Getting Granular: The DigitalGrit Blog

SunRocket’s EverydayHogwash: Encouraging You to Bash Bad Companies on Your Blog… And Doing Some Kickass Blog Marketing While They’re At It. (Is That Wrong?)

*The volume is about to increase.*

SunRocket, a VoIP company targeting consumers, is hosting a contest, Everyday Hogwash. The site encourages bloggers to:

….kick back and have some therapeutic yuks at the millions of little ways companies stick it to us.

Check out these recent rants from everyday people about the Everyday Hogwash they’ve endured, and then why not contribute your own posting on your blog or website to our Hogpile? Your family, friends and co-workers will appreciate the calmer, saner you… and you might even win some cash if you catch the judges’ eyes. Our group laugh therapy continues through March 31.

That’s right. The funniest rants about companies on your s*@# list could win you $200 in the daily contest. ($5000 if you’re the big winner at the end of the comeptition).

It’s an interesting idea, and certainly gaining a lot of blog press for SunRocket. It seems bloggers are jumping at the chance to air their gripes. And with judges like uber-bloggers Steve Rubel and BusyMom, SunRocket’s hitting all the right notes in the blog marketing sphere. It’s a pretty brilliant campaign.

…though not everyone agrees that it’s the best thing for blogs. While judge Rubel calls the contest ” an exciting new conversational marketing campaign, MarketingPilgrim’s Andy Beal thinks it’s “terrible.”

Why do we want to encourage just the complainers? Why reinforce the negative image of bloggers? Surely the sponsor SunRocket could get the same publicity by encouraging both negative AND positive comments?

I think this reflects badly on SunRocket, so, ironically, consider this my entry to the contest.

And while I do think that this is a well planned, well executed campaign…I wonder if Beal isn’t a little bit right about the bad press. As Holly GoLightly famously said, “there are certain shades of limelight that do nothing for a girl’s complexion.”

Additionally, I think this campaign is better suited for a company like relevantNOISE than a telephone service. It might have been more appropriate to focus this campaign on something like “everyday adventures” or local gossip or something, rather than business-bashing.

Nonetheless…sure wish it had been my idea!!

//Post duplicated at relevantNOISe.com//

SunRocket’s EverydayHogwash: Encouraging You to Bash Bad Companies on Your Blog… And Doing Some Kickass Blog Marketing While They’re At It. (Is That Wrong?)

*The volume is about to increase.*

SunRocket, a VoIP company targeting consumers, is hosting a contest, Everyday Hogwash. The site encourages bloggers to:

….kick back and have some therapeutic yuks at the millions of little ways companies stick it to us.

Check out these recent rants from everyday people about the Everyday Hogwash they’ve endured, and then why not contribute your own posting on your blog or website to our Hogpile? Your family, friends and co-workers will appreciate the calmer, saner you… and you might even win some cash if you catch the judges’ eyes. Our group laugh therapy continues through March 31.

That’s right. The funniest rants about companies on your s*@# list could win you $200 in the daily contest. ($5000 if you’re the big winner at the end of the comeptition).

It’s an interesting idea, and certainly gaining a lot of blog press for SunRocket. It seems bloggers are jumping at the chance to air their gripes. And with judges like uber-bloggers Steve Rubel and BusyMom, SunRocket’s hitting all the right notes in the blog marketing sphere. It’s a pretty brilliant campaign.

…though not everyone agrees that it’s the best thing for blogs. While judge Rubel calls the contest ” an exciting new conversational marketing campaign, MarketingPilgrim’s Andy Beal thinks it’s “terrible.”

Why do we want to encourage just the complainers? Why reinforce the negative image of bloggers? Surely the sponsor SunRocket could get the same publicity by encouraging both negative AND positive comments?

I think this reflects badly on SunRocket, so, ironically, consider this my entry to the contest.

And while I do think that this is a well planned, well executed campaign…I wonder if Beal isn’t a little bit right about the bad press. As Holly GoLightly famously said, “there are certain shades of limelight that do nothing for a girl’s complexion.”

Additionally, I think this campaign is better suited for a company like relevantNOISE than a telephone service. It might have been more appropriate to focus this campaign on something like “everyday adventures” or local gossip or something, rather than business-bashing.

Nonetheless…sure wish it had been my idea!!

