My Name is Kate

Sum-up of Sympatico/MSN Digital Ad Summit 2006

Last Thursday was the Digital Ad Summit.  An amazing event put on by the good folks at Sympatico/MSN.  Great venue, well organized and super content.  Following is a brief summary of the day and the random sparks that fired for me.

I was very much looking forward to Bob Garfield's talk; Garfield is an author & AdAge columnist.  I don't know if it was the timing of his slot (he spoke during lunch) or that he thinks that Canadians are really behind the times, but I was extremely disappointed.  I've been a fan of his chaos theory of media and his thoughts behind "listenomics" - that open source marketing will impact brands and marketers better figure out how to deal with it.  He didn't talk about this; instead he described a simplistic picture of the current model and the future (George Jetson) model, and then described in some vague, hand-waving generalizations that we'll need to change to get there.  To me, the gap is filled by social media and brand democratization.  Citizen marketers will define the new model and traditional marketers will (as Garfield did say) move from adversaries to intimates.  But he didn't talk about any of that.  Unfortunate.

One spark I jotted down during his talk - why don't the major networks (like CNN or CBC) start a blogger certification program?  There is endless debate about the validity of "citizen journalism"; why don't better known journalistic brands work with bloggers to create a program or network?

Jeff Cole from Annenberg's Center for the Digital Future was outstanding! He identified a number of trends across the Center's five years of studying the Internet and its impact.  In the last two years, the data includes an international roster of countries including Canada.  You can download the exec summary of the most recent Digital Future report or purchase the full version. One of the trends that Cole discusses is the likely disappearance of the offline daily newspaper.  Mark Evans discusses this in more detail, but I did want to comment on one of Cole's observations - that offline newspapers and magazines offer an opportunity for serendipity; when you're scanning the full paper or magazine, you will often come across an unexpected article that will change your life.  Cole is concerned that the online equivalent doesn't allow this.  I actually think that blogs, blogrolls and trackbacks facilitate this serendipity, particularly with newspapers adapting a blog-esque style and/or layout; I often discover something unexpected when scanning the online news.

A few other gems from Cole:

• teens are looking for their 15 megabytes of fame, not just their 15 minutes.
• the rise of a viable third political party in the US will come from the Internet
• the Internet has reversed a 450 year old media trend; consumers create content.  This is transforming media - mass media will disappear; the telegram was the first in a line of many
• convergence is real: is a TV channel a URL on the Internet, or is the Internet a channel on TV?
• the migration to mobile content will be easier than we think; for most content, the picture is a luxury and the limitations of the small screen will not overshadow the benefits of ubiquitous access.

Marc Montaldier, Head of Mobile Marketing for Orange France was a last minute and welcome addition.  Apparently Canada is about 2.5 years behind France in our adoption of mobile technology, but the history and evolution of both countries is so similar that we can learn from France's lessons.  Montaldier shared lots of market stats and numbers.  His key points:

• mobile is unique - 1 subscriber is 1 audience member (no "pass-along" in mobile)  Results in better targeting
• the mobile device goes *everywhere* with the customer; and it is multi-media enabled
• perceived value to customers who get a context-sensitive discount is huge (can take advantage of 2D barcodes)
• Get on Mobile Marketing now!

Bryan Segal from ComScore Media Metrix gave a "Top 10 Things you Need to Know about the Canadian Online Market" talk.  I've seen Segal before, so I didn't take a lot of notes, but am always pleased to note that Canada is one of the world leaders in online time and broadband penetration.  86% of online time is broadband in Canada.  And we spend about 2000 minutes a month online.

One of the presentations I was looking forward to the most was Steve Rubel's.  I read his MicroPersuasion regularly, but had never seen him speak before.  I was not the target for Rubel's talk (it was geared towards marketers just entering the realm of social media) so a lot of the content wasn't new, but it was clear, concise, well organized and memorable - even for a newbie.  Outstanding.  My big takeaways:

• Lack of trust in corporations and institutions is one of the major factors driving the surge in online community and social media
• If your brand engenders passion, you need to be in the blogosphere
• The best thing you can dofor your brand in the blogosphere is to empower consumers to achieve something they can't achieve on their own

The final presentation I saw was Chris Dobson, MSN's International VP of Sales and Marketing.  I expected a Microsoft-y sales pitch.  But it wasn't.  Dobson was an engaging and authoritative speaker (one who commented on the unique Canadian marketplace which I appreciated) who inserted Microsoft and MSN's vision, but it wasn't all about using their products.  Key points:

• The shift in ad dollars: it doesn't necessary follow that money cut from TV will go to online; in the UK, Unilever cut 20% of their TV spending and redirected it to instore/POP
• MSN Spaces is really going like gangbusters.  In Canada, 7.3 million on MSN Spaces vs 3.5 million on Blogger
• Broadband is key - but not because of speed, but because it's always on. 
• MSN is testing a feature next to their advertising "Tell me why I got this ad"; next step towards transparency in advertising
• The consumer has three overarching demands that Microsoft Live will address: answer my question, give me my social network, let me do it on the device I want.

