Ross Mayfield's Weblog

GM Does Open Source Ads

A long time ago we had some theories about where advertising was going.  Jeff Jarvis had a notion of open source ads.  Well, it's all happening.

GM launched Chevy Apprentice:

Contestants are given a variety of images to work with and are given the ability to splice together the visual elements over which they can display their own advertising copy. A contest of this sort doesn't come without risks. As we expected, people who are opposed to SUVs for a variety of reasons quickly discovered that they were also welcome to participate.

Early on we made the decision that if we were to hold this contest, in which we invite anyone to create an ad, in an open forum, that we would be summarily destroyed in the blogosphere if we censored the ads based on their viewpoint. So, we adopted a position of openness and transparency, and decided that we would welcome the debate. (As an aside, we have been truly disappointed by the number of submissions we had to filter out because of their vulgar content.) I won't bore you with the details, but the overwhelming majority of the 22,000 submissions thus far have been earnest attempts at creating positive advertisements.

Was the risk worth it?  Yes.  The worst case scenario is people remixed the brand in the way they already related to it.  A set of already known truths, and if they weren't known, the brand manager wasn't doing their job.  Besides, such remix happens with or without the participation of the vendor.  At least this way they are part of the conversation.

Charlene Li:

While some people point to this campaign as an example of the failure of viral marketing and social computing, I think it points to a great success. Our definition of social computing is when technology results in power shifting from institutions (like Chevy) to communities (like customers). By losing that control over the brand experience, Chevy actually brought more people into it -- witness the debate over the campaign itself. The environmental and SUV fuel economy debate has always existed outside of the Chevy experience, but by bringing it into chevyapprentice.com, Chevy has harnessed it into a promotional benefit.

The point of this remix isn't the outcome, although I'll wager there will be some great creative, but how the process fulfills the ultimate advertising metric -- engagement.  The constructive intelligence phase of the experiment, next is collective intelligence. 

Influence Law

While on a train to Cambridge with Tom and Suw, I came up with this:

It's a simple visualization of a power law distribution of influence over time to explain the diffusion of technology with the rising role of lead users.

Les Influencers

François Granger, who blogs in both French and English described Les Influencers to me as a blog where publishers can copy and paste ads they choose.  Reporting is transparent and the ads are presented as though they are recommended by influencers.

 

Recommandé par des Influenceurs.

One of the closest implementations of Publisher Driven Advertising (PDA)/Sell-Side Advertising where Sellers Become Seekers to date.  Love ads that need transitive clearing and Cost Per Influence (CPI).  Wonder who influenced these influencers...  But let me leave you with my one criteria for judging an advertising model: does it create incentives for quality creative work?

UPDATE: See comment, François, Jarvis

Eastwiki

Eastwick Communications launched a new communication practice today, powering PR with wikis:

...Several Eastwick clients have already begun using the eastwiki to manage internal and external communications with new media tools such as blogs, wikis, and RSS. The eastwiki was built with the knowledge that the new media sphere is increasingly promoting a more collaborative approach to corporate communications.

Eastwick is assisting clients in using the wiki to build private and public workspaces including private rooms for reporters, client collaboration sites, and topic-focused public wikis for corporate and non-profit projects. In addition to the agency wiki, the new service will provide consultation in new media training, best practices in corporate blogging, and collaboration with globally distributed marketing teams.

Regular readers will know I'm pretty darn opinionated about the role of PR these days. There used to be PR gods who had access to key broadcast media. Now media isn't broadcast, the game isn't access and exclusives. It's conversations and inclusives.

I actually believe the market for PR Firms is growing, for a couple of reasons:

• A PR firm used to work with an information officer and some key executives. Now they have to work with everyone in the company
• It's hard to scale conversations
• Good PR reps actually make good bloggers.

Unfortunately, good reps are hard to come by as there are no barriers to entry for the profession and some people don't recognize when they are in a trust business. Interesting that people like Steve Rubel are beginning to have as much influence as those he used to influence.

