA’s remembrance of her “dedication to
animals”. The Yahoo ads? Rich Slimming Wu Long Tea, other diet products, and
DVDs. Not so up-to-the-minute, are they.

We’ll see what happens in Q3 when Panama really starts taking its first steps. We just hope, for Yahoo!’s sake, that
it doesn’t fall flat on its face.

The
dynamic trio of Microsoft, Starcom, and Milward Brown have conducted a study
which unveiled a new villain in the movie of online advertising: the Ad
Avoider. Mike Shields of Mediaweek reports
that between 10 percent and 15 percent of adults 17-35 fall into this category.

The
active avoiders are young, they’re tech-savvy,
and they have a DVR to cut out the unwanted content. The passive avoiders go a simpler route – they tend to use media that
is untouched by ads, like books or board games. Well, I don’t have a DVR, and I
haven’t played a board game since it became uncouth to cheat at Chutes and
Ladders, but let me tell you something. The Ad Avoider? It’s me.

I’m
the one who “can’t be bothered with ads.” I find them “annoying.” No, worse
than just annoying; I think that advertising is evil and that whole industry
should be banished down to the eighth circle of hell to play with the other
falsifiers.

This
may sound extreme, not to mention hypocritical. But the point I’m trying to make
is that even the people who declare themselves the least likely to be affected
by media are still consumers, and they still have eyes and ears and fingers and
toes. (We hope.) Just because I am an Ad Avoider doesn’t mean I don’t know that
pork is the other white meat, that barbie is a babe, and that smoking
cigarettes will make me cool. (Too cool for school, in fact.) It doesn’t stop
me from buying products and services that I see advertised in the Right Column
or that coveted Shaded Row when I do Google searches, and it certainly does not
keep me from engaging in modern media.

What
it does do is make me more selective
about what I pay attention to, and in this sense, I am an advertiser’s dream.
Beth Uyenco Shatto, research director of Microsoft, reacted to the study by
saying, “This is the kind of stuff that keeps us up at night.” But honey, this
should be the kind of thing that makes you sleep like a Ambien-filled baby –
after a few glasses of wine. Don’t stress out about the fact that I don’t like
you. Use it to fuel your creative juices. You should wake up in the morning and think, how am I going to get Ana to buy my product today? Answer: my making it more customized, more relevant, and more interactive. (She already kind of said this; I’m just taking credit for it.)

Greg
Sterling had a really interesting post
on the subject. He said that in order to work through this issue of ad
avoidance, we have to change our focus and

Reach the right audiences when
they’re ready through directional media/targeting
Produce quality content: the
“product” must work or deliver as promised
Offer usability: accessing the information/product must be
simple and effective

and finally, the most critical point:

Take advantage of the recent rise of community and social
media: the community, especially trusted circles, filters noise but also
creates, in some circumstances, “social pressure” around adoption or product
use.

It’s
easier to get my attention if you’ve got the attention of or “sold” someone I
trust. People are using each other as filters for efficiency but also to cut
through the noise and clutter of all the marketing messages — which have less
and less credibility.

As
my ESL students used to say, “I am agree in a way that is total.”
Ad avoiders
like myself are a strange breed, but we’re not aliens. Come get me!

P.S.
In an effort to see what else was out there in terms of confessions, I did a
search and found some interesting results. Confessions of a… Community College Dean, a Hockey Fanatic (aka Bruce Carlisle?),
and a Cardamom Addict. I also
found some more savory results here.

So we’ve all been getting our crisis communications emails of apology today from Jet Blue.  Did you get yours? Check your spam box. OK.  Fine.  But click to the new Bill of Rights and we are introduced to a piece of hysterical jargon only a lawyer could force into this prose.  The term: Controllable Irregularity.  There is no definition on the page of Controllable Irregularity.  Does a plane crash count? 

This latest term to hit the cultural lexicon is evidently so funny and so confusing that, already, if you search for Controllable Irregularity on Google, the result is a lengthy list of sites, all quicker to post than ours to be sure, that all raise the burning question of the day, "What the F#*& is Controllable Irregularity?"

