Why are advertisers so darn sneaky these days? Seth Godin surely wants to know in his recent post It’s no wonder they don’t trust us. Advertisers seem to constantly trying to hoodwink us into missing a radio button or check box that will result in a new browser toolbar or membership in an opt-out email list.

It isn’t nefarious, though, it is just the result of lots and lots of marketers trying out new tactics to see what works, and apparently sneaky does work — for now.  That said, it is building up a lot hostility from us, the users.

What works is what people are doing on radio, especially AM radio, which is to make the sponsors, advertisers, and ads 1) completely relevant to the programming and what the listener (and the host) would want and 2) let the listener know that this quality programming is available (for free) because of the corporate underwriters.

Seth Godin is a rockstar.  Again I say it. While my friends are amused and frustrated by my constant obsession with “maximizing monetization,” I am an amateur compared to most firms and sites that are constantly “bundling” up browser tool bars and opt-out email lists and anti-virus software and pop-ups and pop-unders — even when installing a new PC, as Godin experienced and shares with us in It’s no wonder they don’t trust us.

The digital world, even the high end brands, has become a sleazy carnival, complete with hawkers, barkers and a bearded lady. By the time someone actually gets to your site, they’ve been conned, popped up, popped under and upsold so many times they really have no choice but to be skeptical.

Every since advertising embraced “psychology” in the 50s and 60s, they entire industry just assumed we hated ads — we never hated ads, we hate ad men.  Anyway, with advertising psychology and neural linguistic programming (NLP) there was a sudden focus on the subconscious and our lack of ever-vigilance.

I am a huge fan of radio shows of the 30s and 40s — they’re all straight shooters.  The only reason why people are no longer impressed is twofold: they seemed to be always promoting cigarettes and because we consider ourselves more modern and sophisticated — and these old corporate-sponsored variety shows just seem too unsophisticated.

Well, I think people could use a little straight-shooting in 2010 and I am hoping that advertising and financial under-writing and advertising and bundling becomes more transparent, more opt-in, and more clear as to why all of this monetization indeeds need to be done — and the answer is generally, “so that we can make this less expensive — or free — for you, the user,” which I think is a fair-enough reason.

When I wrote Twitter is Finally Monetizing Through Text Ads I was pretty sure that I was the last person to know that Twitter was running text ads masquerading as witty and helpful links to useful Twitter apps and services. I ran with the story because it was new to me.  Tonight, ReadWriteWeb posted a story called Ads Spotted on Twitter.com – Did You Notice? and my post was linked to in this context, “It’s funny – the ads have been live for about a week now and no one but a few (me!) small, alert blogs has written about them. It was big news three months ago and we believe it’s still important.” Cool!  I feel vindicated!

Ads Spotted on Twitter.com – Did You Notice?

Three months ago we reported that Ads Had Come to Twitter and it was a pretty big deal – until Twitter promptly said the word “sponsored” was only appearing on the site in error. Now the “sponsored definitions” of certain Twitter “concepts” have appeared on the site again – and they sure look legit this time.

These first ads probably aren’t going to bring in enough cash to fuel a micro-app acquisition spree by Twitter, but this is the first clear public indication of one way the company is bringing in revenue. It’s funny – the ads have been live for about a week now and no one but a few small, alert blogs has written about them. It was big news three months ago and we believe it’s still important.

So far the only two sponsored links we’ve seen cycle through our sidebars have been to the ad network Federated Media‘s Microsoft microsite ExecTweets.com (aggregating Twitter messages from corporate executives) and Universal Studios‘ CinemaTweets.com, promoting the allegedly offensive forthcoming gay-face movie Bruno. The ads only appear on the home page of Twitter when a user is logged in, not when looking at another user’s profile page. Also included in the cycle is a link to a joint Twitter and Threadless.com microsite where visitors can buy Threadless t-shirts about Twitter. Apparently that doesn’t constitute a sponsored link, but presumably money is changing hands somewhere. The whole world of Twitter is a green-field when it comes to rules of disclosure.

Perhaps these sources of revenue will help Twitter remain a viable company long enough for all kinds of questions about this brand new medium to be explored.

Dave Winer argued this Spring that people want to know how Twitter is going to make money because they might not like it. He told a story about learning while in college that Domino’s Pizza used profits to fight Planned Parenthood. With all the time, energy and content people are investing in Twitter – many want to know how the company will monetize so they can decide whether it’s an organization they want to continue investing in.

And so it has begun. There are ads on Twitter. What do you think?

Disclosure: Federated Media is also the ad network for ReadWriteWeb.

There has been so much conjecture as to how Twitter will start monetizing.  Well, it looks like there have been a few baby steps in the form of “sponsored definitions” that cycle through right above the Home link on the navigation bar. It is very subtle and I didn’t notice it myself until today (Seth Simonds has been talking about this since June 23rd).

You won’t see these sponsored definitions every time as they’re interspersed with Twitter definitions that are not sponsored but simply informational or helpful, I guess.  An example of a sponsored definition is Exec Tweets and Cinema Tweets — essentially text ads in the guise of being factoids and links to useful apps and services.

According to a blog post I found on blog.twitter.com from back in March, it looks like Federated Media is handling the Twitter sponsored definitions, “It turns out the folks over at Federated Media have both the resources and the expertise. So if you’re a major brand and you want to sponsor a topic-focused social media experience with Twitter, we suggest Federated Media—they’ll fix you up right,” which could be a real score for Federated.

Twitter has done a very good job of working this is organically — I never noticed it, as I said, until this morning.

Doing a cursory search, nobody is freaking out and there hasn’t been any direct reference to advertising on Twitter short of a coy post on May 20 — Does Twitter Hate Advertising?, “Do we hate advertising? Of course not. It’s a huge industry filled with creativity and inspiration. There’s also room for new innovation in advertising, marketing, and public relations and Twitter is already part of that.”

So, no direct mention of the “sponsored definition” campaign.  Very smooth and with zero blowback.

That said, if you have a Twitter app or service and want to get into the loop, I guess you should reach out to Federated Media, though I wonder if there might be a secret handshake or password to get yourself into an ad on Twitter.

And, to look at the Twitter-to-come, Seth Simonds also mentions that there are proper 185px ×185px image ads showing on Twitter Japan, which you can see for yourself, “You can see for yourself by visiting the account settings of your Twitter account and changing the language preference to Japanese.” — in this case, the ad is static and sells Windows 7 and Windows Vista from the Japanese Microsoft Store.

