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Shopcasting is the Hot New Social Media Space

As I have asserted before, the Bubble Generation consumer prefers "discovery" over searching.  When you've been raised on hyperlinks, that's understandable.  And, the best part of discovering a cool new product or service is sharing that find with buddies.  Empowering this friend-to-friend hand-off is the underlying value of shopcasting, which I see as the next social media space with the potential to blow up.

Some weeks back I wrote about thisnext, which is a class act and a real breakthrough platform.  But, the category continues to heat up and the entire paradigm may be the best legacy yet of the Web 2.0 boomlet, so I figure let's widen the lens and look at more of the field.  Today, I offer three more approaches.

A common theme among the emerging players is tapping into "the wisdom of crowds," and many harness group think to help make things happen.  Three interesting propositions are:

Crowdstorm is a site to help you figure out what to buy, by showing you the buzz around products. Users recommend products they like, write comments about them, and the ones with the best buzz rise to the top of the charts.

Another firm getting ready to launch is Crowdspirit.  By tapping "user-centered innovation," to drive "crowdsourcing," Crowdspirit aspires to allow a collection of users to actually affect the whole product lifecyle.  From the site:

"The community sends ideas, fine tunes them & votes for the best one.The best ideas and their product specifications are jointly defined with Partners. Community Investors start financing the product development.  The first prototype is tested and fine-tuned by the community. Customers purchase products thanks to the CrowdSpirit Supply chain. The community ensures the product support and recommends products to retailers."

On the other side of the counter is Bazaarvoice.  This hot Austin-based outfit develops outsourced technology, services, analytics, and expertise to encourage and harness word of mouth marketing and bring it closer to a company’s brand and customer experience.  In other words, they make tools to let you hear more and respond better to your customers.  The idea is to ensure that you are the subject of positive shopcasting.

Bottomline: shopcasting is a powerful viral mechanism.  One way or another, your customers will be talking about you.  Their friends will be listening.  Help them become evangelists.  Ignore this opportunity at your peril.

TiVo Introduces Ads for the Bubble Generation

I will say this, TV is not going down without a fight.

A couple months ago, Jupiter Research issued a report that found that more than 50 percent of digital video recorder owners skip commercials (more like 90 percent).  These bypassed ads cost networks as much as $8 billion in lost annual revenue.

Yesterday, TiVo, the people who brought the analog-age medium to its knees, introduced a new advertising model it calls "Program Placement."  Basically, this feature puts a commercial pitch in the dead space after a television program has ended.  Viewers who fast-forward through the commercials and arrive on the end screen can then choose to get more information about a highlighted product or click on a coupon or otherwise get involved with a brand.  The opt-in aspect and potential for some meaningful permission-based engagement might just make this model viable.  Otherwise, TV advertising is running out of options faster than you can click on the right arrow of your remote.

The bottomline: the Bubble Generation doesn't want to be bothered with ads, certainly not off-message ads.  Sure, they have interests and wants just like anyone else of any age, but they satisfy their buying impulses through friend-to-friend referrals and shopcasts and through the joy of discovery.  Taking a perfectly good football game and littering it with knucklehead commercials only nets negative results for the brands and the networks.  The 30-second spot is dead; time to try something new.  Maybe TiVo is on the right track.

The Third Screen is Getting YouTubed

The mantra of the Bubble Generation is connected mobility.  The new consumers want freedom and affiliation at the same time; they want to keep moving but take their buddies with them.  And as a marketer, if you want to reach them, you'd better find a way to go mobile with them. 

That's exactly what's driving the emergence of the Third Screen--the mobile phone--as a major new media platform.  Today, YouTube and Verizon are announcing plans to bring user-submitted videos from the Web to mobile phone customers nationwide starting next month.  But this tube job is hardly the first big play for the small screen   

Given the growing capabilities of the video-capable, data-enabled mobile phone--and dwindling appeal of traditional media to the new consumers--the emergence of video for the Third Screen was only a matter of time.  There are a spate of new companies working this bandwidth.  Companies include Eyespot, ComVu, Juice Wireless, Veeker, Treemo, vpod.tv.

I like MyWaves because it lets users create and subscribe to their friends' "video channels," which today are just back to back video clips, but promise a lot more.  The platform offers a hopeful glimpse at a citizen-driven media future where everyone will own his or her own palmtop TV station.

Getting the BubbleGen consumer to stay put long enough to hear your pitch will be increasingly difficult.  Instead of luring them to you, send them a message on a medium they keep close at hand.

