And the Oscar for Most Inflated Viewing Numbers Goes To . . .

At one point during the (very boring) Oscars last night, Ellen Degeneris quipped that the stars nominated shouldn't be nervous since there were "a billion people watching right now." Al Gore also referenced the billion person number in his fake announcement of his presidential campaign One press release for some sort of drink included in the nominees' gift basket even claimed two billion watchers.

No one is better than Hollywood at making the impossible seem possible I guess. One billion viewers? That's one in six people in the world, simultaneously watching the Oscars. I don't think so.

Consider a few facts. First, according to the CIA World Factbook, there are approximately 1.4 billion TVs in the world, with approximately 540 million of these in China, Japan, and India, and 219 million in the United States. For the sake of simplicity, I assume that one TV equals one TV watcher (some people will watch with friends, some people have multiple TVs, which reduces the actual count).

I find it hard to believe that more than 1 or 2% of Asia was watching the Oscars, if for no other reason than the time difference, which ranges between 10 and 15 hours. That means the most of Asia was either a) sleeping or b) working (Monday morning) during the Oscars. Having recently been to Bangalore, I'm confident that few people took the day off to watch the red carpet. So of those 540 million TV sets, let's assume that maybe 11 million of them were watching the Oscars.

Then we have the US - 219 million TVs for 300 million people. Again, not all 300 million people were watching the Oscars. I know this because I went and got carry-out pizza and there were people working at the pizza store, people driving their cars, and people shopping.

And of course, there are also a lot of folks who just don't like watching the Oscars, are too young (infants!) or too old, or too sick, or too busy, or just plain forgot. I would say that if 1/3 of America was watching the Oscars - 100 million people! - that would be quite impressive. So let's target the US at 100 million.

That leaves 700 million TV sets throughout the world. Most of these are in Europe - another time zone issue, and only one of the top 10 other than the US is English-speaking (the UK). Let's aggressively say that 5% of the world stayed up late to watch the Oscars. That's another 35 million people.

So that gives us a grand total of 144 million people. Not too shabby, but certainly not one or two billion. And, in fact, people have actually stopped to think about this ridiculous claim have come to similar estimates, like this article discussing Oscar's fabled audience. And actually, my estimate might be way overinflated. The USA Today reports that viewership in the US was only 40 million, the lowest overall performance in 20 years. It seems doubtful that viewership was higher outside the US than inside.

There has been a lot of talk lately about how TV is no longer the mass-medium it once was - with the expansion of digital media, TV viewership is decreasing at an incredible pace. So "TV events" like the Oscars and the Super Bowl are often perceived as one of the few opportunities left to reach everyone at once.

I wonder, then, if there isn't some intentional puffery in the one billion viewer claim. It's an attempt to preserve the notion that TV still matters as much as it did, say, 20 years ago. After all, with major Internet sites like Yahoo and Google getting over 100 million unique visitors a month, it's no longer that impressive to boast the Oscars - one of the two biggest events in the annual TV calendar - reach 50 or 60 million people. Hey, Yahoo does almost three times that monthly. In fact, if you advertise on Yahoo and Google, you probably reach more targeted customers in a day then you would reach with an Oscars advertisement.

I wonder if the radio industry did the same thing in the 1940s, back when TV was emerging as the next mass medium? Hollywood still knows how to draw people into theaters, but even the best special effects artist will have trouble masking the fall of TV and the rise of digital media.

Jet Blue Helped Me See the Light - Brand Does Matter!

Over the past year, I've written a lot of scathing articles about branding. For the record, I still believe that spending $10 million to brand your truck as "tough" on the Super Bowl or tens of millions trying to convince Americans that American beer really isn't that bad is still incredibly dumb and wasteful.

But while I am still a fierce opponent of brand advertising, I must admit I am starting to understand the value of a brand. Simply put, creating a brand that associates your company with a certain product, service, or 'lifestyle' can create a lot of value.

For example, irregardless (I know, not a real word . . .) of how hard MSN, Yahoo, and Ask try, the brand associated with "search engine" is Google. End of story. It doesn't matter how clever the advertising campaign Ask creates is, or how cool live.microsoft.com eventually will be, in the minds of consumers, when you think "search" you think "Google." That's worth billions of dollars a year.

Other valuable brands that come to mine: Coca Cola ('cola'), Volvo ('safety'), MySpace ('social network'), Ritz-Carleton ('luxury hotel'), Starbucks ('coffee'), Craigslist ('online classifieds'), and eBay ('online auctions'). Don't bother trying to steal this brands, it's unlikely to happen.

