Prince vs. Radiohead - You Gotta GIve to Get

I just read a post with a great socal media lesson: http://mashable.com/2008/05/30/prince-radiohead/#comment-1051978

Prince (you remember, the little purple fellow) is clamping down on every unlicensed use of his name, likeness and music anywhere he can find it online. Among other recent absurdities, he recently leveraged the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to have a family remove an online video of their 18-month old dancing to his 1980's hit "Let's Go Crazy."

At the far end of the spectrum, the band Radiohead has been doing everything they can to give away their music. In October '07 they announced that a fully digital version of their new album would be available online for whatever anyone wanted to pay for it - name your price. $25? 25¢? whatever you think its worth. They also developed a widget for fans to use on their social media pages - to play/broadcast Radiohead songs, videos, it's all fair game.

Upon its commercial release in Jan 08, the new Radiohead album debuted in the #1 slot on the Billboard charts.

Now, it's not surprising that someone like Prince who makes a living off of his name and music might overreact in trying to protect it. The fascinating thing is just how counter-productive that sort of behavior is in the face of today's social media.

Radiohead has a smash success on their hands because they have figured out how to fan the flames of social media by giving away what they ultimately aim to sell - while people like Prince seem hell bent on dousing fans with cold water.

WARNING: The linked post on MASHABLE contains an embedded video of Prince performing the Radiohead song "Creep." And it's...well...let's just say "creepy."

Generate Leads and Customers

With the shaky economy comes shaky consumers. I found this link to a seminar that will teach how to keep generating leads and customers during this rough economical time.

It's FREE!!! It's on 6/3. Hope you can make it.

https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=99758&sessionid=1&key=940233413B0F713DF2C8C43E958AA4A9&sourcepage=register

Coors Light: Great Use of New Media Advertising

In PR, my number one rule is Know Your Audience. I give major props to Coors for going far beyond traditional advertising placements and exploring today's social media outlets. There's a huge audience overlap between young (21+) beer drinkers and social networking users (think Facebook and MySpace). Read more in this New York Times article.

Blogs paying off

Chicago Tribune article highlights growth of blogging in marketing offerings. Blogs are quickly becoming an effective way to reach a highly targeted group with common interests. I'm interested to hear about most popular blogs among the LoSasso group?

LoSasso Staff Sharpening Pencils

Keep an eye out in the coming days for great new content from more of the LoSasso team. We have a lot of talented people in the group with a variety of specialties and interests. It's sure to be interesting and informative.

Optimizing Landing Pages Too Often an Afterthought

A colleague at LoSasso recently forwarded me an interesting post from BtoB online about National Semiconductor. Seems they are spending a lot more time these days making sure that website visitors driven by organic and paid search actually land on pages that will increase their chances of conversion.

By both carefully optimizing their site to draw organic search traffic to the most appropriate (and potentially profitable) pages, and by developing multiple landing pages for their PPC campaigns, they are increasing conversion by giving visitors an easy way to get what they are looking for.

According to Phil Gibson, National Semiconductor's VP-technical sales, “We're trying to customize landing pages based on search queries to get visitors to a decision point right away.”

In SEO and PPC a lot of focus is placed on ranking and click-through rates, but if the pages where people are directed are not designed for conversion (whatever that’s determined to be based on the business) then all the effort to generate the traffic is wasted.

A simple idea that is too often an afterthought.

Online Video Opportunites: 2008

The proliferation of broadband internet access combined with easy-to-use video editing software and the success of user-generated content sites like YouTube, made it easy for B2B marketers to get involved in online video in record numbers in 2007. Momentum continues to grow in 2008, with more money being shifted from away from traditional media to support exciting new online opportunities.

While many B2B marketers repurposed existing content for their first online videos, 2008 looks to be an exciting year in which they look for ways to fully utilize the potential of online video, creating dynamic new product demos, compelling customer testimonials and more.

The video below created by LoSasso Advertising in Chicago talks a bit more about online video and opportunites presented by Web 2.0.

New Metalworking Blog

LoSasso has partnered with Extreme Machining Labs to launch a new metalworking blog. The link is here: http://extrememachining.blogspot.com/. If you are a thought leader in the manufacturing space or would like to join a conversation with some of the thought leaders in this space, please take a look. There are already a few impressive videos on the site of some high speed machining. Have a look and jump in.

Social Media Lunch and Learn

We just had a good presentation at the agency about social media and its application to our industry and client base. Lots of good information was shared and interesting some ideas tossed around. A few notables for your consideration...more than 44% of the population in the U.S. are using some form of social media at least monthly - Attention marketers... it is NOT just the kids.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch was quoted in Wired Magazine as saying "To find something comparable, you have to go back 500 years to the printing press, the birthplace of mass media… Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are taking control."

We recently had an interesting social media experience with our Bonus Zone program for our client Brunswick. Our opt-in coupon program propelled Parker Bohn III into the Motel 6 Rolls to Riches torunament where he took first prize and won $150,000. Many thanks to a bunch of loyal Brunswick bowlers for giving him the opportunity!

With the pace of change in this industry, we should be evaluating our new media IQ every quarter. Are we making the progress we should be?

BMW Accelerates with SEO and Online Marketing

Below is a link to an interesting article about the strategy BMW has taken for their new 1 Series. A few things really stand out to me. The first is that about 50% of the budget is going online. This is big. They are utilizing social media, PPC, SEO, banner placements and viral tactics to generate a buzz among the 30 and under crowd. I'll go on a limb and say that this will work for them. They are also using non-traditional placements within traditional media to stand out. It is the effort and follow through on doing something different that is worth noting. You don't have to be BMW or have a large and expensive ad agency to be dynamic in your thinking. If you are an agency person, challenge your clients, if you are a client, challenge your agency -If you want to get noticed, get out there and do something different.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/business/media/07adco.html?fta=y