Category Archives: Media

Chicago newspapers, television and radio plus movies and TV

Why Robin Williams’s death feels that way

Media

I’ve been trying to understand why Robin Williams’s death is hitting so many people so hard, me included. Whether you are someone of my cohort and saw a guy on a massively popular TV show act like a big, spazzy kid and make that seem cool – especially when you were a spazzy kid yourself – or watched a movie of his (The Fisher King, Dead Poets’ Society, Mrs. Doubtfire) that reminded you of something primal inside you that you’re still working on (a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose or the love of family and close relationships), this was a guy that did something to your heart at multiple points in your life. His foil was often (always?) you onscreen: a kid, a teenager, a son or daughter…a lady with a nice two-story walkup in Boulder. And any expectation that he might deliver that emotional revelation to you again at some point in the future is gone now.

And then there’s the juxtaposition of joy and indescribable pain. The notion that if It can come for him then It can come for any of us. The loss of the joy he gave you is coupled with an unignorable fear.

That’s all surface. Those are the obvious things.

1276407-600full_robin_williamsThere is a final thing and I think it is this: Robin Williams was an icon. And I know that word is thrown around a lot but when you’re a representation of a time and an attitude and a freewheeling…something that only you can embody? That rises above. He was a pair of suspenders, a shirt from Live at the Met, a set of Popeye arms, a microphone, a genie, a wig and glasses, a rumpled elegance, a Rough Rider.

We’re lacking in icons lately when everything is a bunch of small moments. I’m not saying approachable is bad. It’s just different. It’s not big.

Robin Williams was big. Often a cartoon, fifty feet high. So it makes sense that his death evokes a big reaction.

That’s my read on it, anyway.

UPDATE: Helen Rosner just dropped this on me (via maura, says she) which says it better than I did above. Incidentally, if you find yourself with dark moments of the soul then Helen’s post about depression is worth every minute you will spend on it.

If you only critique the worst examples of something, you’ll always be right

Internet, Media, , ,

I’m a huge fan of of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. It’s probably my favorite TV show of the last year with Inside Amy Schumer running a close second. LWT is funny, sharp, intelligent and complex. Exactly what you want out of comedy and TV. So when I saw Oliver’s take on native advertising pop up in my various feeds, I was sure it was going to be brutal.

Not really.

It’s disappointing that Oliver comes across as little more than a vulgar Bob Garfield here. Not that there’s anything wrong with vulgarity, mind you. But when you reduce native advertising to the worst possible version of itself then of course it will be terrible and something that should be resoundingly mocked.

Judging all native advertising by the standards of Buzzfeed’s native advertising is like judging all television by Two And A Half Men. If you use your editorial department to create native advertising or give it an ugly design or try to hide its origins, you should stop creating it.

Anyone who does what Oliver describes is doing wrong by both the editorial and business departments. You’ve basically created more Internet garbage and ethically compromised your work.

But when it’s done well? It’s informative or entertaining and supports a brand’s overall identity. It’s notable here that “but it’s still an ad!” is the only complaint Oliver can level against the Orange Is The New Black native piece from The New York Times. Honestly, I’d rather watch any of the videos that accompany it than Two And A Half Men any day. (I’d embed them here but it’s not possible.)

Sadly, there are probably journalists in newsrooms right now that have viewed the above OITNB native content – a 1,500 word piece on women in prisons with three compelling videos alongside it – and would love to be able to do work of that caliber as a purely journalistic undertaking instead of the listicles or aggregated content they’re told is the stuff that people really want right now and will fund the newsroom’s more lofty endeavors.

Frankly, that should have been the target of Oliver’s viral rant: the race to the bottom of online content. There are plenty of supposedly pure journalistic undertakings that are as disposable and advertiser-driven as any native advertising piece. Watching “real news” organizations all try to explain what went on in an elevator between Jay-Z and Solange is far more depressing to me that native advertising.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this:

That’s native advertising. Though I’d argue it should be disclosed better which is bad for Wren, the company that made it, because it barely mentions them and only right at the beginning. But 88 million people watched it.

Incidentally, that’s about the same number of people who watched the first six seasons of Two And A Half Men. Combined.

