Home-Grown Content Makes The Internet Dance

I am smitten. I am moved. I am excited to see an example of great content begetting more great content. And, it wouldn’t have been possible without the internet.  Granted, it took me a while to find it and it’s just in time for the show to come to Los Angeles tomorrow night.  The show I’m talking about is GIRL WALK //ALL DAY.  It’s a piece of long-form dance music video that is based on the music in Girl Talk’s 71 minute mash-up release ALL DAY.  One of the great things about it is that it builds upon the creativity that Girl Talk’s Greg Gillis put into his music mash-up piece that he released for free last year and put a story-telling spin on it that is exhilarating.  On the GIRL WALK site, it is explained as a tale about finding community and vitality in shared public spaces – and where can that be accomplished if not on the internet?

Granted, part of the joy in the film – which is divided into twelve parts on the site – is seeing the interaction with people and places in the real world of New York City, but its been a very long time since I have seen a dance film this good online or on the big screen.  Usually, there are so many cameras that you lose the dance entirely.  Or, there’s not enough movement – leaving the viewer to feel as if they are an outsider and not part of it. One of my favorite chapters is, #3 “It Goes Like This,” where the lead teaches random people the dance and they all perform back-up for her.

Some other points of interest were:
- When there was an entire dance party on the subway and you can clearly see who is part of the cast and who was not by the mere fact that those who were not all had the mobile phones out to capture video – then riders entering the train at a stop were treated to a male pole dancer in the doorway.
- When they seized the opportunity to visit the Occupy rally at Zuccotti Park during the ”Shopping Spree” section to get nice footage and convey the societal ends of the spectrum.
 
- When theprotagonist – who often comes across as an Audrey Hepburn/Holly Golightly for this millenium –  gets kicked out of Yankee Stadium for standing on the outfield wall (timed perfectly with the lyrics, of course.)

I have listened to the ALL DAY piece since downloading it last March and had not even thought to overlay a narrative.  Director and Cinematographer, Jacob Krupnick, and his cast were able to weave an eloquent and even moving story into  the narrative Krupnik derived from the music. So, the introduction of that emotionality beyond the music is what blew me away.  Additionally, the potagonist, Anne Marsen, seems to be a force in dance and perhaps even more (see the Audrey Hepburn note above.)  Her improvisational style is refreshing and intense with expressions of full emotion.

To me, this provides a strong sense of what’s possible in digital - either as a creative outlet or a marketing element. The filmmaker and cast’s path to making this real is chronicled briefly in a NY Times Magazine piece by Bill Trough a year ago after they had only created a proof of concept. Their original goal was to post on kickstarter.com and raise $5,000.  They ultimately raised $25,000 and shot from April through October of 2011.  With a range of cast members, volunteers and ”innocent” bystanders throughout Manhattan, the piece goes beyond being a love letter to the city.

In the past, something like this would have been hard to pull off – let alone distribute.  They are currently on a tour of social events and screenings that hits Los Angeles tomorrow night at Space 1520 in Hollywood on Cahuenga and it has been accepted to the SXSW Film Festival. My hope is that they are able to release it as a DVD, EST or whatever as one long piece, though I imagine there may be a considerable amount of legal restraints to doing so.

The Filmmaker and promoters have been able to generate coverage across the board. They have moved off of the internet and into the real world with inclusion into festivals and tour events and the hope is that the movement will continue. To think that it all basically started with experimentation and passion enabled by technology, the future possibilities are quite exciting. Hopefully, this will open more doors for this form of entertainment, trigger ideas for others and extend the power of Content across the digital realm.

C’mon! It’s More Challenging To Manage Communications For POTUS.

Sadly, in this day and age, everything a large entity does can be turned to a competitor’s advantage. While corporate communications can often handle the heavy lifting on how a company presents itself in the media, there are so many channels just laying in wait for spokespeople and other employees to trip over. In some cases, even the most benign things can blow up. Perhaps, President Obama has the trickiest line to tow in this age of instant feedback.  The response to his every move has become so absurd in the digital age. It gives communications directors the world over a sigh of relief that they aren’t managing the President Of The United States (POTUS) and constantly teetering on the precipice of digital spin control.

The one thing that is certain is that people will always find fault in anything the President does – even if he were to single-handedly save a dozen children from a flood…and save their puppies too. So, to try to control everything would be a maddening (if not stupid) directive. The hope is that the positive sentiment outweighs the negative and you do the best you can to do the right thing.

Even when he is doing the right thing, and the action seems so innocent and harmless – perhaps, even charming – there can be reasons to shudder.  One of those moments came the other night.  It could be that it leads to nothing, but I doubt it. The President and First Lady hosted a celebration of Blues music in the White House – much like many, many presidents have hosted musical events in the past.  When Buddy Guy, B.B. King and the other musicians prodded the president on to sing along, the President initially declined.  After a few more moments of pleading, he demurred and joined in the singing of “Sweet Home Chicago.”  Seems nice enough, huh? When I heard him singing that, I cringed.  I didn’t cringe because of his singing skills, but the part in the song that he finally came in on – “Come On, Baby don’t you want to go?”

