20SB Blog Swap: the state that i am in.

Hi everyone! I'm Erin and I usually blog over at the state that i am in. Justin and I were paired together for the 20sb Blog Swap, so we're swapping blogs today. Yes, I am aware that the blog swap was last week, but we just couldn't get our acts together in time. Oops.

Anyhow, since Justin writes about advertising, I thought I'd share what I consider to be a fairly off-putting piece of advertising. Observe:



The women who use this razor walk past bushes that magically get trimmed down. Ummm, just what are you implying here Schick? I mean, the bush reference is obvious, but is that really the best way to get the ladies to want to buy your razor? I can tell you that from my perspective, I certainly wouldn't buy it based on that commercial. I might even go so far as to deliberately not buy it because of the commercial. I just really don't want to equate my personal hygeine with bush trimming. Even if that's what the product is intended for! Certainly, I find the commercial amusing, but I don't really think it does the best job of selling the product! What are you thoughts on this commercial?
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Next Creatives

The New Denver Ad Club and Ad2 Denver have teamed up to bring young creatives the opportunity to sharpen their skills and strengthen their spines. Next Creatives is a program where creatives get briefed by top Denver area CDs (like Mike Sukle of Sukle, Gregg Bergan of Pure, Norm Shearer of Cactus, and Jonathan Schoenberg of TDA to name a few) then work their ass off to create the next big idea. All along the way they get feedback that actually makes them better, not just some nice words.

Next is free (to paying members of Ad2 Denver or NDAC, but you're already a member, right?) and applications are due August 5th for this first round.

You can find out more by following @NextCreatives (and also request a few choice words be given as a smackdown to someone on twitter) or by emailing nextcreatives@ad2denver.com

To see what nice words get you, take a look at these videos below, then apply to Next:

Steal this Idea: #2 - Making Radio Relevant Again

You know all those crazy ideas you have? The ones that are really cool and maybe even revolutionary, but you would never be able to do anything with them. Maybe they're for an industry outside your own or an industry or company that doesn't really solicit or care to hear new ideas. We'll normally I'd just file them away in a lonely corner space of my idea file but now I have a place to let them free. So go ahead, take these ideas and make them happen, I dare you.

Ok, got an idea here that has two potential implementers: big radio (looking at you, Clear Channel) or small-indie-start-up net radio Jelli.

Right now, traditional, broadcast rado, kinda sucks. It's been sucking for a long time and it's only gotten worse with competition from I-know-exactly-what-you-want-to-hear-next, algorithm driven, internet radio. But maybe there's a way to improve the traditional radio experience and leapfrog it ahead of internet radio. Ok, at least catch it up.

Radio, like all the other so-called "traditional" media, is mainly a one-way communication channel. Sure, listeners can call in to make requests (and as of late, email or tweet them in too) but for the most part it's a DJ blathering on about something semi-relevant while queuing up the next corporate-mandated song. Since you (as the listener) have little input over what is played we tend to gravitate towards the station that plays the most of what we want to hear, thus freeing us from switching stations every other song while we're driving.

What hasn't hit radio yet (that I'm aware of) is the social, web 2.0 revolution.

Enter a service like Jelli (which I've mentioned before) that makes radio much more social. Now you're not just a listener, but an active participant in voting up what you want to hear next, voting down what you don't and chatting about what's currently playing with fellow users.

What happens is that traditional radio licenses (or develops on their own) a platform like Jelli's for their stations. Remember that one of my main criticisms about Jelli when I reviewed it was that you had everyone (and their musical tastes) in one room. As a result no one really got to hear what they wanted consistently. With an existing radio station that problem is taken care of as the filtering is already done. Those who listen to an indie rock station aren't going to be looking for Celine Dion. Those who listen to a classic rock station aren't going to be looking for, well, Celine Dion either. This puts listeners with similar tastes in pools together and lets them decide what is played.

But wait! OMG! How will radio make any money without ads!

The great thing about a platform like Jelli is that you are checking the home page a lot. It's updated constantly to reflect the ever changing votes determining what's played next so you are always paying attention, unlike other internet radios. This presents a fantastic opportunity for advertising to be inserted that will more than likely be looked at. And since you have additional information being captured (what's being voted up or down) you can make some assumptions about who's listening and serve them more relevant advertising. Got a lot of punk rock being voted up? Serve up an ad for a skate shop or tattoo parlor (obviously a stereotype, but you get the idea.)

