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Blog Description: A blog about emerging digital media, and their implications on marketing. Areas of focus include social media, blogging, mobile, online video, BT, behavioral targeting, and targeting technologies.
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While in Chicago on earlier this month I had the misfortune of tuning into the WBBM TV early morning news broadcast. While I had no stopwatch to measure precisely, here?s my estimate of the breakdown in content of the 6AM to 7AM news hour:
6 minutes: news 20 minutes: ads 34 minutes: infomercial for Sonic Burger
The 34 minute bit was an absolutely horrifying whore out of broadcast journalism to support the opening of the first Sonic Burger in the ChicagoLand area. Now, if you are like me you are thinking, well effin la-dee-dah, another burger joint. But WBBM will have none of such cynicism. They had multiple reporters on the scene, an interview with the manager, and a happy talk segment during which one of the anchors endorsed Sonic?s decision to have a tasty 900 calorie burger on its menu because, I?ll paraphrase, WTF, you only live once.
Between each segment of the infomercial there was cinema verite of groups of consumers happily eating burgers. Presumably of the 900 calorie variety. I was interested to note the paucity of heavy people in the film as well ? just loads of nice, fit, wholesome Midwestern people. The anchors drank from Sonic cups on the set, talked about how much fun it is to eat in a drive in, how delicious the food is, how it?s great to eat fast food, the unmitigated brand prostitution was relentless.
I am told by a coworker that the hour I saw was not the only portion of the program devoted to Sonic Burger. Rather, they had been at it since about 3AM.
So, clearly one of two things are at work here. Either:
1. WBBM sold their morning news broadcasts to Sonic. 2. WBBM editors need to look in a dictionary or Wikipedia to see what the words news and journalism mean.
I am certain the truth is the former. That, in short, WBBM local news is for sale, which perhaps won?t surprise anyone reading this, but was never disclosed in the hour or so of infomercial I saw.
And it got me to thinking ? there are so many people in the offline world that still view digital as the second sister of the TV business. That somehow we are second rate. Well, I simply want to point out the spirit of full disclosure online. That paid search listings are prominently marked ?sponsored,? that brand videos are clearly marked as produced by brands, and the like. There is no attempt to put lipstick on the content pig on line. Maybe WBBM TV should learn from we second tierers. And get back to the business of covering news instead of paper fast food hat fashions.
Social media has been, as well all know, a bear to monetize. Because of the nature of UGC, advertisers have been somewhat reticent to come into these pages, and then rather unwilling to pay much for the ads if they do.
Fixing that is what Lotame is about. Founded in 2006, Lotame is focused on monetizing social media by collecting information about page users and then using that data to help advertisers find the right eyeballs.
So it's behavioral, contextual, and demographic all at once in a way, and those concepts are probably old hat to you. But the key challenge with social is that a lot of it is long tail, and monetizing that stuff really isn't the strength of the BT and ad network majors.
Enter Lotame, a startup in Maryland that just got $13MM in its second round. As I understand it, Lotame is collecting anonymous info from page visits, online profiles, and other interactions for the purposes of identifying PRECISELY targeted consumer segments that help advertisers reach the most productive eyes, and publishers make mroe from their traffic, ad views, and users.
They describe themselves in this manner:
Lotame Solutions, Inc., founded in 2006 in Elkridge, Maryland, is a company dedicated to providing solutions within social media. Our Crowd Control Technology? offers social media sites the most advanced monetization techniques and allows brands to build and target customizable consumer audiences. We aim to increase revenue for our publishers and allow advertisers to target unique users across multiple social media sites. The company has now grown to include offices in major metropolitan areas.
Here's Andrew Monfried, Founder and CEO, interviewed on WallStrip:
I am just guessing here, but the filtration of available data from social media pages must be an enormous challenge. How do you skim out the PII, as well as all the holla holla talk, to identify the bits that are going to determine who can be expected to respond to a marketer message.
