While I admit to watching “The Apprentice” because I felt it reminded me of how people think they should do advertising: here’s a problem, solve it in 48 hours without the right tools or budget, in general, reality TV wasn’t my thing.
The standard formula is to take a person, or a group of people, and throw them in an unfamiliar world, and watch them go gladiator on each other. It may be entertaining, but it’s typically not pretty. Even The Apprentice had a woman dropping her skirt for $20 on Wall Street.
So, when “The Contender” came out, I detected a slight change in the landscape that may justify watching- here the participants were all pros, playing in their field, but being given BETTER tools than they had before. I like this idea. Take the best, and see if we can make them better.
Boxing is not a team sport, and this is the one spot where is gets a little iffy, after a team wins a challenge, they pick who boxes and they get to pick who they get to fight on the other team, which leaves the rest of them totally off the hook. The funny thing is, so far, three under dogs have chosen not the weakest members of the other team, but the strongest- and won each time. Big ad for heart beats skills, makes me love the show even more.
Instead of Donald Trump being the deciding factor in who leaves the show, it’s pure mano a mano, pugilistic mayhem, edited for effect of course. Now, part of me says unless it’s a KO, boxing scores can be as funky as Olympic figure skating ones, but the fall back here is there are the contestants watching, and if it was really off, they would probably pipe up.
I’m not a huge fan of boxing, but it’s like rubber neckers at the scene of a car wreck, you almost have to look. The one part of the Contender that makes things uncomfortable is that typically, boxers don’t train where their opponents can see each other, or live under the same roof. It will be interesting when “team mates” who have been working together, might have to face each other. Boxing is a metaphor for war, and it’s always been said it’s easier to kill your enemy when you don’t know him personally.
This show could have a huge impact on these young men’s lives, and on boxing that were totally unpredicted. Only time will tell.
In the mean time, it’s my choice for the best in reality TV.

What do you think?

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Posted in: Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of TV

I’m an Apple guy. Started with a 512k “Fat Mac” and an ImageWriter II. (Had a Thunderscan for it too… bet you’re jealous).
When the iPod was introduced, I though, $400, who would buy one? And look what happened. I got my 2g (that’s Second Generation) 10gig from Target when the 3g’s were introduced for $200. It’s great for listening to music while on a plane or a beach, or running a party mix at a party, but, when it comes to really hearing music, it sucks.
In a former life I sold high end Hi-Fi equipment. If you’ve never heard of Linn, Creek, Naim, Arcam, Music Hall, Conrad Johnson, Wilson Audio, Thiel, Mark Levinson, etc- then you probably don’t know what high end is.
In the day of the CD player, I’d still prefer to listen to music on vinyl, not because of any nostalgia (believe me, cueing records and getting up every 20 minutes to flip a record SUCKS) but because it sounds better.
That’s right, it sounds better.
Music is a bunch of waves in the air, and waves are continuous and very analog. When we digitize music, we cut it up in slices, 44,100 times in the case of a CD and try to pretend that we hear the same way we see. What I mean by that, is when you watch a movie, you see 24 frames per second of still pictures and you get the impression that it’s moving. When we slice music up 44,100 times per second, and expect our ears to fill in the blanks, it doesn’t work quite right. The reason is easiest to understand with very high frequencies, over 16,000 hz (a fancy way of saying cycles per second). Cymbals create sound in this range a lot. So we have a 20,000 cycle wave, and we sample it 44,100 times, picture a wave- with a high point and a low point and a mid-point- if we happen to sample only at the high point and the low point- we get the top and bottom of the wave- and we can cheat it a bit, and tell the components that it isn’t a zig-zag that we have to reproduce, but a wave- but if we sample at the midpoint each time- we get a straight line- and that, is noise.
So- digital sampling already has it’s flaws. That’s why the industry has the next generation of audio formats- DVD audio or SACD, both, with much higher sampling rates. But with higher sampling rates, we end up with even bigger files, and that will take up even more room on our hard drives than regular old Compact Disc audio.
That’s why we’ve been “compressing” music into MP3’s to play on our iPods, to keep the files small, and to be able to carry 10,000 songs in your pocket.
Well, when you start out with a flawed format (CD) and then compress it even more, you end up with audio that is actually a step backward.
With people buying music from the iTunes music store instead of buying the CD , and the model of distribution changing, there will be whole generations that don’t know what music is really supposed to sound like.
Granted, most people don’t have a system in their home that can really give a good CD a good reproduction, but, with an iPod as a source, we’ve got the classic- garbage in, garbage out paradigm in full force.
Typically, technology gives us better quality at a lower price, but that’s not what’s happening in music today. My big worry, is musicians will stop recording at the best quality, and just go straight to MP3, losing the nuances and beauty of what music can sound like when done right.
Even when the imperfect vinyl record was the standard, it was the limiting factor in reproduction as anyone who has heard a 30 inches per second 1” tape master played back on a reference system. The beauty of the performance is only at risk of being lost as the tapes deteriorate over time, but, with digital recording becoming the standard, we may have already lost too much of the waveform to ever be able to re-release something amazing once we get over the idea of the MP3 and the iPod.
Viva Vinyl and higher sampling rates. I love my iPod, but, it’s the fast food of music instead of the steak we should be digesting.

What do you think?