//Post duplicated at relevantNOISe.com//

DG at CES: Watching the Tide Change for 2006

Is there a more fun way to start the year off than going to the Consumer Electronics Show? I get to watch clips on the Today Show, but our own Scott Delea and Tim McNamara are actually in Vegas, roaming the floor.

Apart from the little gadgets that we all love (iPod, Blackberry, etc.) a lot of focus this year is being placed on content distribution. Case in point, Yahoo has actually taken a booth at the show for the first time this year. They'll be demonstrating the ways Yahoo content can touch consumers in their homes throughout the day -- and making some sort of new service announcement, natch.

But Yahoo is definitely a key part of the shows big news:

"The most important theme of CES is that consumer devices are being connected up, either to the Internet or to each other," said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst at consulting firm Creative Strategies.

"Google and Yahoo represent the next generation of content distribution," he offered. "The major content-distribution companies -- CBS, ABC, CNN, and NBC -- have been asleep at the switch. They did not understand that their advertising-driven revenue model was threatened by the Internet and they missed the boat."

Bajarin said that, in the future, all content will be delivered via the Internet by companies such as Yahoo and Google, which communicate interactively with the consumer. "This is something that the old media companies can't do," he said.

Read the article.

Exciting start to the year, doncha think? We'll see what Tim and Scott have to report....and bring back some good swag, guys!!

DG at CES: Watching the Tide Change for 2006

Is there a more fun way to start the year off than going to the Consumer Electronics Show? I get to watch clips on the Today Show, but our own Scott Delea and Tim McNamara are actually in Vegas, roaming the floor.

Apart from the little gadgets that we all love (iPod, Blackberry, etc.) a lot of focus this year is being placed on content distribution. Case in point, Yahoo has actually taken a booth at the show for the first time this year. They'll be demonstrating the ways Yahoo content can touch consumers in their homes throughout the day -- and making some sort of new service announcement, natch.

But Yahoo is definitely a key part of the shows big news:

"The most important theme of CES is that consumer devices are being connected up, either to the Internet or to each other," said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst at consulting firm Creative Strategies.

"Google and Yahoo represent the next generation of content distribution," he offered. "The major content-distribution companies -- CBS, ABC, CNN, and NBC -- have been asleep at the switch. They did not understand that their advertising-driven revenue model was threatened by the Internet and they missed the boat."

Bajarin said that, in the future, all content will be delivered via the Internet by companies such as Yahoo and Google, which communicate interactively with the consumer. "This is something that the old media companies can't do," he said.

Read the article.

Exciting start to the year, doncha think? We'll see what Tim and Scott have to report....and bring back some good swag, guys!!

2006 A Turning Point for Internet Advertising Industry

According to ZDnet, the 10th birthday of the online ad industry will mark the end of corporate testing and the beginning of bigger buys:

Corporate marketers have made online advertising a standard part of media budgets as online spending looks set to accelerate further in 2006, Google's North American sales chief said late Tuesday.

Tim Armstrong, Google's advertising sales vice president, said in an interview before the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit that 2005 marked the turning point when advertisers switched from testing to investing in the decade-old medium.

"There is robust interest in online advertising and that interest is now turning into real dollars," Armstrong said, noting that market analysts are predicting a banner 2005 year with forecasts ranging from $10 billion to $15 billion.

"The experimenting and testing phase begun in the 1990s has ended. Corporate ad buyers are investing now," he said.

Jupiter Research estimates the U.S. online advertising market will grow 28 percent over last year, to $11.9 billion in 2005, moving to $13.6 billion in 2006 and $15.1 billion in 2007....[read the article]

Of course, Google has outperformed, owning an estimated 30% of industry marketshare.

We're heard this before, of course, and it's what the IAB's been promoting for years through projects like the XMOS study. Estimates put online spends at 5% of overall budgets, but that could possibly jump to 10% over the next few years.

There are some interesting ramifications to that 10% spend. First of all, inventory is limited, particularly with SEM, but across the most popular sites, as well. Publishers and site owners are going to have to get creative to increase their value and inventory. Secondly, how will this impact keyword pricing among the major search engines?  Will the projected big online spend of corporate America make local search the only option for smaller businesses? Does it create room for another major player in the portal space?

We'll see...