I wasn't able to stay for Joseph Jaffe's presentation.  I've read and love his book, Life After the 30-second Spot.  I've reviewed it as well.  Mitch says the talk was well worth the wait.

One of the best things about events like this is that it's like "old home week" ... saw a number of current and former colleagues, including: Ken Schafer, Stuart McDonald [summit notes],  Kevin Krossing, and Dawna Henderson.

One final note on how well organized this thing was .. when I pulled up to the Liberty Grand very unsure where to park and how that would all work (I find the CNE grounds confusing), there was a fellow standing by the entrance directing people to the correct event and handing out parking passes.  This was some exceptional customer service.  Thanks Sympatico/MSN for a great day!

Tags: sympatico msn, digital ad summit, citizen marketer, toronto

ebranding - my first cease and desist email!

On Friday, I received my first cease and desist email.  I consider this quite a milestone in my life as a blogger.

   

Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:56:03 -0400
Subject: Ebranding
From: "Gavan Howe" <[email protected]>
To: kate
CC: "Nancy Miller" <[email protected]>

Kate, please be advised that Howe Brand Communications is the registered owner of the trademark: ebranding and would ask that you cease and desist form [sic] using out [sic] mark in any fashion

Canadian Trademark # TMS 573,202

Gavan Howe

Really?  "ebranding" is trademarked?  Interesting.  So, I checked it out in the Canadian Trademark Database.  A quick search on "ebranding" verifies Howe's claim:

   

ebranding

INDEX HEADINGS:
EBRANDING
BRANDING, E

SERVICES:
(1) Interactive media communications services, namely the creation and development of communications strategies, creative development and execution of advertising materials, and media planning and execution for web sites.

CLAIMS:
Used in CANADA since at least as early as 1996.

I also checked out Howe's site to see how he uses "ebranding".  Howe Brand Communications describes "e-branding" as:

   

“e-branding”™ is the creation and development of communications strategies specifically for brands to have meaning and context on the web. You can never smell a steak sizzling on the web.

   

e-branding™ our creative strategies sprang from the reality that traditional, terrestrial brand positioning strategy doesn’t always work on the web. In late 1996 and early 1997 while working to develop the Bayer Aspirin* web site, we found that in these early days, there was no clear thinking on how to effectively take a land based brand, to the web.

Curiously, Howe uses "e-branding" and not "ebranding" on his website which is the trademark; does that little hyphen makes a difference?  Law-talkin' folks - if you're reading this, I've love to know.

Now, I've read enough cease and desist emails on other bloggers sites to know that the main reason that Howe has to send emails like this is to protect his trademark.  My understanding is that in order to retain a claim on the mark, he has to take reasonable steps to protect it.  Now, it seems to me that ebranding has become a relatively common term, but I wasn't sure.  To Google!

A Google search on "ebranding"  yields 29,500 results.  A search on "e-branding" yields 148,000 results.  Howe has his work cut out for him.  But maybe he only needs to protect it in Canada.  "ebranding Canada" turns up 4,500 results and "e-branding Canada" turns up 9,930 results.  In both of these, I turn up on the first or second pages.   But, wow, I am not the only one.  Howe has some late nights of emailing ahead.  Canada Post even seems to have an individual whose title is "Manager of eBrand Development".  Will he have to change his job title?

I actually don't have any issues with Howe asserting his trademark.  I believe I am violating it in two places: my Bio Page and my Typekey profile page.  These have now been edited.  I'm just not sure it's a useful exercise.  That's the trouble with trademarking words like "ebranding" or "emarketing" or "ebusiness".  Following their initial coinage, a critical mass is reached and everyone starts to use the term.

I searched in the Canadian Trademark Database for "emarketing" and "ebusiness".  There were only three claims containing "emarketing". Two of them were just on the word "emarketing" and were abandonned.  The third uses "emarketing" in conjunction with a business name "Planet Emarketing".  This seems to be a highly defensible trademark, rather than just the word.  It's similar for "ebusiness".  None of the 23 claims have "ebusiness" on its own.  A number of the claims were abandonned.  Two of the most recent I found were for "enabling eBusiness conversations" and "eBusiness conversation manager", trademark applications filed by Ogilvy Renault and recorded as recently as April 13, 2006.

