Congratulations, Rocketboom
So Rocketboom’s ad auction came off with a rather obscure advertiser — TRM, an ATM and photocopy vending company — getting the privilege to be the first to promote on the hottest vlog … and to get free publicity because of it. Good for TRM and good for Rocketboom, valuing a week’s worth of commercials at $40,000 (and good for me not being made a liar predicting in The New York Times that they would be worth a high CPM).
But this is bad for big ad agencies and big advertisers who missed this boat bigtime. I’m not talking about any specific brand or company (disclosure: I know of some advertisers but I’m not talking about them; I’m talking about the ones that didn’t even have the courage to try). They should have been falling over themselves to grab this unique bargain. And they should be slinking off with their long tails between their legs now. Advertisers constantly whine that they want to do something new, but when something new comes along, they freeze because they can’t fit the new thing into their definitions of old and safe.
And here we have in a microcosm the explanation of why media is so horribly out of sync today: The public is valuing new media much more than the old, but the advertisers still value the old. Most every newspaper and in many cases TV networks and magazines have much larger audiences online, but the revenue for their old media properties remains much higher because the advertisers and agencies still value the old and the safe. They want metrics. They want control. They want guarantees. This, in turn, makes big publishers and producers play it safe because they don’t want to mess with the cash cow. And that means that advertisers miss the opportunity to reach a larger, younger, smarter audience in the new medium, which is — supposedly — what they’re dying to do. And that means that big media companies now face competition from a thousand Rocketbooms and a million Gawkers. That allows a TRM to come along and snatch away an opportunity from the big, lumbering giants. That is why small is the new big. Small be nimble, small be quick, small jumped over the conglomerates.
Or let me summarize the problem in one word. Big advertisers and big agencies are chickenshit. They need to grow some balls or else they’ll find new competitors running circles around them. The explosion — the rocketboom — that has already come to newspapers, magazines, TV networks, the music industry is coming next to the ad business.
Please take this, advertisers, as a friendly kick in the pants.
February 11th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Unbelieveable. Congratulations Rocketboom!
February 11th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
There’s a line I remember from an article in Wired in the very early days of internet advertising. Advertisers were disappointed in the click-through rates they were getting, and whoever was being interviewed said “Well, what’s the click-through rate on a billboard?”
I think that question is just as applicable today as it was then.
February 11th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Are Big Agency/Advertisers chickenshit or just prudent?
The CPM’s generated by Rocketboom’s auction is indeed jaw dropping compared to say, the Super Bowl. Good for them, congratulations and I’m glad they will have a little capital to plow back into the operation.
Recognizing it’s in advertisers’ interest to nuture new vehicles and even act as patrons to potential media, it’s still important to remember adverting’s primary goal is to move product efficiently. Jeff, I never recall browbeating advertisers and calling them names as an effective tactic to win business, but then again I never was a print guy.
I do know when something is terribly overvalued eventually it comes home to roost, but I guess as a Time Warner paper holder you know that.
February 11th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Not all big companies are slow. On Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code I heard today that Earthlink ordered a whole new advertising campaign at Podshow.com (with which quite a few larger podcasts are affiliated), and that they decided to start using user generated ads. Up until now, they’ve been using standard radio voice over ads, which generated a lot of criticism throughout the ‘podosphere’. But only two months later, they’ve apparently changed their PR policy rather drastically, embracing a very novel way of advertising. And I think that’s wonderful, because it would be great if more bigger companies would catch up - Earthlink is currently a significant contributer to the further growth of the podosphere. Although Jeff is quite right, I do think that many big companies are not only slow but also very intelligent.
