No ad:tech's an ad:tech unless there's a session that speculates, however pointlessly, on the future of advertising. This particular variant featured New Media Director Robin Sloan of Current TV and General Director Travis Katz of MySpace. The moderator was Editor in Chief Nicolas Arpagian of Prospective Strategique.
Interesting sidenote about this panel: Arpegian posed all questions in French; Sloan and Katz wore magic insta-translating devices that enabled them to respond in English without missing a beat. It was so "Star Trek."
Sloan was up first, and he kicked off with something unexpected. Positioning his presentation as if we were already living in the year 2019, he walked us through the "past" 10 years.
Video snapshots below.
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Yesterday EVP/GM-Global Ad Sales Chris Dobson of the BBC conducted a keynote on what it takes to succeed in the rapidly-changing media landscape.
The BBC, of course, was his primary example; though whether you believe it's one of the most forward-moving brands in the stratosphere is subjective. (Frankly, I'll buy it when the iPlayer is finally Mac-ready.)
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On her new Current show Target Women, Sarah Haskins wonders where men learned to treat women so badly. In a hilarious analysis of Carl's Jr. advertising, Haskins arrives at only logical conclusion; it's unequivocally the burger chain's fault.
Haskin's dubs Carl's Jr. advertising Douchebaggery 101: Embracing Your Inner Douche and proceeds to tear down the chain's ad campaign while explaining how it make men...well...douchebags.
Special bonus: Haskins tries to wash a car Paris Hilton-style with decidedly less grace provong the point all advertising is fake anyway.
The best line in the video comes when Haskins describes guys as, "Good natured DoucheBros who eat fries like they're at a DoucheBag party about to win the award for DoucheKing of the Douche-O-Trons." Wow.
Writing on his blog, Idiot Flags, independent marketing consultant Stephen Ban comments on the closing of JWT's Chicago office and the general demise of ad agencies in general. Some gems:
"Agency networks create "conflict agencies" with new names -- effectively admitting that their brands are meaningless, and rendering the differentiation between and among the original agencies irrelevant"
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One of my favourite Marketing 2.0 talks, besides the Paula Berg stuff, was by Scott Monty, Ford Motor Co.'s social media man.
The guy's been alternately lauded and lashed, but I think he's the real deal. It's not even just that he's a nice guy; he's not afraid to express a scathing truth from top-of-mind, even if it stings. Social media's all about that: finding out who people really are, before they can terrace their images.
I didn't take any video (bummer), but I'll let you in on a priceless moment during his Q/A, when Sandrine Plasseraud of We Are Social asked about ROI tracking for social media campaigns.
Monty scoffs and goes, "ROI is a campaign metric; social media is a commitment. [...] What's the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning?"
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This session razed the Richter Scale of Awkward for too many reasons.
To start with, I don't think reps from Facebook and MySpace were supposed to speak together. They were placed on the same panel in the interest of saving time.
Everyone was anxious for lunch -- which, it turns out, was more of an appetite-whetter than a satisfier; moderator Fred Cavazza spent most of the panel talking about other stuff; Damien Vincent of FB expressed a Freudian allegiance for the other team; and -- oh yeah! -- Cavazza conducted makeshift photo ops during the presentation.
MySpace's Olivier Hascoat was cool though, except for that moment where he reluctantly poses for an iPhone shot while Vincent's talking. Way to be a sport.
In the event that you didn't catch all that, take an audio/visual tour:
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Maybe it's true what they say about Paris: You get a mite more existential while here.
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Marketing 2.0 took place at ESCP-EAP University in Paris this year. It spanned both Monday and Tuesday.
I moderated a few panels and the wifi was down both days, so there was no way to cover the event in the detail I would've liked. Before my camera died though, I tried this thing where I just recorded random snippets of speaker talks.
This post is devoted entirely to Paula Berg, Manager of Emerging Media at Southwest.
I don't have particularly strong feelings about Southwest, but seeing her discuss its approach to consumers -- in both good times and bad -- made me wanna do the cattle call after all. She's good people, and it seems like she addresses situations with humility and openness instead of just reacting. Her presence at Southwest speaks more for its corporate culture than for any social media strategem.
See the goods below.
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See? There is life after internet stardom. Its not always an exciting life but it does pay the bills a bit better than making funny videos from your apartment.
Justine Ezarik (where were you during SXSW? Were you even there??) has been doing the online video thing for years. Over time - and hey, we all have to make a living - she's increasingly pimped products in her videos. And, for the most part, the work has been just fine.
Currently, she, along with seven other YouTube Elite, is pimping the Sanyo Dual Camera Xacti. Last Fall, she even stepped off the internet to appear in...OMG...a TV commercial for Mozy backup software.
Some claim Justine is selling out. Well, of course she is. Everyone does and there's really nothing wrong with it. To the high and mighty who decry these moves, the bills have to be paid somehow.
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So on lazy Friday afternoon after a long and crazy (did we say crazy?) post-SXSW week, it's nice when a reader sends in a note doing our job for us. In reaction to the new Chevrolet site launching the new Camaro, a reader had this to say:
"Great idea having a soft launch. Only problem is the launching site is spectacularly lame! It actually looks like a bad version of Saab site circa 2002. I can't help wishing they took a more interesting route, like Attik did for Scion. Camaro has such a vibrant storied history and personality, to have this bland, poorly achieved minimal mushy mush is such a ridiculously horrible business decision."
Thanks, reader!
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