Unlikely, but not impossible. It should be noted that just because you establish a brand association doesn't mean that you can't lose that brand association. It's difficult, but it does happen. For example, in 1970 when you thought "big box retailer" you thought "Kmart" but today you think "Walmart". In 1985, you might have thought "IBM" for "personal computer" whereas today you'll probably say "Dell." And in 2000 most people would have associated "Yahoo" with "search engine" but today of course Google has that brand.

This raises an interesting question: if branding is so valuable and so difficult to disrupt, how is it that major companies like Yahoo, IBM, and Kmart manage to lose their branding?

Well, my sense is that there are generally three reasons, with number three being the most likely: 1) a competitor emerges with a truly amazing rival product/service; 2) gross brand mismanagement or; 3) both.

How Yahoo Lost the Search Brand to Google

Consider Yahoo. In 2000, Yahoo was the default search engine for around 56% of the world. Second place was AltaVista, with 11%. Google was a struggling start-up without a business model. Google began to get some buzz about their new "page rank" algorithm and their singular focus on search results. Yahoo, as the leader in search, could have pretty easily squashed this competition in one of two ways: 1) copy Google's strategy exactly or 2) simply buy Google and integrate the technology into Yahoo.

Instead, Yahoo took an almost polar-opposite approach. They began by basically declaring that search was dead as a business model and focused their efforts on everything but search (jobs, entertainment, content, ISP services, etc). Yahoo basically told consumers "yeah, we do search, but our brand is much more than that - we are your one-stop destination for everything you want to do online. Search is just a little part."

To make matters worse, Yahoo also outsourced their search functionality to Google. Now, when consumers actually did do a search on Yahoo, they saw this "powered by Google" messaging. So even if a user was loyal to Yahoo search, the message Yahoo was sending was that Google search was better.

Combine a better product from a competitor, loss of your singular focus, and an utter disdain for your brand's status and, yes, it is in fact possible to very quickly lose your brand's positioning.

Now About Jet Blue

Which brings me to Jet Blue. For those of you living in a monastery without any media access other than this blog, let me give you a quick news update: over the last week, Jet Blue has stranded thousands of customers on the East Coast, kept some passengers on a planes on a runway for ten hours, lost hundreds of bags, and generally gotten a very bad rap from the media and consumers.

Jet Blue you say? Surely you must be talking about United, American, or one of the other hapless big American carriers that have been getting their lunch eaten by the likes of Southwest and Jet Blue? Nope, Jet Blue. The folks with leather seats, free DirecTV, and hip flight attendants.

Jet Blue, the airline who's brand up until this week would probably be associated with "cool air travel" or "hip airline." Jet Blue was an anti-establishment multi-billion dollar company. Talk about a juxtaposition! I actually felt like I was 'sticking it to the man' when I flew Jet Blue.

You can't maintain a hip, customer-friendly brand if you don't walk the walk. And I'm sorry to say that Jet Blue's handling of this crisis may have destroyed that brand forever. When you have Web sites popping up like JetBlueHostage.com, David Letterman blasting you with a top ten list and news articles with comments like "A lapse in judgment during last week's winter storm on the East Coast has damaged a brand that for the most part has been an industry darling" and "The cost they would have incurred to unload the planes, while high, they could have written off as goodwill. Now they have no goodwill," you know you are in trouble.

If thousands of passengers were stranded at airports or on planes, or without luggage, a hip, customer-friendly airline would have sprung into action immediately. My brand perception of Jet Blue (pre-crisis, that is) would have involved sending customers to swanky hotels, providing thousands of free tickets, and seeing Jet Blue executives working behind counters to help relieve the chaos. Heck, maybe even getting a few Indie bands to go to JFK Airport and play free concerts for the stranded travelers.

Instead, Jet Blue did what most big corporate companies do in times of crisis: 1) deny responsibility; 2) offer meek compensation when pressured; 3) finally realize the magnitude of the crisis after the damage has been done.

Looking at the Jet Blue Web site, you see this pattern in the press releases it created. The first release, issued on Valentine's Day, has no apologies or much special consideration for passengers. It simply says "JetBlue Airways (Nasdaq:JBLU) will waive its change fees and any fare differences to allow customers with reservations for travel on Wednesday, February 14, to or from Northeast area airports, to postpone their plans provided they rebook and travel on or before Friday, February 16, 2007." That's nice: travel in the next two days and we won't charge you extra. Otherwise, you're out of luck."