February 11th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
[...] Jeff Jarvis von Buzzmachine (mögl. hier bekannt wegen der Dell Hell-Story) über die Zurückhaltung der großen Brands bei der Werbeaktion von Rocketboom (dem erfolgreichsten Videoblog der USA, das vor wenigen Tagen für 40.000 USD auf eBay seinen ersten Werbeplatz an eine No-Name Firma namens TRM versteigert hatte): And here we have in a microcosm the explanation of why media is so horribly out of sync today: The public is valuing new media much more than the old, but the advertisers still value the old. Most every newspaper and in many cases TV networks and magazines have much larger audiences online, but the revenue for their old media properties remains much higher because the advertisers and agencies still value the old and the safe. They want metrics. They want control. They want guarantees. This, in turn, makes big publishers and producers play it safe because they don’t want to mess with the cash cow. And that means that advertisers miss the opportunity to reach a larger, younger, smarter audience in the new medium, which is — supposedly — what they’re dying to do. And that means that big media companies now face competition from a thousand Rocketbooms and a million Gawkers. That allows a TRM to come along and snatch away an opportunity from the big, lumbering giants. That is why small is the new big. Small be nimble, small be quick, small jumped over the conglomerates. verwandte Artikel: [...]
February 11th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
[...] Jeff Jarvis: “Big advertisers and agencies are chickenshit.” [...]
February 11th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
You couldn’t be more right.
Who is going to step up and lay down some (not even) risky cash to sponsor Dawn and Drew for a week? Those two will give you a level of advertising creativity that hasn’t happened since the “Dawn” of television!
- Jeff
February 12th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
I agree with you that if a company (whether advertiser or agency) says they want to do “new things” then they should display the courage to follow through. However…
One of the advantages of new media is the ability to measure - scientifically - whether the investment has paid off. “What’s the click-through rate on a billboard?” is a good question, because obviously nobody knows the answer.
The great Ogilvy himself said that only 50% of his advertising worked; he also said he never knew which 50%.
Now along comes the web, which is the perfect direct response advertising medium, and we can know for certain whether a campaign works or not.
For those who wince at my calling the web a “direct response advertising medium”: I’m sorry if it offends, but just “getting your name out there” is not good enough. The real measure of success is: did the campaign bring the “most desired result” (a sale, a lead, or an opt-in)? If not - it didn’t “work”.
February 12th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
“They want metrics. They want control. They want guarantees.”
And yet all of these are superior online than offline, so I don’t buy that this is why they are chickenshit. Although I do buy that they are chickenshit to begin with ;->
February 12th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
The advertising industry is figuring out that there’s no more economical venue than the internet. We have gone from 1 to 4 advertisers in the past 2 months. Rocketboom got some nice breaks from the MSM (Business Week being one) that helped launch their success. I like that they set limits on how they will allow advertising into their program. I hope to have a modicum of success at this myself, but my priority (for better or worse) will always be producing quality independent media. Even if there was no income at all (which there wasn’t for the first three years) I would still do it because I believe in it.
February 12th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Ad agencies these days are factories that produce TV commercials- the whole new media thing scares them as they can’t make a business out of it - they have too many overheads. Some clients see this but find it hard to get good advice - whcih is why we started Big Picture.
Its time to experiment!
February 12th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
[...] Here is Jeff Jarvis’ take on what this means for the mainstream advertisers: [...]
February 13th, 2006 at 3:55 am
[...] Rocketboom the tounge in cheek video cast or vlog with Amanda Congdon got the 40k that is $40,000 big ones for one weeks worth of advertising. Rocketboom turned to ebay to auction off the advertising. Read the full story of the BuzzMachine. The brilliant company who purchased the first week ads will be annouced on Monday. Amanda says “more mainstream companies are interested and following suit.” [...]
February 13th, 2006 at 5:58 am
Surely this will change their content? They can no longer use material that is released under a Creative Commons ‘no commercial use’ license and the days of including large amounts of copyright material (entire old ads such as the scooter one and entire pop records) must be over, as they are much more likely to get sued now?
February 13th, 2006 at 10:50 am
Hallelujah Jarvis,
I couldn’t have said it any better myself. My advice to all young publishers, whether print or online, go to the brand first. You may have a much better chance pitching the brand then the media planning agency. Talk about not getting new media? Well these media planners are the first culprits. Seriously,
I know there are certain protocols and brands hire these people to do the “media plan.” But I implore publishers, don’t waste time trying to convince some jr. media planner that your publication or property is valuable. GO directly to the brand. Get their attention. Cause in the end if the brand doesn’t know about you, or you’re not on their radar, you can forget your chances with the media planner.
ed note. I know this moved slightly off topic but seemed necessary.
