The future of media: It's all about trust
No one knows the silver bullet that will save media companies struggling to survive in today's economy, but more than a few media execs are certain of one thing: there will be a premium on trust. Speaking at IWantMedia's Future of Media: 2009 panel, Nick Denton, Craig Newmark and Jack Dorsey were agreed that success online will increasingly depend on consumer trust. (video here)
According to Newmark, the founder of Craig's List: "Trust is the new black."
This is increasingly a concern for media companies dependent on ads for revenue for a good reason: consumers don't trust advertising.
Q&A: Dana Perino on the Bush and Obama branding
Dana Perino was White House Press Secretary under George W. Bush from 2007 until the Obama administration took over this January. She came to the White House after September 11th, 2001 and took over the press office after Tony Snow resigned in 2007. Fielding questions from the press, Perino was called everything from an "exceptionally normal person" to an ice queen in her role as press secretary.
Econsultancy caught up with Perino at CM Summit during Internet Week to get her opinion on Obama's brand strategy and what George Bush could have done better online during his presidency.
How do you get positive feedback online? Showcase your fans
Research in Motion has had a major hurdle in the way of selling its smartphones over the past few years: it's called the iPhone. The Blackberry may have sold 6.7 million smartphones in the third quarter of last year, but that was a record quarter, and Apple shipped 6.9 million iPhones in the first quarter of its existence.
The other problem is that the iPhone has incredibly high user participation rates online. There are many more conversations about the iPhone happening on the web than the iPhone, which RIM is tring to fix.
As the Blackberry maker learned last year, 76% of consumers don’t think companies tell the truth in advertising, while 78% trust the recommendation of other consumers. According to Brian Wallace, Director of Global Digital Marketing for RIM, money spent on advertising and an appealing website was effectively wasted: “we were where our customers were not.”
American Airlines: Too many executives in the kitchen
The multiple layers and executives involved at a large corporation can often inhibit innovation. But in the case of American Airlines, they recently got an online awakening that their business structure was affecting their website and the way that people interact with their brand. Designer Dustin Curtis took their site into his own hands when he got frustrated with American's user interface.
Curtis posted an open letter to the company to show them the future of what their website could look like. He wrote:
Redfin real estate: The case against advertising
With the ad market in free fall, many young businesses are are finding subscriptions, events and commisions attractive options for funding their businesses. But it wasn't always that way.
When online real estate brokerage Redfin received funding a few years ago, the site's business model was a bit untraditional. Redfin uses its agents to negotiate with real estate sellers and shares the commission with buyers.
Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, tells the Times that when the company received its venture capital: “it was a little bit like being in the twilight zone, just because everyone expected us to have a different revenue model.”
Has Madison Avenue been engaged in a giant deception for the last 100 years?
Media companies have long complained about losing money when they shift from traditional advertising into digital. But is that due to the inneffectiveness of the digital market or the fact that the ad market has been historically overvalued?
Terence Kawaja thinks we should stop blaming digital. Because traditional advertising has been historical overpriced. Speaking at CM Summit, the investment banker asked: "What if Madison Avenue has been one giant deception for the last 100 years?"
How do you sell razors to men who don't shave? Ask P&G
How do you increase sales for a product that is already the leader in the market?
Increase interest in the market. That’s what Procter & Gamble did
when they wanted to grow sales of their razors in India.
P&G's Gillette razors are the most popular razors in India. But sales had been stagnant for years, mostly due to a natural bias against shaving. Indian men often prefer to avoid razors altogther, choosing instead to grow facial hair.
In addition, the Mach III costs about 10 times more than the competition, a straight razor. So how did P&G jump these hurdles? By growing the market through social media.
Why Twitter may never sell
There has been a lot of discussion about who Twitter should sell to and why, but according to Twitter investor Fred Wilson, the company may never end up on the block. He says that the reason Twitter said no to $500 million from Facebook last year is the same reason that the company has not found another buyer. The company may simply be better off going it alone.
Speaking at the CM Summit in New York on Monday, venture capitalist Wilson said that Twitter CEO Evan Williams made a few key points to convince his coworkers that they didn't want the Facebook money last year.
The Gray Lady lends its brand to advertisers
The New York Times, desperate to earn some money in these dire times for media sites, is experimenting with advertising online and seeing some positive results.
Unwilling, or perhaps unable to wait for advertisers to start pouring money into the web, The Times is using its own creative team — and its brand — to make itself more attractive to advertisers.
Google eats Microsoft's lunch with the launch of Google Wave
Sometimes winning the brand wars is all about timing. Yesterday was Microsoft's day to shine. The software giant released a new product meant to loosen Google's vice grip on the search market. They hope that Bing will change the way people search online. But then a funny thing happened. Google had its own product launch.
While Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was announcing Bing at the All Things Digital conference in San Diego, Google unleashed the Google Wave, a product in development for over four years. And while Ballmer spoke to a room full of executive, a group of Google engineers announced their news to 4,000 developers armed with free Google phones at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
