For about $1,300, the ad (see 3:01 point):

1. Showed 7 times on Glenn Beck episodes
2. Ran 54 times on four cable networks
3. Picked up 1.3 million total views
4. Generated more than 1,000 visitors to vcantellyouwhy.com, a site they set up to track the ad’s efficacy

Here is the ad and a description of its creation:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peqnSTBnTVk[/youtube]

As the narrator says at about 3:19, “The advertising industry won’t crumble overnight. But it’s easy to see that the barriers to entry have been lowered. And it might not be long before you’re promoting your blog or your punk band or your line of Christmas ornaments with an ad campaign on national TV.”

Yep, the Web again puts the tools of distribution into the hands of the people who need them, reducing the cost and inefficiency of using a middle man.

If you don’t have the time or skill to create your own ad, Google will find someone to do it in its ad creation marketplace. I see an opportunity here with the slow turnaround times of even the simplest ads; one firm needed 7 days to supply a roughly $500 montage of images with bad text.

Would it be possible, for example, to leverage your personal or business’s network to make an ad of satisfied customers? You know, Customer A does a short Web cam clip of saying how great your product is. Customer B repeats. So on and so forth.  To see how one band did just this for a music video, check out this post I wrote about it: To make your media masterpiece with the masses, divide projects into specific steps.

Of course, SlateV’s video about the process itself is an even better ad for the site than the one it made for national TV. That’s for a couple of reasons that demonstrate why “advertising” needs to become more like journalism:

1. It does not overtly attempt to persuade; it respects my time and attempts to provide information; it is helping me, not (overtly) manipulating me; it is “how to,” not attempted hypnosis
2. It is open to sharing and embedding; as a result, SlateV gets linked to from this blog

“‘You have to socialize the space before you can monetize it,’ the anthropologist concluded.” Right. I can’t wait for someone to be my friend not because he or she likes me, but because he or she wants my money. But conversation opportunities are promising. Good advertising is not propaganda. It is news about how your product or service solves problems. Conversations allow the connection between problem and solution that gets lost in the broadcast approach of most (and mostly useless) ads.

It exhausts me just thinking about thinking about my life in the same way I think about constructing a story. I would be frozen by the number of decisions to be made. Ah-ha! Yet another marketing job spat out by the Internet: Narrative Technician. Groovy. Anyone want to be my guinea pig for this service?

1. This video is one of many off a YouTube channel, Fast.Forward, offering “quick perspectives on the changing face of marketing.”
2. In it, Jim Lecinski, the managing director of U.S. Sales for Google argues the importance of speed over perfection when it comes to releasing marketing materials. I translate that as, “If you’re a storyteller, should you tweak your baby for weeks on end, or just get it out there?”
3. Transcript is toward the bottom of the post.

Why am I interested?

1. Marketing is storytelling, and anyone who communicates today will navigate, more than ever, the trampoline of tension between speed and quality.
2. There is an immense, ever-increasing pressure to quickly stake one’s claim on the shifting online landmass of a story so to have a voice in the conversation.
3. I grew up feasting on a diet of media born in a cauldron of slowness; I understand speed, but tend to lean toward the mental activities associated with perfecting a story. I feel a tension between the two, so am attempting to better understand the source and veracity of that tension.

Brain gum

1. What we are losing, if anything, by emphasizing the attributes of speed over the attributes of human communication that slowness more adeptly (but not exclusively) encourages: reflection, analysis, thoroughness and most importantly, signification.
2. Because without meaning, stories, quickly or slowly delivered, are just the howls of a lonely animal locked inside a language of one. Yet with the low-cost, high-speed, one-on-many and widespread communication that is the Internet, perhaps the act of signification is becoming even more distributed, like everything else, and there is no need for an authoritarian individual to deduce what information means in advance of its release. Perhaps this top-down, hierarchical approach simply reflected the limits of our communication technologies of the past.
3. Maybe much of the analysis and enhancement an individual might contribute to a story on his or her own in the past is now occurring as a conversation with online collaborators (the people formerly known as the audience). Yet this still creates a demand for synthesis, a sorting and summarizing task difficult to effectively accomplish with a group, as various constituencies gather and redirect the threads of a story most important to them.

