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July 1, 2008

Redrum Returns!

Y'all have been asking for it, but it just didn't seem right to throw another Redrum Tuesday with co-foundress Dana Todd in Left Coast exile.

Problem solved. Dana's back in New York (it's her Newsforce roadshow), so we're doing it again. Our next Redrum is on Tuesday, July 8, 5:30 – 8:00 pm ET at the usual place, Nolita House ( 47 E. Houston, between Mulberry & Mott).

Newbie? Here are the rules:

You show up.
You buy your own drinks.
You talk with other people who work in interactive marketing.

Here are the other rules:

No schwag.
No speeches.
Yes, you can bring a friend.
Please don't RSVP.
No, there isn't a guest or mailing list you can get on.

We're busy. You are, too. This is our hyper-informal, non-structured, friendly way of getting together with our colleagues and meeting new friends at a safe remove from the world of trade shows in hotel ballrooms.

Hope you can make it if you're in NYC next Tuesday!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 23, 2008

ClickZ Live, in NYC and Boston

This week, ClickZ editors will be speaking at three events in New York and Boston.

At 212, New York's Interactive Advertising Club, I'm moderating a discussion tonight that examines trends in online retail marketing with a dynamic group of pros. They are: Matt Bailey of Hanover Direct; Eric Nadler of Danskin.com; Jim O’Brien of Barnes & Noble, and JupiterResearch's Patti Freeman Evans.

Tomorrow, on day two of the Personal Democracy Forum in New York, ClickZ Senior Editor Kate Kaye explains how candidates have found new ways of raising -- and spending -- money online. She'll be joined by Blogads' Henry Copeland, ClickToBlue cofounder Ben Geyerhahn, and A.J. Schuler, a partner at CommonSense Media.

On Tuesday in Boston, ClickZ and Search Engine Watch is hosting a meet up for interactive marketers. The featured guest is Aegis Media North America CEO Sarah Fay, (left) one of the most powerful people in digital advertising. And she'll participate in an informal "fireside chat" with ClickZ's Rebecca Lieb. This reception is free if you >pre-register here. Hope to see you!

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 28, 2008

New York Times' TimesCenter, a Gem But No Juice

The auditorium in the new TimesCenter, part of The New York Times headquarters, left some laptop toting visitors attending the AAAA digital conference hungering for a little power.

Turns out the auditorium has no place for visitors to plug in their laptops and recharge their batteries.

While that's common in older venues, it's surprising for a site built for the 21st century.

On the plus side, there's wireless Internet service.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 3:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 13, 2008

Entrepreneurs: Random Musings on Web's Past and Future

A group of top tech entrepreneurs paneled in New York tonight. Talk was lively, if not deep, given the audience ofINSEAD alums hailed mainly from the relatively distant shores of Wall Street.

Discussion encompassed online media and marketing. Some highlights:

Start-up vet Kevin Ryan was anything but bullish on mobile. "Not one single company in mobile is valued at $1 billion. The carriers are blocking all the innovation."

Moderator Henry Blodgett asked the panel how to fix newspapers. Bain Capital Group's Daniel Allen thinks they ought to capitalize on their relationships with local advertisers and teach them the ropes of online marketing.

What's hot that should be not? The Ladders co-founder Alexandre Douzet thinks Ning's value lies primarily in co-founder Marc Andressen's name. Indeed's Paul Forster votes for Twitter's lack of a business model.

And while there was general agreement things are about to get a little grim, none of these entrepreneurs believe online is on the verge of a recession that even approaches the severity of the last bubble, or dot-bomb. Ryan laughingly reminisced about a week in 2000 when he went skiing and DoubleClick's market cap soared $1 billion while his out-of-the-office e-mail auto-responder was, essentially, running the company.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 18, 2008

Marketing to the Media...Continued

The flurry leading up to ad:tech prompted a bit of a rant last week about best practices for marketing to the media.

That discussion will continue in a much broader context next week at the New Comm Forum in Sonoma, CA. SEO PR expert Sally Falkow and I will be discussing the opportunities -- and the threats -- that online media, search, and the social Web are presenting to the media and other communications professionals.

