We somehow neglected this last week. 

Achieving the highest order of business PR notoriety short of a live interview with Money Honey,
Maria Bartoromo, AKQA‘s Tom Bedecarré had his woodcut head shot in the Wall Street
Journal last week. Score another coup for, ever so briefly an SFIer,  Molly Parsley.  Now Tom can die, except that AKQA
hasn’t gone public yet. Then he can die. He joins FOBs, (Friends of BC) Ken
Gilbert , Aims Coney III and Andy Serwer in the woodcut picture club. 

AKQA is making fast use of its General Atlantic stash o’ cash by picking
up SearchRev, a four year old search marketing technology and services company
in Palo Alto. Props to Tom and to SearchRev
founders, Eduardo Llach and David Kandasamy, good guys all. We met David and Eduardo back when they were
5 people sitting in a small room with no furniture just off University in Palo Alto. 

I would expect that we’ll see AKQA make more acquisitions of this sort so
that Tom and his private equity partners can start making some money in their sleep instead of relying
solely on the dreaded service model. And
I’m guessing acquisitions like this aren’t going to hurt valuation come IPO
time.  GA probably thought about that.

South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker are "attempting to leapfrog to the vanguard of Hollywood’s transition into Web," according to today’s New York Times.

In a move that have observers wondering what Comedy Central is up to, the network and the two writers are going to create a "hub" to spread South Park-related material across the Net, mobile platforms, and video games. Over the next four years, between the up-front cash, shared ad revenues, and other compensation, Parker and Stone will be gaining about $75 million in profit. Not bad.

I guess Comedy Central learned everything they needed to know in kindergarten:

• Share. Other television networks were asleep during this lesson.
• P(l)ay fair. The duo’s lawyer, Kevin Morris, said the deal "would show tech companies venturing into entertainment on
  the cheap that they will have to pay well for top talent." 
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours. YouTube is still struggling with this rule. And their new ad revenue model is putting them on even shakier ground, as the Online Minute Blog relates: the company could potentially lose the “safe harbor” protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That law generally protects Internet companies
  that host copyrighted content as long as they remove it upon request. Companies
  lose that protection, however, if they directly profit from the material.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.  As is crude humor.

1. Suing Google  Bob Tur, Guge Science and Technology in China, and now American Airlines. Get original, guys!

2. Shunning Social Networks  Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re here. As a marketer, ignoring them would be like…turning a blind eye to Paul Revere’s ride. The British are coming? Nah, maybe next year. Running second only to shunning is trusting them too much with your personal information; never "friend" a plastic frog. And finally, as an employer, it’s getting to the point where it’d be stupid not to block it or restrict access, considering that so many people waste time social networking on the job.

3. China’s "Self-Discipline Pledge"  We promise we’re not going to string you up for talking smack about us, said the Chinese government. We just want your name. Bloggers in China are being asked to register with their real name and swear to "not spread pornography…not speak ill of other
nationalities, races, religions and cultural customs…[and] not spread rumors or libelous information." God bless China.

4. MySpace for Spies  Yes, this is exactly what we need: a social network of central intelligence agents and analysts. May not be the wisest idea, America. Love this quote in defense of the idea: “Burying the same number of analysts in ever higher piles of hay would no more increase the number of needles." –Thomas Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis. Whaa?

5. Trusting (All) the Numbers The numbers game, like the Circle Game, goes round and round. What do you believe? How about your emotions?

6. Forgetting to Advertise – Wisely "Oops! I forgot to have children," exclaims a 50′s-looking housewife on a magnet on our refrigerator. But that would be a minor mistake in comparison to cutting your ad budget, especially online. 10 out of 10 investors agree: keep the ads.

7. Thinking Size Does Matter – The bigger the better, the tighter the sweater, the boys depend on us! Not really, girls. Just as misled are agencies, says MarketingCharts. "…clients don’t feel that size matters, but agencies tend to believe it does." See here for the actual factors that they believe to be important, like quality customer insights, chemistry (ooh la la), and lo and behold, creative work.

Tell me what is wrong with this picture, or rather, graph.

A study
by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press tells us that we’re not getting what we want
from newspapers – not by a long shot. A quarter of the general public responded
that they followed the Iraq war more closely than any other news story last
month, but just 3% of national news media sources were devoted to war coverage,
reports MarketingCharts.

Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they thought that
celebrity scandal receives too much coverage. When asked who was to blame, they
all pointed the finger at the media. “It’s their fault we’re reading junk,” was
more or less how it went. (Interestingly, the younger set tend to put the blame
on the public more than the news media, with over half noting that it is the
“public’s appetite for scandal news that spurs the amount of coverage.” Over
30, the majority blames the media outright.)

Back on the ranch, New York Post
turns
Page Six into a three-page fiasco. Six, Seven, and Eight will be filled
with all the juicy gossip
from LA, Miami, and Vegas, as well as New York. Richard
Johnson is eyeing the Net and TV as places for further expansion and looking to emulate sites like tmz.com. Yes, that is exactly what we need. More Paris!

A European acquaintance
once told me that they love Paris Hilton because she so easily represents a
stereotype of Americans: outrageously irresponsible. But really, it’s the people who cover these stories that are the true Americans. it’s not Paris, it’s Perez. Or better yet, someone like Lauren
Collins of the New Yorker, covering the trials
and tribulations
of the infamous Manhattan elite. It’s Page Six for intellectuals. See, Mom? We’re all grown up!

I know what you’re thinking, now how in the world does this
relate to online advertising? Banners on celebrity gossip sites…the death of
old media…oh no, that’s too easy. The idea here is that we
don’t know what we want. Yes, I’ll say that I want to read more
international news, that I don’t want ads on my mobile phone, that I am going
to vote for Hilary. But is this really how I’m going to behave? The lesson here
is, don’t believe the polls. Don’t trust the consumer. Test everything. Then act.

Potential trouble on the horizon, warn unnamed "industry-watchers" in this Reuters article. Upcoming tough economic times could crunch experimental media expenditure, as marketers will turn towards what is safe – the tried and true, as they say. Like TV commercials? Woe is me.

As we march ourselves down the plank to a consumer-led recession, Americans are "retreating from their free-spending ways." It’s hard enough getting our attention in an age of so many media choices, so what will happen when we have less money to spend? New mediums and tested, compelling messages are going to be the only way to grab and hold our attention, and then get us to part with hard-earned cash.

John Osborn, chief executive of BBDO New York, says, "In tight economic conditions, some of these new mediums are exactly
what we should be looking into. I think they are incredibly
targeted." Though, not all new mediums that agencies are experimenting with are good. See here for Mashable’s Five New Ad Tactics We Fear.

Worldwide CEO Andrew Robertson chimes in to say that agencies are also going to be under pressure to "create stuff that is sufficiently compelling for [consumers]
to choose to spend time with it."

But he mainly just urges marketers to think twice before pulling their money out of unconventional ad campaigns prematurely, in anticipation of the recession. As the Grass Roots would say, "Don’t pull your love out on me, baby / If you do then I think that maybe / I’ll just lay me down and cry for a hundred years."

You can take our heart and our soul, but not our money.

Feel like you’re all alone in the world? Like no one understands you and your needs?

Join the club; or rather, join the network. The latest and greatest in online networks, apart from the increasingly specialized social hubs for particular people (aSmallWorld does not count!), is targeted ad networks. Green, gay, Hispanic: you name it, it’s coming.

Adotas writes that Adify’s new gay ad network "provides a consolidation of current and larger offering
for burgeoning, gay web sites that have traditionally been fragmented
over the net." 

Burgeoning, I’ll say. If they mean it like Merriam-Webster does, as in new growth (as in buds or branches) and expanding rapidly. The annual growth rate of 33% over the past 5 years proves this.
A Harris Interactive/Witeck-Combs Communications study that showed 64% of gay
Americans more likely to buy products marketed to them through gay
media – and expect more from companies who do so. More about gay web users, via DoubleClick: they are between
the ages of 18-34, usually from higher educational backgrounds,
and have well-paying jobs. READ: SPENDING POWER.

*Author’s Note: They also have impeccable taste. Flower pots in every Castro window, hooray!

Other fragmented groups are now being consolidated in ad networks, like NetFuerza and HispanoClick, whose slogan is "Riding the Latino Wave" (can you say that?)  Back in 2004, eMarketer was even predicting that there will be over 16 million
Hispanic Internet users in the US by 2007, which is 8.4% of todos, and they’re still climbing. They spend more time online than Internet users in general, mostly to communicate with family and friends. See what everyone at ad:tech Miami was talking about last month. You guessed it – the Hispanic market.

Next up: an ad network of sites that cater to our biggest fragmented minority: angry, sullen teenagers. Oh wait, it’s called MySpace.

