DO NOT FEED THE BIRDS

If you could put 1,130 people in a room for one full year working on a project of your choice for 8 hours a day, what could you accomplish?

Those man hours represent the time spent on Angry Birds games each day. That's the equivalent of 200 million minutes each day playing Angry Birds. The number has been increasing by 8-10 percent each year.

What does this say about our global culture and the rise of the Internet? I cannot find logic in the explosive and frivolous waste of time that masks itself as "entertainment". Are we so far gone that we have lost sight of what's important and what passes as useful?

Granted, there are ways children and adults can learn through game playing when focused on real-world problems. I encourage the resources that push the educational gaming envelope forward ....but Angry Birds? I would be surprised and welcome data that refutes an estimate that less than 3 percent of game hours spent are of an educational nature.

Do the math. In one week it is estimated that globally 3 billion hours are spent playing video games. THREE BILLION!

Who's playing? 99 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls are playing games these days. And don't be surprised by the number of executives caught in the web.

LOSING FACE(BOOK)

The holidays have come and gone and new year resolutions are on the agenda of millions. My own began on Christmas day when I resolved to quit Facebook. Easier said than done.

Finding the option to delete an account is a formidable task in and of itself. Trawling through settings and management options I finally (simply) typed "Cancel A Facebook Account" into Google's search engine. Results pointed to a direct link for deletion. Several clicks later I was done .... Or was I?

Advisory: STOP! Do Not Pass Go, No U-Turns!

While a de-activated account cannot be accessed by the public at large, it takes 14 days to delete the account entirely. If, during the 14 day "waiting" period you interact with Facebook, the account is automatically reactivated. The simple act of checking to make sure your account was deleted withing the 14 day period will reactivate it. Sneaky? Ya think?!

On January 8th I will be (should be) faceless. In the short period since December 25th I haven't missed one message, one update, one friend request or photo opp. What was it's purpose anyway?

Because it's my business to know what's happening in the digital world, I felt obligated to be part of it. What I finally realized was that all my news feeds keep me up to date without the need to maintain a Facebook account. Want to reach me? Send me a text. E-mail me. Pick up a phone. Write me a note.

I don't want Facebook to be my communication tool. Frankly I find the lazy and evasive, jibber-jabber attitude towards privacy a bit too corporate ... good for Facebook; not good for you.

The jury is also still out on the value of Facebook as a marketing tool for your business. Rushing like so many lemmings to the edge and over, into an abyss of corporate waste, is epic. There have been no real success stories that carry over into sustainable and profitable marketing efforts.

You can e-mail me at pbenjou@gmail.com

THE PERFECT HOLIDAY CARD

The following video was sent to me by one of my blog readers. As he/she suggests. it's the perfect holiday card.

"I cried when I watched this because I really dont care much for the whole sentimental "Christmas" thing but this clip made me appreciate the bravado of the young kids who fight for our safety as a country and how grateful we should be to them during the season. It's like the perfect holiday card. I hope you enjoy."

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT DEADLINES

We don't always meet them. In a rush to get to the finish line we often lose what is most important .... creativity.

Watch this neat video from KreativMagazin, the leading Hungarian magazine about advertising, commumnication and media related topics, and be inspired ....

OCCUPY THE WEB!

It's been 10 years and we have not yet come close to realizing the hope for change that the internet was supposed to provide markets and brands around the globe.

Have we been overly hyped? Are we searching for something that simply does not exist and likely never will?

The rant that follows was borrowed, with thanks, from Bob Hoffman of Hoffman Lewis fame. I urge you to read it and bookmark a link to his blog....

I've been in the ad business a long time. But I've never experienced a more bewildering period than we have been through in the past 10 years.We thought we knew what this decade was going to look like.

We thought we knew the script. Just about everything we thought we knew has turned out to be wrong. We thought that interactivity would make advertising far more engaging. We thought that traditional advertising was dead. We thought that TiVo was going to cripple TV. We thought the PC and the television were going to converge. None of this has happened.

Interactivity has not made advertising more engaging. In fact, interactivity is mostly a rumor. Display ads have a click-through rate that is less than 1 in a thousand. While consumers have shown substantial interest in using the web to search for things they've already decided they're interested in, they have shown almost no interest in interacting with the ads we produce.

In other words, the web has proven to be far more effective at fulfilling demand than at creating it.Anyone who still thinks traditional advertising is dead probably didn't watch a football game this weekend. I don't think I have ever seen more commercial messages squeezed into 3 1/2 hours.

TiVo's impact on television viewing and consumer behavior has been a weighty topic inside the marketing beltway but has been a non-event to consumers. While about 40% of Americans now have some sort of DVR, those who own one only watch recorded material about 5% of the time. What's more, owning a DVR has not changed their purchasing behavior one whit.We are essentially no closer to the convergence of TV and the PC than we were ten years ago. We keep hearing that it's right around the corner, but we never seem to get to the corner.

The latest stats I've seen say that over 98% of video is still viewed on a television.The advertising landscape has been riddled with inconsistencies and cross-currents. Print advertising has certainly suffered. But television advertising has been booming. In 2008, as TV ad sales dropped significantly, it looked like the pundits were correct and that advertisers had lost confidence in traditional advertising. But now with TV ad sales growing and viewership at its highest point ever, it looks like the pundits were wrong and 2008 was about the recession.

