Archive for the 'Brands' Category

As I rush off to India for my first tour of Bollywood, I thnk to pay attention to Julian Myer’s comments to Variety last Friday (“Myers fears Hollywood’s end is near”):

Longtime Hollywood publicist Julian Myers will turn 90 soon. And he worries the end may be near … for his beloved town.

Myers frets that the WGA stalemate — with all of its acrimony, vitriol ,and job losses — is a harbinger of ill things for the industry.

“The strike impasse is speeding the end of Hollywood filmmaking and television production,” said he.

Notice Myers qualifies his statement with the word HOLLYWOOD because film and video production are no longer geographically anchored to that festering freak show.

However, while we certainly agree with his sentiment that much volatile change is afoot, we wouldn’t go so far with the doomsaying Mr. Myers portrays. Though the colossal days of Hollywood largesse are waning, rest assured the studio system of today isn’t going anywhere. There will always be power players, but maybe this strike will have done some good.

In fact, why do Myers’ comments strike such a chord with the Punk Marketing crowd?

His statement is illustrative of the way the wind is blowing, highlighting the fact that media content models are shifting. But all of this could leave the uninitiated scratching their heads asking “Golly, what’s next?”

It’s a pretty easy question to answer if…

…you’ve read Punk Marketing (especially Chapters 10 & 11!).

…you were one of the 13 MILLION people who watched that “Chocolate Rain” video, composed and performed by 25-year-old singer/songwriter Tay Zonday.

…you work for Dr. Pepper’s marketing team and were smart enough to pay Tay to do a branded content video for Pepper’s line of Cherry Chocolate soda.

You may have already seen the “Rain” when it was posted on YouTube back in November, along with the gazillions who started sending it to friends, but if not—loser—you can check it out here.

It’s a kick ass example of how an independent artist (quote unquote) can benefit from a new content model and oddly cash-in on the power of 2.0! And how companies CAN use branded content for marketing to insinuate themselves into a mix without being too damn heavy-handed.

So if it works for marketing, why not TV shows and movies? It’s only a matter of time before major production dudes begin seriously engaging and recruiting straight from the ranks of DIY artisans just now relegated to the wilds of YouTube and the very large Web.

In fact it’s already happening. Peep into what Jenna Wortham posted on Wired’s Underwire blog last Tuesday, “From YouTube to the BoobTube: a Parody of The Office Gets a Movie Deal:”

A group of YouTubers hit it big when their mash-up vid got picked up for small-screen distribution. 305, due out on DVD this Spring, will be a Spinal Tap-style mockumentary, following the adventures of a group of Spartans.

So there you have it. Need clearer?

Myer’s was right in one respect: ‘an end’ is near in a manner of speaking: but it’s the end of the beginning, not the beginning per se.

No writers strike, no stalemate, no real Hollywood—it’s all just gravy for everyone!

Or maybe curry.

As I rush off to India for my first tour of Bollywood, I thnk to pay attention to Julian Myer’s comments to Variety last Friday (“Myers fears Hollywood’s end is near”):

Longtime Hollywood publicist Julian Myers will turn 90 soon. And he worries the end may be near … for his beloved town.

Myers frets that the WGA stalemate — with all of its acrimony, vitriol ,and job losses — is a harbinger of ill things for the industry.

“The strike impasse is speeding the end of Hollywood filmmaking and television production,” said he.

Notice Myers qualifies his statement with the word HOLLYWOOD because film and video production are no longer geographically anchored to that festering freak show.

However, while we certainly agree with his sentiment that much volatile change is afoot, we wouldn’t go so far with the doomsaying Mr. Myers portrays. Though the colossal days of Hollywood largesse are waning, rest assured the studio system of today isn’t going anywhere. There will always be power players, but maybe this strike will have done some good.

In fact, why do Myers’ comments strike such a chord with the Punk Marketing crowd?

His statement is illustrative of the way the wind is blowing, highlighting the fact that media content models are shifting. But all of this could leave the uninitiated scratching their heads asking “Golly, what’s next?”

It’s a pretty easy question to answer if…

…you’ve read Punk Marketing (especially Chapters 10 & 11!).

…you were one of the 13 MILLION people who watched that “Chocolate Rain” video, composed and performed by 25-year-old singer/songwriter Tay Zonday.

…you work for Dr. Pepper’s marketing team and were smart enough to pay Tay to do a branded content video for Pepper’s line of Cherry Chocolate soda.

You may have already seen the “Rain” when it was posted on YouTube back in November, along with the gazillions who started sending it to friends, but if not—loser—you can check it out here.

It’s a kick ass example of how an independent artist (quote unquote) can benefit from a new content model and oddly cash-in on the power of 2.0! And how companies CAN use branded content for marketing to insinuate themselves into a mix without being too damn heavy-handed.

So if it works for marketing, why not TV shows and movies? It’s only a matter of time before major production dudes begin seriously engaging and recruiting straight from the ranks of DIY artisans just now relegated to the wilds of YouTube and the very large Web.

In fact it’s already happening. Peep into what Jenna Wortham posted on Wired’s Underwire blog last Tuesday, “From YouTube to the BoobTube: a Parody of The Office Gets a Movie Deal:”

A group of YouTubers hit it big when their mash-up vid got picked up for small-screen distribution. 305, due out on DVD this Spring, will be a Spinal Tap-style mockumentary, following the adventures of a group of Spartans.

So there you have it. Need clearer?

Myer’s was right in one respect: ‘an end’ is near in a manner of speaking: but it’s the end of the beginning, not the beginning per se.

No writers strike, no stalemate, no real Hollywood—it’s all just gravy for everyone!