Snail Mail Catalogs Thrive Precisely Because the New Consumer is So Elusive

At a time when print media is dying and snail mail is passe, the old standby mail order catalog is thriving.  Why?  Because, as I have argued before, the Bubble Generation consumer is easy to find but impossible to reach.  These times call for in the (mail) box thinking.

An announcement this week that makes the point: Iconic retailer L.L. Bean says it expects to ship 50 million more catalogs this year than it did two years ago when it shipped 200 million catalogs.  That's nearly one unit per every American.  Knowing that most will be tossed away immediately, and anticipating that online sales well could be the mainstay of its holiday sales, why does the 95-year old maker of flannel shirts, mud boots and outdoor gear continue to stuff mailboxes with paper catalogs?

As the outdoorsy folks at L.L. Bean might put it, spear-fishing works, gill net fishing doesn't.

Two reasons.  First, catalogs have more staying power than TV or radio, or even print advertisements.  Better yet, many customers now use the catalogs to make online purchases, another example of old media supporting new.

But the second reason they cite is the difficulty in tracking down the new consumers by other means.  Because they are so mobile, because they don't have land lines and because they are so adept at avoiding TV, commercial radio and spot magazine ads, catalog and brick and mortar retailers are ramping up distribution of the direct mail glossies.  The reasoning is that while most BubbleGen consumers manage to stay off the media grid, they still live somewhere and mail seems to find them.  And the strategy is working.

The Direct Marketing Association projects catalog sales will grow roughly 7.5 percent to $144 billion for the year. The National Retail Federation projects that holiday sales will grow 5 percent to $457.4 billion. The complementary nature of direct mail with a call to web action appears to be a powerful one-two punch for savvy marketers. 

As the outdoorsy folks at L.L. Bean might put it, spear-fishing works, gill net fishing doesn't.

Thanx 2 U ;-)

Thankfully, my priorities have always been clear and I am grateful at this time of year, first and foremost, for my loving family, my health and a great company of colleagues. 

But this year, I am also thankful for a new circle of friends made possible by this blog.  When I launched it, I had no idea how rapidly and widely this modest project would be accepted around the world.  Today, this space is the most-read source on the planet for the latest news and ideas from the Bubble Generation revolution.  Not bad.  And to that end, here are some of the new things for which I am grateful:

1.  My co-conspirators, Mike Malone, Bill Cleary and Mark Whitty.  The Velvet Revolver of the Net.

2. Tom Peters, Guy Kawasaki, Chris Nolan, Tom Foremski, Tim Sanders, Chris Heuer and the dozens of other bright minds who have encouraged this madness in one way or another.

Tom Peters and TomBomb

3.  Gutsy entrepreneurs everywhere for risking it all on a dream.  Particularly a Web 2.0 dream.

4.  The Killers, Modest Mouse, My Chemical Romance, The Raconteurs, OKGO, Taking Back Sunday, and of course the guy behind it all, Bob Dylan, for giving us the soundtrack behind this thing.

5.  And ultimately, I am grateful to you and the thousands (and thousands) of people who regularly read and share these ideas and insights into the world's first global generation of humans.  Let's make history together!

Baby Boomers Vs. Bubble Generation

	Baby Boomer	BubbleGen
Work	Career	Cause
Politics	Polarized	Matrixed
Belonging	Hierarchies	Networks
Family	Nuclear	Post-nuclear Nodes
Worldview	Nations	Communities
Media	Corporate	Citizen
Culture	Mono	Multi
Environment	Exploitative, Unsustainable	Renewable, Sustainable
Spirituality	Centralized, Dogmatic	Decentralized, Enigmatic

With a tip of the hat to Stowe Boyd for his insights on Edglings versus Centroids.

Third Screen Strategies for the Bubble Generation

Ken Elefant, founding partner of Opus Capital, produced such a well-written summary of the advertising picture for the Third Screen on VentureBeat, that I have reproduced it here in its entirety.  We have covered these topics here before, but his seven issues are bang on, and I will talk about maybe a number eight or nine strategy in future blogs here--particularly as they relate to the BubbleGen consumer.   

The past few years haven’t been easy for wireless service providers. With 3G and fee-based data services a flop and a sagging voice business, not much seems to be going right for the mobile industry. But the situation is set to change.

After many false starts, wireless advertising is finally ready for primetime. Startups and major players alike are jockeying to see who can market most effectively through the wireless medium.