Online advertising has been hit and miss. Search has certainly been effective, but display ads -- despite impressive sales growth -- have had a very discouraging record of effectiveness.Social media has been a huge worldwide phenomenon, but social media marketing still has to prove it's a sales builder and a brand builder.

With 60% of people who "friend" or "like" a brand saying that their primary motivation is to get something for nothing, it is hard to take seriously the argument that people are engaged in social media because they want to have "conversations" with brands. And we're still waiting for the first major consumer-facing, non-web-native brand to be built primarily by online advertising.

You would think that the gulf between our expectations and the facts would give us pause. But no such thing has happened. Our delusional belief that we understand what is going on has not been weakened at all. If anything it has strengthened. We are just as certain in our prognostications, just as arrogant in our pronouncements, just as sneaky in our data.
We tell our clients half the truth half the time.I am dismayed every week by how much of what is now accepted wisdom in the ad business is nothing but legend. I am disheartened by how little familiarity people in advertising have with the particulars. I am dumbfounded by how tolerant most clients are of false goals and how little appetite they have for the facts.

Perhaps the most confusing part of the past 10 years is not how far reality has veered from expectations, but how reluctant our industry is to validate its assumptions.

TAP YOUR WAY INTO THE FUTURE

What will your next phone look like?

The video that follows, courtesy of Microsoft Office, draws back the technology curtain to provide a peek into the not-to-distant future.

The technology to do this exists today. The minds that will put all the pieces in place are just around the corner.

It all starts with your phone . Amazing.

JOB'S FINAL WORDS...OH WOW

A reprint from SAI Business Insider on Steve's final words ....WOW

The New York Times ran Steve Jobs' sister's eulogy this morning.

It's a beautiful recollection of the 27 years Mona Simpson knew her biological brother, and it paints Jobs as an endless romantic, a creative genius, and a loving person.

Simpson ends the eulogy by recalling Jobs' final moments.

"Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times," she says.

"Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.

"Steve’s final words were:

"OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW."

HAPPY ALL HALLOWS!!

A creative video shot with an older iPhone.

STEVE JOBS

With thanks and credits to Bob Hoffman at Hoffman Lewis, what follows is his take on how Steve Jobs and Apple approached the ad world.....

What Steve Jobs Taught Us About Advertising

I pompously call myself The Ad Contrarian, but Steve Jobs was a true ad contrarian.

He knew what his company stood for and didn't care what you thought. He assiduously avoided every false turn in the "marketing fad of the month" playbook. Reportedly, the only research he ever did was to ask himself whether he liked something or not.

In his own way, he taught us everything we need to know about advertising. The only problem is, most of us are too blind or too stupid to learn. The thing about magicians is, you see it with your own eyes and you still don't know they did it.

Here's what I learned from watching Steve.

•The best way to build a brand is to sell a product. Apple rarely did "branding" advertising or "line" advertising. An Apple ad is about the features and benefits of one specific product. Not about "you the consumer." Not about how the brand intersects with your life. Not about how the brand saves the world.

•Creativity is simplicity. Apple ads always look like Apple ads. They are simple. They are direct. A white background, a product right smack in the middle of the page, and a line or two of copy. They rarely changed this formula. Once in a while they'd have a person along with the product, but no idiotic "lifestyle" crap and no art school visual puns.

•Trend-jumping is no substitute for principles. From what I can tell, Apple still doesn't have an official Twitter feed or Facebook page. They don't jump from one gimmick to another. They are not desperate to hop on every fad that comes along. They are the most successful technology company in the world, yet they understand that communication is best done human-to-human. They do a great job of utilizing the web for all their "below-the-line" materials. But they lean heavily on traditional channels for advertising. They have built the most powerful social network in the world without doing an ounce of social media.

•Be who you are. Apple's public personality -- its advertising voice -- has never changed from day one. When Microsoft was winning, it never tried to be the second best Microsoft.
Steve Jobs was the best adman of his generation. Those who want to learn would do well to study what he did.

To read Bob's blog and get a link to a bibliography of stuff that has appeared on his blog about Jobs and Apple advertising over the past few years, click here.

THE DEPTHS OF MEDIAOCEAN

The recent news of a meeting of the minds between Donovan Data Systems and Mediabank have more than just a few companies scratching their heads. Where this proposed announcement leaves Harris, Strata, MediaX and others will initially be determined by the antitrust scrutiny of the US government regulatory agencies. Antitrust filings are sure to follow.

Why?

Is this an exit strategy for Michael Donovan? Is this Mediabank's attempt to scale their business? A defense against Google? Or is the proposed marriage a means to a more profitable monopoly?

It very likely holds true that all of the above played a role in the annoucement. It certainly is not about merging technologies. The platforms are unique. DDS carries legacy software that is potentially decades old while Mediabank has been quilting its own newer brand.

And while Google looms in the background there is not a chance in hell that they will accomplish in traditional media what DDS has.

In an ideal world, this merger might create something new and refreshing across all media functions. In our world, we will likely be harping on the same issue into the next decade or two.