The Marketleap Report
Volume II, Issue #11, June 10, 2002

Surround Sound, Sponsors, and all kind of Jedi
By Keith Boswell

Traveling like a viscous fluid across the network, a zone of information flows. Approaching my workstation in the morning, fuzzy-headed and loose, I've permanently lost the thought that I am actively typing and monitoring a screen. A mental step removed.

Broadband access to information, that my mind seems to soak up at an alarming pace, zags across pages of broader and broader scope on a near daily basis. I can't get enough. The world is putting itself together beautifully so far. There's still lots of work, but we're giving each other so much.

So what do I yearn for more than anything at a moment like this? Why The New York Times Power Hour brought to you by American Airlines of course. Special guest Bob Hope has got to be around the corner.

Announcer Please!

"The one hour of news, no matter the time zone (from 9am to 10am everyday), when you won't need anything but Air Travel, Travel, Travel offers. How beautiful are the skies this morning? Now to The Times..."

The New York Times "surround sessions" enable an advertiser to buy a commercial hour of Internet time. Like radio sponsorship of yore, the corporate patron donates graciously to the coffers of the channel and then has the floor for the next hour. Eloquently presented in banner format, wrapped around the online edition like a clinging snake, it dances, jumps, and sings for your undivided advertising attention.

Is this innovative? The idea of the corporate patron has been around since the beginning of the belief in money.

Does shaking a stick in front of someone for an hour get some people to bite? Sure it does. It's often called the "Quit it, I'm tired of this s@#t" factor.

The concept that The New York Times is using sounds like a pared down pitch from another giant. AOL is still out hawking the same thing they sold four years ago - sponsorship. So why shouldn't everyone else?

Announcer Please!

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Premiere Provider of (your business trade here) is proud to bring you Your AOL today. Don't the skies look lovely? Now back to your AOL..."

Instead of buying for an hour at The Times, for $250,000 a year you'll have exclusivity in a corner of the AOL universe, carved out by your adventurous banner ads, conquering impressions in the same shrouded jungle of users. No traffic guarantees. Nothing new or original here. The power of their brand makes people believe the buy is valuable. What you'll get is traffic. That's it. The problem here is the concepts of old don't hold with the technology capabilities of today.

If sponsorship can only offer the chance of a bite, is it worth the hope? Some investments into online marketing seem as if they are a stumble forward, with the belief that they will impact business. Throwing ads in your face for one hour at the Times or for a year at AOL is just butting heads with the consumer, not engaging them to act.

I know my own zone. They think they are getting into my space because they take over parts of my screen. They don't realize that in the zone, their message doesn't matter. If I am disconnected from typing and surfing, they are like a bad AM radio station that I would never listen to.

I won't bite on a banner that strikes me as something I would actively look for on my own. Not only do I not see banner ads without needing software to block them, I actively learn to ignore the new formats as they emerge. I am my own brain trainer.

I'll go to print-only pages, quickly skipping over the heavily sponsored page for the one that tucks a single banner at the top and bottom, making it even easier to ignore. One more click for me, but it's worth it to be on the quieter side of the pasture where the advertiser thinks foolishly that I am not engaged.

Marketers who want to make intelligent investments with their money know where people like me go when we want something - a search engine. For every dollar spent throwing stones at people while they are engaged in something else, a dollar could be invested in getting more highly relevant content indexed by search engines. Content after all is what people turn to the web for. I know advertisers want to ignore this fact, but it isn't television and it isn't radio.

It's my information tool. Surrounding myself in bookmarks and search engines, I actively create my own network of information valuable to me. That's the web. And others tell me the same. We travel in individual packs across the web, taking in what we will and sharing what we can.

Now again the call to foster some spirited voice from our community of readers who grace us with their time. I write this column as an outlet for my own thoughts, but also in the hopes of creating a dialogue amongst others about what catches our imagination in a connected world.

What types of trends do you see emerging in online marketing that seem real to you? What's compelling? Send me your feedback and I'll do my best to discuss them all in the next newsletter.

Responses to the last Marketleap Report:

Star Wars hasn't captured the imagination like it did when we were young. At the box office, it's lagging behind The Phantom Menace in ticket receipts and seems to be quietly slipping into the summer landscape breezily. The lush digital worlds, like floating paintings, from the mind of George Lucas aren't enough to inspire box-office hysteria.

A response from one of our readers gives some insight into why this might be. A great darkness has befallen the masses.

The built-in audience is the most incredible marketing machine ever developed. As a long time fan, I find it incredible that people are unaware that a new Star Wars movie was in production and in the theaters now. Yes - there are people who have no idea about Episode II. I ran into a guy in Toys R Us yesterday who asked me where all these new Star Wars toys came from - I just stood there in disbelief.

I guess if you are a fan reading online updates and seeing magazines and toys and all other merchandising, how could you not know? On the other hand, people who are not "Force-aware" would have a hard time missing out on all the traditional media hype, wouldn't they? Interviews with Lucas, Biography specials, TV ads for the movie, Doritos, and everything else can't have gone unnoticed. I guess I'm just biased and feel sorry for the weak-minded...

Obi-Fred

Even with original concepts marketing the film and others designed to create viral buzz, the film is making good money, but not like it could. Not like Spider-man, which has left the box-office smoking. I saw Spider-man twice. It was really fun the first time, a great summer movie. On a second showing, at an IMAX no less, it didn't hold up. I fell asleep.

Attack of the Clones gives so much more. Seeing it twice, the amount of detail is still overwhelming. Everything has been given attention, every single pixel. I'm a little biased sure, but just appreciating the vision and art of what Lucas has done is being overlooked.