I’ve written about making native advertising more ethical and effective before. You can read that here.

Content streams: Anna Kendrick vs. Neil Patrick Harris edition

Internet, Media, , ,

I’ve started a monthly roundup of interesting articles about content marketing for work. Whether this becomes an ongoing thing here as well, I don’t know. But after a two-month run of personal introspection, it felt like time to get back into the business of media extrospection here.

Ad Age: Newcastle reveals the secrets of Facebook advertising

What’s the thesis? “If you have no TV ad budget, would all-digital work? Newcastle Brown Ale would argue yes—digital content is just as effective if not more effective.”

Why should I care? Marketers are re-examining their Facebook strategy. Some are throwing more paid media at it. Others, like Newcastle, are taking an integrated approach that uses PR tactics and social analytics to get into more News Feeds and increase its earned media.

Anything else? Newcastle creates different content for its hardcore fans and drive-by fans. Add in the Conan appearances and this campaign doubles-down on customized content instead of repeating the same thing in different channels.

Who else is talking about this? Here’s the next set of Newcastle ads that build on this strategy. Heineken has a similar tactical approach without the strategic underpinning (IMHO).

What’s the next thing people will be saying about this? Advertisers will brag about how they’re not putting all their eggs in the Facebook basket and instead using all the owned/digital channels at their disposal.

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Quartz: This Google videogame is trying to drive iPhone users into advertisers’ real-world stores

What’s the thesis? “There is a great deal more value for advertisers in having a users walk into shops than ignore a blink-and-you-miss-it ad on the web.” With Google backing, Ingress might be the first but the jury’s still out.

Why should I care? As the banner ad turns 20, we’ve seen a renewed conversation about whether digital/social can drive sales. This also seems to be the latest effort to try and make fetch…er, augmented reality happen.

Anything else? There’s been a lot of controversy about shady mobile ad networks and Foursquare’s recent confusing split into two apps which says many publishers and clients are still trying to solve for mobile.

Who else is talking about this? TechRadar goes deep on the physiological aspects of Ingress. Blippar has an AR game for Google Glass that’s somewhat difficult to play. Google is also all up in your thermostat.

What’s the next thing people will be saying about this? We’re about three months away from the “Google is evil and trying to track everything in your life” article.

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Ad Age: How a magic toilet transformed Kohler’s digital strategy

What’s the thesis? It’s a classic story: Brand meets girl. Girl makes video about brand that blows up the Internet. Brand realizes it needs to experiment with digital more to fully engage its customer across all channels.

Why should I care? Creating a video that will “go viral” is a great way to make it not. Brands talking to people who already have great relationships with the audience they’re targeting and asking them to create content alongside them is better.

Anything else? A good example for brands hesitant to fully engage bloggers and a great mini-case study for a B2B brand that got consumers talking about it in social media (“Purchase intent registered via social media, for instance, has gone up…”)

Who else is talking about this? BrandChannel.com talks about the spot in reference to other toilet technology. Unrelated but important is this serious conversation about water happening in Detroit right now.

What’s the next thing people will be saying about this? My read on this is it’s a great headline, but the text doesn’t really back it up. I’d be interested to see if Kohler really integrates social engagement or user-generated video in its future digital strategy or if all the insight from this just gets flushed down the…I’m sorry.

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Digiday? Inside Atlantic Media’s twist on an agency business

What’s the thesis? “Atlantic Media gets paid when people attend [its] event, when companies sponsor it, and also when brands pay its separate content agency to cover it from their perspective.”

Why should I care? Most brands are really uncomfortable with creating content streams that build a brand identity but aren’t expressly sales-driven. Atlantic has always done this for itself (as a magazine) and has now figured out how to do it for brands and create multiple revenue streams out of it.

Anything else? Despite the headline, the work discussed here is more campaign-driven than brand-driven; it’s a better model for publishers than agencies. Ironically, as publishers have become agency-like in their offerings, agencies have considered them more as an activation tactic for brands.

Who else is talking about this? Atlantic’s been cited as an innovative publisher since about 2011 but Digiday’s been covering the heck out of their events and web development platforms lately.