2006 A Turning Point for Internet Advertising Industry

According to ZDnet, the 10th birthday of the online ad industry will mark the end of corporate testing and the beginning of bigger buys:

Corporate marketers have made online advertising a standard part of media budgets as online spending looks set to accelerate further in 2006, Google's North American sales chief said late Tuesday.

Tim Armstrong, Google's advertising sales vice president, said in an interview before the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit that 2005 marked the turning point when advertisers switched from testing to investing in the decade-old medium.

"There is robust interest in online advertising and that interest is now turning into real dollars," Armstrong said, noting that market analysts are predicting a banner 2005 year with forecasts ranging from $10 billion to $15 billion.

"The experimenting and testing phase begun in the 1990s has ended. Corporate ad buyers are investing now," he said.

Jupiter Research estimates the U.S. online advertising market will grow 28 percent over last year, to $11.9 billion in 2005, moving to $13.6 billion in 2006 and $15.1 billion in 2007....[read the article]

Of course, Google has outperformed, owning an estimated 30% of industry marketshare.

We're heard this before, of course, and it's what the IAB's been promoting for years through projects like the XMOS study. Estimates put online spends at 5% of overall budgets, but that could possibly jump to 10% over the next few years.

There are some interesting ramifications to that 10% spend. First of all, inventory is limited, particularly with SEM, but across the most popular sites, as well. Publishers and site owners are going to have to get creative to increase their value and inventory. Secondly, how will this impact keyword pricing among the major search engines?  Will the projected big online spend of corporate America make local search the only option for smaller businesses? Does it create room for another major player in the portal space?

We'll see...

MarketingVox: Google Tests Click-to-Call Ads

Google is testing click-to-call (pay-per-call) ads on search engine results pages, reports ClickZ. Users who click on phone icons appearing next to sponsored search listings can enter their phone number; the system first calls the search user then connects with the merchant. Blogger and tech consultant Greg Yardley, among the first to notice the new feature, provides a series of screen shots of the process, which Google describes in an FAQ item.

Read the whole news item.

After holiday gatherings spent listening to a lot of near-retirement-age relatives talk about investments and the inflated price of Google stock, how it's too late to buy it now...all I can say is, WRONG. These guys never seem to stop innovating, and (knock wood) they never seem to misstep. Google stock still has a bright future, as far as I can tell. (Disclaimer: I know nothing about investing.)

MarketingVox: Google Tests Click-to-Call Ads

Google is testing click-to-call (pay-per-call) ads on search engine results pages, reports ClickZ. Users who click on phone icons appearing next to sponsored search listings can enter their phone number; the system first calls the search user then connects with the merchant. Blogger and tech consultant Greg Yardley, among the first to notice the new feature, provides a series of screen shots of the process, which Google describes in an FAQ item.

Read the whole news item.

After holiday gatherings spent listening to a lot of near-retirement-age relatives talk about investments and the inflated price of Google stock, how it's too late to buy it now...all I can say is, WRONG. These guys never seem to stop innovating, and (knock wood) they never seem to misstep. Google stock still has a bright future, as far as I can tell. (Disclaimer: I know nothing about investing.)

Friday Fun: Subservient Donald

AdRants, probably the best source for Friday Fun, points us to Subservient Donald, a Trump-flavored take on the celebrated Subservient Chicken. The site was put up by the Writers Guild of America, who, according to AdRants:

... recently called for a code of conduct to govern product placement on television and require disclosure during credits, are behind Product Invasion which is an attack on the insanity of television product placement. Subservient Donald is a humorous take on the topic featuring a Donald Trump look-a-like who spouts product-laden snark in reaction to various commands. Let's see what kind of link-fest this thing cooks up.

Interesting cause...and certainly a good laugh!

Friday Fun: Subservient Donald

AdRants, probably the best source for Friday Fun, points us to Subservient Donald, a Trump-flavored take on the celebrated Subservient Chicken. The site was put up by the Writers Guild of America, who, according to AdRants:

... recently called for a code of conduct to govern product placement on television and require disclosure during credits, are behind Product Invasion which is an attack on the insanity of television product placement. Subservient Donald is a humorous take on the topic featuring a Donald Trump look-a-like who spouts product-laden snark in reaction to various commands. Let's see what kind of link-fest this thing cooks up.

Interesting cause...and certainly a good laugh!