Press Blog

Iconocast - Streaming ad speaks for itself

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Put your media buy where your mouth is: that's what Streaming Media did when it placed a cutting-edge ad for an upcoming convention in ICONOCAST. For a company that lives and breathes streaming technologies, it made perfect sense.

Streaming Media Marketing Director Peder Berg tells ICONOCAST he had a multi-pronged campaign goal: Provide conference information to a willing audience of marketers and drive registrations with a link to the Streaming Media site. Additionally, Berg wanted to promote streaming media by using technology representative of its conference content. And like most savvy marketers, Berg wanted an easy way for recipients to pass the ad to friends and keep the viral ball rolling.

Berg turned to full-service shop Whitespeed, who created a 3D Flash ad featuring original music that uses only a fraction of the bandwidth required by Internet video. Whitespeed founder and CEO Susan White tells ICONOCAST her firm counsels clients, such as Calvin

Adweek "Rich Media Campaign Supports Cancer Research"

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Cyclists seeking donations for the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge -- a bike-a-thon that raises money for cancer research -- are getting a boost from a rich media campaign promoting the race's goals.

A 20-second spot, created pro bono by Santa Monica interactive shop Whitespeed and delivered in Flash, is being sent via email to 10,000 cyclists and past contributors to the race, which is being held Aug. 3-4 along six different routes in Massachusetts. The ad opens with piano music and footage of past races interspersed with text on the screen. Lines read, "3600 Riders from 32 States across the nation....Facing almost 200 miles....For a vision of a world without cancer."

The campaign also provides a link for viewers to contribute to the PMC's goal of raising $15 million this year. "It's an easy way for all of these riders to pass on the message," said Susan White, president of the four-person shop.

Last weekend, the ad, which launched July 11, has generated about $62,000 in donations. "We're hoping for the viral aspect to feed on itself," said Billy

Starr, executive director of Needham, Mass.-based PMC, adding that so far, 500 recipients have passed the message on to friends, and about 100 of those recipients passed them along further.

Digital Coast Weekly "Online marketer Whitespeed uses simulated streaming technology to score big clients"

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Today, we're at the halfway mark of our tour of Digital Coast companies succeeding in a tough market. In Burbank, we find Whitespeed, a marketing firm that has developed technology that simulates streaming video so it can be viewed by dial-up Internet users.

by Karen Thompson

Online marketing company Whitespeed is less than a year old. It employs only five people. You'd be unlikely to guess either fact, though, given the impressive client roster it has amassed in just eight months, including NBC, MTV, General Motors and American Express.

With technology that is designed to resemble streaming video without the requirement of a broadband connection for viewing, Whitespeed creates 15 to 20 second advertising clips and, using Macromedia Flash, delivers them to consumers.

The pieces, which include audio components, are made to catch people's attention--and they have done exactly that. General Motors was Whitespeed's first client, and the company is currently working on advertising clips for NBC's September Sweeps Week.

USA Today - NBC's olympian effort targets young viewers

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

By the time the Olympics' opening ceremonies begin Friday night, NBC officials will have tried virtually every trick in the book — short of free tacos — to get young adults to tune in.

To name a few: flashy e-mail, glitzy Web sites, shows on wheels, heaps of celebrities, hip music and MTV tie-ins.

Desperate to get the free-spending 18- to 34-year-olds to watch the Salt Lake Games, NBC is pulling out all the stops. The push comes at a time when youth interest in the Olympics is waning and viewership has been falling.

"The Olympics is at hope's edge, in terms of loss of relevancy (with youth)," says Marian Salzman, young trends guru at Euro RSCS.

But NBC officials are certain they can bring back young adults. "They're a segment our advertisers want," says Gary Zenkel, executive vice president of NBC Olympics. "We think we can get them in front of their sets."

Here's how:

• E-mails. Earlier this week, NBC started bombarding millions of young adults with promotional e-mail. The flashy e-mails open to a page with video promoting the events.

An estimated 7 million young adults will get at least one e-mail. An e-mail promoting the opening ceremonies went earlier this week to 5 million. The group was to get another e-mail Thursday night that hypes Olympic concerts.

NBC executives also can glean lots of information from these e-mails — including who opened them, who used the e-mail to link to the NBC Web site and even how many of the e-mails were forwarded to friends. So far, an impressive 4% of the e-mails have been forwarded, says Susan White, CEO of Whitespeed, which created the e-mail campaign for NBC.

• Web site. NBC hired Circle.com to create a zippy, youth-oriented Web site, HotSnow.com. The site features rock music and many of the most popular young athletes. It also has a link from NBC's Web site.

• Channel One. NBC struck a deal with Channel One to feature Olympic segments in its in-school broadcasts.

• Roadshow. Two RVs, one based on the East Coast and one on the West, have gone to concerts, colleges and ski areas promoting the Games. Each vehicle comes with a big sound system and lots of giveaways, such as T-shirts and hats.

• Let's party. To reach the college crowd, NBC teamed with Coke and the Burly Bear Network, a cable channel that reaches 75 campuses. It will host opening ceremony parties at student unions and bars near colleges.