What’s the next thing people will be saying about this? If Buzzfeed doesn’t get into the branded events space within a year, I’ll be surprised.

Confusing the symptoms of Chicago’s violence with the disease

Chicago, Media, Politics, Race

7452178210_4424a362a0_mI swear this blog isn’t going to become “Our Man In Chicago On Crime” but it’s probably going to be on my mind for a couple weeks.

I’m trying to understand the mayor’s mindset when he does things like this:

Emanuel attended an anti-violence vigil in Roseland Monday evening where he said everyone — from parents to police to federal lawmakers — must play a role to curb bloodshed in Chicago.

“A lot of people will say where were the police … and that’s a fair question, but not the only question,” Emanuel said. “Where are the parents? Where is the community?

First of all, I don’t know how you stand there at a anti-violence rally in a community that lost one of its own in a drive-by shooting two nights prior and ask “Where is the community?” That takes some gall.

I also don’t know how you read about the father of the 14-year-old boy shot in a separate incident and ask “Where are the parents?”

“What happens to kids when they’re not with their parents?” said Susan Diaz, whose daughter married into the Rios family. “The kid was 14 years old. The parents do the best that they can. When the kid walks away — he goes to school, the beach, the park, the library — the gangbangers are hanging around waiting to recruit them. … That’s just the way it is.”

When the mayor asks “Where are the parents? Where are the communities?” it implies neither exists where there is gun violence. That’s reductive. And wrong. Especially when the underpinnings of those communities have been ripped apart by lack of economic investment. Gun violence doesn’t start because a kid wakes up and decides not to listen to his parents. It starts when he thinks a gun keeps him alive. And that happens when crime seems like the best – and safest – possible way to earn a living and keep on living.

More police aren’t going to solve the problem. But pointing a finger at parents without talking about why parents aren’t around? Or the economic reasons why parents alone aren’t enough to shout down the other voices kids hear on those streets every day? Not helpful.

When you’re the mayor, your rhetoric frames the way people view a situation. Your words make headlines, they lead the evening news. Demonizing an entire community gives fuel to those who think “those people” are all criminals. It lays the blame for crime at the community’s collective feet, helps keep “them” at arm’s length and convinces people that crime is something that exists in other neighborhoods and won’t affect them.

I’m reminded of last week’s shooting in Lakeview:

The Pride parade revelers who had filled the street earlier were gone, Lane said, and a younger crowd replaced them.

“I doubt any of them was over 30,” Lane said. “A lot of them don’t live around here. They come from other neighborhoods. It’s just the attitude they have, the mentality.”

[snip]

Neighbor Juan Chavez, who’s lived in the area since 2007, said “the majority of people who cause trouble don’t live in the neighborhood.”

People in “safe” Chicago neighborhoods really will go to great lengths to convince themselves that crime isn’t a problem where they live. Saying “they come from other neighborhoods” suggests there’s a leaky faucet of crime you can just turn off and fix the problem.

Instead, we – all of us – need to support crime prevention and economic improvement efforts for all Chicago neighborhoods. Not just our own. That’s not easy, I’ll admit. But it’s the cause of the problem, not a lack of morality or parents or community.

Or to put it another way: morality, parents and community are what get infected by the disease of violence and poverty.

Image via Don Harder/Creative Commons

Startup culture, end of the beginning of the end edition

Internet, Media, ,

“One thing that did cut through the exhaustion was a task I’d been anticipating for more than six years: writing the Facebook post in which I announce to friends, former friends, frenemies, ex-girlfriends, college roommates, future wives, and family members that I was not in fact an obscure failure but a new, minor footnote in the annals of Silicon Valley startup successes. Writing it was easy. I’d had six years to plot it in my head.”

– via I Sold My Startup for $25.5 Million. Here’s How I Did It – Slate

Long before 1871 and all the talk about Chicago as a tech hub, Brad Flora bootstrapped his own startups, sacrificing sleep and his own basic needs – food, shelter, etc. – along the way. All of this led to the payoff described above. He does a wonderful job outlining the frenzied banality that made it happen.