If you make it to the conference, please be sure to say hello.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 10, 2008

Euro RSCG Creating Creative Commune

Jeff Brooks, who heads Euro RSCG's New York presence, is on a mission not only to un-silo digital from the agencies other operations, but to put digital "at the heart" of every activity and client engagement.

To this end, he's planning to remodel the shop's sizeable New York offices with the goal of putting all the creatives -- from digital to direct to broadcast and print -- on the same floor to foster (or force?) collaboration and interaction.

"There are going to be fights," he admits. "Then they're going to laugh, make up and go out for drinks and dinner together."

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 8, 2008

Scripps Shoots for "Total Category Dominance"

Dropped in on the Scripps Networks upfront this morning. Deanna Brown, who's been president of its Interactive Group for the past year, has set the rather ambitious goal of "total category dominance" for the group's five cable properties: HGTV, Food Network, DIY, Fine Living, and GAC.

To achieve that goal, Brown is focusing on what she told advertisers is "new" new media, i.e. mobile and social channels. Given the predominance of contests, shopping lists and other participatory programming on the stations, Scripps is particularly well postioned to leverage social media and has already done so with successful initiatives such as Blog Cabin.

Chatting afterwards, Brown told me that what she's really concentrating on over the next few months is an extensive rebuild of Scripps' backend, particularly the CMS, to bring more Web 2.0 functionality to the networks' numerous sites. "After eight years of the same CMS, it's time for a change," she said.

Users won't see a difference, but will be able to use the sites differently and in deeper, more engaging ways. Methinks this is an issue many media companies are going to have to address -- and invest in -- to remain competitive, retain audience and attract advertisers.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 31, 2008

Are TV Networks Measuring What Counts?

Alan Wurtzel, NBC's president of research and media development, is presenting research at the ARF Re:Think conference essentially in defense of network TV. He's claiming TV viewing hasn't decreased as a resut of the Web, rather that people are absorbing more media simultaneously as they multitask.

He's also showing eye-tracking scans taken of views as they fast-forward through :30 spots on DVRs. The graphics are supposed to indicate these viewers concentrate more intently on the center of the screen as the ads whiz by, indicating there's no real conscious absorption of the ad message, but there's nevertheless an unconscious message being conveyed.

This sounds dubious. Sure, networks are bound to conduct research in their own interests -- why wouldn't they? But the message coming through from Wurtzel (who's still talking) is that while consumers certainly are still watching TV, they're significantly less focused on it. In fact, they may even be most intent on the set when they're trying to avoid something rather than watch it.

This raises questions about engagement, something the ARF is still working to define.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 10, 2008

Live By the Crowd, Die By the Crowd

The SXSW conference has been all about bottom-up media; individuals and crowds creating, selecting and elevating content above and beyond whats doled out to them by traditional media outlets and corporations.

Sure, Business Week journalist Sarah Lacy's keynote interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg yesterday was a trainwreck, an abortion, went down in flames and every other metaphor for disaster. Why? Because Sarah was all about Sarah, all the time (except when she was dissing her audience). The media took her to task for it. So did the blogosphere and the Twittersphere (to which her "screw all you guys" response bears special mention).

In real time.

Her self-justification in this YouTube interview only makes something bad something much worse indeed.

Ironically, Sarah has, in unifying thousands of conference attendees against her (and providing the burning topic for conversation at last night's parties) become the most valuable object lesson in what's so endlessly discussed here in Austin. The word made flesh.

If you doubt the pundits, experts, panelists and pontificators, the Story of Sarah proves them right. In a highly weird way, it's almost the best thing that could have happened here. Except, of course, for Sarah herself.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 9, 2008

SXSW Keynotes - Graphic Recordings

One of the coolest things about attending the keynotes sessions at SXSW is watching Sunni Brown and Marilyn Martin graphically record the proceedings - quickly, compellingly and more succinctly than many of the journalists or bloggers in the vast session rooms.

They manage to get words, images, portraits and the whole flow of the hour-long conversations.

Click on the image to enlarge this amazing map of yesterday's conversation between MIT Media Lab's Henry Jenkins and author Steven Johnson.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wiki-ize Your Intranet

"What if you could let anybody talk to anybody in an organization?" asked Forrester's Charlene Li at her talk at SXSW today, entitled "Social Strategies for Revolution."