Very interesting.  What do you think? (Via Socialmedia.biz and Marketing Conversation)

Earlier this year Grey Germany put out three condom ads for Doc Morris pharmacies. They were attempts to wittily imply that the human race could have been spared three uber-butchers of the past century (Mao Tze-Tung, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden), and the horror and suffering they brought, by a simple condom (a Doc Morris condom, natch). The humble rubber as a superhero and savior of humanity — there definitely is potential for some wonderful, dark, absurdist humor in that idea.

I can totally see how a certain young, urbane sector of German society could find these ads really quite funny and compelling — as they did the suicide-themed Pepsi One ads done last year that offended so many outside the target demographic.

Now, unfortunately for Grey and for Doc Morris, not everyone thought the “Evil Sperm” ads were funny. Quite a few people thought they were racist, insensitive, offensive and inappropriate — and now those adjectives are associated with Doc Morris pharmacies in people’s heads.

That’s the way it is with humor — sometimes you nail it, sometimes you bomb. Humor is powerful in both directions.

A simple allegory for old-media folks who still don’t get it: Standing up and telling a fart joke while drinking with friends in your rec room = low risk. Standing up and telling a fart joke while drinking with friends at someone’s wedding party = high risk.

With internet advertising and PR, you are always at someone’s wedding party; you are never safely behind closed doors. If you try to be loud and draw attention to yourself, as advertisers and PR folk generally do, the people at the next table are going to hear it — and if you’re testing the limits of good taste with your humor, the odds are that those uptight grandmas and squares and stuffed shirts who just don’t appreciate your super-edgy wit are going to think poorly of you and perhaps even whack you with their cash-filled Vera Bradley handbags.

Here are some realities of the media world of 2009 that old-school advertising and PR would be well served to note:

• You can’t expect your messaging to stay contained within your target demographic. The information you put out will spread, and that spread is beyond your control. There are only two reasons why information doesn’t spread once it is out: a) people are just uninterested in your message, b) it’s in a language people don’t speak (which is really just a subset of “a,” frankly). Note: Images like the “Evil Sperm” ads are language-less, so they will jump the language barrier with glee.
• You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. There is no memory hole with the internet. Book-burning is so 20th century. Babelsplatz was yesterday. If you put it out, it is there to stay (even if folks like Ads of the World are willing to censor).
• Hiding and praying it will go away rarely works. Like every good stand-up comic knows, if your routine is bombing, the only thing you can do is keep talking. It’s double or nothing. The only treatment for unfortunate speech is more speech.

So, what does this mean concretely? How does the modern PR/advertising flack deal with the fact that we live in a world where toothpaste gets irretrievably out of the tube and will probably ooze into places we never wanted to have it? Well …

• Craft your message with the knowledge that it will likely go where you didn’t intend it to go. One thing this could mean is don’t do messages that, while they may resonate with one of your customer demographics, are bound to offend others. Grey’s “Evil Sperm” and Pepsi‘s suicide ads fall into that category. Alternately, if you can’t resist putting out offensive stuff, because it’s just so incredibly funny and will make your targets buy and your colleagues green with professional envy, then have your mea culpa marketing strategy ready in advance to take advantage of the probable result — a social-media shitstorm — as Pepsi did with its suicide ads (more on mea culpa marketing below).
• Don’t humiliate yourself by begging (or worse, demanding) bloggers to go back and censor your screw-up. As a blogger, I say deleting posts is cool only in the rarest of circumstances — generally only when an innocent individual will be hurt or put in danger by the information — never when it’s just embarrassing to a company. Trying to get bloggers to censor information is just going to offend them further, make them question your ethics and increase the chance that they will react to you with animosity.
• Have your mea culpa machine ready to roll. If you offend with your communications, keep communicating — your best hope is to dilute your screw-up with evidence that you really are upstanding folks who made a little mistake. If you are really good at this, you can jujitsu the negative into positive and come out well ahead, with free positive publicity and goodwill among influencers and your target markets. How do you do this?
  1. 1. Listen to those criticizing you and understand how you offended — this means tracking all negative mentions and understanding their gripes.
     2. Figure out what you are sorry for, what you are not sorry for and prepare your response accordingly. Be honest. Don’t be arrogant, though — if you’re not sorry enough, or for the stuff you should be, it’s likely the social-media sphere will make you truly sorry if you screw up your apology as well.
     3. Connect with your detractors personally and as a real human being. This means actually reading their posts about you; figuring out who they are and what their perspective and values are; and engaging them on their terms, in their language and with a convincing apology — and above all, as a living, breathing, fellow human being, not as a faceless corporation or as a smooth-talking, snakeskin-suit PR wanker.
     4. Connect publicly with your detractors’ negative coverage of you. Comment on the relevant articles where appropriate, write your own articles on the subject if appropriate, guest blog a response/apology on a detractor’s site where appropriate. Be smart though. Screw this part up, and you may just fan the flames high again, rather than douse them with the cooling water of an effective mea culpa.
     5. Maintain the relationships going forward. Now that you’ve invested the energy into converting a detractor into a friend, or at least a “tolerater,” maintain that relationship with communication — share information, ask guidance, get feedback. These former detractors can save you from future screw-ups, or at least are likely to deal with you a bit more sympathetically the next time you blow it.

In essence, it’s quite simple, just remember these three things: On the internet, you are always talking to the whole world, whether you intend to or not; be cognizant of who your message will offend and decide deliberately if you are willing to offend them; and if you must offend, have your mea culpa machine ready to go before you pull the trigger.

This is the media world of 2009 — it’s simple transparency and good human relations. There’s really no excuse for blowing it. (Via AdAge)

I have always assumed that advertising networks were much more sophisticated than met the eye.  I made an assumption that the mixture of computing power; the ubiquitous nature of cookies and tracking code; and the broad coversage, cross-referencing and cross-pollination of the ad networks would result in a global Internet conspiracy of targeting so precise and so automated that I am seriously done for.

Well, if that is the case, then I am embroiled in a massive disinformation campaign here in the W hotel on Lexington Avenue in NYC:  digitday:TARGET.

