It was a good week for YouTubers on NBC. Key of Awesome’s Mark Douglas appeared as Ian in the “Woggles,” a PG-13 version of Australian children singers, “The Wiggles.”
And “Chocolate Rain Guy” (TayZonday) gets an SNL impression by Kenan Thompson!
Karim began to visibly cry when he described the game, but then realized he still had $64 million in cash.
Of the 52.5 percent of active Internet users who have registered with Facebook-competitor Google Plus, only 7 percent have used the service, according to a fake comScore report. But Google Product Manager Jawed Karim said he was confident Google Plus was only beginning, and that his company has bold plans to increase use of the new social-media tool from an average 8 seconds a day to well over a minute.
“We are launching a “shoot the tumbleweed game,” Karim said. “Although my attorneys have advised otherwise, I’d like to describe it as a cross between those killer “shoot the monkey banners” I played as a toddler, but with all of the cute sound effects of Angry Birds,” Karim said, while holding back tears.
It won’t be enough, said Rainbow Rowell of Omaha.com. “Only three of my friends and family have actively started to use Google Plus,” she wrote. “What good it Google Plus if only half of my six friends and family members use it?”
Google Plus "Shoot the Tumbleweed" will mix Flash animation with real photos of the West
Apparently I have to relearn marketing again, which is fine... it wasn't hard the first time.
The coolest thing about marketers are the titles they give their books. Common, right? They’re marketers. What do you expect?
“The Old Rules of Marketing Are Dead,” by Timothy R. Pearson, was released today and is already the business best-seller on Amazon. Fine- don’t buy it. Just keep doing the old stuff, and at least you’ll be right in a couple years when someone turns this one on its side.
I wonder what Philip Kotler will say on his death bed… like maybe just four words: “it was all bullshit.“
Yep, while marketing and advertising may be dead, the business of proclaiming it even more dead... is booming. Here are the six rules, and as you can see they defy the 6 marketing rules I learned in my MBA (which I’ve added in italics).
Oh- I think it goes without saying that I haven’t read the book, but I am considering adding it to the prized bookshelf of “The Enlightened Stupid Marketer.” At least he embraces book covers over books, right? Is there any irony to the fact that years after shooting that video I’d write a book and, to date, not read it?
The Core is Everything (screw the customer, kill or be killed, don’t sleep)
Key chapters: Brand essence is important, customer knows best, your reputation is vital, play nicely, sleep soundly and work fearfully.
You Have Nothing Without The Foundation(integrity is for the unemployment line… Ps in 2006 were product, price, piss the customer, and pimp it)
Key chapters: Integrity, single word or symbol, whole is larger than parts, mind your P’s….
There Are Many Choices But Only One Customer (there’s a sucker born every minute; it’s easier to find a new customer than try to keep one).
Key chapters: Strategy is the heart and measurement is the blood, frameworks, perception really is your customer’s reality, communication, more than channel surfing.
Do the Right Things for the Right Reasons (we watched Wall Street in Ethics class, talked about Walmart, and then all proclaimed: greed is goooood).
Key chapters: Relationships matter, partner, it’s about them not you…
Infrastructure is More Than Pipes (in fact, a virtual tributary allows for add-drop multiplexing of subrate traffic… come to think of that, I might have learned that when my boutique web agency was acquired by Qwest Telcom).
Key chapters: Technology is just an enabler, right information, right people, right time… and don’t have wrong thought.
Lead And Others Will Follow(be a fast follower… let your competitor take the arrows, then pull them from their body and use them against anyone that tries suing you for stealing their idea; be sure to pluck out their gold fillings… they won’t need them anymore because they’re dead).
Key chapters: Leadership is a verb not noun.
So, yeah. I have to relearn marketing again, but this time there’s not a test (which sucks because I would have cheated off of my friend Mike Skoler). I wonder if my damned MBA comes with a money-back guarantee (It probably does, but the small print says “not valid on days ending with the letter Y”).
For the record, this marketing-satire video (“Enlightened Stupid Marketer”) was indeed shot in a conference room of an employer who shall remain nameless. You’d never know that unless you worked there, so while I maintained the spirit of the no-camera law (confidentiality), I broke the “letter” of the law. More importantly, it was a satire not of my co-workers at the time but of a Coke executive I’d seen a month prior at a conference. Nobody believed me, and a number of people took offense to this (like the guy who sucked my will to live).
The nice thing about this video is that if you’re offended by it, I’ve struck a vulnerability nerve haven’t I? Are ya offended or are you secure in your marketing competencies? Do you see yourself lampooned, or do you giggle at the absurdity occasionally? If your teeth clench while watching, you MAY just have gelatophobia. There’s only one cure. Avoid people unless wearing ear muffs and blinders. Or just keep reading the latest marketing book that proclaims the last guy slightly dumber.
Get ready for the Lawsuits. In a horrible satire at the expense of handicapped people and ice-cream men, the comedy channel “JustForLaughsTV” created this atrocity below. In addition to stigmatizing one-handed people with “claw hands,” it defaces all ice cream people everywhere. And rips off the soundtrack from “Summer Loving” (Grease).
Fortunately my defense (based on parody/satire/free speech and the fact that “hurting someone’s feelings” is not grounds for a lawsuit) will require a simple copy/paste and is solid.
Unfortunately no lawsuit will likely help the poor ice cream man (who happened to be selling ice cream when I was inspired to satire my own fear of ice cream people) will reclaim whatever he claims the video did to him. I make that assumption that because my attempts to remedy it more gentleman-like (non-legal) methods have had no apparent effect — apologizing via phone, removing it, filing DCMA claim on unauthorized posts, apologizing in writing, apologizing in person to him and his family, offering a retraction, offering a donation to charity, offering a nuisance settlement, and apologizing again.