Charlene proposed a perfectly simple idea and thoroughly smart idea for fostering communication within organizations -- with minimal investment: throw out your Intranet and replace it with a wiki.

In addition to increasing collaboration and the spread of ideas across department, Li advocates the strategy to stem the tide of internal e-mailing. Not a bad idea at all.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 7, 2008

Greener Marketing: It's a Brand Thing, Too

Marketers need to start thinking harder about schwag for the sake of the environment, as well as their brands.

The sheer amount of conference bag stuff always boggles the mind, particularly at evens as massive as SXSW. Of course, the sponsor fees behind stuffing all this stuff into those totes goes a long way toward making these events possible.

SXSW sent out a pre-event e-mail to participants with pointers on making the event greener, pointing out opportunities for recycling and other efforts conference-goers could take toward reducing - somewhat - the event's carbon footprint.

But boy, is my bag full. And it's full of stuff that doesn't need to be there. I'll single out Microsoft as an example (because they're big enough to take it, but are hardly the only offender).

Microsoft's extremely cool Silverlight plug-in is a topline SXSW sponsor. That doesn't excuse including a Silverlight CD, encased in a hefty plastic box, in each of tens of thousands of bags. Not when this slim little plug-in is readily available as a fast, free download from the Web.

It's not just a matter of waste (calling to mind AOL's well-publicized earlier excesses), it's also become a matter of branding (particularly in an environment and a city as socially conscious as SXSW and Austin). Microsoft paid a pretty penny to manufacture all those CDs, and more still to get them slipped into bags -- so they could be slipped into the trash. An alternative might have been a simple sheet with information about the product and how to get it for free.

Result? Negative buzz. That's bad for the brand, not just the environment.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Worst Viral Marketing Campaign - Ever

Just picked up the conference bag and badge. It's exciting to be at South By Southwest, and in Austin, for the first time.

If you're here, try to catch the panel I'm participating in, which promises to be a ton of fun. Henry Copeland, Jeff Jarvis, Steve Hall, Charlotte Selles and yours truly are going to nominated the 10 worst viral marketing campaigns of all time, then award The Suxorz Trophy to the all-time worst.

A snarky good time is all but guaranteed!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 14, 2007

Save the Date! "Meatball Sundae" Webcast with Seth Godin

We know you guys love Seth Godin (who doesn't?). You nominate his blog for ClickZ's annual Marketing Excellence Award every year -- and it's won. Twice.

As a marketer, Seth's brilliance borders on the uncanny. He's an unparalleled public speaker and a prolific author. And we're delighted to announced that on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 2:00 PM EST we'll be presenting a Webcast featuring Seth on the topic How Do You Avoid the Meatball Sundae? in conjunction with the release of his latest book, Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?

You owe it to yourself to catch this Webcast, so sign up now while you're thinking about it -- before you take off for the holidays.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 10, 2007

Stumbling Upon Gaptidings in Action

Last week walking around Soho during lunch someone on a street corner asked, "Do you want to send a video holiday greeting?" I had a loose agenda of holiday shopping, so my immediate reaction: "No." But then I turned around to see a truck skinned in the Gap's "crazy stripe" pattern and realized it was a Gap promotion with work from yahoo for the Gaptidings campaign we published today.

Click the present to see my greeting to ClickZ readers. Of course the truck's generator competed with me and won, I think.

Posted by Enid Burns at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 7, 2007

Party Tips: Offline Marketing for Online Companies

It's ad:tech time, and that means party time here in New York. And if there's one thing online players haven't yet mastered it's the art -- and the common sense -- of hosting offline events.

Take RSVP'ing. You get the e-mail invitation, you respond in a timely fashion, you get to the door, and four times out of five, you're not on the list. Which begs the question of the list in the first place. But OK, a list is necessary.

Who's managing that list? It's astonishing the number of industry players hosting parties this week that don't have a company or a PR representative at the door. Last night at a club, a couple of burly, clipboard-toting doormen were busily turning away executives from ad agencies, major online properties such as YellowPages.com, and yours truly from the velvet ropes.

We'd all RSVP'd.

