Anyway, while the events typically have a range of relevant topics, the most interesting tidbits come from direct discussions with the truly special people that attend:
Digital Pioneers
Jerry Yang - Founder, Yahoo
We had a meeting with Jerry Yang to talk about their big announcement last week - APT as well as their failed Microsoft deal and their follow-up deal with Google. They are launching a new product called APT - which is essentially an Ad Exchange. Its currently an exchange that will allow marketers or agencies to buy, manage and optimize ads directly on line. The bulk of the inventory will be remnant and newspaper space, however, they claim that the difference between this and the many other exchanges will be in its ability to allow purchase of premium content at much cheaper levels. We asked them about their longer term ability to offer an exchange for other media, specifically television, when digital television hits critical mass; however, it didn't sound like that was in the cards for some time if ever. Yahoo is betting that this will be a huge performer for them, but based on our conversation with Yang, it didnt sound that groundbreaking.
We also pushed them on the Microsoft deal and why they let it get away. In my view, it seemed to be the perfect marriage. Microsoft has a lame search product, Yahoo is huge and is bigger than Google in Asia. So it would seem that the marriage would provide legitimate competition for Google - a good thing for us, but regardless of what Yang says, i believe it was personal. Yang and the Google founders all went to Stanford and it was their mantra that Microsoft was evil and I think the Google guys were whispering in his ear not to sell out...which would explain why the Google/Yahoo deal was made immediately afterwards...Additionally, this deal is under scrutiny from the Department of Justice and hasn't "passed" yet (I put in quotes because technically it's not a merger so shouldnt need approval, but antitrust issues could mire it in court for some time).
Chad Hurley - co-founder of youtube
We had a great discussion with Chad re: how he started the company and why. He told us that he had videos from a party he attended and couldn't email them to people because the file was too big and posting videos at the time was too much of a headache that required extensive html and programming knowledge and even with that people didnt have the bandwidth to view. So they tried to design something very simple that streamed and made it very easy to post, share, etc. So they fulfilled a need people didn't know they had until it was created, made it fun/entertaining and mostly made it very simple to engage - keep those words simple and easy to engage in your mind as I'll come back to it later.
Craig Newmark - founder of www.craigslist.com
Craig was a quirky fellow, but created the first and most widely used online classified social network. People find jobs, apartments, babysitters, etc...they're in over 50 countries and used more often for classifieds than any other source...replacing newspapers who held that distinction for over 100 years. The only way he makes any money is from companies who post jobs and it costs them only $75 to post an ad. So while I'm sure he doesn't live in a shack...he could be living a lot better and monetizing the site in many more ways...I asked him if he would be interested in striking a deal..he told me he'd meet with us to discuss some sort of partnership that connects people, but in reality, he told us that his goal is not to make money. He said he really just wants to make it simpler to connect people with things they need. Whatever....so Rob Master and I thanked him for getting us our nannies and told him we'd call him later:-) of course 5 minutes later he came back and said he'd like to meet with us..which I deduced as he'd like to make money, he just doesnt know how:-)
Larry Page - co-founder Google
We chatted with Larry and Sergey as well. Again their whole reason for being was to organize the worlds info. But Yahoo already existed..they still wanted to make it simpler and easier(there are those words simple and easy again).
The other big thing they're working on is digitizing health records so that people will be able to store their health records in the "clouds" (on the web). But even more incredibly, they're talking about being able to map you're genetic code in a way that will allow them to be able to help you predict what diseases/illnesses you might be susceptible to long before you are afflicted. Sergey himself found out that he will very likely have Parkinsons at some point, so now he's doing research and other things to help find a cure...fascinating stuff, the site that Google's invested in this area is run by Sergey's wife Anne Wojcicki and is called www.23andme.com because we all have 23 chromosomes. Another interesting note, when they first launched Google they said they wouldn't run advertising on it..they said that would conflict with the inherent nature of organic search...well we know where that went..they now make more money in advertising than any other media company brand...point being that just because someone says they won't do something, doesn't mean they won't change their minds for a great idea or one that will make them rich:-)
Jimmy Wales - Founder, Wikipedia
Jimmy primarily discussed his new venture which is to create a slew of niche versions of wikipedia for specific topics (sports, music, etc...) called wikia. If you weren't aware, wikipedia is a not for profit venture that doesn't make any money. Wikia will offer opportunities for brands to make branded wikis...for example, the Tranformers game made one which has millions of users...called transformers.wikia.com. This would be a good place for us to launch an idea that we had after top 40 around axe...we wanted to create a wiki called chickipedia.com...and we could create it here with support from wikia to push people there...
Dany Levy
Had dinner with Dany Levy, the founder of daily candy. A female targeted daily newsletter about what's hot in fashion, restaurants, products, etc...in a given city. It's a great vehicle to reach "in the know" influencers...which is becoming more and more important now that blogging, consumer reviews, etc...are proving to be among the most trusted places for info. Daily Candy is launching in other countries and Dany will be coming to London to talk about how we can partner with them in their global roll out..
One of most interesting pieces of learning we got from these meetings was what drove most of these innovations. Generally speaking they all created things that represented something that would give consumers simple solutions for their needs/wants. We tend to do the opposite in our marketing. We often develop complicated campaigns that are a)interesting to us and maybe communicate our message but often are ignored by consumers and b)too complex for them to understand...we MUST change that approach..and really think about all campaigns from the consumers eyes... we must thing big and create campaigns that our consumers want to engage with us. Whether its a tv ad, a digital campaign, whatever...the idea and how you use the channels will drive engagement, buzz, pass along, scale, etc...