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Posted in: Everything you want to know about advertising

I have a friend who was a god amongst college presidents. We had lunch a while back. As all good educators do, he makes me think. And what I think is; his profession is in for a wake up call.
He told me that the job market in this country is shrinking for traditional college grads and growing for technically trained grads. Having a 4 year psychology degree isn’t as valuable as having a 2 year nursing degree. Knowing how to fix a computer is more valuable than knowing how one works. As we shift to a service/information economy, there is less need for thinkers and a bigger need for doers.
This is a bit of a simplification, but, an important thing to think about as I take you to the next idea. Going to college won’t be necessary real soon.
In an on-demand world, why bother having to be at school for Calculus at 9am? Why not just pull up the lecture- the assignment- post your questions, and network in a forum online? The next generation of college students understands meeting online- they’ve been IM’ing since they were old enough to type, and playing X-Box live with people from all over the world without having to be in a bricks and mortar environment.
The idea of a structured “education” setting for adults is going to have to make a much more appealing argument for attending college to get a degree, it’s got to be about the experience, the community and the brand more than it is about the education by itself.
So what will the college campus of the future look like? More like Disneyland than educators want to think. The only things that colleges will have to differentiate their programming is the experience of college, since the “education” component will be readily and reasonably priced via the Internet.
Textbook publishers should also be prepared for the death of print, replaced by totally interactive texts that will restrict progress by comprehension of material. In fact, the whole role of educators will be much more as tour guides through the maze of knowledge than as fillers of empty vessels.
So what will be big in the campus of the future: Sports will play an even more important role in the branding and building of the college community. Bringing people together will be the key to keeping the schools running. Expect the “super brands” of top Division 1 schools to erode the ability of lesser schools to survive in a more sophisticated market.
Another key to success at running a bricks and mortar institution will be the ability to integrate study with work. Without government subsidies, huge endowments, or profitable sports programs, the average student won’t be able to rationalize the costs of a four year program when a two year program can guarantee a job.
Environments will also be critical. Educators have been talking about the classroom of the future for my entire life. Well the future is here and the mistake might have been the emphasis on the classroom. Socrates should have proved that you can teach on a set of steps, classrooms have lost their usefulness. Networked laptops, big pipes and video cams change the dynamics of group interaction. The key to colleges is to provide places where students feel special, smarter, hipper or more sophisticated, much the same way as you can go to a bar, or a nightclub, and get totally different environments. Look for buildings from the minds of architects like FrankGehry to be the standard of the future (see the Peter B. Lewis School of Business at Case Western Reserve University or his new building at MIT).
College marketing will have to change too. It’s not about coming to our school and getting a degree and getting a job, it’s about becoming a member of a club for life. The Ivy league has got this idea down for years, but will they be able to compete if they don’t change, we will see.

What do you think?

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Posted in: Everything you want to know about advertising

I grew up in Cleveland in the seventies. I was spoiled. I got to experience the greatest radio station ever at its zenith. The station was WMMS 100.7 (when I started listening it was WMMS 101- but someone complained that only 100.9 and 101.1 could call themselves 101 and they changed the tagline). I was clueless at how much they got right then, but now it is so evident. To this day I can tell you the names of the jocks, their shifts and what made them special.
Mornings: Jeff and Flash. Always upbeat, always wry. Never too serious, except the day John Lennon was shot.
Lunch: Matt the Cat. The hipster, with the edge on.
Afternoon drive: Kid Leo – the voice of knowledge- this guy knew everyone in rock.
Evenings: Denny Sanders- Yeah, hang out with your bud, and enjoy the evening.
Night: Betty Korvan
Overnight: The B.L.F bash. John Gorman- the programmer back then told me that “B.L.F.” stood for William (Bill) Lionel Freeman, his real name- and that “Bash” was the name of the show- but most people thought his name was BLF Bash- so he never bothered to correct it.
Weekends- Len “boom-boom Goldberg- Mr. Laid back. His voice was so low that it worked like a massager on your scalp to help with the coming hang over.
I could tell time by hearing the DJ’s voice, at least a 4-hour window. My day progressed by the passing of time with an ever-present friend. By being a WMMS listener, I was part of something bigger than me.
The station had a following that was seemingly everywhere- the “buzzard” logo appeared on cars everywhere. People would cut the bumper stickers up and customize them. I’m pretty sure someone had it tattooed on their body; it was a super brand- before there were superbrands.
‘MMS listeners were like one huge family. The DJ’s were their friends; they talked about music, life, concerts and how music made them feel. When rock stars came into the studio, there was mutual respect. And it all worked. It was rock and roll. If there ever was such a thing as a play list, or some kind of programming, you never felt it- it seemed like the jocks spun what felt right that day.
It was so different than what passes for radio today, no wonder they talk about the iPod economy.
So what can any business learn from WMMS?
You are as strong as the community you build with your customers.
Do people want to associate themselves with your customers? Do they want to be friends with other customers? Do they know they have something in common by being your customers?
Now, with markets becoming more and more fragmented/segmented, you can’t count on existing groups to automatically be your customers, you need to build your own community. Find out what you can share with them that makes their life more meaningful, and then feed them ties to bind themselves to the others.
The web is an amazing tool for this, but so are events for your customers. Hold owners group meetings for anything from motorcycles to sewing machines. Make sure your customers can wear your brand- give or sell t-shirts that proclaim their allegiance. Let them know that you have their best interests at heart, by tipping them off first to the best deals, or the coolest things they can’t live without- even if you don’t sell them.
I used radio as an example, but it extends out to other media as well; The MTV generation, readers of Wired, or the New York Times.
I don’t have much hope of radio finding it’s way back to the old days, but I do have hope for new marketers, from independent restaurants to shoe stores. They are figuring it out, and we will find new communities to belong to.

What do you think?

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Posted in: Everything you want to know about advertising