I don’t believe this is a giant plot to chaff and flare the privacy advocates and conspiracy into a lull.  I really believe that no matter how brute the computing force, how savvy the algorithms, or how promiscuous the sharing might be behind the scenes, this is still an emerging market, not quite sure how to deliver the kind of one-to-one advertising and marketing targeting I had thought been commonplace since before Doubleclick was disbanded as being Evil.

Well, folks are discussing semantic advertising and targeting and all sorts of other cool stuff.  I wonder if there is better, more nefarious, ways of targeting using the kinds of data that these networks are smart enough to not use — meaning, if Google or Facebook were to start to deliver contextual ads for herpes therapy to people who have searched for and purchased anti-viral therapies or herpes medicine in the past, I guarantee you that these folks would freak.

Maybe the answer could be “yes, we in fact do have everything on you, we know all of your dirty detailed; however, we’re smart enough to realize that we can’t reveal our hand or the privacy advocated will take us down with extreme prejudice, just like they did in the past” — what do you think?

Anyway, I think this has been — is being — a very valuable conference.  I have to thank Dean Landsman for hooling me up with my only conference during New York Internet Week 2009.

I now have a lot of things to think about when it comes to what I do at Abraham Harrison LLC with our selection of social media marketing, earned media, blogger relations, social media engegement, Twittering strategies, and the like.

I also think that the next big thing will be the Reeces Pieces of the chocolate of Public Relations and the peanut butter of Advertising.  There needs to be a confluence — and that confluence doesn’t even need to include ad agencies — social media marketing and online advertising networks really need to make a baby.

Well, anyway, for now it seems like we’re still safe from being completely crushed by the J. Edgar Hoover-like extortion of people based on their choices, their interests, their vices, and their secrets.

That said, this is not a government-sponsored event, this is only a commercial event, focusing on business and publisher data and advertising. One thing nobody every addressed is whether all of this passive attention data is being shared and with whom?

If your attention data, search data, purchasing data, download data, and browsing data were to be made available for reasons of Homeland Security, would that be OK?  If your attention data can become part of a pattern-recognition campaign to track and hunt down terrorists, would that be permissible to you?

Anyway, let’s talk about this in the comments… I would love to hear what’s going on in your mind about this.  I am pretty new to online advertising, to ad networks, to new technologies in targeting and metrics and quantificaltion and qualification and what not, but I am really interested in learning.

This is complete speculation so bear with me.  Very recently, Twitter changed its email alert messages  from pithy text-only notices of new followers or direct messages to branded, graphical emails.

Well, Twitter has always been in a conundrum: if they monetize the sparse web interface, they’ll alienate their very touchy early-adopters and send people away in disgusted droves; however, if they place banners, contextual ads, or sponsored links into alert emails, then no harm, no foul.

I don’t know if you have every looked in your settings recently, but there is a lot of opportunity to set up your Twitter account to send you a lot of alerts and warnings, letting you know when you receive a direct message or when you score a new follower — especially if you’re someone like me, adding an additional 200-followers-per-day!

So, what do you think?  Instead of Twitter shopping itself around to Google and Microsoft, maybe Twitter is shopping its inline advertising opportunity within the endless email alerts that it send me and many of you every hour of every day.

Do you think this is possible or probable?  Please let me know in the comments. Via Marketing Conversation.

Does the above advertisement ring of eugenics?  I am fascinated by the obsession that this nation — and Great Britain and Europe — had with “discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits” during the late 1800s through to World War II, when it disappeared for obvious reasons (see above).  In fact, when it comes to eugenics, America has a very dark secret.  We Americans, anyway, have an obsession with better, smarter, and stronger.

I hate eugenics and I don’t think it is funny.

There is enough threat of breeding ourselves like Race Horses already through partner-selection and so forth, that I really don’t find the implication of this ad campaign at all.

I have been seeing this all over my news feed but thanks to AdFreak for finally saying something smart on the subject, Use a condom, thwart that evil Hitler sperm:

Do condom ads reflect the mind-sets of nations? In the U.S., we get faux-patriotism and soft-core porn, while the French have safe sex on the beach. Now, from Germany, comes a dour dose of angst via Grey in a campaign for Doc Morris Pharmacies. The message: Use a condom, and be sure you’re not bringing the next Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler or Mao Zedong into the world. Of course, you’d have to sleep with one of those three to risk that—and I imagine most would abstain, especially in the case of Hitler, since he’s been dead for almost 65 years. Or maybe the ads are just generally likening sperm to invaders and terrorists. The bad hairdos should be enough to frighten anyone away. Via Ads of the World.

Othersource in Poland partnered with McKinney ad agency to build a Flash 3D engine with artificial intelligence for the McKinney website that’s launching this week.

Compared to other sites in the Semantics category, this one has an unusual level of interactivity. Users can ask the site questions, via the keyboard, using everyday language and expressions, and the proprietary “conversation engine” will decipher them and then fetch relevant results.

This means the user becomes liberated from the navigation. You no longer need background information to search the site – you just ask it a question.

Also, the site is completely index-able, bookmark-able, etc… from every page – even the video thumbnails have a unique URL. And every single page is a printable PDF, laid out for A4 or newsletter.I also found a nice blog post about it over at AdLab, Agency Site With a Chat Bot:

McKinney has built a Pandorabot-based chat bot (aka “conversation engine”) into its brand new site with a somewhat trippy interface. See if you can catch answers that were pre-scripted to make the machine sound particularly intelligent as opposed to the generic chat bot cop-outs like “Say what?” or “Come again”. – thank you, Michelle

Here’s the proper press release from McKinney.com:

McKinney.com – A Website You Can Talk To

Warsaw, Poland (February 10th, 2009) — Warsaw-based interactive agency Othersource announced today the launch of McKinney.com, a groundbreaking website created in partnership with the awardwinning advertising agency, in Durham, N.C.

Conversations with a website
Using cutting edge technologies, the new McKinney.com is reinventing the conversation had between the ad agency and its audience. Compared to other sites in the Semantics category, the site possesses an unusual level of interactivity. Visitors are able to ask the site questions, via the keyboard, using everyday language and expressions, and the proprietary “conversation engine” will decipher them and then fetch relevant results.

The functionality is groundbreaking. The back-end employs a 3D Flash engine with artificial intelligence, and the interface design is cutting-edge, making it one of the most experiential and unconstrained agency sites on the Web.

