R.E.M. "Accelerate" Launch Website (ninetynights.com) & Relaunch Vehicle for the Band..

R.E.M has just introduced a website called ninetynights.com as a teaser to build interest for their new "Accelerate" album due in April of '08. Starting On January 1 '08 a different 30-90 second video will be posted each day (or night) for ninety days. Cool idea. Especially since it's impossible, at this point to determine where it's all going (makes sense to me...otherwise why come back besides the fact you can download each new clip in HD for that day only). The video has been shot by Vincent Moon who has made videos for The National's "Alligator" ("Lit Up", "Daughters of the Soho Riots") and Beirut among others. R.E.M. needs smart marketing and decision making at this point.

"Accelerate" is rumored to be a return to the classic 1994 "Monster" R.E.M. sound of "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Crush with Eyeliner". It's produced by Jacknife Lee (Snow Patrol's last two breakthrough records, Greenday, and some U2 co-production). He's a brilliant producer but can at times overproduce. At this point, R.E.M. needs a record like U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind" that returns to their classic sound and builds on it with great songs to relaunch the band. The site is a smart step in the right direction.

Spock People Search: Search Engine Market Segmentation.

I have a favorite new search engine in beta that you should try called Spock at http://www.spock.com. Dedicated to People Search it's even better than Google at providing virtually all the internet information available on a person (and frequently some visuals). From a marketing standpoint what's most important here to me is that Spock represents the fact that the search engine market has matured sufficiently that Google no longer will be the only game in town and that there will be room for very well executed segmented entries in vertical categories: like people. I've pulled part of the John McCain and Hillary Clinton pages so you can take a look at how Spock search results look (and the example seemed relevant given the Iowa caucuses on Thurs.) So search for your old boyfriends or girlfriends by name. Or search companies to see who works there (the site is great at turning up accurate Linked In entries). There's a user editorial system which you can read about if you're interested. But try it. It's January 1, 2008. and Spock represents the future of search.

I'm back from break, the lights are back on and I'm rarin' to go. Happy New Year. Keep those visits coming.

Oh, by the way...these are also my picks for the Presidential contenders in November. Never say I didn't call it early.

Interactive Environmental Christmas Card from Wieden and Kennedy, London.

This is just a great interactive Christmas card from ad agency Wieden + Kennedy London. Based on a green initiative you can name your own tree, plant it and pump three buckets of water into it (don't give up even though you're almost ready to). At that point you can start decorating it with the tons of different ornaments you can see on the screen capture. The catch...to add more ornaments and lights you have to grow it by returning every day to water your tree at which point your entry will get bigger. Mine, no surprise, is scottstree. I started out traditional but I have great plans. The counter shows how many people have planted trees in what ultimately should become an intriguing forest (competitive one too, given the sites's sponsors).

Good stuff. Check it out and let me know what you think.
http://www.wiedenswood.com/index/index/hash/gzw18z5gxtwg8

Trojan Condoms TV Spot "Evolve" Now on Google Universal Search.

Google's evolving Universal Search function which combines news, YouTube videos, books, images and more is becoming more and more helpful to me. I love getting videos when I just expect the typical written results. When I was Googling Trojan Condoms the other night for factoids for the Photoshop Contest featuring a Trojan Condom product placement, I ran into this fabulous spot which I should have seen but never did. What a way to break through the clutter. And what a great example of the importance of the music in a TV spot (see more above).

The New Facebook Faces Advertising Problems (Monitoring Behavior) and an Invasion of Adults (How Creepy).

OK...over Thanksgiving I had some long talks with some "classic" Facebook users--students from the same small group of highly selective schools where Facebook began in February 2, 2004. First at Harvard, then at the Ivies, then at the highly selective liberal arts colleges like Williams, Middlebury and the prestige universities like Duke and Stanford. Facebook then extended membership to anyone with a .edu mailbox and then, ultimately to anyone over 13. Yes, that means anyone from middle school kids to their fathers and mothers.

And, according to my college friends...that's just not cool. Nor are websites like the one above from cool dudes like John Edwards.