We can’t help it but we’re getting all weepy from laughing and this has brought out the worst in us.  We’ve rediscivered our inner infantile and scatalogical sense of humor and it just just won’t go away….. Note to reader: See headline & photo for proof. Also, see previous post

We apologize. Sorry. We won’t do it again but this was just another Controllable Irregularity on our part.

Anyway, bringing this all home, how does this matter to the world of digital marketing?  Well Jet Blue did everything right to protect their brand and they used the Internet to great effect including the likely, first-of-its-kind and the no doubt, now obligatory YouTube apology. 

And then they let some lawyer blow it all sky high with an inexplicably hysterical and unexplained piece of jargon. And, now that is all we are talking and thinking about.  I mean even more than Britney Spears hair!

Note to Neeleman.  Fire your lawyer and your PR agency for letting this language happen to you.

Personally, I’ll keep flying Jet Blue for the extra inch they give me in my seat. But I am wondering if the TV sets were working for all eight hours flyers spent on the tarmac. I heard Neeleman on NPR and I thought he sounded on the case.

Final note to New Yorkers: This is your fault, too — Why would you live in a place where the weather gets like that in the first place? That’s why you all trooped out to JFK like lemmings in a blizzard in the first place.

Rep-re-sent!

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has decided to get down and dirty on the Hill. They’ve opened a D.C. office and hired lobbyist Mike Zaneis, reports Wendy Davis of Mediapost.

Where to even begin? He unveils his master plan to ClickZ’s Matthew Nelson, which is,

Putting together a public policy council, developing positions on key issues, and leveraging the contacts that I have on the Hill, and in the FTC and other places. And then it’s a take no prisoners attitude to advocate for our members.

Sounds like a plan to me. Zaneis, who is coming from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce where he served as executive director of technology and e-commerce, wants to first and foremost educate Congress on "how the Internet works, and what the interactive advertising industry actually is, and how it operates," which sounds like a noble cause when you consider last year’s hullabaloo about Ted Stevens and the "series of tubes," which I’ve already ranted about.

The issues he’s talking about, we’re assuming, are things like new neutrality, spyware legislation, and data security issues.

Consumer advocates in Washington have been beating the drum and the online ad peeps are worried. Jeff Chester on Digital Destiny remarks that "if consumers can actually control their data, the ability of digital marketers to collect, profile, track and target us will be threatened."

Mike! Stand tall and proud to defend our rights to Data!

Someone has finally said it: "Be the Content." Hallelujah!
(It would have been us, but we were too busy fixing the water cooler.)

Greg Verdino, we
salute you. As the popularity of online video soars, the question at hand for
marketers accustomed to their usual 30 seconds is – "How long do we make our
pre-roll ads?"

But
as he says in the longer
version of the article
in this month’s OMMA mag, "Don’t."

Today,
as the consumer exerts more control over her consumption of media, as primetime
gives way to “my time” and as technology empowers more people to make the shift
from content consumer to content creator, the effectiveness of traditional, interruption
advertising has been called into question…I’m not suggesting that television
advertising is dead – of course, it isn’t – but it does feel like we’re headed down
a slippery slope.

I’ll
say. Rather than being the pesky little guys that interrupt the programming
that viewers really want to see, he suggest that advertisers and agencies start
leveraging their resources into producing
content. Genius, really. He’s not saying that consumers will start watching
content that is solely about the brand, but would be open to material that
supports it – if it were entertaining or informative, of course.

So,
How To…?

First,
you’re going to need some friends. Obviously, your Creatives are not going to
start donning the dark sunglasses of independent film producers nor start
holding hands with mainstream media companies. And they’ll certainly not turn
over their cameras to, god forbid, The Consumer. But they can start playing
nice with them and see what comes of it.

Next
– distribute, distribute, distribute. To their own destinations, but also to
third-party sites, not forgetting to consider the potential influence of networked media.
When you go wild boar hunting (you know, as so many of us do) you don’t just bring one
bullet. To stretch the analogy further: although you shouldn’t be splaying the
jungle with machine-gun fire, a few select shots to moving underbrush might be
worthwhile.

And who
knows? You just might be bringin’ home the bacon.

Good
things come in threes, so it’s fitting that I have 3 things to say about
blogs.