Unique tech mix
Othersource worked with linguists who understood, on a high-level, the structure of language. They also enlisted programmers familiar with semantics to help develop the sophisticated algorithm. “Creating the conversation engine’s ‘brain’ was quite labor intensive,” said Othersource Managing Partner Thomas Krotkiewski. “We enlisted two linguists (one a PhD from the University of Oxford), to analyze questions provided by McKinney, and to supply us with all possible ways the questions could be posed. If this search method fails, a backup proprietary tag search function will launch and search matching content. And finally, if the answer is still thought to be inadequate, the question is forwarded to McKinney for human processing. To be sure the conversation engine learns from its mistakes, there is a conversation history log on the proprietary Content Management System. This level of integration between conversation engine and website is completely unique,”

“We were looking for a production partner who would not only bring our vision to life, but enhance it,” added Keith Ciampa, who served as McKinney’s interactive creative director on the project. “Most true innovation happens on the fringes of the industry, by people who are passionate about what they do and willing to take risks. When we explained our vision for a conversational site, based on a completely open architecture, which could grow and become smarter the more it was used, Othersource knew we were asking for something that had never been done, and they couldn’t have been more excited to help us figure it out.”

Conversation-driven search
A proprietary tag search was built into the back end of the new site so search results can be presented dynamically, and not just direct visitors to a static page. For example, a visitor can ask a question like, “show me TV campaigns for client X from November last year” and an animated 3D tunnel will appear, with search results as moving thumbnail images, that the visitor can fly through. “As far as we can tell, this functionality is unique,” said Krotkiewski.

Like gas molecules
The site has an advanced 3D graphical interface. “The key to the 3D interface is the ‘cloud view,’ which shows a cloud of graphical thumbnails, moving like molecules in a gas, bouncing randomly off each other while also reacting to mouse input. The cloud can be filtered by the visitor to only show thumbnails representing certain types of content,” said Martin Ignaczak, Account Director at Othersource.

Flash without drawbacks
The site has overcome the limitations of Flash: “The site is fully searchable by Google, each page can bookmarked and linked to, and each view can be downloaded as a printable PDF,” continued Ignaczak. Working in the virtual

New technologies were key to organizing the project. Othersource used video-conferencing, VoIP, instant messaging, e-mails, and other electronic means of communication to coordinate the work with McKinney. “We only met face-to-face after the launch, which proves we are able to run even very complex projects completely in the virtual,” added Krotkiewski.

“We are honored by McKinney’s decision to partner with Othersource for the production — we were competing with some quite well-known US interactive agencies in the pitch. Being chosen in spite of being based overseas is quite a feat. We hope this project is the beginning of a long relationship with McKinney. We also expect it will generate more opportunities for us in the US overall,” said Krotkiewski.

“Partnering with Othersource on this project was both a rewarding and challenging experience,” said McKinney Interactive Technology Director Trevor O’Brien. “The biggest hurdle was taking existing technologies and customizing them to work together in ways they were not initially intended to. Othersource helped deliver a site that is an experiential and innovative place to interact online. It’s exciting to see what two like-minded teams can create together.”

About Othersource
Othersource provides interactive services from strategy to production to companies around the world. In 2008, the agency participated in projects for companies such as MetLife, The National Constitution Center in Boston, Accenture Poland, Puma, Imation Europe and others, in Poland, Sweden, Holland, the UK and the USA. The majority of its clients are Advertising and Interactive agencies that need support in creating campaign strategies, creative concepts and interactive production for their clients. About McKinney McKinney is an independent advertising agency that’s focused on reinventing the conversation between people and brands. Our goal is to lead the convergence of offline and online (today, 35% of our revenue is interactive and 88% of our frontline staff is actively engaged in the digital space), to identify relevant applications for new technologies and to deliver game-changing ideas that deliver extraordinary results for our clients, their customers and our people.

Founded in 1969, the Durham, NC-based agency’s clients include Coldwell Banker, Gold’s Gym, Major League Gaming, The NASDAQ Stock Market, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, ProShares, Qwest Communications, Sherwin-Williams, Travelocity, Virgin Mobile USA, Virgin Atlantic Airways, and Brown- Forman Corporation brands Bonterra, Chambord, Sonoma-Cutrer, Southern Comfort and Tuaca.

Most recently, Virgin Atlantic Airways and McKinney took top honors at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s MIXX Awards that celebrate the “mixx” of creativity and effectiveness in digital marketing. Virgin Atlantic’s experiential launch, “Love from Above,” won a Gold MIXX in the Mobile Platforms category for the company’s first-ever WAP site.

For more information, visit our website at www.mckinney.com or the McKinney Newsroom by contacting Janet Northen at janet.northen@mckinney.com.

Additional information:
Thomas Krotkiewski
Managing Partner
Othersource
+48-601-145398
thomas@othersource.com
Timezone: GMT+1
Janet Northen
Partner & EVP, Director of Agency Communications

Janet Northen
Partner & EVP, Director of Agency Communications
McKinney
+1 919.313.4062
janet.northen@mckinney.com

Matt and I rushed this post tonight. I received the email three hours ago, IMed Matt, and we got it out now. I love blogging for this. I hope you enjoy this new post, Pepsi Apologized to Me For Its Suicide Ads:

Pepsi Apologized to Me For Its Suicide Ads
A close-up look at how the marketer is handling fallout from its controversial German ads

This week, PepsiCo got into hot water with more than a few folks after some suicide-themed ads many found offensive were brought to light. Here’s how they’re using social media to apologize to consumers—including me.

I received an email from B. Bonin Bough of PepsiCo, @boughb on Twitter, responding to my tweet about the recent post that Matt Creamer wrote a couple days ago, “Pepsi Opens a Vein of Controversy With New Suicide-Themed Ads”, about some ads that were run here in Germany in a lifestyle mag—ads Pepsi says it won’t run again after they received heavy criticism all over the web.

I’ll excerpt the first part of the email from Mr. Bough, who holds the title of director-social and emerging media and is based at Pepsi’s Purchase, N.Y. campus:

I saw your tweet and I just wanted to make sure I responded personally. We agree this creative is totally inappropriate; we apologize and please know it won’t run again. Also, thanks for the feedback and the Digg, it is important to discuss these types of issues.

My best friend committed suicide and this is a topic very close to my heart. So again I offer my deepest apologies.

Feel free to follow-up via twitter to me – @boughb or Huw – @huwgilbert or respond to this email.