I immediately envisioned the Republican Party playing on that to their heart’s delight. That’s where everything is more of a challenge for the President’s communications managers than it is for any other, because everything can be twisted and presented out of context – and it will.

Certainly, politics has a different set of theatrics around it that corporate culture, but the onslaught of information is still quite there and needing some form of management.  There are lessons businesses can take from the Office of the President (any President of any party) and suffuse into their own communications procedures.  And, those communications directors can be thankful that they don’t have the level of stress that running communications for POTUS brings – especially if you don’t want him to return to Sweet Home Chicago for at least another four years…

A Case Where Media Spend Is Not All About The Numbers

Flurry, a mobile advertising and analytics firm, just came out with a report exploring the disparities between the amount of time being spent on ad platforms and the amount of money spent on them. They noted that the largest disparity between the two was in Mobile – where 23% of users’ time was spent there with only 1% of U.S. ad dollars.  Comparing that to Print media, where 29% of ad dollars meet only 6% of time is spent, then it would seem that things are off-kilter.  While there could stand to be some shifting upward in Mobile spend percentages, looking to align the percentages of time spent with dollars spent on numbers alone in your media planning could leave you dangling in the wind.

Flurry’s VP of Marketing, Peter Farago stated in the company’s blog post that they “believe the main reason for this disparity (in Mobile) is that the mobile app platform has emerged so rapidly over such a short period of time. …Madison Avenue and brands have yet to adjust to an unprecedented adoption of apps by consumers.” That may be part of the issue, but it misses a number of other key factors:

• The way in which people interact with the different media platforms is as much a piece of the puzzle as the time they spend using them. We all know that viewers expect a certain form of advertising when they are engaging with TV, Print and even Radio.  When looking at the Web, it seems that there is still not yet full stability in advertising engagements and Mobile is considered to most media planners to still be the Wild West.
• With the above, some media platforms have standards that are easy to understand and convey to both upper management and clients.
• While TV has gone through some changes with the advent of DVRs and the ability to skip ads, there is still structure there and the historical arguments come into play.  In the case of Radio and Print, the numbers are dwindling, but advertisers still have a clear idea of the context in which they will be viewed.  And most importantly, they know that there will be a decent opportunity for the ads to be seen or heard by those who are consuming those types of media. in all three of these, there is a higher percentage of ad spend than time spent.
• Ad spend on Web is closer to alignment of time spent (22%) to ad spend (16%) and that is likely due to time in the marketplace as well as normalization of not only contextual placements but reporting.  That will continue to evolve and shift (e.g. current trend from standard ads to video) and we will most likely see the spend percentages rise above the time percentages in the next year or two.
• Ultimately, the costs for these media placements are not normalized and cannot be compared as apples to apples. Therefore, the numbers may be “illogically” skewed for some time to come.

Taking the above into consideration, there is still a major consideration for Mobile.  When you figure that most use of mobile is done on Apps and mobile websites that do not offer Mobile-specific advertising options, there would definitely be a disparity in the numbers.  Additionally, as mobile advertising is still relatively new, the media program costs are often heavily discounted to either get in the advertiser’s door or provide proof of concept.  With those offerings, there needs to be strong analytical follow-up to derive stronger (and more costly) programs.  As of now, we’re still too early to be able to do that – even if there was enough real advertising inventory to relate directly to the time spent meter.

The report did point to other interesting facts that could lead to a strong future in mobile media with the strongest one being that Upper Middle Class consumers aged 25 – 34 are the most likely to interact with mobile ads.

There is definitely a future in mobile advertising and the chasm between time spent and ad dollars spent will surely come more closely aligned. The smart bet is on more than just the numbers, but the context. The strongest contextual applications will play out in the coming years and the best option is to be ready to pounce when it arrives to generate the best return on any Mobile media spend investment.

Could Nevada’s New Law Be A Front For A New Mobile Advertising Format?

Just last week, Nevada finalized making robotic cars legal with special licenses.  The fact that such a thing would be done is cool enough in itself since we’ve been fantasizing about cars that take us where we want and would actually rather that we not pay attention.  I, for one, would feel a whole lot safer having humans taken out of the equation in this age of texting and short attention spans.  The video that is on NPR’s site is quite cool in conveying what goes into the mechanics better than most videos I have seen out there. While the whole piece focuses mostly on the legalities the Nevada DMV has provided, could the true gain for Google be that Nevada is actually helping them create yet another advertising platform?

