A VC - Latest Comments in And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

Sampad Swain — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:16:31 -0000

I'm based in Mumbai, India,. May be you're right - it's an US only campaign!

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Sampad

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

michaeldowns — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:03:02 -0000

RIM needs your help. You may also consider partnering w/ the major agencies and networks like Federated to ensure BackType accounts are bundled into social media buys.

Aside, while I'm sure you've got your hands full, let's get AdAge, Economist and Business Week covered under BackType so I can stop poking around for old comments;)

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

Mike Montano — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:17:25 -0000

I completely agree with you and Fred, these are great opportunities for BlackBerry to interact with their customers that they are missing out on. Your point about who should weigh in is probably part of the problem within large organizations like RIM. In a small company it's easy to know who should get involved, but when online conversations touch product, pr, marketing, etc, things seem to break down.

I used to work at RIM (on the Bold, not the Storm ;)), before I co-founded BackType -- maybe it's time I let them know what I've been up to.

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

michaeldowns — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:25:36 -0000

May speak to bandwidth constraints major advertisers face when engaging in social media marketing. I'm not an expert. but it seems Blackberry is half-pregnant here. They chose Federated ostensibly to market their product on major blogs, but either didn't put systems in place to monitor response (a basic BackType account) or didn't allocate resources to follow-up. While it probably doesn't make sense for a product / marketing manager to weigh in, a Dell- or Zappos-like customer service response would have killed here. Further, nuggets like those contributed by John Miles above need to make their way back to product.

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

fredwilson — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:32:47 -0000

I was hoping for that myself

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

rkorba — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:16:36 -0000

yeah, exactly the point. so the airlines let you transfer, but even better when they can extinguish the liability from the balance sheet AND get you a charitable donation AND give miles to military families and kids needing medical care and the like. Think of the marketing AT&T could do giving my rollover minutes to, say, families at Ronald McDonald house (one of my fave charities). Dunno how they carry the minutes on the balance sheet, but who cares. Good is good.

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

markslater — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:05:49 -0000

and how is that going to change my mind exactly? if you are negative the product, the conversation is annoying, if you are positive, you have already bought one - either way i would be very surprised if people on this blog could have a pre-conceived notion of the product changed - its not like its a P & G consumer product - its an important part of our daily productive lives, as such the buy decision is made in an area far beyond this blog - and the phone is crap, and any amount of conversation wont convince me to give it another try.

so how does this conversation help the brand? ok conversations about a product are a form of brand development, but is someone really actually espousing a business model around this?

My guess is that the phone will sell LESS not more as a result of this 'conversation'.

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

Olivier Travers — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:23:29 -0000

How is this conversational marketing at all? It would be if the ad engaged criticisms you made, to acknowledge them and possibly by making counter arguments. As far as I can see, it's the same ad they're running elsewhere. As other readers have pointed out, it's probably either contextually targeted (it's just my opinion but I find ads targeted against negative content to be dumb semantics at work) or a network buy (you'd have to look at where else in the FM network these same ads are running).

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

michaeldowns — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:34:33 -0000

Good conversational marketing tutorial. Not because it overviews the concepts, but because the ad, the post and the comments present a reasoned, rational discussion of a highly visible product and how it is marketed. The only sad part, so far, is that a spare few enthusiasts are left to represent the product and the Federated pub manager is representing the placement. Would have been text book had the Storm product and marketing managers engaged on these two topics.

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

fredwilson — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:14:07 -0000

Yup, its like Ken said in another comment. I might not like the storm but many of the commenters came to its rescue in the comments. The very fact that we are having these discussions mean we really care about these products. No better place to advertise them in my mind

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

fredwilson — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:23:54 -0000

Cool idea

But minutes aren't transferable, are they?

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

Darren Herman — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:41:11 -0000

My guess is that when this media plan was signed off, your post hadn't run yet. I'm assuming that Moxie (agency) or other who ran the Verizon campaign hadn't seen your negative post and this ran. Kudos for Moxie & Verizon for not taking this down, but keep in mind, the media plan was probably signed off at least a few weeks ago.

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

rkorba — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:00:36 -0000

Great post, and I'm saving for the Bold. If you wanted to really take something for good cause from Verizon and the like, a thought:

A charity idea that is simple, elegant and a trifecta. To wit:

I have 2000 (and counting) anytime rollover minutes, like many folks, given that the data plans (more and more use these days) are bundled with voice minutes that go unused.