And I love he admits thinking about the announcement for the entire six years of the experience.

This piece isn’t about guns: The Paper Machete – 5.31.2014

Media, , ,

Though I’m almost always writing right up until the deadline for The Paper Machete, I usually finish before I leave the house. Not this time. I finished this one sitting at bar at The Green Mill twenty minutes before showtime.  You can see my notes at right.

As always, if you liked this piece, please like The Paper Machete on Fcaebook,  follow it on Twitter, listen to its podcast or – most importantly – attend one of its 3pm Saturday afternoon shows at The Green Mill.

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I drew the short straw this week so I’m here to discuss last week’s mass shooting near Santa Barbara, California. I will try to do so in a way that doesn’t make you depressed for the rest of the day.

If you’re worried you’re in for a screed on gun control, don’t worry. This piece isn’t about guns. Not really. That’s not the conversation we had this week.

No, after we spent the Memorial Day weekend remembering the sacrifices others have made to preserve everything good about this country, we were reminded of everything terrible about this country thanks to Joe The Plumber.

Continue reading This piece isn’t about guns: The Paper Machete – 5.31.2014 →

How to make native advertising more ethical and effective

Media,

Timing is everything.

This piece began as a a conversation I had with a friend who is a former newspaper designer and later became a self-taught digital developer. He has a deep well of experience in print and the web and a love of both. So when he told me he thought native advertising tries to fool readers into believing an ad is news, it was obvious to me that even those most likely to understand the form have concerns about its function. Bob Garfield’s February Guardian article also seemed like it deserved a response. So I decided to put down some thoughts about native advertising that had been brewing in my head since the Atlantic‘s Scientology dustup.

That was two months ago.

For one reason or another, it took a while before the piece was ready to pitch around. By then, Jill Abramson had been fired from the New York Times and native advertising was cited in many of the discussions about the split. I worked with our agency PR director to rewrite it as a peg to that event and what started as something rather navel-gaze-y ended up as timely.

The piece below first ran in PR Week on May 19th, 2014 and was one of its most-shared articles that week.

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Many articles about New York Times editor Jill Abramson’s firing discuss her clashes with the business side of the Times organization. One area of conflict was native advertising. According to reports, Abramson’s primary concern with native advertising was her belief that it could mislead readers into thinking the Times was the source of the work rather than an advertiser. Though many questions surround her departure, perhaps it’s worth revisiting why native advertising is often a source of controversy.

Abramson has a point about some native advertising; even marketers who embrace native ads must acknowledge standards aren’t applied across the board. Because of this, the form has an identity problem – perhaps because it too often obscures that identity. When it comes to effective, ethical native advertising, the best of it communicates its intent and meets the reader’s expectations. Here are five suggestions to ensure it does:

Continue reading How to make native advertising more ethical and effective →

Twitter knows more about what drives viewer behavior than NBC

Internet, Media, , ,

In my last post, I argued there’s more value in social media as its own content channel than in its ability to drive ratings or sales. The prime mover of that post was a quote in the Financial Times from NBCUniversal’s head of research Alan Wurtzel who said social media “’is not a game changer yet’ in influencing television viewing.” He also said “the emperor wears no clothes” which tells you just how much marketing people love a good cliche.

After taking another look at the articles written in the wake of his comments, it’s unclear how Wurtzel came to these conclusion but more on that in a bit.

If you’re going to draw conclusions about cause and effect, it helps to base them on the results of an actual study.

Here’s the latest: On Thursday, Twitter’s head of research Anjali Midha released a second batch of results from a study of 12,000 Twitter users that examined the effects of tweets on consumer action. Her first post focused on the relationship between the kinds of tweets consumers saw from/about brands and the type of action they took afterwards. It’s definitely worth a read.

Specific to this discussion is Midha’s second post which deals with the effects of TV-related tweets. In my post, I argued Twitter can be a complementary content channel all its own, but if you’re going to look to it as a call to action, it’s important to consider whether it affects awareness, consideration and brand education and not just ratings or sales.

