Abstract Edge: Brand Interactivism

Is Seth Godin Wrong?

Seth Godin's tiny book, The Dip, basically makes the same four points over and over.

1. Something is only worth doing professionally if you can be the best in the world.
2. Becoming the best in the world at something requires serious dedication and motivation to get through the inevitable "dip", which he defines as that difficult period between becoming proficient and becoming an expert.
3. If you are not completely convinced you can get through the dip and become the best in your world, find a new world.
4. Don't mistake a dip for a dead-end.

Godin argues it's much better to quit than to accept anything less than becoming the best. Obviously the premise is that everybody can become the best in the world at something worthwhile.

Seth Godin is hardly the only person who thinks this way. Just today, Keith Trivitt made a similar point for Business Insider, though his point was more about differentiating (also a frequent theme for Mr. Godin.)

Being the Best

Seth speaks of making your world smaller until you're the best in the world. However, is it true? Do you actually need to be the best or just very good? To me, it depends on what you do.

Creating Online Grassroots Movements - Lessons From the Million Mom March 10 Years Later

Today is the 10th anniversary of the Million Mom March, an organization advocating sensible gun control laws and one of Abstract Edge's first clients. Founded in September 1999, the MMM became perhaps the first mass grassroots movement of the Internet era, mobilizing more than 850,000 people to march on Washington on Mother Day 2000 and in smaller, local marches throughout the US.

When the MMM founders first came to us, we had to figure out exactly how we were going to engage and motivate hundreds of thousands of people in only nine months. This was quite a challenge and success was hardly guaranteed. We weren't simply asking them to write letters or send a check; we were asking them to travel to Washington and spend their Mothers Day at a rally to fight for a cause.

This was no small task. At that point there was no "formal" MMM organization or central office. The entire organization pretty much consisted of just a small handful of New Jersey soccer moms and a vision.

Here's how we did it.

Spending on Web Ads Now More Than Cable, Radio, Magazines or Outdoor!

I guess it was just a matter of time, but the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has determined that spending on web ads was more this year than for magazines, cable television, radio, or outdoor.

That said, the rich get richer... 89% of the total spend was on the top 50 web sites. Gotta get me a top 50 web site!

Ad Agencies Are Not Interactive Agencies

We've been saying this for a long time, but traditional agencies are not really structured correctly for the online world. It's not that they CAN'T deliver strong digital solutions per se. It's just a lot more difficult for them. I'll follow up later with why I think that's true, and what I see as the opportunities for smaller, more nimble and creative interactive shops.

Silicon Alley Insider today posted an article entitled 'Ad Agencies Facing "A World Of Hurt"'.

The old way: marketers hire agencies to create mass-media campaigns. The new way: marketers want many messages targeted at individuals and communities. And they're getting antsy about traditional shops' inability to deliver. Forrester analyst Peter Kim quotes one marketing exec who calls the agencies "a necessary evil" to the process, rather than a partner. Which leaves the door wide open for new startups who can deliver...

Page Views... RIP

A few months ago I wrote about how page views were not going to be around much longer as a used metric to determine the effectiveness of a website. Well, apparently Nielsen/Net Ratings is replacing the page view metric with "time spent", which they feel is much more valuable.

Frankly, this metric (IMO) can be tough to get accurate data on. For example, if I go to an article on NYTimes.com and spend 5 minutes reading it, my time spent should be 5 minutes. But how is the website supposed to know I spent 5 minutes if my next action is to go to Gmail in my browser? I never followed up with the NYTimes.com server, so it has no way of knowing if I was there for 3 seconds or 3 hours. The only way it can know is if I return a few minutes later and click on another article. But even then it's not terribly accurate since maybe I was on a page, read it for 20 seconds, went to the bathroom, and then a few minutes later came and clicked on a new page. Was my time spent 20 seconds? 5 minutes? As far as the web server is concerned, it was 5 minutes, but that's not really true, is it?

The nice thing about page views is that it's easy to measure and objective. However, with AJAX, widgets, etc., it has become suspect as an effectiveness measurement. Time spent is a lot more subjective, but if we can find a way to feel confident in the data, is more telling about actual site usage.

More on Page View Metrics

Steve Rubel writes about "The Imminent Demise of the Page View", pointing out that more modern websites with their fancy Ajax and Flash implementations don't require multiple page views in order to provide content and interactivity. In a world where the page view is the metric by which many (most?) online agencies measure success, what comes next? How much slower will the rollout of user-friendly, immersive, interactive implementations be since the agency world has strong financial incentives to delay the inevitable?

Clearly we need to start looking at other actionable items, such as content delivery or purchase. It's going to have to be more specific to the goals of the individual company. Given that, how do we come up with a universal metric to show relative success between different websites? If I want to buy media, for example, and I'm comparing two sites and one has twice the page views of another, but the one with the fewer page views is much more compelling and interactive and is clearly hurt in the page view metric by its advanced user interface, which one do I go with?

This is important for our clients and I'll be watching closely to see what the industry starts to push as a new standard.

As an example, Steve writes in "Watch Videos Without Leaving the Google Homepage" about the example of Google now allowing people to watch Google videos without leaving the Google viewer. Net/net this will decrease page views to sites that house these videos. However, the content from these sites is still be watched. Clearly the page view is lessening as a valid metric.

Major Marketing Shunning the Big Game

It appears that the savviest major marketers like P&G, Unilever and Microsoft are finally coming around to the idea that the money spent on a SuperBowl ad could be put to better use...

The Problem With Google Adsense

There are a few dozen blogs I check out fairly routinely and one of those is Chris Keane's who writes a lot about web design, usability, best practices and other related topics. This morning when I looked at his blog I noticed something rather odd. Chris has a couple of ads automatically generated on his blog from Google Adsense in order to raise a few pennies through his blog. Certainly there's nothing wrong with that. However, I'm not sure how Chris felt (without revealing TOO much of his politics) when an ad showed up this morning pointing people to Ann Coulter's website...

Chris recently had a post called "Digg = New Media's Christian Coalition" and I'm wondering if Google's automated system picked up on those keywords and thus placed the Coulter ad. That said, this should serve as a warning to those considering placing AdSense ads on their websites. If it's important for your site that random ads should not appear, don't use AdSense - there's too much risk. Google's algorithm isn't smart enough (at least not yet) to know that Ann Coulter should not be showing up on Chris' blog...

How NOT to Win Business

So it seems that Agency.com is one of the agencies pitching Subway and decided to create a "viral" video of themselves pitching subway as their pitch. How "meta".

I couldn't even watch the entire thing - it's SO damned boring!Viral? Yes... but I don't see it winning the business. I guess we'll see.

Anyway, Coudal Partners put up a spoof which could have maybe been funnier, but was cute in concept. Itake it Coudal isn't pitching...

http://www.coudal.com/unsolicited.php

Podcasting Advertising Experimentation

Mediaweek reports that an increasing number of mainstream advertisers are experimenting with advertising on podcasts. Of note, however, is that 60% of podcast listeners claim that they fast-forward through commercials. The usual trick of having the podcast host endorse or speak of the product/service has been the typical way of getting around this issue.

I think it's interesting that mainstream advertisers are trying this. Typically, those with the big bucks want to try to get mass exposure. Clearly, podcast advertising doesn't gain that at this time. There are very few podcasts that get major exposure. However, this is clearly a case of "long tail" advertising, and I think the business model for this is going to become more and more obvious over the next year.