Global Business, Political & Cultural Leaders
We also heard from incredible business and economic leaders including Carlos Slim, a telcom magnate in Mexico who is one of the richest men in the world, former US Vice President Al Gore, Brad Anderson the CEO of Best Buy, Jeffrey Immelt the CEO of GE, Gao XI-Qing Chief Investment Officer of China (yes thats right, all of China, not just a company), etc...some key comments/quotes include:
- "confronting change is as certain as death and taxes"...meaning at some point and for us its now, you'll have to confront change and if you don't, you'll become irrelevant.
- on the economic crisis, "western nations don't realize how wealthy they are...your problems are nothing compared to the much bigger economic problems China and other nations have"...kind of puts things in perspective for many of us.
- "when major changes occur that affect your business, you must adapt and be willing to fail at first, but you must try"
- "In india, 500 million people make less than $2 a day and most of that is spent on food". That means we have to consider ways to adapt our food products and media selections to account for that..but it also means that there are still hundreds of millions of people that are considered middle class and DO in fact have access to TV's, computers, mobile, etc..and can be reached with entertaining and innovative approaches...
- Best Buy CEO showed some incredible internal approaches they've put in place that empower their employees (particularly those on the front line dealing with consumers) to think more creatively, share info, etc...one great example is that they have a virtual suggestion box for ideas for product innovations, marketing ideas, etc...and if they get selected by a group that reviews them, the employees get funding and the opportunity to lead it and make it happen.
- David Gregory: journalist - he said that recent political campaigns have shown that in many cases, ads are more effective on the web than tv because if they're good ads, they will proliferate faster online. he also said its still possible to reach mass audiences on tv, but in far fewer cases such as the olympics...
- Lee Clow (creator of the famous 1984 apple ad)..said that advertising used to be a monologue, but now it has to be a dialogue to suceed. He said "its no longer a narrative world".
- the theme heard from many was that "the next 10 years may be more significant and see more collosal change than the next 50"
CASE STUDIES to note:
some interesting case studies indluded:
- Google campaign to attract new talent: Google ran a campaign called GLAT which is a play on standardized tests like the GMAT. They made a complicated test and inserted it in magazines like Technology Review and online..and used out of home in key targeted areas with questions from the quiz that sent them to the test to submit as an application.
- Burger King created a game for xbox. It sold over 3mm games..
- Ray Ban created a seried of ads and films that they only run online and have had success with. They have a lot of history that shows how entertainment can drive their business..for example they saw an immediate 40% increase in sales when Tom Cruise wore Ray Bans in the movie top gun in the 80's.
We also got a chance to see some of Google's newest product innovations...plus just as an interesting side note, we found out that new Google employees are called "newglers"
Google Products
search
- search will be dramatically improved in 09. much more accurate. they showed us a demo...one interesting thing was that when you are looking for something (lets say pizza) there will be a text box where you type in your postcode and it will show all contact data for the closest one to your area..and if you use igoogle it will be automatic.
google tv ads
- Google TV ads is an automated process that will allow you to plan, serve and report a campaign with ease. Bought on an auction model on a cpm basis. Their content includes various satellite set top boxes as well as a recent deal with all NBC Cable operations...this adds a kind of long tail dimension to tv as smaller advertisers will now easily be able be advertise on tv. They're surely looking to expand their content partners in the near future.
mobile
- one interesting piece is that they will have voice recognition search on some of their partners phones. so you can just talk into your phone and it will tell you what you are looking for..they showed us how it works with directions..very cool because the phone already knows where you are..so you don't have to type in "from or to"..This of course is in addition to Android, their recent open mobile platform announcement and a recently published Google patent filing which described what sounds like a google/android phone in the future.
google mars
- view detailed looks at mars and other places in space similar to google earth
google browser
Chrome: one box for url or search. you can set up tabs for key areas (you tube, finance, sports, etc..)
content
- they didnt showcase this, but we know theyre looking to digitize all published content..all newspapers, books, magazines, etc..in history...and eventually share revenue with the creators of the content. but free to all consumers.
Entertainment
We held a day in a private suite in manhattan where we met with some of the most important entertainment companies in the digital space. There are hundreds if not thousands of companies trying to get into content creation in the digital space, however, we sought out the ones we think will be successful based on their backing, their leadership and their Hollywood experience.
These companies include: Generate (run by CEO of WB), Electric Farm (music), Vuguru (Eisner), MRC (WPP investment), Embassy row (Michael Davies - created Who Wants to be a Milionaire), Science and Fiction, Berman Braun, Madison Road, 60 Frames & Broadway Video (producer of 30 Rock). They all for the most part subscribe to the approach of super distributing their content and aren't bound to any one particular site. For our own purposes, it should be noted that the some of the top places for video distribution include places like: Youtube, myspace, dailymotion, vuze, hulu, juiced, metacafe, veoh, brightcove, the portals and p2p networks, etc... there are others like stupidvideos, heavy, etc...but for most or our brands, these would probably be most appropriate.
These guys are very open to creating cusomized branded content for us..for example, Michael Davies who created Who Wants to be a Millionaire was very open to creating some sort of similar branded game online...we discussed creating a global search game. Gaming is the fastest growing form of entertainment, so clearly some great options here.
Thats all for now..this week, some of our media team is attending an event called STREAM hosted by WPP...and they'll follow up as guest bloggers in the next edition of "its our time"
1 comment:
where are the comments/posts??? come on guys..get with the program...
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