It turns out tweets can do all of that:

Continue reading Twitter knows more about what drives viewer behavior than NBC →

Stop thinking of social media only as a ratings or sales driver

Media, , ,

An article in the Financial Times seems to speak in no uncertain terms about social media’s inability to generate ratings for television shows, despite both Twitter and Facebook fighting for the right to claim each does it better:

The two social networks have spent the past year trumpeting a virtuous cycle between people watching television and using social media. But, in spite of the buzz, NBCUniversal’s head of research Alan Wurtzel says that social media “is not a game changer yet” in influencing television viewing.

Peter Kafka at Re/Code puts an even finer point on Wurtzel’s views:

He comes to that conclusion after looking at the effect of Twitter, as well as Facebook, on NBCU’s ratings during the Winter Olympics. Wurtzel saw lots of chatter about Sochi on social media, but none of that seemed to translate to increased viewership.

There are a number of reasons why using the Olympics as a yardstick isn’t the best idea. Again, from the Financial Times piece:

Ad executives cautioned that the results could be skewed by the fact that the Olympics draws mass audiences who are likely to tune in regardless of social media buzz.

More niche programming, such as dramas or reality television programmes, could show more correlations between social media activity and viewership, says Kate Sirkin, global research director at Publicis’ Starcom MediaVest Group, which last year committed to hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising spend on Twitter over several years.

Other questions I had that I’d research if I had more time:

  • What are the typical demographics of the Olympics and how do they compare to the average user of Twitter and Facebook?
  • Did NBC utilize its social media channels to encourage viewers to tune in for its broadcasts? Was there a specific call to action? Were they conversational? Or did the tweets read more like a print ad?
  • How many “luge” jokes were made on Twitter during the Olympics? (This is less about the topic at-hand and more because I have the sense of humor of a child.)

Wurtzel’s is a voice worth listening to as he’s had a long career in television with many years in research. And he’s not exactly been against new media as a way to drive eyeballs to traditional TV, specifically for the Olympics:

But Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development for NBCU, said in separate remarks that new media seemed to have the opposite effect: The more live video people saw of the games taking place in real-time, the more interested they were in seeing curated primetime telecasts that included more information about the athletes, their background and the stories behind their journey to the event.

Still, as Re/Code and Financial Times both point out, there are plenty of studies that suggest a correlation between ratings and social media chatter. And yesterday Twitter CEO Dick Costolo had a specific response to Wurtzel’s position.

But mostly I’m stunned we’re still thinking of social media purely in terms of eyeballs and sales. Especially since not all marketing tactics/channels are expected to have a direct relationship to them. NBC/Wurtzel certainly seems to view social media as such without considering things like awareness, consideration, brand education, etc.

Continue reading Stop thinking of social media only as a ratings or sales driver →

Let’s stop pretending the Sun-Times is the only news site with a comments problem

Media, ,

On Saturday, the Chicago Sun-Times announced it would temporarily suspend the hosting of comments on its sites. Managing Editor Craig Newman offered some additional comments about the decision to Digiday.

There’s been plenty of commentary about the lack of commentary. Locally, Robert Feder framed the Sun-Times as taking “two steps back for every step forward” and Chicagoist printed opposing views from two HuffPo bloggers. Poynter used it as a peg to discuss previous efforts to change comments sections. Many, many people weighed in on Twitter and Facebook. Several claimed the Sun-Times was quashing discussion of the news without sensing the inherent irony in their ability to use a digital tool to discuss the news about a removal of a digital news discussion tool.

(Ironically, this announcement came on the same day as this Sun-Times column from Jenny McCarthy in which she sought to re-cast herself not as an anti-vaccine advocate but as someone who is pro….something. The color gray? Sadly, this temporary shutdown of comments did not include comments from Jenny McCarthy.)

My theory is people who bemoan a lack of comment sections are Web 1.0 folks who remember when comments were discussions, not digital cross-burnings. Those same folks now use Twitter/Facebook for that discussion and haven’t spent time in daily news site comment sections in a while. If you’re going to build a place for a community, you ought to have the right services, processes and tools in place to serve it. But news site comments sections are there more because of inertia than anything else.

Continue reading Let’s stop pretending the Sun-Times is the only news site with a comments problem →