Later that same day, Jet Blue did issue an apology - sort of: "JetBlue apologizes to customers who were impacted by the ice storm at our home base of operations in New York, specifically at John F. Kennedy International Airport . . . These flights were a combination of scheduled departures from JFK that were not able to take off due to the ever-changing weather conditions, and arrivals that we were unable to move to a gate within a reasonable amount of time, due to all gates being occupied." Sorry, but it wasn't our fault.

A few more press releases over the next two days didn't do much more to make people feel warm and fuzzy about Jet Blue. There was this one apparently written by lawyers: "the benefits of this action were mitigated by further operational constraints at JFK, including a one runway operation on Feb. 15, which resulted in long delays that flowed into Feb. 16" and one sent out a few hours later with the exciting news that "In a release issued earlier today under the same headline, the phone number for rebooking travel was incorrect."

Who Are You?

You can't be the world's leading search engine if you don't focus on search and you can't be a counter-culture airline if you act like Delta or Northwest. I get it now - a brand is a terrible thing to waste.

Which does bring me to one other company's brand worth discussing: Google. It's worth considering whether Google is falling into the same trap Yahoo fell into at the start of this decade. After all, Google is no longer just about search; it's now about Gmail, Blogger, Picasa, Base, YouTube, Checkout, etc, etc.

My lesson from all of this: do one thing really well, associate your company with that one thing in the minds of consumers, and don't rest on your laurels once you've succeeded. Oh, and when in doubt, don't buy Super Bowl ads.

Krillion - Bridging the Last Mile of Local Search?

Today a new local search player formally entered the ring. Krillion basically helps people research product online and then locate the best local retailer to go and buy the product (full disclosure: founded by my good friend Joel Toledano) .

How does Krillion work? Let's say you're looking for a new dryer. You enter your zip code into Krillion, type in "dryer" and voila, a list of stores like Best Buy and Home Depot within a few miles of your home that sell dryers. You can drill down and search by product name, price, distance from your house, etc.

Obviously, the concept of researching online and buying offline doesn't work for every product. For example, you don't need to know where the nearest bookstore is if you know the exact book you are looking to purchase. But for those "kick the tire" transactions - like a big appliance, a car, perhaps even consumer electronics - there is definitely a segment of people who need a service like Krillion.

As to the Krillion site itself, this first beta is pretty decent, but there's definitely a lot more functionality needed to make it complete. For example, you can see results by brand, but you can't really see results by cost (i.e., "dryers less than $500"). In general, the site is useful right now if you know exactly what you are looking for (this dryer by this brand), but the "comparison" features I've come to expect from shopping comparison engines aren't there yet.

Oh, and the maps are powered by Google Maps - this with a former Yahoo guy as Krillion CEO . . . that tells you something about who the industry leader is in the maps category!

On the flip side, I will say that it was refreshing to go to a site that actually takes you directly to the information you need without trying to monetize you six ways to Sunday. With comparison shopping sites, you often feel that the goal is to get you to click on something that will make the site money, rather than to actually help you find what you are looking for.

Since every new Web site has to be a category killer of some old world business model, I'd label Krillion as the "circular" category killer. Every Sunday I get probably a dozen circulars in my newspaper. Most I throw away without reading. The ones I do read (like BestBuy) have 200 products that I could care less about, and maybe one or two that even catch my attention. Surely promoting your products directly to consumers actually looking for them online and then getting them to the store is a more targeted form of marketing.

Is Krillion as a replacement to circulars an impossible dream? Maybe, but I noticed that the "Jobs" section in this Sunday's Chronicle was a) only eight pages long and b) co-branded with HotJobs, so don't underestimate online alternatives to newspapers!

So congrats to Joel and Team Krillion for the successful launch. I'll be looking for more exciting developments in the future.

The Best (Singular) and Worst (Plural) Super Bowl Ads

The general consensus among my Super Bowl watching group was that the ads this year were "pretty lame" and I'd have to agree with that assessment. My quick review of the best and the worst ads (and I'm judging this based on how memorable they were and whether I think they will have any positive impact on the company's actual SALES) is below. As I reviewed the list I realized that the list of the "best" in my mind is a list of just one ad. The worst list is a bit longer . . .

The Best Super Bowl Ad:

CareerBuilder.com - Life in the Job Jungle.
These ads were funny but they also sent a clear message - if your job really sucks, CareerBuilder has a huge online database of jobs. Best of all, CareerBuilder positioned itself as the biggest job site online, which may be true in terms of the number of jobs posted, but I doubt is true in terms of number of page views or unique visitors. Still, the majority of Super Bowl viewers don't follow Comscore rankings like I do, I suspect, so they wouldn't know any better anyway.