You’ve got these four choices staring you in the face. Which do
you choose?

1.  E-commerce

2.  Communications

3.  Content

4.  Search 

B2B
reports that 47% of online time is
spent with content, compared with 34% four years ago, according to the
Online Publishing Association’s four-year analysis of its Internet Activity
Index (IAI).

Content experienced a 37% gain in share, closely followed by
search with 35%, but the amount of time for search is still only 5%. And email,
which used to be the leader, has faltered down to a measly 33% of the total
time. Widespread broadband access and a tendency to consume breaking news
online were marked as some of the factors, but as Wendy Davis observes,

Still, despite the possible growth in online news articles,
it seems likely that the main reason for the shift is the result of the recent explosion of Web video sites,
ranging from YouTube to Joost to TV networks’ own sites.

AdWeek
ran a piece on Deloitte & Touche’s "State of the Media
Democracy" report that talked of old media’s
resilience, particularly in video. “One of the main activities online is
going to a television Web site." harks Ed Moran, their director of product
innovation. The survey found that around half of consumers across generations
check them out regularly, and the same amount consumes user-generated content.
(Are they one and the same? Probably. The rest are still flipping channels and
fast-forwarding through commercials.)

Yes,
skipping commercials. With this content-crazy mad throng of Internet users
comes yet more ad avoidance. More than a quarter said they would pay for online
content in exchange for not being exposed to advertising. But more and more
content providers are ‘setting their sites’ on ad-supported video. Worth a read
is the WSJ article, Are Skins,
Bugs or Tickers The Holy Grail of Web Advertising? to see how different companies
are emerging from the age of experimentation and using data from the past year
to “crack the video advertising code.”

Here’s something that could have been brought to our
attention yesterday: About.com is
giving instructions on online advertising. But wait a second, what is their
content? I mean, this is not as simple as choosing,
storing, and preparing summer tomatoes. Nor is it Credit 101.

Mediapost sums
up:

Aiming to supplement–not
eclipse–the wealth of sites that provide advertising and marketing
professionals with industry insights, onlineadvertising.about.com covers such
topics as common metrics, the nuts and bolts of behavioral targeting,
media-buying basics, mobile ads, streaming video, and even finding a job…

Sounds delish. But I go to the site
and what do I see? David Beckham. What does he have to do with online
advertising? I scroll down and realize that it is written like an agency
blog. “Guide” Cory
Treffiletti, of, ahem, Mediapost’s Wednesday column (okay, and of Catalyst
Strategy and Arkitektive too) just blogs about whatever he feels like, even if
it’s Pearl Jam.
Is that a supplement? Let me rephrase. Do they think we were born yesterday?

I then realize that the section, unlike
online advertising, and unlike us – was in fact born yesterday. They’re still
trying to fit into their britches, so we’ll give them a break while they
collect articles. Do us a favor and suggest a few. Power to the user!

So begins David Verklin’s ad campaign for his new title, Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here: Inside the
300 Billion Dollar Business Behind the Media You Constantly Consume, co-authored by Bernice Kanner.

He’s not messing around. The Arizona Star summary went a little somethin’ like this:

Rumors of the impending demise or serious wounding of the advertising
industry by warp-speed advances in communications technology are
greatly exaggerated.

Who’s getting wounded here? Technology may be double-edged sword, but one of those edges just ain’t sharp. (Maybe the Critical Edge can help.) Verklin and Kanner have clearly done their research, and they certainly have plenty of experience, so the book reads like a "helluva primer on advertising across multiple platforms, including TV, the internet, print media — even pornography."

But maybe we shouldn’t be listening to Verklin (of Carat) and tune in to my old favorite Maurice Lévy of Publicis  Groupe, whose acquisition of Digitas was said to have been the trigger to the string of interactive agency and ad network acquisitions – the latest one being AOL and Tacoda. 

A piece in the New York Times focuses on Publicis/Digitas and their grand ambitions. Last Tuesday they announced their purchase of the 12-year old Chinese digital agency Communication Central Group, for a necessary foothold in the Chinese market, which is apparently growing at 20% a year. (Global growth is around 5%.)

And if China = mass, (which it does), then their methods will surely have to be more in line with the idea that we’ve been preaching for years now: the future will simply have to rely on automation. Mark Beeching notes, “The more you can standardize and automate in terms
of making different versions, hallelujah." Hallelujah indeed.