I have 3 assets.... Nifty idea, 2000 rollover minutes and a startup (answerjam.com) with much fun and orders of magnitude less impact than you. So, other than the charity urge, nothing of real value.

I and many folks donate phones for use by homeless, women's shelters, etc.

With frequent flyer miles, you can donate, the airlines write off a liability, and military families and the like get free flights. Natch.

Why not same with unused minutes to couple with the donated phones?

You have a bully pulpit. Suppose you would pressure the Walts, Mikes, Davids and others to make noise too.

www.answerjam.com

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

andyswan — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:57:18 -0000

Very cool....but, the facts remain: 1) it's still a banner ad, which is lame and 2) it's still not a good phone for biz

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

brooksjordan — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:24:19 -0000

Well, I think it's brilliant that you did because of the tension created by Fred's recent post about the BlackBerry Storm. There's hope for advertising.

. . . and not a bad ad either, although I'm always eager to *do something,* as Federated Media is always championing, I know.

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

John Schneider — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:53:52 -0000

Thanks for asking Brooks. Yes, this was a conscious, and human, decision that was made. With fewer than 200 properties, FM always handpicks the best fitting sites - there are no fancy algorithms. In Fred's case, he has an engaged and influential audience that has strong opinions on new technologies and product offerings. Ultimately, it's Fred's audience we are trying to reach. They clearly respect his opinions, but form their own as shown here in this comment thread.

John Schneider, Federated Media

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

brooksjordan — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:29:56 -0000

Matthew, can you give us more specifics about how this Verizon ad was placed on Fred's blog? Was it a specific decision . . . automagic?

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

Sierra Journal — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:17:19 -0000

Thanks Fred for the shout out! A VC, like all of our content partners, was chosen to be a part of the FM family because it has great content and an amazing audience. The two go hand-in-hand. Brands choose to advertise with FM because they value honest content and conversations - such as the content being created and conversations being had right here, right now. Our advertisers are perfectly aware that not all editorial content will be flattering. Quite the contrary, they choose FM sites for their authenticity.

Matthew DiPietro, Federated Media

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

Joe Lazarus — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:44:01 -0000

I'm surprised that this much thought would go into the placement on Verizon's part. I've bought a lot of online media in the past, though never from Federated. Typically, ads are purchased either based on audience demographics, site category, or some sort of keyword targeting. I'd be impressed if people from Verizon made this decision based on the content & context of specific posts on your blog as opposed to simply picking your site from some broad technology category.

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

kenberger — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:39:14 -0000

@Fred- I can't get that phrase "conversational marketing" out of my head since I saw it here this a.m. I am convinced that there is TONS of potential here. People are sick and tired of all these years of ads making grandiose, inherently biased claims for their products. "Marketing" as it's done in the US has become equated w/ mistrust. I'd bet that a company's active endorsement of a balanced discussion, pro and con, about a product will cause the public to listen rather than tune out. It worked to some extent w/ Scoble's blog at Microsoft. And there's the "no such thing as bad publicity argument". I'd also make a seemingly 'crazy' bet that your previous scorn for this product actually results in a sale or 2.

@markslater- thanks for starting this interesting branch.

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

fredwilson — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:20:23 -0000

they (federated) certainly made a conscious choice to run this campaign on this blog. it's even possible that verizon's agency was involved at some level, although i really don't know about that.

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

fredwilson — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:18:32 -0000

i see the ad Sampad. maybe its a US only campaign. where are you located?

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

fredwilson — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:17:59 -0000

exactly. i should have been more clear about that in my post. thanks for making my point better than i could Ken. that's conversational media!

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

RG — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:59:34 -0000

My question is how was the campaign sold by Federated Media? Were they targetting "tech bloggers" as a blanket category? I think you have to consider the possibility that VZW really would prefer not to have that ad running on this blog, but has no idea that a) its even running here and/or b) that you were critical of wireless operators and specifically this device.

Re: And Now, A Note From Our Sponsors

josh guttman — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:13:52 -0000

My sense is that ad buyers are more concerned with demography than semantics and the fact that this blog even mentions RIMM, Storm, Bold, Curve as much as it does is a huge plus. I would bet that neither the Verizon ad buyer nor the Federated account rep could say what opinion this blog had of any recent blackberry model. And in the whole scheme of Verizon's online marketing spend, the traffic on AVC, while a targeted demographic, is fairly small.