February 13th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
[...] Jarvis: But this is bad for big ad agencies and big advertisers who missed this boat bigtime. They should have been falling over themselves to grab this unique bargain. And they should be slinking off with their long tails between their legs now. Advertisers constantly whine that they want to do something new, but when something new comes along, they freeze because they can’t fit the new thing into their definitions of old and safe. No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI Leave a comment Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong> [...]
February 13th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Believe it or not, I suspect most big agencies would regard Rocketboom as so small time as not to be overly impressed with the whole deal. No offence to anyone (and I say this based on the fact that I’ve worked in one of the biggest ad agencies in New York for about ten years, and have worked on digital accounts with tens of millions of dollars in spend.)
That’s not to say that agencies are or are not doing interesting things (varies from agency to agency), but just a perspective. My own take on this is that a lot of the 2.0 web community sometimes overvalues their own media influence, especially in the heartland where the greatest volume of most companies products are sold. When my own blog gets dugg or slashdotted (and I’ve had both) it gets less than 10th of the traffic from when it makes Fark or Collegehumor. Again, just one person’s perspective.
February 14th, 2006 at 10:40 pm
Congratulations, Rocketboom?
Jeff Jarvis, the founder of entertainment weekly and seer into the internet media future, posted a slightly different take on the “small internet mice will destroy old media dinosaurs.â€
March 2nd, 2006 at 9:15 am
Small today but of increasing importance tomorrow. In a few years ALL entertainment media will be broadband, and entities like Rocketboom are just the start. Major advertisers are just laying in the cutty.
And I know people who have worked for Needham, Saatchi, etc. who agree. Hence, my team and I are about to put out a new video page to replace the home made website:
http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2006/03/new-look.html
http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2006/03/espionage.html
Peace.
March 2nd, 2006 at 6:35 pm
[...] The public is valuing new media much more than the old, but the advertisers still value the old. [...]
March 4th, 2006 at 1:55 am
[...] Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine rants beautifully about the disconnect between big advertisers & the consumers they want to reach: “The public is valuing new media much more than the old, but the advertisers still value the old. Most every newspaper and in many cases TV networks and magazines have much larger audiences online, but the revenue for their old media properties remains much higher because the advertisers and agencies still value the old and the safe. They want metrics. They want control. They want guarantees. This, in turn, makes big publishers and producers play it safe because they don’t want to mess with the cash cow. And that means that advertisers miss the opportunity to reach a larger, younger, smarter audience in the new medium, which is — supposedly — what they’re dying to do. And that means that big media companies now face competition from a thousand Rocketbooms and a million Gawkers. That allows a TRM [the winning bidder on Rocketboom’s first ad auction] to come along and snatch away an opportunity from the big, lumbering giants. That is why small is the new big. Small be nimble, small be quick, small jumped over the conglomerates.” What he said! Powered by WordPress [...]
March 6th, 2006 at 2:12 am
[...] With tangential things from pc4media, Buzzmachine, and many more. [...]
July 9th, 2006 at 11:08 am
[...] Andrew Baron developed the idea for Rocketboom, advertised for an actress on craigslist, Amanda answered, Rocketboom’s run of almost daily shows began in December, 2004. Andrew behind the camera, Amanda in front — this production team has been as fundamental to video podcasts, the new media of our time, as Lucy and Desi was to television, the new media of their time. Like Desi, who invented the enduring multi-camera live shoot for television situation comedy, Andrew‘ s (shoot simple-distribute through RSS-use viewer submitted content) innovation should prove to be a durable format. Amanda, like Lucy has endeared herself to an audience by playing up her goofiness, not her glamour. Rocketboom’s absolutely brilliant innovation was conducting an eBay auction for sponsorship - this created a new paradigm for profitable global media production. [...]
December 12th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
After 20 years of giving my blood on the streets of NY to places like JWT and especially McCann, I hope in my lifetime to see the death of traditional ad agencies.
Screw em all.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:29 am
[...] ist, zeigt der Eiertanz von Rocketboom. Begonnen hat alles mit selbstgedrehter Werbung. Die Werbeplätze wurden über Ebay versteigert. Dann gab es vor kurzem ein sponsoring Programm und nun wird die Vermarktung von Blip.TV [...]