What did our host gain from the event? A bunch of "guests" huddled in the cold complaining to one another about a bad experience.

If you're investing five or six figures in an event to impress clients, prospects, and the media, protect that investment and those relationships. Assign company reps to work the door. Create a drop-dead list of people and/or companies that get in, no matter what. And above all, don't let a nightclub's bouncers determine who's in and who's out. It's hardly in the venue's interest to serve even more free food and drinks, is it?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 25, 2007

Two Views of Advertising's Future

Author and academic Douglas Rushkoff sounded a wake-up call to advertisers and marketers: your business will be dead unless you work with companies and products that produce exciting products that inspire you.

Likewise, David Weinberger, co-author of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" and a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Institute for Internet and Society, said companies can no longer control and manage product marketing. "Real marketing [that's] people talking with one another," he said, referring to social media. "We need to respect these conversations, honor them. Not intrude."

Rushkoff and Weinberger discussed advertising's past and prognosticated on its future on Wednesday at a ClickZ 10th anniversary dinner and awards ceremony celebrating a decade of innovation and excellence in online marketing and advertising.

Rushkoff exhorted marketers to convince their clients to come up with compelling products. "Teach them how to get back into the business they are in," he said. "Then you don't have to make up a story about them."

While the broadcast advertising model is based on developing one message for many, Weinberger said that's a dangerous model. "By having more generic messages, you end up dumbing down messages. That's disastrous in the political sphere…it's a disaster for democracy," he warned.

Rebecca Lieb, ClickZ's editor-in-chief, looked at interactive's highlights and low points during the decade. Remember when, she said, venture capitalists -- not hedge fund managers -- were rock stars. Or when advertisers had to be reminded to add URLs to print and broadcast campaigns? How about vortals?

"My Dad would get excited when he’d find articles I wrote online. So excited that he’d print them out and mail them to me from his home in Arizona," she said.

On a more serious note, Lieb recognized that the interactive industry survived tough times. "We pulled through. The industry pulled through. You pulled through, too. And now, we're mainstream, not margin," she said.

For "ClickZ Marketing Excellence Awards: The First Decade," Google was named "Innovation of the Decade." Other awards were given for best products, services, businesses, and people who made the most significant overall contribution to the industry.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 28, 2007

Buzz Phrase of Advertising Week

Possibly the most-heard phrase in panels and meeting s of the various conferences this week: "Move the needle." It came up a few times, and while it's relevant to the discussion, it's moving beyond buzz-worthy.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 25, 2007

Reach & Frequency: RIP

Shuttling back and forth between MIXX and OMMA during New York's Advertising Week has been more hectic than rewarding (two simultaneous conferences in the same city is bad for the industry, guys, not to mention speakers, exhibitors and vendors).

While it's impossible to catch everything, overall the discussions at both events has largely underwhelmed. Too many "it's about the user" and "the consumer is in control" platitudes.

So it was refreshing to hear CEO of both Carat and Isobar US this morning with a more tangible take on the state of the industry. Reach and frequency are over, said Sarah. "I do not believe an agency can succeed by putting a good media plan together." Rhetorically, she asked, "what is YouTube, creative or media?"

Bottom line, Carat is saying that the brands that will win are the ones whose consumers tell the best stories. Instead of mere B2C advertising, the new model, she argues, should be B2C + C2C (consumer-to-consumer) campaigns. As an example, she cites client Adidas' MySpace page, engendering 21.5M brand encounters per month (page visits, downloadable media, etc.).

This following an audit of one year of adidas advertising from which it was determined yielded a total of 6 minutes of contact with the target consumer. "That didn't make any of us feel happy."

None of this is earth-shatteringly new, of course. What's impressive are the data Carat is using to back up their claims.

Sarah closed her talk with an example of regression analysis. Paint a house, and like an advertising campaign, its value starts going down from Day One. C2C advertising is "more like planting a tree."

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 20, 2007

Google Scooter Etiquette

This morning Google's New York office opened its doors to media. A pre-session conversation with Tim Armstrong, Google's president of advertising and commerce, revealed a certain scooter etiquette practiced around the NY office, after a few incidents. He said because the hallways are so long, people really pick up speed. The perfect storm occurs when someone walks out of a room, which has a sliding door and is not so easy to detect when wheeling down those hallways. Armstrong also said there are parking racks for scooters. A few people upgraded to motorized scooters, which is no longer allowed.