The Worst Super Bowl Ads:

Coke - We Invented Civil Rights.
I'm talking about the ad that showed all the various historic civil rights moments over the last 100 years - like Rosa Parks refusing to leave her seat and Jackie Robinson joining the Dodgers. The tagline was something like "We've been with you from the beginning." To me, this is like Al Gore claiming to invent the Internet - totally implausible and insulting to the people who actually did invent the Internet, or in Coke's case, to the people who got sprayed with water cannons in the 60s.

SalesGenie - Thank You West High Audiovisual Department.
If you're going to buy a Super Bowl ad, at least spend some money on a nicely filmed commercial. This ad looked like it was made at the local community center on some betamax cameras that were stolen from a Smithsonian exhibit on the 1980s.

Doritos - We Bring Ugly People Together.
An ugly man and woman making love in the checkout lane of your local supermarket makes you want to buy chips? I think I might avoid Doritos from now on, if for no other reason than to avoid an uncomfortable advance from the ex-cons working at Safeway.

Finally, I did manage to see one of Ford's commercials for the F-Series. Loyal readers will recall that I wrote about Ford's campaign a few weeks ago. In a nutshell, my assessment of this commercial was "blah", meaning that it had no impact on meaning either positively or negatively. For $2.5 million, it seems like that's not the reaction you would want.

Nine Online Advertising Companies You've Never Heard of, But Are Worth Checking Out

Here's a list of nine companies (top ten lists are so passe) that you should check out if you are into online advertising. Editor's note: I've tried to avoid listing companies founded by friends, but a couple of these sort of break that rule. Nonetheless, I truly believe that each of these companies will have a significant impact on online advertising in the next two to three years.

In alphabetical order:

• AdChemy: Next gen online lead generation. Like an Azoogle or Adteractive, but with an intense focus on developing algorithms and technology to optimize ad spend.
  
• Adknowledge: PPC applied to email advertising, with a dose of behavioral targeting thrown in for good measure.
  
• Collarity: Collaborative filtering and search combined. Great targeting potential for advertisers.
  
• eSearchVision: A newcomer to bid management agencies from Europe. Have they solved Google's 'yield management' equation?
• Moola: The concept here is that you play games against other people and win money for every victory. In between each win, however, you have to watch an ad and then answer questions about the contents of the ad before you can move on. My sense is that this particular company might not be the one to take this concept to the next level, but I like the idea a lot!
  
• Quigo: Like AdSense, but far more targeted with far less click fraud.
  
• SingleFeed: My friend Brian's company - they enable you to send data feeds to all the major shopping comparison engines through one feed.
  
• SpotRunner: Bid for remnant TV spots online. Plus pre-designed ads so that you don't have to make your own spots.
  
• Visual Sciences: Acquired by WebSideStory, rumor has it that this is going to revolutionize Web analytics.
  

AdSense for Audio - A Logical Fit

I've been critical in the past of some of Google's forays into non-text based advertising, in particular video ads and print advertising. When it comes to radio, however, I do think that Google has found a logical fit that should be pretty successful.

Why, well two primary reasons. First, a lot of radio appeals to direct marketers, the very same people who love search engine marketing. Those late night ads to refinance your mortgage that interrupt your favorite AM paranormal show - that's exactly the kind of advertiser that will love AdSense for radio.

Second, radio is fragmented. As I discussed many months ago in a post speculating on AdSense for Radio, outside of ClearChannel there aren't many places you can go to get national coverage across thousands of radio stations. Google is well positioned to change this, assuming they can get buy-in from the radio stations (given the choice between Google and ClearChannel, most radio stations would probably swallow hard and go with Google . . . for now).

I am a bit surprised that this is going to be a CPM based system, but I suspect that it is difficult to completly revolutionize an industry in one day, so CPC or CPA-based pricing will have to wait for a few months. Nonetheless, overall a good move for Google. Now if only they could get their money back from that silly YouTube purchase . . .

Responding to Your Comments - Singapore, Super Bowl and More

It's very encouraging to see folks commenting on my blog! It means a) someone out there is reading it and b) something I've said actually provoked you enough to respond. So, thanks, I really appreciate it. Sometimes the "write only meaningful blogs" racket is tough, you know. With that said, onto your comments:

Will IT Really Help India?