Looking at the fact that Google has already logged over 200,000 miles of robotic driving in California with no legal standing to do so and the fact that these cars are a number of years away from hitting the markets, the new Nevada license plates are effectively just another step in the elevating excitement about the possibilities.  With other States in line to enact laws and license allowing robotic cars, those too will keep the buzz going and storylines prevalent until the car is complete and in the market – then we get to see what it’s really all about.

I have certainly been dreaming about cars that drive themselves since seeing them in saturday morning kids shows in the 70s.  It has always been about the joy of just keying in where I want to go and then getting there as if I had my very own chauffeur.

Seeing now that Google is far along in development, it got me thinking about what the possibilities are – based on the fact that a company so steeped in advertising is leading the charge in developing these cars.

We are already seeing the continued seepage of computers and applications into our car interfaces.  With those, the opportunities to skip radio advertising altogether or interact with advertising in a different altogether has become the norm.  I’m sure there would be more advertising delivered to us through our car applications if the government was not so worried about our paying attention to the road…  If we no longer had to pay attention to the road, can you imagine what the ramifications would be?

As quickly as we could key in our destination, the car’s computer could load up all of the route-relevant advertising.  Rather than making a last second decision to swerve across two lanes to go into a parking lot because you just thought of buying something there, “drivers” could be warned a couple of minutes ahead that there might be something of interest they want to stop at.  Users could even set it to always know where the closest clean bathroom is – just in case their newly-potty-trained child suddenly has to go.

With hands free, “drivers” would have noting to do, so of course they will be demanding advertising to be shown on screens throughout the vehicle (since they can now look anywhere.) Perhaps creating the new technology of cars driving themselves is really more about the software than the hardware?  Perhaps its Google’s version of my kid’s Leap Pad that requires you to only buy products from them at inflated prices. If Google created the media platform – a truly new mobile platform – and demanded that all advertising go through them, wouldn’t that create a form of financial euphoria for them?

Actually, I hope the above paragraph is not the case.  The closest I have come to that experience is sitting in a cab in New York or Las Vegas and seeing those annoying videos and I don’t care to have that same experience in my own car – even if it is driving me. But, there’s something to be said for being smart about smart advertising.

Nevada and all other states that create special licensing for robots are absolutely not complicit in creating a new media platform. But, Google’s play in this is an interesting look into the future – beyond just a car that drives itself.

I don’t know when it will come, but I still look forward to getting in my car and playing with all the available gadgets as I get from point A to point B. I just hope its not solely about Google creating a truly mobile advertising platform.

When Innovation Is So Bizarre, It Must Be From Mars

Not on my block!  Though I do give Brainiacs From Mars credit for capturing the spirit of the times by offering to cover the mortgages for struggling homeowners, their idea is one that’s sure to raise eyebrows – if not fists of fury from the occupants of neighboring houses. The mechanics of their bizarre marketing product is that they will paint your entire house (except the roof, windows and doorways) with whatever brand has engaged their services for anywhere from one to twelve months.  During that time, the homeowner’s mortgage payments will be paid by the company.  In the midst of these financial troubles, it could be the perfect solution for someone who is struggling to make their payments or finds that their mortgage is under water. But, the true cost for the homeowner – and the advertised brand – could be  a million times more than it is worth.

As municipalities are taking measures around the world to curb the proliferation in advertising and the cacophony of imagery and messaging that comes with that, these executions could be quite steep. The happiness in São Paulo, Brazil continues to spread since they passed a law cracking down on visual polution  and, while the citizens had something to complain about before the crackdown,  their ad placements weren’t even close to the brazen disregard for visual decorum that this product provides.

The folks at Brainiacs From Mars are smart, though, in how they may be able to control the prices they have to pay for placement.  For instance, they will most likely only be agreeing to paint homes that are on well trafficked roads.  Those houses are typically cheaper than the houses that have little to no traffic or are well covered by a wall or flora.  While it might be enticing for a homeowner with a 3 or 4K+ monthly mortgage to have a few month’s of paid support, their homes will most likely will not be in play. The houses that are selected for participation will naturally have considerably lower costs and higher visibility. Brainiacs founder, Romeo Mendoza, hopes to paint up to 1,000 homes.  We’ll have to see if their realized numbers come close and how the mix nets out.

Those painted houses will attract a lot of attention – good and bad – and will most-likely cause a stir and even further regulation and community guidelines.  Even with the crazy nature of this one, I place it behind the rooftop QR codes I wrote about a couple months ago in the “What are they thinking?” category because of its real visibility.

John Cougar Mellencamp caused excitement when he offered to paint MTV’s Party House pink in 1984 for some lucky winner. Sadly, I don’t think this is going to have that same type of excitement.  Surely, there could be some buzz if someone actually agrees to paint their house with a brand, but the brand should think long and hard whether they want to be a part of it. The portrayed brands will definitely be at the forefront of people’s thoughts. It seems unlikely that those thoughts will be kind. As for me, I’ll be happy to have a house branded in my neighborhood – when I’m living on Mars.