Transcript

Note: The minute and seconds marks represent the end point of the word immediately preceding them. For example, at 0:05, he says “today.”

One-hundred percent agree that speed beats perfection today (0:05).

Again we all learn the craft of marketing the other way around (0:09) — that perfection beats speed, that it was actually OK to delay shipping a magazine ad to a publication until next month’s issue because we were going to work on the spacing between the typeface for another week (0:22).

And that was fine, and that was perfect then in those days (0:26).

The question now is what are you giving up by waiting a month to get your message in the marketplace versus what you might gain by improving the type 5 percent (0:37).

This is now a real question because we can measure these things (0:41).

Before it was hard to know what impact gain or loss would happen. But now we can sit there and say, ‘Well this is the total number of consumers in the market that we would reach; this is how many prospects, leads or hand-raisers we would generate with perhaps something that’s perfect in a month versus what we could generate with something that is 80 percent right today.’ (1:02)

And we just weigh that cost-benefit analysis, and we find in conversations with Fortune 500 marketers that for the most part speed will always beat perfection (1:12).

Could every news article have a companion real-world event?

What about this blog post?

Maybe I could release 100 blog posts in a bottle. Throw ‘em in the sea.

Every info piece a universe; every moment a drama.

Stories circle consumers like sharks around chum.

T-mobile did it. No, not the bottle thing. The meat. It’s a big sing-along [via Influx].

But for a local publication covering music, all it takes is MySpace.

Since 2004, Hyperactive Music Magazine has used the social networking Web site (www.myspace.com) to connect with thousands – 15,862 to date – of bands, readers and anyone else interested in the publication.

Hyperactive isn’t alone.

More and more businesses from Albuquerque and around the world are setting up camp on MySpace, using their bit of digital real estate within the Web site like lighthouses bordering a dark sea that, with a little luck – and enough approved “friend” requests – guide customers to their doorstep.

Though local entrepreneurs dispute the site’s efficacy as a business-building tool, they all agree on one thing: With more people going online and about 90 million registered MySpace users, setting up shop on the site is worth the few hours it takes.

MySpace Avenue

“More people are turning toward the Internet,” says Allie Shaw, publisher and owner of Hyperactive. “To get the word out about the magazine, . . . MySpace is a great avenue.”

But as far as getting advertisements into the magazine, MySpace’s impact has been minimal, she says.

“Maybe a couple,” she says. “That’s not the main place we go to get our ads.”

Still, she expects to expand the magazine’s MySpace page – and its regular Web site – in the future. That could mean music videos and live interviews. For now, Hyperactive’s MySpace page plays music on a monthly basis from four unsigned bands that convince Shaw in a 25-words-or-less essay that they should be featured.

Many MySpace pages feature music that starts when visitors click on the page, and Shaw says she gets hundreds of essays from bands looking to supply the tunes for Hyperactive’s page.

It’s a trade-off: Shaw finds up-and-coming bands and bands get publicity from a national magazine.

An expert in online marketing says such features are key to succeeding in the world of the Web.

More than a billboard

“Just showing up isn’t going to do you any good,” says Pete Snyder, founder and CEO of New Media Strategies, a firm based in Arlington, Va. that specializes in online and word-of-mouth marketing. “You actually need to add value to the community. If they create and customize to meet the needs of the community, and add value to the community, it will be a hit.”

And if there is any doubt as to the importance of social networking sites, Snyder points out that MySpace is one of the 10 most visited sites on the Internet.

“Advertisers and businesses go where eyeballs are and where their customers are,” he says. “In the case of social networks in MySpace, there are a lot of people there, a lot of opportunity.”

Talking back

One opportunity is feedback, and lots of it. On MySpace, visitors to your page can leave comments – good or bad. They can rank your page.