Or maybe curry.

On Jan. 4, 2008, in his article “Death of DRM Could Weaken iTunes, Boost iPod” Dave Kravetz of Wired wrote:

“The report that Sony BMG is moving to DRM-free downloads represents the music industry’s white-flag concession that its copyright-protection scheme created a powerhouse in Apple’s iTunes Store while failing to combat piracy.” Wot!

Happily, we couldn’t agree more. Punks hate DRM, if not out of principle then simply how poorly attempts at “digital rights management” have been executed.

But besides just failing to combat piracy, DRM has also been a total fiasco for record companies in terms of PR devaluation.

Keeping with the Sony BMG example, a few of you may recall that not far down the memory hole, in October 2005, there was quite a row over the “rootkit” shenanigans perpetrated by the naughty and positively Orwellian Sony.

Installing hidden software on customers’ computers that open up security holes on your system, slow down your computer, or cause it to crash??

Talk about bad PR karma.

And the back lash was tremendous in the wake of Mark Russinovich’s (appropriately dated) October 31, 2005 blog post “Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far” In the end, citizen journo Russinovich showed Sony his own version of “digital rights management” and gave them a digi-journali-tal smackdown.

And while many of us may be cheering the DRM death knell being sounded, it remains to be seen if Sony-like companies have learned from their mistakes. There’s already talk of the next stage in the evolution of this intellectual property trend at Wired—a/k/a watermarking.

And as we bid a not-so-fond farewell to DRM, we close with a parting question for all the: “Was all the bad press really worth it?”

Answer to be seen.

I don’t spend a lot of time in the cinema itself, it’s all payperview and downloaded crap these days, but I was with my parents and it was a choice between Atonement and… Wait! What about “Juno”? I happen to be a huge Michael Cera freak (www.clarkandmichael.com is mad hilarity) and so we went. Turns out the film’s fabulous - and finally a director, young Reitman, whose deft skill at creating coming AND serious turns, makes me sit up and go “I’ll tell everyone.”

However, there is a main character, Orange Tic Tacs, that actually threw me for a loop. Not since “My Big Fat Greek TV Movie” and the Michael Considine obsession with Windex, has a major American product placement (non-paid, I am told) been featured so “cool-y” in a major motion picture. And yet Ferrero USA, makers of the Tic Tac thang, have not done a thing to capitalize on Paul’s (Cera’s) nonstop fascination with the little orange one calorie treats (they actually use those words in the flick!).

I remember a billion years ago (94) when Quiz Show came out and Geritol was featured as a sponsor and it took six months and a few Oscar nods before that brand did anything to make hay with the news. And back then, social networking did not exist- not to mention the fact that Geritol was a sponsor of a SCANDALIZED show within the movie, so in fact it wasn’t too positive.

But heck, Ferrero, most known for Nutela and other badly-named old brands, has an opportunity to go for broke here with the one movie everyone is talking about that doesn’t star Johnny Depp.
They have their arms folded, I can tell, and it’s probably because “Juno” is about a 16-year-old pregnant kid — a brilliant and mature one, mind you — and they don’t want to get caught up in a debate about whether the candies support unwed young Mommies.

This is where the Punk mentality about making noise comes in handy. I can only hope that the Tic Tac makers out there somehow, somewhere, get their shit together and create a Tic Tac Orange subsite for people to share what’s orange about their lives — and even maybe create a little old chat room for lovers of this fine new American-made talk of the town. I want to see a Tic Tac character that, like that dancing baby of yore, appears in the oddest places throughout our Wide Web world.

If not, they are going to have orange mud all over their face. And in the DVD, you can best be sure a clever mini-doc on how Reitman and screenwriter Diago Cody (whatta name) “chose the Orange Tic Tac” …will be a wasted opportunity because by then we’ll have moved onto the next gimmick in our fast and fickle lives.

You probably saw today that Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, is to become CEO once more after 7 years away from the post, a job he’d held for 13 years up until 2000. The reason for his return is to revive the performance of the flagging brand, which has seen its share price fall 48% in the last 12 months. This follows a leaked memo last year that Schultz had sent to Jim Donald, the dude he’s replacing as CEO, warning of “the commoditization of the Starbucks experience.”

Schultz is right about the need for Starbucks to be seen as something special if it hopes to carry on charging $3 or more for a cup of frothy coffee with so much competition from McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts, and he recognized how important it was in the book he wrote 10 years ago, “Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built A Company One Cup At A Time.”

One problem is that there are so many Starbucks cafes (1,065 were opened last year to give a grand total of 6,700), making it difficult to support a position of specialness or distinctiveness. Schultz is convinced, however, that there’s still a lot of room for growth in the US - although it’s not yet clear whether he’ll stick to target of 20,000 cafes in the US (40,000 worldwide) that Jim Donald announced last October - and says that the drive for efficiency is to blame for depleted romance and theater of a visit to the stores.

I think that he needs to do a more serious overhaul than simply getting the barristas to put on a show when frothing the lattes. To stop the chain seeming like a chain, he needs to break the uniformity between stores, so that each one provides a unique and distinctive experience that reflects the neighborhood it’s in, the customers and the people who work there. Individual stores need to introduce special blends that you won’t find in the others (at least, not at the same time), chalkboards, community noticeboards and initiatives to help the local environment.

Customers used to talk about “my Starbucks,” but that sense of owneship has since gone. It’s become another faceless corporation selling undiferentiated products and, what with recession just around the corner, it’s going to become much more difficult to justify the price premium. The values people will seek in their purchases will be about discernment and frugality and Starbucks doesn’t not easily with either of those.