But what about those listening in their cars, do they get a commercial free listen? I don't know, I can't solve everyone's problems all at once so I guess some things are going to have to be left up to those who implement this idea.

What about payola and all that cash that record labels pay big radio to play the same six songs over and over again? Fuck it. Seriously. It's time for radio to reinvent itself and obsolete itself before something else does. (I attribute the quote of "Obsolete yourself before someone else does to a Wall Street Journal about Netflix from a few years back regarding instant viewing. Smart thinking.)

The end result of all this is that radio stations get more engagement with its viewers, more two-way interaction, possibly more relevant advertising (which should lead to more effective advertising) and a path forward in our increasingly digital future. Who's gonna be the first to jump?

Steal This Idea: #1 - Smarter Cars (and everything else)

You know all those crazy ideas you have? The ones that are really cool and maybe even revolutionary, but you would never be able to do anything with them. Maybe they're for an industry outside your own or an industry or company that doesn't really solicit or care to hear new ideas. We'll normally I'd just file them away in a lonely corner space of my idea file but now I have a place to let them free. So go ahead, take these ideas and make them happen, I dare you.

My car has one of those sensors on it that automatically turn on the lights if it senses "darkness," maybe yours does too. Trouble is, often this "darkness" isn't really darkness, it's just me sitting at a red light under an overpass. Or my car being parked in the carport. But hey, what are you gonna do, it's just a stupid little sensor, right?

Here's what I'm thinking: my car has enough information to make a better decision, it just doesn't currently use it. There's a clock in my car, probably yours too. My car's clock currently doesn't know its am from pm, but I'm sure a small and inexpensive upgraded part could. Now, armed with the ability to know what time of day it is my car could make a much more informed decision about turning my lights off or on. Perhaps between the hours of 9am and 5pm my car could require five minutes of darkness before turning on the lights rather than the current 30 seconds or so. That would take care of most all the shade you would encounter and still allow the sensor to preform the safety function it was originally set out to do.

This also got me thinking, what else out there could be making smarter decisions if it was using all the information at its disposal?

When Democracy isn't What the People Want

Recently I've given Jelli.net to see if it lives up to its promise to be the future of internet radio. The difference between Jelli and, well, just about every other internet radio is that Jelli opens up the playlist to its users and lets them vote on what is next from anything in their catalog. At first thought, this seems really cool. The thought that (for now) it's just you and a few dozen other users sorting through the catalog and pulling out and voting up the best of the best is pretty appealing. Ideally this would be a great way to discover new music. Sort of like sitting down with your BFF of Music and sharing iTunes libraries on a rainy afternoon.

In reality, Jelli is like that point in every party where everyone's had six too many and wants to hear THEIR favorite song. So every 30 seconds someone else is grabbing at the ipod "No, dude, you gotta hear THIS!."

And this is where Jelli fails. You'd be hard pressed to put three people in a room and have their musical tastes match up, let alone dozens of random people from all over the net. What happens is lots of crap you don't want to listen to (at all, not just stuff you've never heard before) mixed with the occasional track you love because you sat there and voted it up and rocketed (each user can send a track to the top, called rocketing) and generally spent 10 minutes voting down other songs to finally hear what you want.

But it's not all bad news. I think there's hope for Jelli if they are willing to segregate people out a little bit. Make separate "rooms" for various genres, thus semi-guaranteeing that you are surrounded by people with similar musical tastes. This eliminates the Metallica fans from having to deal with the Celine Dion fans and visa versa. Yeah, maybe that limits your exposure to diverse music, but there's a reason I (and presumably you) don't listen to the Adult Contemporary / Top 100 FM radio station - you know what (specific) genre you like and you want to hear a few hits you know and some new stuff you don't.

Another use I could see is traditional radio stations (that already have their niche / genre set) adopting the Jelli platform for requests and determining their playlists, even if only during a certain time. 105.3 FM in San Francisco lets Jelli control its playlist every Sunday night from 10-midnight. With Jelli's integrated chatroom and constantly updated voting it'd be a great way to re-engage listeners and you could easily display some ads (like what you would normally hear) alongside the music to keep the revenue coming in. And unlike other net radio sites, Jelli encourages you to keep watching its page since it constantly is updating.

It'll be interesting to see where the future takes Jelli, perhaps a larger user base will make it better as the crowd ebbs and flows with support for various genres / artists. In any case, it's a good step forward for internet radio. For now I'll stick with my iTunes library, but I'll keep half an ear on Jelli just in case it turns into something worth listening too.