So, the point in all this is I understand the cease & desist, but I question its efficacy at this point.  Will Howe Brand Communications ever be able to assert its full right to the Canadian trademark and become uniquely associated with the phrase "ebranding"?  I don't think they will.  This also gets tricky on a domain level; Howe owns ebrander.ca and ebranders.on.ca, but not ebranding.ca, ebrand.ca or ebrands.ca.  How's *that* all going to play out?  I'll be interested to see if this trademark assertion means that Howe Brand Communications is making a move for a more prominent position in the Canadian online branding consulting space or if there is a plan to perhaps sell their intellectual property in their ebranding [tm]  process.

Tags: ebranding, trademark dispute, cease and desist, Howe Brand Communications

Is Social Media making a difference for women?

As most of you know, we've been working on a plan to bring BlogHer to Canada .. a BlogHerNorth, if you will.  Part of this effort has included time spent discussing assertions like "Look, its 2006.  I really don't think we need a women-focused conference where women can talk about blogging."

I, of course, disagree with this position; I believe there is still a need to give women bloggers opportunities to meet, share and gain experience in a conference setting.

Steve Rubel from Micropersuasion has a post today entitled "Will Social Media Shatter the Glass Ceiling?" that supports the above more eloquently than I did in a recent conversation.  I encourage you to go read the whole thing, but two key bits stand out for me:

According to Fortune, there are more women running Fortune 500 companies this year than there were last year. Currently, 10 Fortune 500 companies are run by women (up from 9 last year), and a total of 20 Fortune 1000 companies have women in the top job (up from 19). Still, this number is shameful given the strides we have made in our society to give women their deserved equal footing.

That's 2%. 2%.  And I don't think this is a "quality" issue.

Rubel goes on to say ...

Despite all of the wonderful changes in marketing and PR over the past couple of years, we still have a long way to go in leveling the playing field for women in our workforce and overall as well.

I believe that over time, at least here in the US, social media can level this inequality. If more women blog about this situation, it has will mobilize them to a) find each other and b) act together. This will accelerate if the mainstream media takes notice. Could social media create a new movement?

Yes.  YES!  The same thing applies to Canada.  We have so many women who have made a name for themselves (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee from Yarn Harlot who has at least 3 books as a result of her blog or Alyson Schafer who has established herself as one of Canada's leading authorities on parenting through her online presence) and a number of those who are on the verge.

I will be seeing Rubel give a talk today at MSN's Digital Ad Summit (an event whose website is screaming out for more women in PR, Marketing and Communications blogging - check it out, I do find it a little frightening).  I've never met Steve and am looking forward to doing so.  It is voices like his, who will join women in their efforts to be a force that shapes the blogosphere.  Thanks, Steve, for the support!

Tags: BlogHerNorth, BlogHer, Steve Rubel, glass ceiling, women in the blogoshphere

"Save the Internet" campaign - prevent tiered access to the Internet

I received an email from John Unger today describing the Net Neutrality Bill that is currently being debated in the US Congress Gutting this bill would allow Internet providers to specify which websites would receive priority on their bandwidth.

James Surowiecki in an article in The New Yorker sums the issue up like this:

Until recently, companies that provided Internet access followed a de-facto commoncarriage rule, usually called "network neutrality," which meant that all Web sites got equal treatment. Network neutrality was considered so fundamental to the success of the Net that Michael Powell, when he was chairman of the F.C.C., described it as one of the basic rules of "Internet freedom." In the past few months, though, companies like A.T. & T. and BellSouth have been trying to scuttle it. In the future, Web sites that pay extra to providers could receive what BellSouth recently called "special treatment," and those that don't could end up in the slow lane. One day, BellSouth customers may find that, say, NBC.com loads a lot faster than YouTube.com, and that the sites BellSouth favors just seem to run more smoothly. Tiered access will turn the providers into Internet gatekeepers.

Brian Clark from Copyblogger has an exceptional piece on the Net Neutrality issue as well!

What to do?

• MoveOn has detailed information about the bill as well as an online petition you can sign
• Read the letter to the US Senate signed by over 3 dozen Internet companies
• Enter the "Save the Net" viral marketing contest
• Download a blog badge and send an email to providers at Common Cause

Tags: Save the Internet, Net Neutrality

Do not read this post if you don't have a sense of humour

Sometimes we take things seriously.  Very seriously.  Things like Web 2.0.  And blogging.  And niche marketing.  And fragmented media. And models like the long tail.

And sometimes, when you're explaining these Very Serious Things to people who have lives, you get a whole new perspective.

Enter Melissa.

Today, Kate explained to me the currently in vogue (en vogue?) term "long tail". Well, in vogue if you're a freak who likes to plot things on graphs. And who blogs. And probably blogs about plotting things on graphs.

"So if the graph was a haircut, the long tail would be like a rat-tail. And that graph would probably be a warm-up pant wearing asshole."

You'll have to visit her blog to see the fabulous photo she found.