The ice cream man even contacted local Pa. media disparaging me, in what could be considered a calculated act of defamation. But I’m not terribly excited about filing a counter suit because, well, ice cream is too delicious to sue.
Uncle Newt told me last night that he’s running for president. He made a YouTube video about it too. I’ve added 3 embeds for the video below, and I recommend starting the second about 2 seconds after the first (then the third 2 seconds later).
Let’s work side by side… side by side… side by side….
This video is Rated PG-13 or higher, but fairly clever. It’s a Royal Wedding overdub… by DayJobOrchestra (a progressive rock band) and laced with curse words. But it’s so random it’s worth a giggle.
The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner is a historic break from the tension between the White House and the media covering it. This year President Barack Obama joked about a sequel to the film the King’s Speech. Here’s the video that was shared, and it’s a clever self-deprecating parody of the film, and shows rare out takes of the president’s recorded addresses.
When I worked at Georgetown, President Clinton (an alumnus) sent some video footage to us for an event, and there were a number of outtakes they included. I wonder what I might have done with those had YouTube existed in the early 1990s.
Okay let’s just get this out. I’m a big Google fan, user, and customer. I’m also making non-trivial income from Google’s YouTube Partner program (through ad sharing on my Nalts videos seen 200 million gazillian times). So I really hesitate commending the company in a post headline. It looks I’m friggin’ shilling incognito and I hate that crap (see my parody on f’ing buzz marketing).
Instead I prefer to prank, complain and criticize the company to ensure my “checks and balances” are in place. It can border on “biting the hand that feeds you,” but I’ll call it tough love. You don’t own me, bitch (sorry I’ve got an authority issue).
Today’s post, however, is to observe that Google’s brain seems to be developing a frontal lobe (the rather useless part of the brain where insanity and marketing occurs). I’ll be damned if Google isn’t using video (even the YouTube player to keep Salar “Little Superstar” Kamangar happy) in increasingly effective ways. (The marketer rubs little puppy’s tummy and says good boy, as he naively thinks he’s more evolved than a wonderfully blissful animal).
Parenthetically I literally laugh outloud every time I refer to the head of YouTube as “Little Superstar” because I’m aware it appears so completely inappropriate and racist. But I’ll trust you WVFF loyalts will know that if I really felt that way I’d suppress it incredibly well. I stereotype into only two segments: people who make me happy and people who suck away my will to live. Anyway Salar isn’t even Indian he’s Persian or Iraq, and frankly I don’t know the difference or care. I just needed something to use to “downsize” him, since my ego is threatened by him having the coolest job in the world. It was the same thing with Chad, but Chad was a much easier victim since he generally looked stoned.
I wonder if Chad and Samar ever went to Dubai together and ate sushi off of woman’s stomaches.
Okay back to the news. Google using YouTube shouldn’t surprise us at first glance, but put aside Google’s products and branding (it’s hard to do), and ask yourself a question. Do you see Google as a great marketing organization? Or put more succinctly, how well does it tap the advertising medium that feeds it? Right your reaction because I’m coming back to read ’em.
Google historically has done almost no advertising for itself. It kept quiet, muted PR, and rarely showed evidence of advertising/marketing competencies from an external view. Sure, you might credit YouTube took out a Superbowl ad years ago (side note: good luck finding it on YouTube). But I’m convinced that was not for viewers, but simply to sneak access to “Superbowl Buyer’s Man/Boy Club” to pitch well-funded brands on the merits of diverting TV dollars to web.
But now I’m seeing real signs of life. Google print ads with direct-response offers? A discount on Google ads and to encourage app purchases? Really? It’s like watching my son Grant suddenly blossuming academically and reading voraciously. I know I had nothing to do with it, but I’m proud of the double G’s. Sidenote 2: Did I ever tell you I had a clubhouse in my house that I named Google in the late 1970s? Note to self: get time machine, go to 1995 and squat domain name for your childhood clubhouse.
So now the engineering anthill is using video to engage customers and promote? How charming! Let’s review recent and cumulative examples.
1) Branded Entertainment: Today we see a “Google Doodle” (typically an illustration of the logo marking an event) taking video form. The typically clean/sparse homepage features not a small custom image, but an embedded player with a nicely done Charlie Chaplin homage.
2) Satire/Entertainment: On April Fool’s Day Google pulled its annual prank by rolling out advanced “Gmail Motion” via video. The new solution featured a typical Google product director’s awkward monotone, complemented by a model (Steve Buscemi) demonstrating how physical movements (thumbs up, waves) can be interpreted it into text. One might expect a collective drone if he/she concedes that it was a clever prank, but I liked it. Why? It wasn’t too far fetched, it was executed fairly well, and I interpreted it as a subtle diss on Apple and its self aggrandizing swipes, pinches, and three finger whatevers.
Steve Buscemi in the Gmail Motion prank video
3) Product Launch: Google is increasingly using video to promote and teach out new products (see “advanced gmail” video). Sure Google has been criticized for a somewhat dated approach to product marketing (and some “areas for improvement” in its design/test/launch). But the sheer number of new innovations have me increasing my daily time-share significantly, and I want a Google GPS, Android simulator on my iPhone, and a Google-search brain implant for “just in time” information.
5) Public Relations: Remember all the drama about privacy invasion resulting from Google Earth (buttcrack) and Google Street View pictures? This video that shows “behind the scenes” of Google’s streetview camera vehicle. It replaces the images in my head of a creepy zit-faced MIT intern driving a black van, snapping photos, and wearing no pants.
6) Education & Community: Google uses videos to support community, health education, public service and economic summit Davos whatever… but that’s so damned boring I don’t feel like writing about it.
7) There is No Seven. I just don’t like posts with six items. Actually seven is “reader’s choice.” What’d I miss?