This broad democracy of membership is what bothers the college kids...they miss the good old days of 2004 when they were an elite band of college students or recent graduates. They don't want old people who are trying to be cool joining. So look out for problems when the membership blurs out through overexpansion.

Next, there's the advertising problem. Facebook recently announced an invasive ad program called Beacon, despite all its previous privacy problems. Beacon will funnel participating students online purchases to their network of friends. Friends will know when Sally buys the new My Chemical Romance CD or Jim buys a bodybuilding book from Amazon. Worst of all...users can't currently opt out of the program, and Facebook doesn't make it easy to opt out of individual updates.

None of the college kids I talked to thought this was cool...they don't particularly want their purchases shared with their entire list of friends...and whether they friend them or not they don't want a bunch of creepy adults frequenting their clubhouse.

The biggest internet and internet advertising issue of all is just now emerging which is PRIVACY. John Battelle, a smart guy, of Wired Magazine fame and the book Search is currently writing a book on the topic, and he's dead on. This will be the next big Supreme Court level issue everyone from Facebook to Google will face. It makes Microsoft the Monopolist look tame by comparison. Much more in the days to come. Gnite.

Happy Thanksgiving; Are You Eating Turducken Today?

Just in time for Thanksgiving (or maybe a tad late...just saw the ad) arrives the Turducken, found as an Adwords match on my GMail this Thanksgiving morning.

From the site at fmfoods.com
Product Detailed Description
TURDUCKEN = turkey-duck-chicken

This is an amazing meal. We take a whole turkey and de-bone it leaving only the legs and wings. The turkey is stuffed with boneless duck breast and boneless chicken, completely seasoned inside and out and stuffed with our signature dressing. The Turducken weighs 12 lbs. and you can feast on everything! What a deal! (Sic!)

The Cornbread Turducken is stuffed with Cornbread Dressing and Pork & Rice Dressing. Feeds up to 15 people. Net Weight: 12 lbs. $49.95

What great advertising enabled by Internet AdWords...making it possible for Turducken to reach me. As an ad guy I'd suggest getting the word "turd" the heck out of there. Turd is just never a great association with food.

But...depending on how my meal at 4 PM goes, if it's boring I'm ordering up a Turducken for Xmas. How 'bout you? Wonder if I can buy one when the stores open at 5 AM tomorrow? Happy Thanksgiving.

While you're here...take a look at "Look Who's Coming to Thanksgiving Dinner" the Nov. 1 entry. More holiday fun.

Photoshop Contest: The Abduction of Psyche: High Art Meets the Cartoon.

OK...it's late Thursday night and another weekly tribute to the power of Photoshop computer software...this time presented as before/after. Of course why not replace Cupid with your favorite cartoon character. More fun than rail thin fashion models and more engaging than the Dove women. Enjoy. Gnite.



The original "The Abduction of Psyche" by Adolphe Bourguereau.

Google Now at the Gas Station Pump: Why?

On Wednesday Google, continuing their General Sherman-like march to the sea, announced a partnership with a US gasoline pump manufacturer. That's right...a gasoline pump manufacturer. Believe it. Starting in December Google Maps will be available at 3,500 local gas stations (if they're cool enough) via an internet-connected small screen. You'll be able to scroll through several categories like hotels, restaurants, hospitals and landmarks. Select a destination and print out the directions. No AdWords here. But, in this application, coupons will be available. Now let's connect the dots...which very few reporters have.

Take a look at the Google Map in the previous post below featuring the GooglePages listing of a restaurant near me. That, too, I'm betting, will be available at the pump. So...yet another application for the LBR mapping project. And, for you advertising folks out there, make sure to take notice that Google is now introducing COUPONS into their advertising arsenal...certainly their most traditional advertising offering to date. And...can AdWords be far behind. Gas Pump media. Now that's new media.

(By the way...the Frank Gehry inspired BP station above is at Gehry & Robertson. LA, of course.) Gnite.

Google's New Yellow Pages Project: "GooglePages"?