Are
We Experiencing Blog Burnout?
Despite
of, or perhaps in spite of, the trend
of paying bloggers to post reviews of products through sites like PayPerPost and ReviewMe, there seems to be some blog
burnout going on. Maybe we should have paid attention to that clever gal who wrote about the Gartner prediction that
the number of active blogs would peak in 2007. We’ve noticed some advertising blogs have been slowing down. AdJab has full-on retired to Mexico.
And where did Adbumb run off to? And what about the general population and
those naughty big corporations? Emarketer
says that "despite being the hot marketing term of the
moment, blogs are read by fewer only 14% of US Internet users. Not
surprisingly, over 90% of both SMBs and large enterprises still do not blog." Hmm.

Political
Travesties
When
I got started on this whole blogging business, I was duly warned that once you
write something on the Internet, it is there for-eh-ver. Unlike print publications,
that get at least a sideways glance from a somewhat-discerning eye, blogs are
just thrown out there (two sheets?) to the wind and open to anyone who can read
and has Internet access, which last time I checked, was quite a number of
people. Usually, you can get away with saying anything you want, but as Amanda
Marcotte and Melissa McEwan found
out this past week, that’s not necessarily true. Should Edwards have fired them? Is the
campaign botched for good? As
McEwan says in her resignation letter, “This is a win for no one.”

But
there’s no stopping the Democrats. Next on the political bandwagon:
user-generated politics. Donna Bogatin of ZDNet tells us that both
Barack and Hillary have incorporated the ever-popular “You” into their
presidential campaigns through Web 2.0 participatory media like online chats,
video, political networks, and, our favorite – blogs.

Flog it, Baby
No whipping; fake bloggers are the new lime green. Though, in a day and age where Kraft can call
something guacamole dip that is only 2% real avocado – the rest being modified
corn starch, food coloring, and coconut and soybean oils -
we probably shouldn’t be so sure about what is fake and what is real. But the
U.K, which is technologically ahead of us in many ways, has
gone ahead and made it a crime to “falsely represent oneself as a consumer”, The
Times reports. All those who do will be named
and shamed, which in British culture means they rip off your curly white
wig and hurl soggy Earl Grey teabags on you in the town square. All while
shouting indignantly, “Fake-ah! Fake-ah!”

We wish.

Someone should probably stop feeding ad:tech all that meat and dairy; they’re growing faster than a second-generation Asian-American.

They’ve just reported an incredible 65% growth rate for Q4 and added 30 new clients to their list. All this, and they throw raging parties and bitchin’ conferences all over the world.

What are they on? (We want some.)

An email
recently popped into my inbox like so many forwards do; a hastily gift-wrapped
laugh in a box – should you, of course, be in the right mood for it. It was the Washington
Post’s annual Mensa Invitational which asks readers to take any word from the
dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and then
supply a new definition. Preferably a funny one.

Some
of this year’s winners were:
Intaxication
(n.): Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it
was your money to start with.
Decafalon
(n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that
are good for you.
Dopeler
effect (n.): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you
rapidly.
Sarchasm
(n.): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t
get it.
Inoculatte
(v.): To take coffee intraven ously when you are running late.
Foreploy (n.):
Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

Osteopornosis (n.): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

Now,
I’m no linguist, but I think that the Internet has definitely created some new
vocabulary words, some of which are not recognized even by the latest, most innovative Microsoft
programs. For example, this morning, the following was overheard in our office: "Hey, did you know that
Word doesn’t recognize the word blog?  (I’m typing this in Word, and he’s
right.) What about blidget? Wiki? Nope, nothing doing.

So
here’s what we’re doing. We’re sponsoring our own Menso Invitational Contest – Internet
Vocabulary Only. Here are a few to get you started:

Blagger
(n.) Someone who blogs just to show off their intellectual prowess.
uPod
/ uTunes / uPhone (n.) The altruistic version of Apple products.

So, if you’re feeling particularly clever today, and your colleagues are not appreciating your humor nor your creative genius, enter our contest!  We only ask that you follow the same format as above, using the Comment space provided, and that you keep it relatively clean. (We have a fresh & innocent web designer on staff here, and we’d like her to stay that way.)