Posted by Enid Burns at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 13, 2007

ClickZ Online Video Conference Next Week

Nice that our ClickZ Specifics: Online Video Advertising conference in New York next Thursday, July 19 is very close to sold out. But some tickets are still available.

When we introduced this event last year, it exceeded all our expectations. It was the first conference dedicated to online video advertising and marketing. This year we have a stellar lineup of speakers from companies such as (in no particular order): OMD Digital, Ogilvy, Yahoo, Microsoft, Digitas, Organic, Tribal DDB, AKQA, R/GA, VideoEgg, Nielsen/NetRatings, Tremor Media, EyeWonder, Special Ops Media, Advertising.com, Deep Focus and 24/7 Real Media.

If you manage to attend, please say hi - hope to see you there next Thursday!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 3, 2007

Talkin' Yahoo on NPR Today

National Public Radio's All Things Considered asked me to discuss Yahoo on this evening's program.

Topics Laura Sydell raised include the company's ability to compete with Google, its ability to overhaul its ad sales operations, and the overall online advertising climate in terms of search, display advertising and audience.

Check your local listing and give it a listen if you're near a radio or Web steam, or download the podcast later on.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 18, 2007

Eric Schmidt at Personal Democracy Forum

The house at Pace University near City Hall, NYC this morning was packed. Web consultants, bloggers, techno politicos, issue advocates and lots and lots o' press were there to listen as NYTimes writer and book author Tom Friedman chat with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, kicking off the annual Personal Democracy Forum conference. The show has, in just a few years, achieved status worthy of attracting other influential speakers like Seth Godin, Esther Dyson and Larry Lessig. The goal each year is to help move the worlds of politics and technology closer, and analyze the current state of those colliding spheres.

Considering all the great minds present, you'd think the audience could stop browsing the Web, reading e-mail, IM-ing, chatting and Blackberrying for a moment and pay full attention. But I digress.

So, the event doesn't typically delve too deeply into the ad/marketing world, and even though Google has set up a DC-based arm to reach out to political advertisers, the discussion between Friedman and Schmidt touched on lots of big ideas on Google's effect on individuals and world governments.

Take the Google-effect on recruiting and hiring employees. "At the age of 21, it should be OK to change your name," quipped Schmidt, alluding to the trails of reputation-corrupting blog posts, images and videos many young people are wishing they could delete when it comes time to impress potential employers.

Another thing discussed was censorship. Schmidt mentioned the "Great Firewall" set up in China to block content the government deems inappropriate for Chinese citizens. One interesting note on Google's appeasement of China's blocking requests: According to Schmidt, Google tells citizens in China what was removed from their results.

As for the more recent Pentagon request to block access to YouTube and other sites by military personnel, Schmidt stated plainly, "We would prefer that they not [restrict access.]"

Oh, and here's something that media folks who cover Google may find amusing if not infuriating: Schmidt claimed more than once that the company is more transparent than ever. "We try very much to tell people what we're doing and why we're doing it," he said, adding, "We're trying to use YouTube as much as we can to document." Indeed, there is an official Google channel on YouTube.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 30, 2007

Ticket Winners - ClickZ Specifics: Web Metrics

Congratulations to Kate Farber, Adrienne Doss, and Joe Tedd, winners of a free pass to our conference this Wednesday in New York, ClickZ Specifics: Web Metrics.

Of course, there's still time to register if you didn't win a pass!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 24, 2007

New Hot Topic for Our Web Metrics Conference

Face-to-face. It's a good idea sometimes.

I just ran into IAB SVP and General Manager Sheryl Draizen and realized that with that body's recent call-to-action on the Web metrics front, we had to have her speak at our Web Metrics conference in New York next week. I asked, she accepted, and we've added a new session entitled "A New Era of Measurement Transparency" (I can get it on this blog faster than it will take to get it on the event site).