There's is an extremely data driven business -- not surprisingly a number of their employees are vets of the ad network biz, where managing and "usefulizing" enormous quantities of page visitation and other data are core to the revenue streams.
Regular readers of this blog know that I believe deeply in the value of data assuming it is actionable data. As a market research vet, I know a lot of the info out there is perhaps nice to know, or interesting to know, but not need to know. This is even more of an issue today than it was, say 5 years ago, because there is so much mroe data available. Most of it not actionable in your quest to improve the bottom line. One visit to Lotame's site shows that hey are very much focused on the data points that will drive results.
Check out their site. There's lots of video and a really interesting action-oriented take on how to make social media visits and page views actionable and lucrative.
Auto is of course the most active category of advertising online. And auto makers lament that there are not enough in market venues on which to advertise. Behavioral helps to suck up excess bucks, but so would new venues that meet needs that can drive in market auto buyers to visit.
And what better way to attract in market consumers (and therefore advertisers) than a site that matches car buyers and sellers?
Atlanta based EasyAutoSales.com is just that. They offer a free, ad supported venue where individuals as well as dealers can list cars and find ready buyers.
How it Works
You join, you list, buyers find you. Easy peasy.
There are absolutely loads of vehicles listed. My search for an F150 within 50 miles of my house in Oakland turned up over 200 ranging in age from new to 10 years old. That means lots and lots of options for the buyer. Naturally, you can cull that list by age, mileage, and a variety of other factors.
The site, in beta, is already attracting a variety of industry advertisers. While a bit of the inventory is being sold to bottom feeder DR advertisers, much is being taken up by manufacturers, insurance companies, and dealers.
Here is an example of a car ad, this one from a car dealer.
Consumer seller ads look very similar, natch.
I would imagine that this site will do very well indeed. With zero publisher produced editorial, this kind of database site can make a fortune because a small team can support millions of pages -- all of which can bear lucrative high CPM ads.
Were earlier estimates of Kindle sales a bunch of unfounded hype? Silicon Valley Insider is reporting that Amazon spokespeople are...distancing themselves from the high estimates that leading bloggers (and me) reported a couple of weeks ago. Here's an excerpt from a Seattle Post Intelligencer story they cited in their story:
Amazon officials gave McAdams Wright Ragen analysts the impression that high-end estimates on Kindle sales reported by TechCrunch and a Citigroup analyst are not reasonable.
Amazon managers "told us that the Kindle is definitely selling very well, but they also said the analysts and reporters giving out these extremely high estimates 'did not run them by company,'" Bueneman wrote.
To my knowledge, Amazon has NEVER released sales figures for the device. Why that is is anyone's guess. As a public company it is unlikely that they would consciously leak such info -- the initiative is important enough that IF they release the data, they need to do so publicly and openly.
You may be aware that Obama has vowed to create a national CTO to help the country deal with challenges and opportunities in the tech area. Naturally, there are fans and foes, pros and cons. The most compelling pro I see is that perhaps the government will do a better job of understanding technology and its ginormous implications on the economy, privacy, and a bunch of other stuff.
The con being that many have a lack of faith in the government's ability to do anything. To wit:
Me, I like the idea. I have faith that government can do things if you don't appoint former heads of the Arabian Horse Association to key jobs. ANd government needs to play a role in ensuring, among other things, freedom of expression and compeittiveness in the space, along with safegoarding privacy. But the role of the CTO needs tro be well defined, and the focus needs to be on enablement and oversight rather than control.
Blog Directory ID: 2638
Blog URL: http://oldestliving.blogspot.com
Google Pagerank: 4
Blog Description: A blog about emerging digital media, and their implications on marketing. Areas of focus include social media, blogging, mobile, online video, BT, behavioral targeting, and targeting technologies.
Blog Category: Marketing Blogs
Blog Owner: Jim Nichols
Blog Added: May 16, 2008 10:04:49 PM
Audience Rating: General Audience
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