“We’re so used to having only a one-way dialogue with brands and businesses,” Snyder says. “This is allowing for conversation. This is democratizing the consumer experience. Smart businesses are really using these social networks to keep a grip on how they’re performing.”

Check out the 234 messages left on the MySpace page of Albuquerque photographer Bob Mares, and you’ll see comments such as, “Let’s set up a shoot!!” and “We should work together soon.”

“I have more business inquiries coming off my MySpace site in one month than off my normal Web site in a year,” says Mares, who has helped other businesses set up MySpace pages. “I’ve put money into radio advertising, into the Yellow Book, but this thing is amazing. It’s bringing me more business; it’s bringing me more money and getting my name out there for free.”

Mares, 48, pushes his own fun and business by setting up groups for MySpace users. Groups work like clubs; they’re a collection of people on the site with similar interests. There’s an Albuquerque group for atheists and agnostics. There’s a New Mexico music group. Mares founded a group for fans of OPM Nightclub and Lounge in Downtown Albuquerque.

When Mares posts messages to groups he’s in, his name and a link to his MySpace page comes with the blurb. It’s like dropping a business card attached to a useful bit of information. Same goes with comments. Every time Mares leaves a message on someone’s MySpace page, a link to his own page goes with it.

“I’ve had models outside of New Mexico who have found me through me leaving a comment on somebody else’s thing,” he says. “Any time you post on MySpace, it’s an advertisement for you.”

Be friendly

Adding “friends” – by requesting people join your online network or accepting someone else’s invitation to his or her network – offers another way to bring attention to your MySpace page. Mares counts 878 friends in his MySpace network. A MySpace page belonging to Rhidden Clothing Co., an Albuquerque clothing company that launched November 2005, shows 128 friends.

“It (Rhidden’s MySpace page) was something on the Internet before we had our own Web site,” says David Reis, the 20-year-old co-owner of Rhidden. “It got our name out there a little bit.”

He doesn’t see MySpace as key to winning customers. Yet with roughly one-quarter to one-third of Rhidden’s sales coming off the company’s Web site, he counts some kind of Web presence as key to doing business today.

“As a company, I think it’s fairly important, but not necessarily MySpace,” he says. “The world’s so online now.”

Where’s the money?

But Rob Frankel doesn’t suggest turning to MySpace as the stage for a business’ digital dance.

As a social networking site, says the branding expert and consultant to companies looking to form revenue-generating online communities around their products, it fails to achieve the goal of businesses joining it in the first place: more business.

There’s a lack of clear organization, he points out, and a lack of someone leading the digital dialogue.

“Just because I get a bunch of people in one place doesn’t mean I’ve got a community and I can leverage it for gain,” he says. “You’re basically throwing a dime into the Pacific Ocean and hoping somebody hears it.”

An interactive, community-driven Web site needs someone leading regular events and features that give – for free – the site’s visitors something of value they can use to improve their own lives, he says. It has to connect visitors to one another in useful way. By providing that kind of trust-building and life-enhancing Web experience, he says, a site can eventually win online sales.

“It is way easier to get incremental sales from your existing users rather than go out and get new users,” he says. “It can make you tremendously profitable.”

FACTBOX: FEELING SOCIAL?

MySpace is one of many social networking sites populating the Web. The sites give users communication tools to form online networks of friends and contacts. Users can publish information covering just about any topic in a format of their choosing, such as pictures, videos and stories.

In three years, the number of MySpace registered users has grown to almost 90 million and in 2005, News Corp. paid $580 million for the company owning MySpace.

If building a thick web of friends on the Web strikes your fancy, check out these other social networking sites:

www.tagworld.com

www.friendsurfer.com

www.friendster.com

www.ryze.com

www.tribe.net

www.linkedin.com

www.imeem.com

But using a blog do it?

That got some resistance, said Webb Johnson, head of communications for the association, a technology industry group.

“Blogs had a little bit of a bad reputation because they tended to be single-user, ego-driven affairs,” Johnson said. “People used them or abused them as bull pulpits. They tended to not be so much informational as opinion-driven.”