Sheryl will discuss why the IAB just issued a call for audience measurement to adhere to newer and stricter standards, such as independent audits, accreditation and non-panel based measurement. This is one of the burning topics in the industry right now. Should provide for some pretty fascinating discussion on May 2 at the NY Hilton.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ad:Tech - Industry's Leading Lights Are in the Dark

The ad:tech keynote was really, really awful. aQuantive President and CEO Brian McAndrews (who's anything but devoid of original ideas) spouted platitudes such as "social media is certainly here to stay" to his interlocutor, FastCompany's less-than-lively Lynne Johnson, who sat slumped in her chair and said "yknow" a lot. The audience quickly moved from rolling eyes at their neighbors to in-session SMS messages trashing the session to colleagues elsewhere in the vast room.

Now I'm in a session with some real industry luminaries: P&G's Ted McConnell, Motorola's Barry James Folson, and Publicis Chief Creative Officer Bob Moore, all discussing the state of the interactive advertising industry.

Pity no one can actually see them. The session room, dimmed for PowerPoint projections (only at this session, there aren't any), has literally no light shining on the speakers at all. About 300 people are sitting here staring at black silhouettes.

Enlightening speakers deserve a little light. Hope this gets dealt with.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 23, 2007

Win a Pass to ClickZ Specifics: Web Metrics in NYC on May 2

On the Web, everything is measurable. The trick is knowing what to measure -- and how to measure it.

Web metrics is an enormous, constantly evolving challenge for many marketers. ClickZ Specifics: Web Metrics is an intensive, one-day conference we're holding in New York City on May 2 to help interactive marketers come to grips with, and make intelligent, informed decisions, about this often prickly topic. We have a great line-up of speakers for the event, including many of our own columnists on the topic.

And, we're offering one free ticket to a reader of this blog. Just e-mail your name, affiliation and full contact information to: raffle [at] incisivemedia.com by 5:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday, April 25. We'll pick one entry at random (and, of course, protect the personal information and privacy of all entrants).

Good luck -- and look forward to seeing you at the event!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 30, 2007

Comment Loop

Today at the Mobile Entertainment and Advertising Summit held by the GSM Association, an interactive element was distributed to attendees. Several tablet-like computers called Clio were left on chairs in the audience. Between sessions, attendees were asked to type in comments about the discussion, as well as answer questions posed like, what’s the best/worst mobile content you’ve seen. Comments were posted anonymously. It can also be used to ask questions for panelists and speakers. It’s added an interesting element to the conference, but also demonstrates engagement and audience participation able to be used at other events.

Posted by Enid Burns at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 16, 2007

No More Calls, We Have A Winner!

Congratulations to Cece from San Francisco, the lucky winner of a ticket to our ClickZ Specifics: Video Advertising conference on Monday in the City by the Bay.

Looking forward to seeing you there (plus a few hundred other agency, vendor, and media people).

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 7, 2007

Enter to Win A Pass to ClickZ Specifics: Video Advertising

Our hearts are often in San Francisco, but with the exception of one editor, most of the bodies working for ClickZ are planted on the East Coast. It's in New York where we do the occasional fun outing with our friends and readers like Redrum.

Fun, tinged with guilt. We love getting together offline, and despite a worldwide audience circumstances compel this NYC bias. Here's an attempt to make it up to at least one person in San Francisco.

I finagled a pass to our ClickZ Specifics: Online Video Advertising conference in San Francisco on Monday, March 19. We're going to raffle it to one lucky reader of this blog. Send an e-mail with your full contact info (name, title, company, address, e-mail address and phone) to:

raffle [at] incisivemedia.com

(no worries - our privacy policy fully applies to your personal information)

We need your entry (one per person, please) by 9:00 a.m. PST on Wednesday, March 14th.

Good luck! Look forward to seeing you there.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 6, 2007

Rrrredrum Rrrreminder

It's going to be about the coldest night of the year here in Gotham, and that just calls for a show of interactive marketer fortitude.

So don't forget to join us at Redrum tonight (you can always make yours hot buttered rum - after all, you're buying your own drinks).

See you at Nolita House between 6-8.

Brrr!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 5, 2007

ClickZ Specifics:Video Comes to San Francisco

Last summer, ClickZ ran the first conference dedicated solely to the topic of interactive video advertising. The hyper-focused, one-day event was a smash, so we're taking the show on the road.