Bonus Link: Chris Anderson's Squidoo Lens on The Long Tail

Tags: the long tail, bad haircuts

Using your sig file as a marketing device

I wrote a little piece over at One Degree on using your sig file as a marketing device (well, its a bit of sig file history with some examples of people using it to promote products or themselves). It includes a couple of neat examples from The Weather Network.

It's generated a few interesting comments ranging from the suggestion that the sig file is only the first step in the move to full e-stationary to the comment that I must have written this as an April Fool's joke!

I'd be interested in what those of you who aren't regular One Degree readers think.  How do you use your sig file?  Can it be used effectively as a marketing tool? Is anyone doing it really well?

Tags: marketing, viral marketing, sig file

Addicted to Google & Da Vinci ...

This is a very bad thing to start playing at 11:30 on a Sunday night.

Google & Sony have created a game that is embedded right in your Google homepage.  It's little mini puzzles that generally require a piece of information that you need to get from the official Da Vinci Code Movie Site.

Steve Rubel has a bit of write up about it.

Tags: google, advergames, late night distractions

Three Yahoo tidbits ... new homepage design, avatars and themed logo

Part of my Earth Day celebration included catching up on my feed reading.  I read with interest a post by randfish over at SEOmoz Blog on Yahoo! testing out a new homepage. (homepage redesigns are certainly de rigeur these days!)  Randfish comments that this test by Yahoo! hasn't seemed to make as much of a splash as similar initiatives by Google.  Randfish has additional screenshots as does TechCrunch and the UnofficialYahooWeblog.  Apparently you have to be using IE to see it.  So to see if "I am among the lucky few who get to try it out" (quoted from Yaho!o's splash page for it), I flipped on IE.  No dice.  Also likely because I'm in Canada and going thru Rogers ... I already have a special "Rogers Yahoo!" page. (Screenshot from TechCrunch)

While poking around the Yahoo! homepage, I did see a blurb about their avatars.  Avatar, eh?  I *love* an avatar.  So I signed in and spent about 20 minutes creating mine.  Note the background.  This is a shot of the Toronto Harbourfront (apparently my avatar and her corgie are kicking around one of the Toronto islands).  This was the only background in over 100 choices that was city specific.  There were other country *themed* backgrounds: an American flag and fireworks, a Chinese pagoda ... but none of them had specific cities.  Where are the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, St. Basil's Cathedral, Big Ben?  I can't imagine that the CN Tower is the world's foremost landmark.  And it doesn't seem to be a Canadian subset of Yahoo! (i.e. it is Yahoo.com).  Weird.

One other thing about Yahoo!  For Earth Day, I noticed that created a themed logos, like Google.  This is their logo from their homepage yesterday:

Is this new for Yahoo?  I've never noticed it before, but then I don't visit the Yahoo! homepage a lot.  Usually the My Yahoo! page.  Google, of course, did a logo for Earth Day as well.

[Google Logo courtesy of Google Logos Blog]

Tags: yahoo, yahoo avatar, homepage redesign, google logo

Trying out Qumana

Firefox just hung on me .. in the middle of a blog post.  Grrr.  I'm moving to a desktop editor.  I've tried Ecto, but just couldn't get the hang of the interface.  Also, it had some issues about when I wanted to post something in "Draft" mode.  So I abandonned the local editor idea .. real bloggers edit live, right?

 

Not anymore.

 

Qumana's Canadian which I'm very excited about.  Let's see how this goes.

 

Technorati Tags : software, blog+editor

Three Web 2.0 Tidbits ...

1. The Museum of Modern Betas
This is pretty cool .. Markus is collecting screenshots and links, then writing a blurb about all the betas he can find.  He's got over 1000 collected and has created some lists as well (Most Anticipated, Invite-Only, Top 100, etc.).  Markus also has a blog about the MOMB.

2. The Web 2.0 List (Beta)
The Web 2.0 List lets list members vote and comment on sites that have anything to do with Web 2.0, so, not just software or application sites, but blogs, theme-based collaboration sites, ecommerce sites .. anything that has to do with Web 2.0.  Here, I think Web 2.0 is used as short-hand for "The Social Web" since the focus is on collaboration, social tagging and the benefits derived from mass-participation.  Also has a "Hot" list, a "Chutes & Ladders" list and a great tag cloud. [Via O'Reilly Radar]

3. Slate Article - What is Web 2.0?
The debate continues .. and Paul Boutin makes some good points over at Slate.  What I find helpful is that he tries to categorize the ways in which Web 2.0 is being used to refer to products/marketing campaigns/VC plays.  I don't agree with his assertion that they are incompatable, nor his conclusion that the only way to make sense of "Web 2.0" as a short-hand is to take the pure technology meaning of it; however, he does illustrate the confusion an "outsider" would experience when trying to understand what the heck we're all talking about AND his charge to use words other than "web 2.0" to describe something. [via One Degree]

Technorati Tags: Web2.0, MOMB