First, a bit about India. In my post on whether India will be the next economic giant, Andrey from Search Marketing Standard wrote:

"While there are plenty of IT guys sitting in the skyscrapers in Bangalore, there are hundreds of thousands of poor children that have never seen a toilet seat. Do you really think that the high-tech sector will be able to pull a billion people out of poverty, to at least a somewhat decent living standard? High-tech sector employs only 2% of India's population; the same population that will be more than 1.8 billion by 2050."

Good point Andrey. Certainly high tech is not a panacea that will transform India overnight. That being said, just image that instead of 20 million high tech workers, India had - say - 50 million. How could that happen? Well, if the Indian government made a concerted effort to improve infrastructure - like more efficient airports, wider and more orderly roads, dependable electricity, and less local corruption - it would be much easier and cost-effective for technology companies to outsource even more of their work to India.

Granted, there are plenty of companies currently outsourcing, but I think these are still the "early adopters." These companies are willing to put up with bureaucracy and disorder because the dividends are massive. There are far more companies that are too lazy to be bothered. Even if the cost savings are big, the upfront effort and ongoing management seems to big a hurdle to overcome. Thus the 20 million IT workers instead of 50 million.

Imagine that additional influx of capital that would bring, in terms of increased disposable income, constructions, taxes, etc. That sort of increase could be possible in a matter of years - just by making basic improvements to infrastructure and the resulting ability of high tech businesses to actually access more Indian workers.

Now imagine that a lot of that money goes toward improving every day life in India - better roads, more schools, improved health care. Suddenly, there's a "snowball rolling down hill" impact, where more and more people - IT workers or not - start to benefit.

For the record, I am definitely not a proponent of "trickle-down economy" theories. I would never assume that simply increasing the number of IT workers will suddenly help out the disadvantaged. If - and only if - the government decided to use some of the revenue it generated from increased IT employment to build for the future, the impact for all Indians could be huge.

Singapore - Country, City, Airport?

Lots of comments here on my post about a plane trip between Bangalore and Singapore. Some snippets worth noting:

"In China or India, at least two people are tasked to do one job. Probably because human resources is cheap. In Singapore, because of its lack of human resources, one person does two jobs."

I think there is a lot of truth in this comment. Again and again, I noticed people in India hired to basically, well, do nothing. Like having 25 people behind the counter at the airport and none of them helping anyone. I think it is sort of like a giant company - rather than being efficient, let's just put 500 people on the project and they'll probably figure it out!

"I disagree with the part about us following our government blindly. Rather than question our leaders about their saneness of their plans, we actually stop and take the time to contemplate it on our own instead of bogging down our ministers."

Well, I am not an expert on this point. An American friend of mine currently living in Singapore got me thinking about this idea. It was based on her experiences in Singapore, in addition to the "conventional wisdom" of Singapore as a "nanny state." To be sure, Singapore is not a totalitarian regime. It is, however, a one-party democracy, so let's accept that for what it is.

"I remember my first trip to Changi airport, and I first crossed the threshold of the marble-tiled, floral-scented, and otherwise opulent airport bathroom."

Actually Steve, when I first walked into the Singapore airport bathroom, I had similar expectations. I mistakenly walked into the "squatting" stall initially, which was definitely a shock. Beyond that, though, the bathroom was indeed quite nice.

Super Bowl Ads

Finally, regarding by post about dumb Super Bowl advertisers, Mark wrote:

"Marketers need to stop thinking that marketing HAS to be creative. It HAS to sell goods and services. Sometimes the least creative marketing is the most effective."

Exactly my point. In fact, one of the lessons I've learned from search engine marketing is that creativity and effectiveness are often polar-opposites. For example, I once created an ad for a weight loss client in which I wrote: "why wait to lose weight?" I thought the double-entendre was very creative and would stand out from the crowd. Sadly, no one clicked on it. When I changed it to "30 day free trial plus personal diet profile. Order now!" the clicks came back with a vengeance.

I think people are tired of clever marketing. People just want to know "what's in it for me." Horses playing football with zebras officiating is funny, catches your attention, but doesn't make you say "Gee, Budweiser beer is a great beer. I think I'd like one right now." Compare that to a Ronco rotisserie oven commercial. Even vegetarians are probably calling the toll-free number by the end of the show.

Incidentally, I noticed that Mark has written a book which - at least by the title - may be worth a read. Here's the link: Your Marketing Sucks. Perhaps someone could send a copy anonymously to the GM marketing department?