The screen above, taken from Google Maps, is one place where the Google Phone (I think of it as the Google AdPhone) is going to be monetized big time. This page is the result of a very new Google Labs program in test where Google has "local business reps" (of any and all demominations) gathering detailed business information from storeowners (hours, methods of payment, cute postage stamp pictures of the retailer or restaurant, etc.). Why test putting citizen armies out there? Well just think of this as a much more focused and more extensive Yellow Pages available, most directly, from a Google Phone (or even an Apple iphone indirectly connected). And... there's far more information than was displayed in the Apple iPhone map tv spot about finding and calling the San Francisco seafood restaurant.

Then think about all the AdWords (or AdWord-like-objects you could sell to these retailers to support their listings). Just imagine going into the store with a Google Phone and showing your on-screen coupon to get 20% off a sweater or buy one pizza get one free.

So what you say? Well, 2007 US ad spending is projected by TNS to be $153 billion. Classically, Yellow Pages, both on and offline has been 10% of that market. So that's a potential market of $15B for Google to tap into as they replace the Yellow Pages with AdWords and AdSense--whether on a Google AdPhone or any other Open Alliance phone (more on all this later)

Google Is An Advertising Company: Now Think (Ad) Phone

Much, much truth in the quote below from Forbes. Despite all the detailed speculation about the Google phone, just keep in mind they're using hardware to protect and extend their ADVERTISING SALES DELIVERY SYSTEM. They see it, quite rightly, moving to a mobile market where they can be an even bigger player. Think GooglePages rather than Yellow Pages (more in coming days) and a ton of social networking AdSense advertising bound much more closely to the medium.

"The phone promises to fuse open-source software with Google's applications on a high-end handset. Rubin's team is building custom mobile-phone software atop the free Linux operating system that will bind the phone tightly to Google's online applications and advertising services, sources say. Software from another Google acquisition, Skia, will put a slick user interface on the package. Finally, Google will build all that software into a smart phone built by Taiwanese handset specialist HTC, according to a source familiar with the matter.

In some ways, that's not so different from Microsoft's strategy: put its operating system, and applications such as Word and Excel, onto hardware from HTC, and later on, other manufacturers. That, however, is where the similarities end. "Licensing a mobile OS is not the endgame," UBS analyst Benjamin Schachter wrote in a note to investors last week.

It is dissatisfaction with the ability of today's phones TO CARRY TARGETED ADVERTISING (my emphasis)--rather than a thirst for software-licensing revenues or desire to build cool gadgets--that is pushing Google to take on the mobile-phone market, industry sources say. "[Google] will likely focus on extending its current ad-based economic model," Schachter writes.

In my mind, not "likely" but absolutely. This ain't no iphone.

Photoshop Contest: "Guess Who's Coming to Thanksgiving Dinner?" Norman Rockwell Reimagined.

It's Thursday night and time for the weekly Photoshop contest entry. Thanksgiving is three weeks from today! Early this year. So in anticipation of the joy of family reunions, that annual feeling of being overstuffed, wretched excess...and the anticipation of the midnight sales starting in a few hours...take a look. This is the true meaning of a Rockwell Thanksgiving through the lens of " Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." The Tracy/Hepburn/Poitier film was released 40 years ago on the 12th of December 1967. Gnite.

Why The Digitized "The Last Supper" by Van Gogh Advertising is Sacrilege

First take a look at the post below and at the digitized painting site (blow up the mysterious knife holding hand indicated above). http://www.haltadefinizione.com/en/

Then consider this:

1. Only 300,000 people can view the painting in Milan to protect it from further decay.
2. On the internet millions can now view the painting in much greater detail than in person while soothing music plays. It's a true multimedia experience. And...a brand new way to view art.
3. The internet version of "The Last Supper" is interactive...it's fun to enlarge specific areas of the painting (such Christ's head) or pan from side to side.
4. The success of this should result in more large scale digitized paintings on the net ("The Mona Lisa", Monet's various "Water Lilies," Seurat's grand canvas "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" and so on....).
5. So how do you use this in advertising?
6. Well..not the way it's currently done in the remarkably unholy "The Last Supper"
7. Google AdWords link to a.) "Da Vinci Prostatectomy." b.) A link to find paintings on eBay c.) and, finally, an AdWord that makes sense "Milan Last Supper" for Milan tours
8. And...at the bottom a banner ad for Sprungle Swiss chocolate! Like popcorn for viewing the site?
9. Wrong!, Wrong! Robots matching ads to sites...that's the unholy, sacrilegious result here which will work against the sponsors rather than for them. But the site's makers should have their eye on all this and demand changes.
10. Yes...there's a poster of the painting...better.
11. But where is advertising asking for donations to preserve the painting, or for Milan hotels to stay in when you visit to see the masterpiece...or even an Armani corporate ad highlighting a preservation donation
12. That's what's needed here. For the future this is a huge opportunity for museums to highlight major moneymaking exhibitions, to sell posters and books, and travel to these locations. That's the way to monetize digital art.

The Last Supper by Leonardo DaVinci on the Internet Viewable At 16 Billion Pixels

Learn much more from the offical site here. Check it out.

http://www.haltadefinizione.com/en/

Another amazing internet achievement. WIth the massive digitization of books from the major worldwide libraries (Oxford, Harvard, etc) surprised Google missed this. Think they'll be on the trail soon? What can you find in this picture nobody has seen before.

More later.

Photoshop Contest "Fig Art": Making Art Safe For The Children

I just love these as little baubles to amuse ourselves with at the end of the day. Enjoy. See what a terrific piece of software and an internet contest can do.

Why Did Google Recently Purchase Three Social Software Companies: Dodgeball, Jaiku & Zingku?

My previous post reviewed Google's recent acquisitions of three social software companies and briefly profiled each one. Read it below. Here, as promised, is a more detailed discussion of the rationale for purchasing these companies.

Dodgeball, Jaiku, and Zingku are all, in one way or another cellphone-IM communications. It's a market that's still quite open in the US.

To understand the potential market size you need to look at Europe. Texting in the UK (the market we're most familiar with) is the basis of all cell communications for 18-26 year olds in the university market. Part of this is that prepaid minutes are much more popular over there than in the US and that you can send 20 texts in the U.K. for the price of a minute's conversation.

Young Europeans text everything, complex plans, where to meet, news, even long conversations. On average probably 10-20 texts per day. And unlike here in the US, they're always on Instant Messenger.

So if text becomes less expensive in America and Google has all the cool text-related sites they're looking at a potentially huge market. In the emerging age of iphone (or if a Googlephone exists?), These will be great places to sell video or visual AdWord-like-objects that become SOCIALLY relevant in an immediate manner.

Plus...these sites will also get radical upgrades which will also make them even more desirable for the European market.

We've been using Dodgeball at Jugular, and I'll explain how it might all work in the next entry (thanks to Katie, our Jugular intern for her smart research and insight).

Google Acquires Dodgeball, Jaiku and Zingku.

What's all this about now as Google continues their rampage through new acquisitions to build their dominance of new markets. Here are three small, related companies Google recently acquired and promises to collaborate with by providing engineering muscle.

Dodgeball allows cell phone users to know when their registered friends (and friends friends) are in the area via cellphone and online service.

Jaiku is a Finland-based pseudo-blog where people post AIM-away like message updates. Posts can be made online or via cell.

Zingku bills itself as a "supercharged mobile text and picture messaging service to easily send images, posts, flyers and polls."

These are very cool companies--all designed, in different ways, to further Google's expansion of its cellphone and IM communications both here in the US and in Europe. Much, much more on these companies, especially Dodgeball, and where Google appears to be going on coming up here in The New Advertising in the next few days.

Targeted Video Ads on Google: A Better Approach from Blinkx?

Blinkx is a small British video search company.

The company released a tool Wednesday that lets online publishers place targeted text ads in any video embedded on a Web site based on the actual content of the video. That's a lot different (and may be a lot better?) than the Google approach you'll find above. Google figures out what ads to pair with a video based strictly on the video's title and any keywords attached to the clip.