That, plus the fact that online video becomes more topical every day.

The San Francisco conference on Tuesday, March 19, boasts an impressive lineup of speakers from companies including (in no particular order): Google, Yahoo,OgilvyInteractive, Organic, MTV Network’s, Atom Entertainment, Scripps Networks, MediaVest Worldwide, BET Interactive, Heavy, Nielsen//Netratings, comScore, Tribal DDB, and a host of others.

If you're involved in interactive advertising and weren't able to make the New York event, I really hope you can make it to our Bay Area reprise.

Take a sec to register -- and while you're there, please don't forget to introduce yourself!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 27, 2007

Hey, New Yorkers -- Rrrredrum Rrrreturns!

Y'all have been asking for it, but it just didn't seem right to throw another Redrum Tuesday with co-foundress Dana Todd in Left Coast exile.

Problem solved. Dana's back in New York (if only for a visit), so we're doing it again. Our next Redrum is on Tuesday, March 6 from 6-8 at the usual place, Nolita House ( 47 E. Houston, between Mulberry & Mott).

Newbie? Here are the rules:

You show up.
You buy your own drinks.
You talk with other people who work in interactive marketing.

Here are the other rules:

No schwag.
No speeches.
Yes, you can bring a friend.
Please don't RSVP.
No, there isn't a guest or mailing list you can get on.

We're busy. You are, too. This is our hyper-informal, non-structured, friendly way of getting together with our colleagues and meeting new friends at a safe remove from the world of trade shows in hotel ballrooms.

Hope you can make it if you're in town on Tuesday!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 26, 2007

Does Silicon Alley Know Its Strengths?

The New York City Economic Development Council, together with Polytechnic University, sponsored a panel discussion this morning on Silicon Alley 2.0. The purpose of the event was to foster growth in New York's tech sector.

I attended because the panel was largely comprised of media companies and ad-supported startups:. Present were President of Hearst Interactive Media Kenneth Bronfin, Jason Rapp, who heads M&A at IAC and UPOC Networks head Steven Spencer.

The event turned out to be notable because of the lack of discussion of the city as a hub of media, marketing and advertising. In introductory remarks, New York City was lauded as a hub that can attract tech startups thanks to its strong academic, legal, financial and fiber optic infrastructures. At the same time, the morning was filled with East vs. West laments, particularly numerous wishes that "the next Google" would incubate in New York, alongside laments that local VCs wouldn't have had the vision to fund a YouTube.

Yet the VCs and city agency made nary a mention of what attracted Google to establish a major New York outpost in the first place (not to mentions its rivals such as Yahoo and MSN). It's because this city is the ground zero of advertising and media -- the financial engines that power the lion's share of the Internet economy.

Marketing New York means identifying its differentiators. The city appears far from that most basic element of crafting a message. There are plenty of places with universities, lawyers, banks, VCs, and broadband. Madison Avenue doesn't exist anywhere else, ditto New York's concentration of broadcasters and publishers.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 13, 2007

The newspaper industry is in decline in the U.K., as it is in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Nevertheless, over here in London, the number of people reading a paper while waiting at the tube stop was really astonishing. At 8:00 a.m. yesterday, I was the only person waiting on the platform without my nose buried in a broadsheet (I did peruse "The Guardian" and "The Independent" over breakfast).

When I mentioned this to people here, they dismissed it, saying commuters are reading free papers. But these weren't free - they were the usual roundup of national dailies.

In New York, you're assaulted with free morning paper hander-outers at every morning subway approach. The stations are littered with discarded papers, yet actual rider readership (in the trains, at least) is relatively light.

Over here, it's different. And oddly reminiscent of a not-too-distant American past.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 6:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 31, 2007

Steve Forbes: Online Ads Are Fun!

At the AlwaysOn conference, publisher and former presidential hopeful Steve Forbes is talking about online advertising.

"It took several years for marketers to wake up to the fact that people were eyeballing sites during the day," he said, adding that when they did, Forbes.com got a nice little shot in the arm. "The nice thing about online is that properly done, the viewer can take as much or as little as they want. With print it's more of a leisurely introduction...We're at the embryonic stages, but online can be fun."

