Would Blockbuster Movies Benefit From Social Media
After reading this review of the advertising and marketing programs for Marvel’s IRON MAN movie and Warner’s DARK KNIGHT (batman) movie, I started wondering just what a social media contingent to the program would have looked like. The article’s author, Antony Young, gave the edge (they tied at 4 stars) to the Dark Knight and cited the web presence to be one of the differences between the two efforts. But what could either side have added with social media?
Possible Movie Promotional Extensions With Social Media
- YouTube video conversation: Why I Love Batman (or Iron Man).
- Podcast: behind the scenes on the set of Iron Man (these seem to be getting more popular)
- Blogger Outreach: give 5 top comics/entertainment bloggers early access for interviews, photos, etc.
- Flickr campaign: Marvel did this with Hulk.
- uStream chat with _____ : Wouldn’t it be cool to hang with Christian Bale for a bit?
- Affiliate sales program: what if they gave bloggers a little button that offered movie goers a dollar off for an early ticket purchase, and gave bloggers a dollar for each sold?
- Wiki “barn building” campaign: ask fans to find every scrap of interesting web presence for Iron Man or Batman (great for lawyers to use later for copyright infringement - ouch).
Would It Work?
I’m not so sure. Think about it. Movies are SUCH a mass medium. It’s all about bulk, and though social media tools are inexpensive and pervasive, wrangling millions of people isn’t exactly their strong suit (anybody remember Snakes on a Plane?).
But maybe it dosn’t have to work to be worth doing. As a lifetime superhero fan, I’d have really enjoyed any of those above efforts, and probably would’ve nerded out with lots of people on them. It would’ve raised my sentiment for the movies. I’m sure it would have left me with a resonating experience, and others like me.
So you tell me: should a blockbuster movie do something like that for the reason that it would improve sentiment and spread good will? Or would that even matter in the long run? Let’s be real for a moment: businesses do exist to make money, not to make me happy. But I’m not sure. What’s your take?
YouTube is Losing Hundreds of Millions a Month
Think about this, oh followers of the Cult of Chad: where do YOU go to remember old TV clips, to find out what your favorite bands from high school and college sound like these days, the trailer for that new movie? YouTube, right? It’s easy. It’s right there. Powerful search, billions of videos, and nothing too tricky to watching one. And yet, I think they’re missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars a month. Here’s how.
Affiliate Sales
I went searching for the mashup David Usher’s Kill the Lights single mixed with the new Batman Dark Knight movie trailer. (By the way, Google threw out a Mitch Joel link before even YouTube - good Google juice, Mitch!) I wanted to watch this:
(Go on, watch it. I’ll wait.)
Now, what should come next? I’ll tell you what: YouTube should have a sidebar to that video (legality questions aside) that says, “Why not buy David Usher’s new album?” with an easy click to an Amazon store or whatever. And what else? “Why not pre-order the Batman DVD?” Why not? I’m already turned on by the song and the video. I’m already hopped up, and it’s like free marketing for two products that didn’t spend a dime to get me excited!
There are lots of ways this makes sense. It’s right there: market, interest, pre-selection.
Okay, YouTube: ready, steady, go! Go make money. I’ll be here watching more weird Batman things:
(What do you think? Good idea? Bad idea?)
Does This Kind of Ad Still Work
Image via Wikipedia
I got this ad on my Facebook page today. Technically, they have a few things right: I just broke my laptop a little. I love Macs. I *could* use a new Mac. But I know it’s going to be a really stupid marketing bait and switch (I’m copping from David Meerman Scott because I saw him yesterday, and he shared his disdain for bait and switch online marketing).
But really, I’m asking YOU. Does this work?
Viral Advertising- How It Will Really Work
Friend and thinker, David Cutler posted this on his blog about an ad.
adidas. all day i dream of stoner(4 da ladies)
The thing is, it worked. It worked perfectly. I watched the entire ad. I finished the ad thinking, “huh, that’s pretty interesting.” And then I spread the ad.
Think of how many times an ad just blurs out without us noticing, and then look at that ad. It was so powerful that someone stuck it on MySpace, then David found it somewhere, and now I’ve put it here. I’m moving the ad around the web. So is David. Are YOU going to find the embed code, or link to my site? Are you going to tell Google that this ad has value by your actions.
Quality is still at the heart of anything that succeeds. But it doesn’t hurt that the ad is out here in the wild such that we can send it around to others either, right? Do THAT with your TV.