Blinkx software "listens to" and "watches" the video, then inserts text overlay ads based on the spoken words and to some extent, the images in the clip. That technology depends on algorithms developed by a longstanding Google competitor, search engine Autonomy.

Here's an example of how Blinkx's contextual advertising might work: Imagine a teenager doing a podcast about a new digital camera. Blinkx software might create a text ad for the camera at the bottom of the video player, even if the clip isn't labeled with the digital camera brand.

Blinkx Chief Executive Suranga Chandratillake says the software can also recognize written words and even a small library of faces. That means that automatic ad targeting isn't limited to the relatively small amount of video content generated by media companies and savvy bloggers who carefully label all of their content with text tags, he says.

Advertisers will be able to insert targeted ads into the massive number of amateur videos on the Internet, many of which often weren't intended to generate revenue and so carry no content-related tags. Will they have to obtain rights to do this...we'll see?

AdSense With YouTube Working Example

It finally works...see it above. Notice the tie-ins to other stories on the page. I'd be a lot happier, though, if the player could be smaller.

Signing up for AdSense with YouTube

It's not hard...but it's also not working on this site as I write this. There is a message on the Google instruction pages saying videos will be live later today 10/9/09. Hopefully, you'll see an actual working example when you check this out.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Agree to the fundamental terms of the program, including very ambiguous financials for the site owner
2. Sign into your AdSense account
3. Add the last four digits of your phone number and your zip code
4. Sign into or open a YouTube account
5. Press a button that links them
6. Choose a player size from small, medium and large sizes and player highlight colors
7. Select whether you want Google to choose the videos based on an analysis of your site's content, specify keywords, choose from a list of categories or specify ads from a list of about 40 small to medium sized advertisers (Ford Models!)
8 Press a button which automatically generates an HTML code and then add it to your website's HTML code (NOW...at the moment with no video ad visible, that's the part I'm concerned about...also, this may be the place where other AdSense users stumble).
9. Click on a button to save and then finish

Not bad...if it works....I'll keep you informed, but it's 11:46 here in New York and soon it's gnite, see what shows up in the AM and tackle any problems.

YouTube Videos on AdSense

This is the start of something huge. Google takes a giant step toward offering television advertising. So...straight from Google's release:


Posted by Christine Lee, Google Product Marketing Manager, Google AdSense Site 10/9/09

Nowadays, website publishers realize that getting people to visit your website is only half of the equation. Growing your audience is important, but keeping your audience engaged and staying on your site longer is just as important, if not more so. This is why we're excited to let you know about video units on Google AdSense. Video units enable AdSense publishers to display videos from several YouTube content partners. The video units are ad-supported, and the ads are relevant to both the video and the site content, as well as unobtrusive. AdSense publishers and YouTube content partners will receive a share of the ad revenue, so video units enable both groups to earn incremental revenue.

We're excited about video units because we see this as the first step in content distribution on AdSense and a great opportunity to foster the content ecosystem on the web. AdSense publishers can now enhance their sites with interesting videos, YouTube content partners benefit from a new distribution channel, advertisers have a new vehicle to distribute their messages to their target audiences, and people can tune in to interesting videos on sites they normally visit.

From The AdSense Blog

AdSense isn't just for ads anymore; it's also a place to get video content for your site -- and earn extra revenue at the same time.

We're excited about the launch of video units -- a new way to enrich your site with quality, relevant video content in an embedded, customizable player. Simply embed a snippet of code and have relevant YouTube partner content streamed to your site. You can choose categories of video to target to your site, select content from individual YouTube partners, or have video automatically targeted to your site content. Companion and text overlay ads are relevant and non-intrusive. To further blend the YouTube player into your site, you can also customize the color scheme and layout as well as choose from three different player sizes.

If you're looking to build "stickiness" with your visitors, show quality YouTube partner video on your site, and earn extra revenue along the way, and want to know more, then review our common questions about video units. You can also check out the video below to see how it works.

OK...as the The New Advertising weblog author, I'm off to sign up and let's see how it works on this site...hang on.