Here’s a quick summary outlining seven of the most discussed strategies and their long-term prospects:

1) Marketing via SMS/MMS: This is an easy one. Advertisers like Procter & Gamble work with carriers and companies such as Enpocket to sponsor audience polls. Think American Idol. It’s quick and easy to implement—polls use existing messaging infrastructure—and advertisers establish direct relationships through the mobile phone with customers who opt in to their programs. Unfortunately, there isn’t much excitement here, and the potential is limited. Not to mention that consumers who participate often won’t have any special affinity for the marketer.

2) WAP banner ads: The cousin of the Internet banner ad is the grandfather of mobile advertising techniques. Guess what. It’s surprisingly effective. Advertisers know that handset users who look at WAP sites fundamentally have time to waste. They’re commuting by bus, waiting for a friend, or sitting in their doctor’s office looking for ways to kill time. The problem is that WAP advertising inventory remains small because mobile web sites are relatively expensive to build. What’s more, the value chain around WAP banners remains murky. Who deserves what share of the revenue and who really owns the ad inventory? Is it the carrier, WAP site owner, or WAP advertising facilitators like Third Screen Media? It’s not clear, and by the time this one is figured out, the mobile marketing train will have left the station long ago. I think the way to go is off portal WAP banner ads to circumvent the issue.

3) Location-based advertising: Remember all the hub-bub about location-based services in 2000? Mobile phone users will merrily walk down the street as their mobile phone beckons them in to the nearest boutique or café with a well-timed ad. The scenario sounded nice…until you actually thought about it for more than two seconds. Location-based services don’t work unless you have a critical mass of advertisers and willing consumers signed up to participate. Not to mention the considerable privacy issues. Don’t expect this chicken and egg problem to sort itself out anytime soon.

4) Video ads on cell phones: Here’s another extension of common advertising techniques to the mobile platform. Companies like MobiTV and Rhythm Networks are making good progress with carriers, but they face an uphill battle. Currently, only 10% of domestic mobile handsets are video-enabled, and it remains unclear if the average user is willing to pay for video services. Watching a video ad is a known quantity for consumers, but who really wants to pay for the “privilege” of watching low-quality video ads on tiny screens? Witness the recent failure of ESPN Mobile.

5) In-game advertising: Product placement isn’t just for TV shows. Now advertisers are working with startups to insert their brands into your mobile games. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. Who owns the ad inventory? The carrier? The game publisher? It’s not clear, and until the value chain is resolved, this method won’t take off. Besides, is a sponsor’s billboard in mobile Grand Theft Auto really going to capture the attention of attention-deprived youth game players?

6) Online coupons: Paper coupons have been around for decades. The problem is you never have them when you’re checking out at the store. Enter mobile coupons. It’s a simple concept. People carry their phones, and their mobile coupons, everywhere. And now that startups like Cellfire have figured out how to eliminate the need for a coupon client on the handset, this is a space that holds considerable promise.

7) Interstitial ads: Of all the techniques I’ve evaluated, the most promising is interstitial ads. Interstitials are ads that play during the dead time during downloads. They’re unobtrusive—watching an ad during a WAP page download is certainly no worse than watching a progress bar. When implemented effectively, they actually provide information that is both useful and immediately actionable. Imagine downloading a WAP-based movie review and getting an interstitial with showtimes and locations for every movie in your town. What’s more, there’s no argument about who owns the deadspace between downloads. It’s the carriers. And with new technologies like Flash Lite (Adobe), uiOne (Qualcomm), and MIDAS (Openwave) that greatly simplify interstitial implementation, you can bet that Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular will be increasingly focused on generating revenue with interstitial advertising

The Third Screen Demands a New Business Model

The mobile phone--the emerging Third Screen in a world of always-on connectivity--will soon command a new business model.  Expect phone access for the Bubble Generation to soon look a lot more like TV and Internet services.  And be priced accordingly.  This has important business implications for all of us.

From the outset, telecoms have sought to control the value chain in mobile telephony by over-controlling content.  Hoping not to become another set of dumb pipes, the phone companies have tried to shackle consumers with proprietary content and features.  Those days are coming to an end.  Soon, telephone brown-shirts like Verizon, Sprint and Cingular will see the end of their info-tyranny.  Some are already scrambling to try new competitive schemes--like free services and flat price rates to win market share and consumer loyalty.  It's a beautiful thing.

A great example is the recent announcement of the SYNC phone by Cingular.  The new phone/service allows users to download music to their phones for free, to music players for 15 bucks a month.  And just last week Hutchison Whampoa, in cooperation with a group of global Internet companies and handset makers Nokia and Sony Ericsson, launched broadband mobile Internet access on the same flat fee cost model as fixed broadband Internet, including free Skype calling and unlimited web browsing and instant messaging from mobile handsets. 