Note to Social Media Types- Build Your Interfaces
If you’re thinking about a future in social media, build your interfaces. This means, if you’re someone making media, build your text, video, audio, and your entire business with the mindset of how to connect it up to other organizations. Think TechCrunch meets the Washington Post, for instance. Think about how you will share: content, processes, financial back and forths, responsibilities.
Businesses in social media must be modular. Why “must?” Because you’ll miss opportunities. Tether to your own little island and when that rising tide gathers all the boats, you’ll be on the bottom of the new ocean.
And this goes for social media consultants, too. Learn how to be the PR and Marketing and Advertising company’s “go to guy,” not just someone who comes in and shares the word with the uninitiated. Teach how these pieces all go together, and show where YOU fit that experience.
And then, on the same topic, do the same for big businesses. Because if you’re thinking PR and marketing companies will carry on in the exact same way they exist today, think again. They know it. That’s why they’re working to adapt their value statements. That’s why they pay attention in the first place.
Big businesses and little businesses alike are figuring out these tools for their own use. Disaggregated. The same way record labels suddenly woke up to find themselves a little less “necessary,” certain oldschool communications companies will soon find themselves pushed off to the side.
Get modular. Get agile. Get more creative in how you will link to various opportunities.
What’s your take?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
Advertisers Take Heed
This will end up seeming really echo chamber, but I saw this post by Teresa Valdez-Klein that cites this post by Ken Burbary for finding this great video:
Advertising. Ah, yes.
Advertiser Types- Any Info
A friend of mine sent the following request for information that he’s hoping to wrap his head around:
I am working on an internal research project and am trying to build a reasonably accurate model of today’s online advertising/marketing value chain… essentially we are working to build a common understanding of how the big pieces fit together and how the $$ flows between the various segments. Ultimately, I’d like to pull together a single slide that covers:
- The brand advertisers (GM, Procter & Gamble, and all the way down)
- The ad agencies
- The media planners/owners
- The ad servers (Doubleclick) and networks (VideoEgg, ScanScout, Tribal Fusion et al)
- The publishing platforms (Brightcove, Move Networks)
- The destination media sites (from CBS to Youtube to Facebook and everyone in between)
- The mega-players who bring multiple pieces to the table (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL)
- The ad targeting (Revenue Sciences) and measurement firms (Quantcast, Dynamic Logic, Nielsen, Omniture)
- Any other major categories that I missed?
I’m not in this space at all, but you might be. If you’re interested and have information about this, please email me: blog at chrisbrogan dot com.
Watch Your Ad Load Times
Doc Searls has it right. If your site has ads that take forever to load, MY attention is in jeopardy. And now that I’m thinking about it, you know who suffers worse? Your site. Because I probably didn’t even NOTICE the ad that took forever to load. Instead, I noticed that your site loaded slow.
(Yes, I’ve heard of Adblocker, but that’s not the point).
And you, as a business and a brand, pay attention: flashy and long load times won’t win you my support. Your stupid ad moving all over the page makes me have a negative impression, not a positive one.
What’s your take on this?
Who is Secretly Pitching You
Kare Anderson of Say it Better pointed out this piece of fiction to me from The New Yorker magazine. “Raj, Bohemian” is about a guy getting the distinct feeling that everyone around him has fallen into an endless cycle of promoting things. It gets to be a little much when he realizes that some of the people in his circle do this for a living, as a way of spreading the word around about their clients’ products and services. Word of mouth marketing gone stealth. The Pay Per Post of the spoken word. It makes me wonder about our online communities and the notion of reputation.
The Internet is perfect for this kind of thing. We don’t even have to see our face to face friends. Our new social network “friends” can tell us plenty about products without telling us whether they’re being paid to talk about it. Should we be critical? Should we see advertisers under every stone?
Stealth Pitching and Communities
People are more wired than ever before. It’s real easy to find holes in information, simple to fact check a little bit. To that end, companies that are willing to risk their community’s trust by pitching in a stealthy way are taking chances with their brand. Every time we see a Walmarting Across America, that sticks with us. Sometimes, we change our behavior as consumers because of it. Other times, we don’t.
By the way, I’m sure these tactics work, so let’s not discount the fact that stealth pitching brings in cold hard cash for companies.
Apathy Nation
I should point out that apathy is in abundance on such matters, and has been since the end of the 1960s (at least in America). We learned how not to trust our government. We understood that companies were (are) in it for the money. And in lots of cases, we shrug and we don’t care. Not all of us, surely, but there are plenty of people who shrug off the things big companies do, and just accept them as the status quo.
