Federated Media Conversational Marketing Summit Day 2

One of today’s panelists was CondeNet President Sarah Chubb, whom I used to work for (indirectly), when I was in sales, and ad operations, and web analytics, back in the day. She actually gave me a nifty ‘star of the month’ award once, involving an email from her to all of CondeNet about stuff I’d done, and a $1,000 prize. I remember sitting in her office as she told me about the award, and being touched by how she was sincerely giving me all her attention, even though she was my boss’ boss’ boss’ boss. It was one of the few times that I spent really talking to her directly, but I valued it, and would think back on it later when she sent out company-wide emails, or gave a speech to all 200 (or so) of us at CondeNet, talking at one crucial point about the history of the larger (mainly print-based) corporation, and how we, the online division, fit into it.

She told a similar story today, but a more complete one, with a happy ending that I didn’t get to witness myself, but heard about from old colleagues, as the sister print publications that had so long contended with their strange online sibling, gradually learned to accept its worth and to make it part of their world…or to become part of its world. And neither is my world anymore, but…why not admit this?…I still care. It thrills me to find a new feature on Epicurious, and to think about the people and the departments and the processes that must have been involved to make it happen. I care about the fate of Flip, and I wait to see what they do with Reddit. And when, after years of CondeNast controlling Wired, the print magazine, while Wired was still owned by another company….when the online publication was brought back into the fold, I couldn’t help but think, Fuck yeah. We finally got it back. Even though I hadn’t been at Conde for almost two years, and even though I never worked on either version of Wired myself.

Anyway. Other memorable moments from today’s panels included Media Kitchen’s Darren Herman noting that “A lot of people need to either step down or die,” Wendy Harris Millard (President of Media at Martha Stewart) doing an extended (loving) impression of Stewart making fun of Millard, and Edelman Digital SVP Steve Rubel comparing social media to soylent green (the substance, not the movie).

This was a good conference. Not just smart people talking about smart things, though there was plenty of that. But, unlike most trade conferences, the panelists (to a one, I think) were sincerely interested in engaging the topic at hand, instead of shamelessly using it as a jumping-off point to shill for their own commoditized business. Maybe that’s partly because the businesses in question each bring their own special value, but it’s also just about the whole spirit of the thing. It was really nice to be at an event involving hundreds of people in the same industry that was not mostly comprised of bullshit, and I bet that such events are fairly unusual even across industries.

photo (of the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications) by Benjamin I.

Federated Media Conversational Marketing Summit 2008 Day 1

If for some reason you’re not familiar with Federated or the conference, you’ll want to start here.

Some nice moments:

Battelle breaking off in the middle of his own introductory speech to say “I’m announcing a new phone,” momentarily disorienting at least 50 people in the audience who were, on some device or other, simultaneously following Steve Jobs’ 3G iPhone speech going on at the same time on the west coast.

Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, Interactive Advertising Bureau, starting his speech with “I’m here to scare you,” and shortly after, standing in front of yellow writing on blue background: “Activists Hate Digital Media And Marketing.” (After a polarizing, us-vs-them speech, Rothernberg was the only speaker to leave the stage without taking questions.)

Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, pronouncing: “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room,” an astute observation that he topped a few minutes later with “Most websites look like Tokyo at night,” a potentially offputting metaphor for a number of reasons, although I thought the point was well made.

Of all the speakers, Louis Giagrande, Senior Online Marketing Manager, Samsung Electronics America, really stood out in a good way: articulate, frank, and insightful.

During the networking sessions, had some great conversations with Rob Walk of NovaRising, Michael Burke of appssavvy, and Daniel Mintz of MoveOn, as well as many Federated staffers and authors.

More detail after tomorrow’s session…right now I have to get to sleep, as it starts at 8:30am.

Note to self: Get a real camera.

The Future Of Psychographic Targeting

Emotiv is coming out with a gaming headset that reads the wearer’s mind. In the game, you levitate boulders just by willing them to move. But here’s the part that really caught my attention:

The system doesn’t just lift boulders. It can also detect some of a player’s facial expressions and emotional responses: smile, frown or wink, for instance, and an avatar on screen can do so, too. Grow bored during a battle, and the system can detect ennui and supply a few dragons, or change the music.

Imagine the implications for in-game targeted advertising. If the system can tell, based on the user’s brain waves, whether she’s interested in the game, then it’s not a big step to tell whether she’s interested in the integrated ad. Or, for that matter, whether she’s angered/frightened/excited/moved/aroused by it.

The ad could then change based on the user’s reaction. But more interesting still: the advertiser could pay based on the user’s reaction! Cost per reaction! Cost per arousal! Cost per bathos-lasting-longer-than-two-point-six-seconds!

Do you agree? How far can we take this thing?

image: A poster for the movie Brainstorm, which featured a brain-interface device that looks almost exactly like Emotiv’s.

Gary Gygax And David Ogilvy Fistfight In Heaven

I’ve been thinking a lot about a recent post on Creative Beef about advertising agency “characters,” along with Kristin Maverick’s discussion on bitemarks about the staff of Dunder Mifflin as they exist online: they’re on YouTube, they Twitter, they post to a company website that really exists.

There is actually a name for fictional personalities who have been aggressively integrated into the lives of those with free will. They’ve been around for a very long time, and if you were ever a role-playing geek, as I once was, you know what they’re called. They’re non-player characters.

Non-player characters are like the toys temporarily animated by the parents of small children. They are not real, and the people controlling them are under no illusions that they are, nor does their realism hold up under much inspection. And yet, without them, the game isn’t nearly as fun.

I think that non-player characters (NPCs, as they’re properly called) play an important…well, role…in conversational marketing. They give the advertiser the chance to personify itself in a way that’s more human and interactive than a logo or a mascot.

Some other examples that come to mind: those AOL marketing bots that add themselves to your buddy list and then wait patiently for you to get curious enough to strike up a conversation with them.

What others are there? Are they effective? How far back, historically, does this go, do you think?

photo by Joi

Firefox 3 And Online Marketing With A Fucking Clue

Do you spend a lot of time trying to disseminate the idea that your business is on the cutting edge of what’s going on in the online space?

Easy solution: Sponsor a Firefox 3 Download Day party.

I wish that I could have convinced certain clients of mine in the past to put even ten thousand dollars into the kind of viral, community-driven campaign that Mozilla is engaging in.

Fans are pledging their future use of Firefox 3. They were motivated to do so in part by Mozilla’s suggestion that they set a Guinness World Record. And you can download any one of many badges, like the one above, showing your support. Or you can make your own badge, upload it to the site, and they’ll encourage other people to download it. And there are lots of other ready-made evangelical activities for those who want to feel like they’re part of something special (and they are).

They even have an affiliate program, for Pete’s sake. And you don’t earn money with it, you earn prestige.

And you can literally contribute to the production, documentation, and QA process. Talk about your brand as conversation. Everybody just senses how great Firefox 3 is going to be, even though relatively few have actually used it. (Although, if you like, you can use the latest release candidate.)