How will consumers be asked to pay the freight?  As I have suggested here before, any push ad programs will have to be carefully executed.  The BubbleGen consumer appreciates that content is a value, but they are pressed for time and attention and won't pay much of either to imposition advertising on their phones. 

We all must change our archaic view of the mobile phone as a cordless version of a land line with special infrastructure pricing issues.  It is a 2.0 medium unto itself, combining TV, PC and (soon) instant-on communications.  The sooner we consumers get over our old biases the sooner the Third Screen will arrive in full force.

Five Reasons the Bubble Generation Won't Buy From You

It's the sweet spot of the new economy.  40 million US customers, ample disposable income (and highly leveraged when you factor in their parents).  They are the workforce of the future, the long tail of your product life-cycle.  But, as attractive a target as they are, chances are you won't win them over.  That is the paradox of the Bubble Generation: they are easy to find but impossible to reach.   

Successful strategies for breaking through and winning the hearts, minds and wallets of the 15- to 29-year old consumers will be the subject of future blogs.  Today, I want to discuss further why you will likely fail in your attempt to sell to them.  Consider it a dose of tough love.

1.  They won't hear you.  First, young connected consumers don't watch much TV, don't listen to commercial radio, never read a newspaper (on paper anyway), and in order to cope with the barrage of ads they are confronted with in life, have learned to tune you out.  So, traditional media is a waste of money.

2.  They won't know you.  Bubble Gen consumers see shopping as a social experience and for this reason are best influenced friend-to-friend.  Since they are unaffected by traditional media, they rely on cues from each other.  Chances are, your imposition or interruption ads won't come from a trusted our admired source and they will ignore you. 

3.  They won't be engaged.  With the overwhelming choices they have and the scarcity of attention they must contend with, it is likely that you won't say the right things to stimulate them.  They don't want to be bothered by ads in the first place; ads that miss the mark are white noise.  Few marketers understand the new science of behavioral ads and most don't deploy the type of ads that break through the clutter. 

4.  They won't trust you.  Trust is, must be, everything in the world of Web 2.0.  As I have argued before, trust is the new money, it is the coin of the realm, the currency of social media.  If you started today, you might be a trusted source for products and services by this time next year.

5. They won't enlist.  Because you won't ask them.  And that's the rub, the new consumer is a joiner--of communities and networks and brands.  You want a drive by transaction, they want to be part of something bigger (I will explain why later).  So, you won't make a call to action and they won't enlist with you.  Simple as that.

Clearly, winning over the new connected consumers is going to be a work-out.  But, it will be worth it.  Their worldview--sense, sensibilities, values and ethos--will soon shape the entire market.  Better get to understand the new rules now, before the game gets away from you.

Nordstrom to Sell CDs: More Signal than Noise

It would be easy to miss (or dismiss) the announcement by retailer Nordstrom that it was joining Starbucks in selling music CDs.  You could call it a gimmick aimed at lending a hip factor to a fairly stodgy brand, or you could consider it as an experiment in the evolving direction of lifestyle marketing.  You could even say there is something in the Seattle water (both Nordstrom and Starbucks being headquartered there).  But the truth is, the company simply wants to serve its customers--its largely older than 30 clientele--and they still buy CDs.

When I wrote earlier that record stores had become dinosaurs--the next day the Tower Records chain announced its final swan song--I meant that stores that sell records (CDs) had failed to use technology well and they were now being creatively destroyed by it.  In that blog, I pointed out how record stores could fight back, reinventing themselves into cool listening, sharing and downloading music spaces.  Places hipsters and edglings could gather and talk and test new indie offerings, which would make the stores interesting and dangerous again.  But mostly I talked about the underlying technology shift: CDs, as a medium, now belong to older folks.  Kids, the heart beat of rock and roll, have made the leap to digital downloads, to peer-to-peer, to portability.  CDs were a bridge technology and the chasm has been crossed. 

However, there is still plenty of infrastructure out there to protect.  Many people have CD systems in home and car, and even if there were zero switching costs, they are not ready to make the leap.  That means the world is divided into iPod Nation and the Gray Hairs.  When buttoned-up clothier Nordstrom starts pedaling Beastie Boys CDs, you know one of those two brands is skewing older. 

When you read the chai leaves, it is clear that a new market is taking shape.  The Bubble Generation consumer is already changing retailing--not just with her likes and dislikes, but with her disdains.  Want a glimpse of the future?  Just look at what the BubbleGen consumer ignores to get an idea.

If soon the only place you can pick up a CD is Starbucks and Nordstrom, may I suggest that restroom advertising is about to experience a serious spike.