Can you work without a PR firm? Sure, to start things out you are even better off without one. But as you scale, you need help, but as an entrepreneur you always want to play a role in the most public conversations. Hire people because:

• You trust them
• They get the new tools and practices
• They understand your business
• They work with you to make you better

Eastwick became a customer a while ago. Now they are starting to help me with the load and being a valuable voice in group conversations. PR Newswire is a customer, so I'm issuing some press releases now and then. In fact, they are using Socialtext to build a new platform for their Profnet expert network. In one wiki conversation, Eastwikker Giovanni Rodriguez provides a deeper comment when describing their Wisdom of Crowds approach:

...collaborative media is a nice counterbalance to all the technologies that recently have aided and abetted in the creation of what we like to call the "on-demand generation," and the current Internet ethos that has wreaked havoc on important social structures and norms. We believe that the Internet will be a better and healthier place when ego-centered technologies have a real and credible counterbalance. The invisibility of bloggers is not just a publicity problem. It's a societal problem. Wikis present a real if modest solution to this problem.

It will be interesting to see which firms and clients adapt, what mix of tools works best and how new roles and practices arise.

The Cost of Ethics

JD Lasica has an in-depth article on shilling, influence and blog ethics at OJR.  He suggests these norms have emerged:

• Disclose, disclose, disclose. Transparency – of actions, motives and financial considerations – is the golden rule of the blogosphere.
• Follow your passions. Blog about topics you care deeply about.
• Be honest. Write what you believe.
• Trust your readers to form their own judgments and conclusions.
• Reputation is the principal currency of cyberspace. Maintain your independence and integrity – lost trust is difficult to regain.

A pretty fair account, and probably not the lowed common denominator.  In the interest of the first principle, I decided to accept George Bush's Headphones.  When they arrive, I'll let you know if they are rose or white-colored.

Value of Impressions and Subscribers

In this week's Gillmor Gang, Steve Gillmor argued that RSS subscribers are the readers you really want.  Now that should be a little obvious, but the tools to track them have only been around for a while and I have yet to see a study comparing the value of impressions and subscribers.  It got me thinking.

• Impressions are information, subscribers are relationships
• Impressions are on-offs, subscribers are recurring revenue
• Impressions are directly monetized (today), subscribers are influence

The cognitive readiness to trust what is said when you come across something through search or browsing is very different from when its placed in a recurring context.  But that should be a little obvious too.

Free Crap

I'm honored to be included in The Silicon Valley 100, a group of influentials formed by Auren Hoffman that gets free crap.  Its kind of like schwag for a virtual tradeshow with a decentralized  cocktail party.   

Newsweek has a scoop on the group, which includes Marc Andreessen, Tim Draper, Stewart Alsop, Aileen Lee, Igor Sill, Bill Gurley, Ron Conway, Heidi Roizen, Katie Mitic, Pat House, Rusty Rueff, Hooman, Trevor Hewitt, Sean Parker, Brad Templeton, Joi Ito and Zaw Thet.

The larger question is whether an endeavor like the Silicon Valley 100 inadvertently transforms natural Connectors into public-relations flacks. Does it dilute these bigwigs’ influence when companies are, in effect, buying the chance to get worked into their cocktail chatter?

Dan Gillmor goes one step further:

I hope the people named in this story -- some of whom are friends of mine -- will decide either to disclose what they're doing, or bow out of this exercise entirely.

The first item is a high tech toilet seat.  My wife and I discussed accepting it and decided to pass this time, too silly for us -- otherwise I would have disclosed to my readers.  I was potty-trained in the era of water shortages in environmentally hyper-concious Palo Alto.  She grew up with Soviet toilet paper.  I have personally learned to flush every time, and developed a shit or get off the pot ethic.  So there, more than you wanted to know, and well beyond disclosure.

As readers know, I have a personal interest in influence marketing and tinker with related social networking models.  So crap or not, this will be interesting to participate in.  I think this differs from being paid to market or write about something, all choices and the risk I take with my social capital is mine.

Joi posted his own disclosure and policy (he also posted an audio interview with Auren).  I don't think I am on this list because I am a blogger, but because I am one, let me put it clearly: If I accept a product or service I will disclose it, may write an opinion about it, not sure if I will keep it or not it as I explore this grey area openly. What do you think?  Keep it or flush it?

UPDATE:  Slashdot implies recommendations would be given to unsuspecting masses, as do comparisons to BzzAgent in Dan's post.  Not in my case, at least.  Its one thing to be paid to write or talk as a shill, as with Marqui.  Its an entirely different and quite frankly disgusting notion to be bribed to deceptively sell to friends and report back their marketing data.  I took an additional step of adding a disclosure statement to my bio, lest I lose the trust of readers and friends.  I appeciate the constructive comments and suggestions.