• NBC on MTV. NBC is airing Olympic commercials on MTV. It also is giving MTV special access to Olympic events of keen interest to young adults for several features that MTV will air.

USA Today Cover Story - Gen Y: A tough crowd to sell

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Josh Sundquist would seem to be the anti-pitchman. He's got one leg. He's got a funky, neon-green metal pole where his other leg used to be. He's got a bottle-blond head of unkempt hair. And at age 17, he's got a sponsor: Jones Soda. Never heard of Jones Soda? You will. Sundquist is spreading the Jones Soda gospel — one Gen Y soda drinker at a time. And Jones Soda is quietly helping Sundquist spread his personal gospel that life's cool, even if cancer cost him his leg, and almost killed him, at age 9. The Seattle soft-drink maker with a cult following sponsors upbeat, motivational speeches that the cancer survivor gives to enrapt middle-school assemblies, mostly in Virginia. Jones Soda pays thousands of dollars for Sundquist's equipment and his travel costs. In exchange, Sundquist wears a Jones sweatshirt and swigs a Jones Soda while he talks.

Marketers try new approaches to reach Gen Y

This is Gen Y marketing at its best. Gen Y is the hard-to-reach but free-spending generation of about 71 million 8- to 23-year-olds. The sweetest spot of Gen Y for marketers is its teens. But few have figured out how to get in the face of this group, which spends about $200 billion annually.

To the newest generation of big spenders, marketing as the baby boomers have known it is dead. Sorry, David Letterman. But no matter what the network gurus think, you're not the best way to reach young folks, you old coot. For that matter, neither is MTV. Frustrated marketers have concocted their own name for Gen Y: The Unreachables. This is the first generation of Americans that resists reading and increasingly keeps the TV off. What's a marketer to do?

By Vincent Lerz, The News Leader via AP
Josh Sundquist talks to students at Beverly Manor Middle School in Staunton, Va., last September.

The smartest marketers have utterly given up trying to reach them in a mass way. Instead, they're pecking away, sometimes one teen at a time. Or one cool crowd at a time. Or one, hip happening at a time.

Mountain Dew executives have their own term for this: the Pavlovian connection. By handing out samples of the brand at surfing, skateboard and snowboard tournaments, "There's a Pavlovian connection between the brand and the exhilarating experience," says Dave Burwick, a top marketing executive at Pepsi, which makes Mountain Dew.

So, drinking "The Dew" isn't a rush just because of the caffeine and sugar. It's because of the hip places where it's first consumed.

Here's how others are trying to nab Gen Y on the sly:
Online hype. Hydrogen Records directs its fans into popular chat rooms to talk up new records. And Arista Records sends targeted e-mail blasts to teens. Student fans. Red Bull enlists students for promotions and hires squadrons of teens to hand out the energy drink on the street. Oddball sponsorships. Argus Camera sponsors the new World Dodgeball Association, hoping Gen Y will embrace the campy league. Skate parks. Vans, the sneaker maker, cozies up to teens by building zippy skateboard parks. Hip events. IMG, the sports marketing giant, purchased the U.S. Open of Surfing in order to link some of its clients with the event. Computer games. Such familiar names as Mountain Dew, Oakley and Hurley made deals to place their logos on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 from Activision. Street teams. The American Legacy Foundation sends out trained teams of teens to hand out T-shirts, bandanas and dog tags at teen-targeted events. The so-called Truth Squad teams bop around in bright orange vehicles that look like funky UPS trucks. Videos. Burton, the snowboard king, constantly maneuvers to get its boards and riders into snowboarding videos. "Just don't deceive them," warns founder Jake Burton. "It's all about honesty." It's about building trust. And giving Gen Yers the sense that they've stumbled upon your message — your brand — by themselves. Everybody wants a piece of Gen Y. But these days, that's about all you can get — a piece.

Who is Gen Y?

71 million children of baby boomers
Born from 1977 to 1994 (ages 8 to 25)
Roughly 26% of population
Spending power exceeds $200 billion
Influences another $300 billion to $400 billion in spending
Spends an average $30 per mall visit
First generation to grow up online
Most ethnically diverse generation ever
Turned off by branding and hard sell
Sources: American Demographics, U.S. Census Bureau, USA TODAY research

"You can't just blast away on MTV anymore," says Jay Wilson, vice president of Vans. "Eventually you'll get overexposed and kill your business."

Sure, MTV is part of Vans' mix. But its best vibes with Gen Y probably come from the 12 indoor skateboard parks it has built from Orange, Calif., to Orlando.

That's just for starters. Last year Vans bought the popular music and extreme sports Warped Tour. It has a majority ownership of the cooler-than-cool skateboarding film Dogtown and Z-Boys, which opens later this month. Vans will sell shoes and apparel around it. Vans' newest venture: its own record label with Gen Y bands like Too Rude and Western Waste.

But no one seems to understand Gen Y any better than Jones Soda.

Peter van Stolk founded the company in 1996 on a whim that Gen Y's many members might accept a new soft-drink brand if they felt as if they discovered it themselves.