Thanks, Bonin

I know you all think I am going to mock Bonin, but I won’t. I think this was a very bold and risky maneuver and worthy of praise rather than a tarring and feathering. And his outreach to me, a nobody, was accomplished within two days. When I replied to Bonin, asking if I might be allowed to post his email, he replied back that I could post his email but to try to “treat it kindly.” I hope I am.

I don’t think that Bonin knew that I blog for AdAge or that I know a bit about how the marketer is surprised about how well-traveled the ads have been. The old we-didn’t-think-anyone-here-would-see-it approach. Well, that’s the Internet for you. Someone passed along the scans of the PepsiMax ad, “One is a Very Very Lonely Calorie,” to the alert gang here at AdAge.

Within two days of tweeting, I received a note from @tweetmeme, a sure sign that my tweet had gone memetic (and that I had played at least a bit part in the mad traffic to the AdAge post as well as the resulting 40 comments.)

Here’s how fast and furious social media works. The article was posted on AdAge at 4:36 PM EST on December 2nd. I read it and Tweeted at 6:16 PM EST the same day. And then I received said email from Mr. Bough at 5:21 PM on December 4. The lesson here is that social media has eyes everywhere and the network to make sure that advertisers can no longer hide stuff in niche markets. There is a word in intelligence about just this thing, and it relates to messaging and propaganda: backwash. Social media makes backwash inevitable. Here’s another one from Intelligence: blowback. Backwash leads to blowback.

There’s no way to isolate this kind of advertisement. And there is an inverse proportion between how badly you want your ad to remain niche and the sensationalism surrounding its discovery. It’s a really obvious point, but one still clearly worth stating: The internet makes it impossible for any marketer to control which geographies and demographics see any particular communication. You can’t even really control what media it appears in. Think you’re creating an edgy print ad that will only be seen in a German magazine? Think again. In the blink of an eye, your ad is on the web. You know, the world wide one. And all kinds of people are pissed off.

What I like about what “Bough, Bonin {PEP}” did here is that he responded almost immediately, rather personally, and opened himself up to us social media mavens. Bravo! Full marks. Another thing I like about his apology is that there is a very good chance that I am being played, that Mr. Bough is playing reverse psychology on me. Yes, he readily approved my posting of this message when I asked, which leads me to believe that the very act of clicking on the post right now is just going to help PepsiCo with an amazingly-savvy viral marketing campaign for PepsiMax.

I tell anyone who will listen to me that the current crop of advertisement methods is too short-lived. The moment you spend the money and your ad runs, that is the moment it is either gone to the grave or becomes a patient existing on life support. Either you’re smart and willing to keep it alive, in conversation, online on YouTube for the spots, or on a blog somewhere for the print work — or you feel compelled to keep on throwing money at it ad infinitum, because contextual ads, banner ads, etc, only last as long as you write checks.

What my specialty is is online conversation marketing, online public relations, and online earned media. When you earn peoples’ attention and when they choose to speak about you, your clients, and your services, then you have a gift that keeps on giving — this is content that lasts well past the campaign and into the future. This is both the sort of thing that Google loves — it is SEO catnip — and it is just the sort of content that flows, both upstream to A-list bloggers and to mainstream media and down to your readers, aggregators, and to other bloggers and other blogs.

If you want to see some examples of powerfully successful blogger outreaches, check out International Medical Corps (IMC) 2008, Survivor Corps Operation Survivor 2008, and Fresh Air Fund Summer 2008, Jerry White’s I Will Not Be Broken book promotion. In many cases, these campaigns are close to a year old, yet they still still live in hundreds and hundreds of blogs and feed Google’s index until all of these blogs are taken down. It is really amazing how effective this sort of “advertising” promotion works. What’s better, when the campaign is over and the client “turns off” our tap, the content continues living and isn’t just shut off like it is with banners, buttons, and contextual advertising. Very interesting, very cool, and powerfully effective.

Remember how much fun Communication Arts is to page through? — CA is intoxicating! Well, every ad you make can be as interesting, as long as you’re willing to come out of your art department and share your process, share your experience, share your steps. Keeping those ephemera alive through narrative, sharing, conversation, and story, is what social media is, it is what customer service is, it is surely what branding should be.

Anyway, There is a lot of opportunity in this time of chaos, of this time of transition. The same sort of transition (and opportunity) happened when PCs came online, replacing the IBM Selectric II; when the Internet changed E-Commerce, threatening to eviscerate bricks and mortar stores, and it is happening now, more than ever, with advertising, marketing, and PR.

I call it white knuckle syndrome: holding on to the handholds you have, frozen on the face of the cliff, because you don’t know where the handholds of the future are. This chaos is pretty amazing to watch as the economy pitches and GM bails on Super Bowl.

Advertising knows it needs to jump off the locomotive before it pitches into the gorge (the bridge is out!) but reaching out to the proffered hand of the guy in the helicopter seems pretty risky too. But, as the current handholds become chalky and you start to feel them crumble under your weight, you’ll need to find somewhere else to go, and quick!

To me, Chris Brogan said it best the other day on Twitter, “customer service is the new PR.*” Looking at what @comcastcares has been able to do, customer service is the new PR, the new marketing, and the new advertising.

So, as those handholds start to get chalk and begin to crumble, it is important to at least set your eyes on a new handhold — or maybe a helping hand — before your original handhold turns to powder.

And for you who have yet to do the reading, please check out Cluetrain Manifesto and Naked Conversation.

According to Jonathan Trenn, over at Marketing Conversation — Bob Garfield’s “Chaos Scenario” may start locally — the world of advertising is in a place of chaos — spanning the dead zone between traditional advertising methods and new media advertising.

Bob Garfield’s “Chaos Scenario” may start locally

If you haven’t read Bob Garfield’s presentations of how advertising will evolve over the next few years (Part 1 and Part 2), then you should. He calls this the “Chaos Scenario”…a perfect metaphor for what he describes. In it, he argues that traditional advertising is dying out as media usage and consumer behavior are changing. Much of the change has its roots in the rise of the internet as a marketing vehicle. But, Garfield points out, new methods and practices have yet to fully pan out. And many companies haven;t come to grips with this new and show no signs of doing it any time soon. This is going to cause (my interpretation) chaos as traditional media outlets struggle to get advertisers while these advertisers struggle to figure out how to advertise effectively with their limited knowledge.