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January 29, 2007

Time Warner Looks to Future to Reach Consumers

The upscale shopping destination of the Shops at Columbus Circle, also known as the Time Warner Center, have been host to many product and branding displays, some with interactive qualities. Currently, the whole public space portion of the upscale shopping area is taken over by a Time Warner exhibit, "Home to the Future." The exhibit demonstrates every touchpoint Time Warner makes into consumers' lives. There's a plasma TV with HD feeds, and content on every other screen and device possible. On the side hallways of the center, banks of computers display Time Warner's online properties. It's a way for consumers to explore the company's properties and determine availability.

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January 3, 2007

Yo! New Yorkers! Redrum Tuesday on Jan. 9

Join Dana Todd and I for what threatens to be her very last Redrum Tuesday in New York.

What's Redrum, you ask? Why, it's the non-agenda, utterly informal industry get-together Dana and I have been sporadically hostessing over the past year or so. It works like this:

You show up. You buy a drink. You socialize with old friends and meet new people.

No agenda, no speeches, no schwag, no RSVPs -- just come. It's fun.

Hope to see you next Tuesday, Jan. 9 at Nolita House (map) from 6 - 8.

Perhaps we can collectively talk Dana out of moving back to San Diego.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 13, 2006

Gnashing Teeth Over Pop-Ups

Shortly after reading Seth's little rant about non user-initiated audio ads on Rhapsody.com this morning, I found myself in the dentist's chair. Hanging over that chair is the now ubiquitous flat-screen monitor displaying the day's appointments, dental records, x-rays, and all that other important dentist stuff.

Only today, the screen was displaying something I'd never seen before: a pop-up ad for a Rhapsody MP3 player. I didn't even know those things were connected to the Web, but apparently they are. The ad pretty much obliterated my appointment and records.

Seth, you're not the only one who's peeved. So's Dr. Cho, her technician, and yours truly.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 11, 2006

Power Points Ranging

My holiday this year was a bit more off the beaten track than usual. I can't say Laos provided any great revelations about interactive marketing -- it's nowhere near that point of development. What was mesmerizing was the never-ending display of brands -- and off brands -- in the local markets.

I wish I'd spoken enough of the language to learn whether or not the YongWei iPod mini headphones were outselling "Apple's" version.

And I'll long regret being way too big to fit into this Power Points Rangers t-shirt for my next conference presentation. If you're in the audience, would you please just pretend I've got it on?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 5, 2006

Calacanis to Sequoia

"We had an arrangement that I could leave at any time," said serial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis this morning in his keynote discussion with Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, of his arrangement with AOL. "I was there for just over a year."

It was just over a year ago that Calacanis sold Weblogs Inc. to AOL, and remained at the company where he also helped revamp Netscape.

"Today, I figured since I don't have a job, I've accepted a job at Sequoia Capital as entrepreneur in action.

"Now, I just have to figure out what to build."

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 6, 2006

ad:tech's SRO -- Much Too SRO

A reported 10,800 attendees are at squashed into New York's Hilton Hotel for ad:tech this week. Everywhere you go, you feel like you're trying to squeeze in the same room with all of them.

At the event's opening this morning, new Chairman Drew Ianni warned delegates this year would be a "tight squeeze." He wasn't kidding. I'm at a session now at which over half the audience is forced to either stand or sprawl on the floor.

Everyone hates New York's much larger, and very inconveniently located Javits Center. But c'mon ad:tech. It's time to make the move in New York, as you did into San Francisco's Moscone Center on the West Coast.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 1, 2006

Word-of-Mouth in New Hampshire

The New Hampshire Travel Council asked me up to beautiful Meredith, NH to keynote their Fall conference on marketing. My online marketing talk centered on the importance of user-generated content and participating in the conversations consumers are having about your business.

But the best lesson came from a member of the audience following a brief talk by the owner of the Inns at Mills Falls, Rusty McLear, and Alex Ray who runs the Common Man restaurants operated on the hotel properties.

Rusty and Alex alluded to contributing to the community and doing well by being good business citizens, but they didn't refer to specific initiatives. Then, a member of the audience raised his hand and told the audience that when his August wedding had to be canceled due to unforeseen circumstances, the hotel and restaurants forgave all his c