Arguing for the value of the argument is a time honored tradition in professional sports. Here's how it goes. At some point in a game, a call goes against one of the teams. The coach of the "wronged" team jumps up enraged (or whatever your favorite coach's facsimile of enraged is) and gets in the face of the referee. In 99% of these cases, the coach doesn't *really* expect to get the decision overturned, nor is he really negotiating. He's simply posturing to motivate his team, excite the crowd, or try and influence the next call. One of the classics at this was baseball skipper Earl Weaver who (as legend has it) once screamed at an umpire "I'm going to check the rule book on that!" The umpire replied "Here, use mine." And Weaver said "that's no good – I can't read Braille" (insert rimshot here).
You can certainly see this same phenomenon in other places as well. From morning news programs, to cable talk-shows to some forms of marketing – pundits will often take an argumentative position just to create drama and controversy, motivate their base, and generate "ratings". They're not *really* interested in talking through the issues of a particular disagreement. In fact, the Onion did a hysterical piece on... Read more
Archive for March, 2010
Internet Advertising: Suffering A Sales Crisis!
As the head of a digital sales team, and a sales guy from back-in-the-day when print ruled my world, it is hard for me to say it, but, this is how I see it -- at a time when the Internet as a media has not taken advantage of a complete advertising breakdown in newspapers and magazines, we, as digital publishers, have largely failed. Think about it! We haven't taken big share points. We haven't converted that huge client to shift all their money to the Web. We haven't had that defining moment, or tipping point, that shows the Internet as the dominant consumer attention getter.
What I hear too much about, and what is endemic to the problem here, is technology. There is no shortage of technology. The fact is, targeting technologies are ahead of most publishers' ability to use them and keep pace with them. Good technology does not equal a good sales effort and a poor sales effort will lead to a lack of customer and user satisfaction with the technology they use. That's what this industry is seeing right now. We have technologies that are very sophisticated and very complicated. But sales teams are providing only the... Read more
Video: How the ESET QR Code/SMS Campaign Worked
To follow up on the last two blog posts about this campaign, ESET QR Codes at SXSW a Success!... and some data points you can use and Following the ESET QR Code Scavenger Hunt at SXSW, we produced this video to take you through the experience. We thought it might help clarify how it actually worked.
Notes On An iPhone From The CTIA Show Otherwise Known as JustB4iPAD
Notes on an iPhone while literally searching for "the meaning of life" …
Contrary to the long held belief – assuming any belief around mobile is long held – Google is seeing search behavior on smartphones mapping closely to activities done on laptop and desktop computers.
"What we found is that consumers who use high-end mobile devices, their search behavior is very similar to what we're seeing on the PC," said Diana Pouliot, director of mobile advertising at Google. "Consumers are searching for info from a wide variety of topics – compared to a narrow variety when it comes to feature phones."
The top Google result on "the meaning of life" on my iPhone took me to quotes on the subject.
"When I hear somebody say, 'Life is hard,' I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?'"
Exactly. …
Stay ahead of the competition. Jeff Hasen will be taking the stage at the iMedia Agency Summit in Austin, Tex., May 15-19. Join him as he presents on emerging trends in mobile marketing. Request your invite today.
The recently concluded CTIA Wireless show featured more apps and maps than phones and tablets. BlackBerry fit in that camp, displaying apps on devices already introduced to the market.... Read more