For the most part, I agree with his thesis. Most major traditional marketing-oriented mediums are becoming less effective as promotional vehicles. Media usage is more dispersed, more personal, and thus, more controlled by the end user. And many times those end users today are choosing to ignore or avoid the advertising messages that are send their way. Whether it ends up being as dire as Garfield suggests, I have no idea, but changes are coming and neither the advertising mediums nor the advertisers themselves are ready for it.

And I think local is where we’ll see it first. I see this happening one the local level over the next three years. Goldman Sachs is predicting that traditional local advertising vehicles – local TV, newspapers and radio stations – are going to get hit particularly hard during this recession. I’m going to agree, and the key world there is “particularly”. That’s because local advertising is hurting anyway as advertisers have already been pulling back because it doesn’t work like it used to. Add to that further cuts in ad spend and you could get a serious amount of casualties on the local media market.

In the above graphs, we can see that newspaper get hit the hardest. Readership is down in the first place. That’s permanent. People have stopped buying newspapers for whatever reason – a lack of interest in news, having news available online, and getting quick news capsules in other mediums. A poor economy has little or no effect on newspaper buying. We won’t be seeing a rebound once the economy bounce back.

The collapse of players in the local ad market will reduce the options for advertisers. Yet the demand will probably still meet the supply. So we’ll see further erosion. Craigslist, satellite radio, and cable TV will make this so.

One of the alternatives will be local online advertising. But I don’t see many local advertisers ready for this. I still see most local companies that are likely to advertise having little more than brochureware websites. I see very little use of local Google Adsense coming from traditional businesses. And, again, the websites are neither optimized for online search nor are they set up with the correct landing pages for potential ads. Local businesses SHOULD be developing internet strategies, but the decision makers in them don’t go to our conferences, they don’t read our blogs, they’re not on Twitter. Nor are they probably on Facebook or MySpace. They’re far from it.

So while they’ll be temporarily holding back ad dollars during tough economic times, they’ll be likely losing some of their traditional advertising choices. And they won’t be ready or equipped to start marketing on new media – because they’ve chosen to not take the time to learn it. The end result? Chaos.

I call it white knuckle syndrome: holding on to the handholds you have, frozen on the face of the cliff, because you don’t know where the handholds of the future are. This chaos is pretty amazing to watch as the economy pitches and GM bails on Super Bowl.

Advertising knows it needs to jump off the locomotive before it pitches into the gorge (the bridge is out!) but reaching out to the proffered hand of the guy in the helicopter seems pretty risky too. But, as the current handholds become chalky and you start to feel them crumble under your weight, you’ll need to find somewhere else to go, and quick!

I tell anyone who will listen to me that the current crop of advertisement methods is too ephemeral. The moment you spend the money and your ad runs is the moment it is either gone to the grave — unless you’re smart and willing to keep it alive, in conversation, online on YouTube for the spots or on a blog somewhere for the print work — or you will feel compelled to keep on throwing money at it ad infinitum, because contextual ads, banner ads, etc, only last as long as you write checks.

What my specialty is is online conversation marketing, online public relations, and online earned media. When you earn peoples’ attention and when they choose to speak about you, your clients, and your services, then you have a gift that keeps on giving — this is content that lasts well past the campaign and into the future. This is both the sort of thing that Google loves — it is SEO catnip — and it is just the sort of content that flows, both upstream to A-list bloggers and to mainstream media and down to your readers, aggregators, and to other bloggers and other blogs. If you want to see some examples of powerfully successful blogger outreaches, check out International Medical Corps (IMC) 2008, Survivor Corps Operation Survivor 2008, and Fresh Air Fund Summer 2008, Jerry White’s I Will Not Be Broken book promotion. In many cases, these campaigns are close to a year old, yet they still still live in hundreds and hundreds of blogs and feed Google’s index until all of these blogs are taken down. It is really amazing how effective this sort of “advertising” promotion works. What’s better, when the campaign is over and the client “turns off” our tap, the content continues living and isn’t just shut off like it is with banners, buttons, and contextual advertising. Very interesting, very cool, and powerfully effective.

Remember how much fun Communication Arts is to page through? — CA is intoxicating! Well, every ad you make can be as interesting, as long as you’re willing to come out of your art department and share your process, share your experience, share your steps. Keeping those ephemera alive through narrative, sharing, conversation, and story, is what social media is, it is what customer service is, it is surely what branding should be.

Anyway, There is a lot of opportunity in this time of chaos, of this time of transition. The same sort of transition (and opportunity) happened when PCs came online, replacing the IBM Selectric II; when the Internet changed E-Commerce, threatening to eviscerate bricks and mortar stores, and it is happening now, more than ever, with advertising, marketing, and PR.

To me, Chris Brogan said it best the other day on Twitter, “customer service is the new PR.*” Looking at what @comcastcares has been able to do, customer service is the new PR, the new marketing, and the new advertising.

So, as those handholds start to get chalk and begin to crumble, it is important to at least set your eyes on a new handhold — or maybe a helping hand — before your original handhold turns to powder.

I know there is so much money — huge buckets of hot cash — in TV commercials (and you’re still all stoked from your experience — and profit — from the presidential campaign) but you need to diversify! You need to start spreading your weight over a number of holds: left and right foot, left and right hand — and hopefully a belay man and some crampons and a few anchors and camming devices… as much as you can do.

This is a time of chaos, and your mistakes will all be gentle and you will be admired for doing cool stuff, so it is a perfect time to make the leap. Right now, SEO, SEM, affiliate and marketing firms, PR firms, and social media consultants are doing ad buys, are learning advertising, are becoming severely profitable.

They drink your milkshake.

But it is not too late. It is a time of chaos, it is a time to take risks. Learn from what has happened to your cousins, PR and main stream media. Evolve or perish. Yes, these will be interesting times for Madison Avenue and around the world.

And for you who have yet to do the reading, please check out Cluetrain Manifesto and Naked Conversation.

Oh, and no, I have not read Bob Garfield’s original presentations of how advertising will evolve over the next few years (Part 1 and Part 2); however, I plan to — and I plan to say more after I do. I merely intended to cross-post Trenn’s article from Marketing Conversation — I just didn’t realize I had such a strong opinion on the issue until I started writing my standard introduction and analysis paragraph.

* I can’t find the quote that Chris Brogan made, however, I can find my quoting of him on Twitter — maybe someone can help me find his original Tweet.