But used differently, blogs can pull together the “collective wisdom of crowds,” Johnson said. Their ease of updating, he said, means the latest information can be quickly published.

The association went with the interactive tool.

It, like other features on the recently launched Web site – such as a forum, events calendar and job postings area – allow registered users to contribute content.

To keep content fresh and steady, Johnson plans to enlist some members of the association as regular contributors.

“We thought it advisable to make it as accessible as possible,” he said. “This will be an experiment.”

Such content will help propel the site beyond being just “brochureware,” said Brad Key, chairman of the board for the association. What’s brochureware? Think sticking a company brochure on a Web site.

“This is much more of a dynamic site,” Key said.

Stuck in his front door or stuck on his fence, he just doesn’t like them.

“It makes it look like I’m not home,” he said.

But if a neighborhood association is trying to get timely information out to its members, sometimes a flier is the way to do it.

Rabi had another idea: www.quintessence-na-abq.org.

By posting new information on the 2-year-old Web site, “we didn’t have to have people keep running through this large neighborhood to do paper-hanging,” said Rabi, the Quintessence Neighborhood Association’s first and former Web master.

He isn’t alone.

Web sites are a tool that more and more neighborhood associations around the city are using to cut costs, keep their members in touch and keep their neighborhoods strong.

“It’s been a great source of information,” Rabi said. “I really do think it has worked out.”

The association’s Web site, like many others, includes information about coming meetings, by-laws, association members, building covenants and more.

But that’s just the beginning.

Other possible Web site components – such as chat rooms and forums – could help turn the online spaces into more than just data repositories.

By allowing people to respond to and contribute messages to the Web site, they create the opportunity for a neighborhood’s residents to “sit down at their computers for a little while and have a community meeting,” said Leilani McGranahan, president of the Nor Este Neighborhood Association (www.noreste.org).

“Digitally . . . is just a faster way of getting the information out there and letting people access it,” she said. “As times change, we need to keep up with them.”

She said the Web site and e-mail also has the potential to save the association up to $600.

How?

Digital newsletters.

Printing and mailing costs for the information on paper can quickly stack up, she said. Going 100 percent digital could mean more money for other neighborhood needs.

“Ideally, that would be the thing to do,” she said. “Realistically, that will never happen. Not 100 percent of our area is going to have computers.”

It’s a money-saving advantage Jaye Bullington, vice president of the Quintessence Neighborhood Association and its current Web master, recognizes, as well.

With membership in the fledgling association going for $12 a year, she said, every penny counts.

She has plans to revamp Quintessence’s Web site, and she, too, may add forums – areas where people can leave messages for one another centered around a topic.

But she stops short of wanting to add chat rooms – online spaces where people can type messages to one another in real time.

Monitoring such a space would require too much attention, she said, and it’s more than what the site really needs right now.

Its main purpose is to get information out efficiently, she said.

“It’s just another way to communicate,” she said. “It’s so prevalent now. It’s so easy.”

The Web’s speedy and far-reaching power of information distribution became even more apparent when the Quintessence neighborhood had a small emergency: Someone was breaking into mailboxes.

“We could immediately sound out a notice to people,” she said. “It’s very powerful, so much better than handing out fliers or posting signs at the corner that you hope people will see as they pass.”

Even with the advantages of the Web, don’t expect virtual meetings to replace real ones, or paper newsletters to disappear tomorrow, association leaders and Web masters say.

There’s still something about face-to-face interaction that can’t be replaced, they say, and not everyone thinks digits on a screen are better than ink on paper.

“Shaking hands is still a good thing,” said Mary Carter, secretary of the Southeast Heights Neighborhood Association (www.sehna.org). “I still think we need to be face to face sometimes.”

FACT BOX

GETTING ONLINE

Setting up a Web site doesn’t require sophisticated knowledge of obscure computer code. It can, in fact, require nothing more than a few clicks and the filling in of a few blanks.

Here are a few Web sites to get you started – for free – on making your own:

www.neighborhoodlink.com

geocities.yahoo.com

www.bravenet.com (domain registration fee)