Maybe you’re someone who fights against such moments. Me? Admittedly, I fall into the “apathetic” category from time to time. I shop at Wal-Mart sometimes, even though I know the negatives that go with it.
So, here we are with a lot of questions, and not many answers. We are awash in opportunities to be covertly influenced on our social networks of choice.
It Comes Back to Trust
I have a very healthy respect for staying true to this community. I never want you to wonder whether something I’m raving about is because someone paid me to say it. It’s just not on the table. When I feel there’s an external influence to something I’m saying (like if I talk about Utterz, I always try to mention that I’m on the advisory board), then I will do my very best to separate that from random ravings about something. The currency of my relationship with you is trust. You won’t bother reading what I have to say if you wonder about my ulterior motives.
Am I completely unbiased? No. Is anyone?
Reputation Engines
Mechanisms for trust need to find their way into social networks. Reputation systems, not unlike the ones created in eBay and LinkedIN and Amazon, would help add much needed context and history and transparency to the “me” that floats around on the web, on Twitter, on Facebook. Perhaps this is an opt-in situation, like logging in via OpenID, or maybe it’s just some kind of 3rd party validation system you can send someone to, should a conversation veer into waters where it’s necessary.
I’m not suggesting that privacy be surrendered. This isn’t something that requires people give up the option of having an anonymous persona on the web. Instead, I’m saying that for people who seek to represent themselves for who they are, a reputation engine might be one way to clear up some of the fears of blind, stealth pitching.
Doing an Honest Job
I think advertising and marketing and public relations can be done honestly, and that turning pitches into conversations isn’t inherently evil. I believe people DO want to understand products and services, and have a relationship with certain brands. My concern is with tactics, and especially with how people might use social networks and social media to forward an agenda without being explicit about their involvement.
I never want to discount the good work professional advertising, marketing, and PR people are doing with social networks.
Are You Secretly Being Pitched?
Some would argue that we’re ALL pitching something. When I use Twitter to share the link to this post, that’s a pitch. When I show you my nifty new ebook, that’s a pitch. But the question is more on the hidden motives, more than whether or not you’re being encouraged in one direction or another.
What’s your take? on all this?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
All the screen caps I do are made with Plasq’s Skitch.
Shuffling Ads Around
Here’s a quick meta story: FriendFeed pointed me to Simon Young’s Google Reader shared item of a post by John Hagel about the shift of (primarily digital) advertising. Before you consider my thoughts on advertising, pause and realize just how cool (weird, meta) that little path to the data truly is. Curse you Thank you, Louis Gray, for getting me to look at FriendFeed once more.
In his post, John mentions how advertisers see the coming shifts in their business:
In the advertising world, multiple shifts are piling on top of each other and it is often hard to keep track of them, much less understand their implications. Let’s look at just some that are re-shaping the advertising world:
- Shifts from advertising placed in digital content to ads placed in social networks and applications
- Shifts from digital advertisements delivered through conventional PC’s to a growing array of mobile devices, with an increasing ability to target messages based on the physical location of the person
- Shifts in the behavior of digital users in their responsiveness to advertisements online […]
These three shifts made me frustrated, because I see them as advertisers just lazily moving their target slightly in-stream, but without adapting much beyond making a course correction for how digital users respond. Thankfully, John schools people who consider this the right way to do it a little further down the page.
John points out something really important:
Why will the Internet ultimately undermine advertising? A number of factors come into play:
- The Internet proliferates resources, all competing for the attention of people. Even the most targeted and relevant ads over time will have a harder and harder time rising above the noise.
- The Internet creates powerful options for people in terms of how they become aware of new products and services and how they obtain information about the products and services that are relevant to them.
- The Internet offers increasingly powerful tools to filter and block advertisements (and, yes, product placements will be an interesting alternative for a while, until even that space becomes so cluttered that people will mentally filter out the products)
It’s funny. The article is long-ish, and when I read the very first part of it, I was getting frustrated with what John reported about the way advertisers are viewing the online play. Not with what John Said, but instead, the mindset of advertisers as covered by him. I’m glad that I continued through, however, because his perspective on what advertisers must consider to adapt and survive are a very worthwhile payload.
See the full article here.
What do you think about the future of online advertising? Are you okay with ads in social networks? How do we balance comfortable with effective?