Here’s some fresh news from AdAdge that Barack Obama has been awarded the AdAge Marketer of the Year award, edging out Apple and Zappos. 36.1% of all votes went to Obama, compared toApple’s 27.3% and Zappo’s 14.1%. (Via Marketing Conversation)

Just weeks before he demonstrates whether his campaign’s blend of grass-roots appeal and big media-budget know-how has converted the American electorate, Sen. Barack Obama has shown he’s already won over the nation’s brand builders. He’s been named Advertising Age’s marketer of the year for 2008.

Mr. Obama won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads and marketing-services vendors gathered here at the Association of National Advertisers’ annual conference. He edged out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com. The rest of the shortlist, selected by Ad Age’s editorial staff, was rounded out by megabrand Nike, turnaround story Coors and Mr. Obama’s rival, Sen. John McCain.

I don’t know but this all sounds like “grassroots” campaigning and politics to me; that said, the Barack Obama campaign has a certain level of religiosity and passion that might just have welled into campaigning, using AdAge as a platform.

I wonder.  I might be wrong.

It’s just a little fishy. Sounds a little bit of memetic engineering mixed in with a high passion base rolled into a high probability that modern ad men and ad women are urban liberals and might use the awards to make a vocal statement.

Again, I might be wrong.

Mind you, if this is a conspiracy of Barack Obama campaigning and pro-Obama activation, then the success in fact proves and reinforces the award as rightfully — and with passion — belonging to the Obama/Biden ticket.

What do you think?

From Drew B’s Take on Tech PR via Nixon McInnes:

“Only 18% of TV ad campaigns generate positive ROI”

“The average person is exposed to 3000 advertising messages a day”

“36% of people think more positively of companies who have blogs”

Good night and sleep well!

I just caught this commercial on TV and laughed by ass off when a ram, our of nowhere, butted some gum-chewing guy on a cell phone in the belly.

What makes all of this very cool and very cute is that there are 5 body-types that you can try stuff out on and then have the models do a little fashion show for you, which is a double-threat: this sort of thing is practical for women who order online and want to see how these garments ride while also being irresistible catnip to every single geek online as well, the sort of men who will probably end up making an order at their very first opportunity.

I am not a client but I am happy to contribute to the company’s success. I live in Berlin now but I appreciate the cheekiness and sauciness of the Brits when it comes to their marketing and ad strategies — the US is so impossibly prudish when it comes to ad campaigns.

Three cheers for Knicker Picker!

The Firebrand Studio Undressed, originally uploaded by Chris Abraham.

I got to visit the Firebrand offices yesterday. I was an hour late because some guys from New York decided to win a Very Important Sporting Event and there was a ticker tape parade help. Well, when I arrived, I met Shari and Dawn, grabbed some za, and get to visit the Firebrand studio. Here it is. All the magic is super high-tech. Lauren, the CJ, is standing in front of a neutral density gray seamless with an interesting reflector component that “takes” the color of an LED rimlight around the lens: blue, green — whatever! And, the CJs need to learn how to interact with the Firebrand.com and ION UI. I had a lot of fun — it was great. What a great bunch of people. Very cool.

New York City Nudevertising, originally uploaded by Chris Abraham.

This ad caught my eye. Cute redhead — and naked, too! Well, I will always make the time to stop to photograph any cute naked redheads and here was a perfect one. I like to call it nudevertising. Nudevertising is pretty common in Europe and downright ubiquitous in France.

MON Feb 4th: It’s Firebrand Monday, the day after the Super Bowl – celebrate the holiest day in advertising with Reebok Office Linebacker, Terry Tate, heartbreaker Carmen Elektra and classic Super Bowl commercials!

The Road to Firebrand Monday
Promo Schedule

You’ve already seen all of the Firebrand Monday Spots. Now check out the blogger exclusive, The Road to Firebrand Monday, where only the greatest commercials get to play. Just tune in to the best Super Bowl commercials all this week on ION TV at 11PM/10C.

• TUE Jan 29th: “Big Budget Productions”
• WED Jan 30th: “Chicks in Charge”
• THU Jan 31st: “Big Time Celebrities”
• FRI Feb 1st: “Big Time Brands”
• SUNDAY is the Super Bowl!
• MON Feb 4th: It’s Firebrand Monday, the day after the Super Bowl – celebrate the holiest day in advertising with Reebok Office Linebacker, Terry Tate, heartbreaker Carmen Elektra and classic Super Bowl commercials!

For schedule information or for your local ION station, check out the Firebrand page on TV Guide. Or use your Zip code to find ION on your TV. Don’t forget to visit Firebrand online.

What is Firebrand Monday?

“The Super Bowl has always been the holy grail of advertising and Firebrand celebrates that,” says Shari F. Leventhal, Chief Marketing Officer. “Most people watch the Super Bowl with hopes of seeing the best, most creative commercials the ad industry can serve up. The greatest commercials get to play every day at Firebrand. So the Firebrand Monday campaign is our way of saluting the best of these commercials, past and present, as well as the famous icons that make commercials so memorable, and in many cases, a part of pop culture.

You have just under 24-hours until you can watch all of the very best commercials of the year — the Super Bowl commercials — on ION! Or, you can see the commercials all morning tomorrow on Firebrand.com. Why? Well, in case you were under a rock, tomorrow is Firebrand Monday! Check out all the best Super Bowl ads tomorrow night at 11/10C on ION TV.