That's why, initially, Jones Soda was only sold in shops that sell surfboards, snowboards and skateboards. "They discover us in environments where they hang out," van Stolk says. "It makes us legitimate." And it gives Gen Y positive associations with the brand.

Board shops carry the brand because Jones gives them the coolers. Jones likes it because unlike at the grocery store, there are rarely competing soft-drink brands around.

Jones Soda has figured out what Gen Y wants. Its Web site urges fans to send in photos for possible use on Jones Soda labels.

Odds are low. Only 40 are picked annually from the tens of thousands of entries. But to Gen Y, the lure is irresistible. The winning photos are often the silliest. "Big companies would never do something like this," van Stolk says. "The key is to create an emotional connection."

That's where guys like Sundquist come in. He wrote Jones a gushing fan letter several years ago, never expecting to get a phone call back from the company's CEO.

"When my mom told me he phoned, I almost fainted," Sundquist says. "When you buy Jones Soda, it's not because you're thirsty. It's because you want to make a fashion statement."

Waving a Jones Soda can actually make you look cool.

"They treat us like adults," says 13-year-old Nick Bedbury, who discovered Jones Soda at a board shop near his Seattle home.

Even then, getting in the face of Gen Y isn't easy. "They don't read. They don't watch TV. But they're on their computers constantly," says Susan Whitespeed, a Gen Y marketing consultant and former marketing chief at Calvin Klein.

E-mail connection

That's why she advises her clients to rely on one thing: e-mail.
But Gen Y doesn't want garbage e-mail. They hate that. So the e-mail has to be targeted to specific interests. "This isn't about reaching the masses," Whitespeed says. "It's about building a community."
Just before her client, Arista Records, was releasing a CD from Babyface, Whitespeed flashed 10,000 e-mails to likely purchasers whose names she had gleaned from lists of Babyface fans. The e-mail gave them a chance to buy the album before it hit stores.

Some 62% of the e-mails were passed along to others. Arista can track exactly what is done with every e-mail after it's received.

Enter: The "Arista Army."
In exchange for things like freebie CDs and shirts, Arista nudged fans to send their e-mails along to 10 friends. The "Arista Army" quickly grew from 600 Gen Yers to upward of 20,000, says Danny Wright, who consulted Arista on how to reach Gen Y.
"Perception is reality in this business," says Wright, now president of Hydrogen Records.

Perception means everything to Red Bull.
The energy drink has built a cult following mostly on the sly. It shuns conventional paths like print and billboard ads. Sure, it runs some TV spots. But its most effective marketing campaign relies upon word of mouth.

"We make it a point to hire people who have their fingers on the pulse of what's happening," spokeswoman Emmy Cortes says.

Red Bull creates buzz on college campuses by seeking student representatives who talk up the brand — and who throw parties, sometimes using Red Bull as a mixer.

It also tries to limit Red Bull sales to hip places where kids hang out.

Elisabeth Cuming, a 17-year-old from Manhattan, recalls first tasting Red Bull six months ago at the ultra-hip Downtown Uptown Café on New York's Upper East Side. "They're really expensive," she says. "And because it only comes in tall, skinny cans, people holding them think they're chic."

Red Bull also has a corps of Gen Y marketers who drive around in silver SUVs with odd-looking red bulls on top. These folks seek out likely customers and hand out samples with perky smiles.

Sometimes, the best way to attract Gen Y is to simply be goofy.

Take the World Dodgeball Association. This new league is every bit as offbeat as it sounds. And when it begins play later this year, it will specifically target Gen Y by touring college campuses.

First sponsor to sign on: Argus Camera. Hardly a Gen Y-savvy company, it would seem. And that's the problem. Only 10% of Gen Y has heard of Argus Camera, says Stu Kalov, executive vice president of the camera maker. "We'd like to double that," he says.

So, instead of sponsoring a major sport where Argus would get lost in the shuffle, it opted for a newfangled sport where it could stand out. It will sponsor halftime "throw-offs" for fans, with the winner getting a digital camera. "This is just what Gen Y is looking for," Kalov says. "The goof factor."

It may seem a contradiction: A generation of consumers that wants to goof off — but be taken very seriously at the same time.

All this makes perfect sense to Sundquist, the Jones Soda hawker.
He's living the Gen Y life. Sundquist loves to kick back with his pals and down a bottle of Jones Soda. But he's also training overtime for the 2006 Paralympics.

After one recent speech in Washington, D.C. — as he was doling out Jones Sodas — a young girl handed him a card, which he tucked in his pocket. When he pulled it out later, he saw it was a card with a phone number for a local suicide prevention center.

The girl had written this message on the card: "Thank you. I won't be needing this anymore."
Sundquist sat down and drank a Jones Soda. And cried.

ski areas promoting the Games. Each vehicle comes with a big sound system and lots of giveaways, such as T-shirts and hats.

• Let's party. To reach the college crowd, NBC teamed with Coke and the Burly Bear Network, a cable channel that reaches 75 campuses. It will host opening ceremony parties at student unions and bars near colleges.

• NBC on MTV. NBC is airing Olympic commercials on MTV. It also is giving MTV special access to Olympic events of keen interest to young adults for several features that MTV will air.