• http://adcomments.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/firebrand-monday/
• http://adcomments.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/firebrand-press-release/
• http://agencyspy.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/is-that-lint-down-there-firebrands-superbowl-shuffle/
• http://aleyh.com/blogs/Tv-Series/440686/
• http://anbui.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/now-receiving-pitches-over-facebook-firebrand-monday/
• http://beinteractive.blogspot.com/2008/01/road-to-firebrand-monday.html
• http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com/?p=1254
• http://blog.holtz.com/index.php/weblog/will_firebrand_monday_breathe_new_life_into_30_second_spots/
• http://buzztter.com/en/k/Firebrand
• http://cabraham.com/one-day-firebrand-monday-and-all-super-bowl-commercials
• http://chris-abraham.com/
• http://chrisabraham.com/2008/02/02/liveblogging-firebrand-on-ion-on-friday/
• http://chrisabraham.com/tag/campaigns/
• http://chrisabraham.jaiku.com/
• http://chrisabraham.vox.com/library/post/watch-firebrand-monday-for-super-bowl-sunday-commercials.html
• http://chrisabraham.vox.com/library/post/watch-firebrand-monday-for-super-bowl-sunday-commercials.html?_c=feed-atom
• http://community.tvguide.com/thread/Firebrand/Road-Firebrand-Monday/800031742
• http://digg.com/television/Firebrand_Finds_a_Point
• http://digg.com/television/Will_Firebrand_Monday_breathe_new_life_into_30_second_spots
• http://digg.com/television/YouTube_-_Firebrand_Monday_Blogger_Exclusive_Video (29 diggs)
• http://digg.com/television/YouTube_Firebrand_Monday_Blogger_Exclusive_Video
• http://downloads-home.com/test/?p=31232
• http://experiencecurve.com/archives/firebrand-extremely-ambitious-advertising-as-content-destination
• http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marcon/~3/225900156/
• http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marcon/~3/226049388/
• http://freemyspaceicons.blogspot.com/2008/01/road-to-firebrand-monday-is-paved-with.html
• http://hiebingsuperblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/where-my-ads-at.html
• http://joannapenabickley.typepad.com/on/2008/01/on-a-holiday-to.html
• http://marketingconversation.com/2008/01/24/the-road-to-firebrand-monday-is-paved-with-super-bowl-turf/
• http://marketingconversation.com/2008/01/30/firebrand-getting-some-love-and-grief-from-the-blogosphere/
• http://marketingconversation.com/2008/01/30/its-the-road-to-firebrand-monday/
• http://memes.org/road-firebrand-monday-paved-icons
• http://memes.org/road-firebrand-monday-paved-super-bowl-turf
• http://mythologyretellings.blogspot.com/2008/01/road-to-firebrand-monday-is-paved-with.html
• http://mythologyretellings.blogspot.com/2008/01/road-to-firebrand-mondays.html
• http://news.myspace.com/style/fashion/item/14224832
• http://pownce.com/chrisabraham/notes/1287678/
• http://press.firebrand.com/?p=65
• http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=18898948
• http://repdis.com/
• http://repdis.com/category/uncategorized/
• http://roadtofirebrandspots.smnr.us/
• http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2008/01/firebrand-helps.html
• http://rss.furl.net/item/30214399
• http://tattooedmarketer.com/2008/01/23/the-road-to-firebrand-monday-is-paved-with-super-bowl-turf/
• http://technoflak.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-is-firebrand-monday.html
• http://technorati.com/tag/Firebrand%20Monday
• http://technorati.com/tag/firebrand
• http://television.rockerreport.com/will_firebrand_monday_breathe_new_life_30_second_spots
• http://tezis.blogspot.com/2008/01/latest-from-shels-holtzs-blog_30.html
• http://tnc-most-emailed.blogspot.com/2008/01/firebrand-launches-first-national-ad.html
• http://toddand.com/2008/02/01/the-25-most-memorable-super-bowl-ads/
• http://twitter.com/chrisabraham/statuses/660330402
• http://twitter.com/chrisabraham/statuses/668810552
• http://twittervision.com/chrisabraham
• http://www.adrants.com/2008/01/firebrand-to-create-national-holiday-out.php
• http://www.adrants.com/2008/01/prediction-firebrand-will-not-exist-in.php
• http://www.armchairgm.com/Article:A_look_at_20_classic_Super_Bowl_Commercials
• http://www.armchairgm.com/Article:Super_Bowl_commercials_throughout_next_week
• http://www.beneaththebrand.com/2008/01/29/road-to-firebrand-mondays/
• http://www.beneaththebrand.com/category/television/
• http://www.blogcatalog.com/post-tag/launch/
• http://www.blogcatalog.com/post-tag/super%20bowl%20commercials/
• http://www.blogowogo.com/blog_article.php?aid=1227260&t=
• http://www.blogowogo.com/blog_article.php?aid=1227260&t=11
• http://www.boxxet.com/XM_Satellite_Radio/The_Road_to_Firebrand_Monday_is_Paved_With_Super_Bowl_Turf.1hlbzw.d
• http://www.brandflakesforbreakfast.com/2008/01/watch-nothing-but-commercials-between.html
• http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080122/FREE/901414345/1078/rss01&rssfeed=rss01
• http://www.buzztracker.com/permalink/30248/58842877/Will-Firebrand-Monday-breathe-new-life-into-30-second-spots
• http://www.buzztracker.com/permalink/32672/59136349/Ads-as-Content-with-Firebrand-Monday
• http://www.cabraham.com/pownce
• http://www.christopherabraham.com/twitter
• http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2008/01/31/ads-content-firebrand-monday
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisabraham/2235426769/
• http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/09/26/firebrand/
• http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/11/14/in-mild-defense-of-firebrand/
• http://www.jackmyers.com/commentary/media-business-report/13810507.html
• http://www.la-story.com/television/road_to_firebrand_pregame_spot_rolls_out_catch_it/
• http://www.la-story.com/television/the_road_to_firebrand_the_best_of_commercials_unin/
• http://www.managingthegray.com/2008/01/29/firebrand-finds-a-point/
• http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/broadcast/
• http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/broadcast/is_that_lint_down_there_firebrands_superbowl_shuffle_76330.asp?c=rss
• http://www.meevee.com/channels/smartChannel.aspx?q=monday%20night%20football
• http://www.newloveliness.com/love-calculator/web-site-devoted-to-ads-has-commercial-appeal.html
• http://www.personalbee.com/1768/27190336
• http://www.randomculture.com/random_culture/2007/11/firebrand-all-c.html
• http://www.realityseo.com/2008/01/blog-post.html
• http://www.techdispenser.com/posts/view/25002
• http://www.trendylist.com.ar/tag/ion-television/
• http://www.tweetmeme.com/2008/02/01/2205/videos.html
• http://www.tylerschnaidt.com/blocked/nph-index.pl/010110A/http/chrisabraham.com/
• http://www.urlfan.com/local/the_road_to_firebrand_monday_is_paved_with_super_bowl_turf_httptinyurl_com25mkfj/64150934.html
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs4M9FqgOrU (1,066 views!)
• http://www.zango.com/results.aspx?ct=200&search=firebrand
• http://xyiencediet.blogspot.com/2008/02/watch-firebrand-monday-for-super-bowl.html