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Surely, if you’re breathing and have watched any amount of TV in the last few months, you know that your over-the-air TV ain’t gonna work next February unless you take some steps. I got my “government cheese” digital TV conversion coupon a few months ago. Now instead of watching through periods of slight static, the show I’m watching is replaced momentarily by a completely dark screen with the words “searching for signal” on it. We’re on the cutting edge.

(Don’t get me started about the fact that I now have to hit 4 or 5 buttons to change channels — one of which is a decimal point that is located in the most un-ergonomic place on the remote.)

Our local stations have beat it into the ground with badly produced promos that run incessantly. In fact, every time the “digital conversion is coming in February of 2009. Will you be ready?” promo comes on, my three-year-old son says “we’re ready”. Because he knows the new box on top of the TV is what the promo is talking about.

So I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s so bloody simple that a 3-year-old can understand it. But, perhaps you’ve noticed in your daily life that there are some people walking around who aren’t this bright.

There are groups who are criticizing the government’s publicity efforts and are asking for more money to publicize the switch. And that’s insane. While it has been a typical bureaucratic fiasco, the message has been pushed about as far as a marketing campaign can go.

Plus there’s a good reason that the switch won’t be as painful as the detractors say it will be. The local TV stations aren’t going to let the little old ladies watching The Price Is Right disappear — because those little old ladies also love the dollar they get from Neilsen to fill out a diary. And in general, the local stations will correct the problem and bring all the stragglers of all ages on board for self-preservation economic reasons.

But some of the points addressed in the article make sense: Why is there an expiration for the coupons? I nearly let my 90 day window pass by and used it a few days before it expired. Government handouts shouldn’t expire! And it is hard to find the boxes now. I can imagine they’ll be very hard to find next February. And some people like the little old lady in the NYT story are just plain stubborn and won’t change until they’re forced to. (like in Cuba, she says.)

Source: Chris Houchens

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Shotgun Marketing Blog presents: Real Media Spending Cutbacks
[Real Media Spending Cutbacks!]

Today we salute you, Mr. Anheuser-Busch Media Buyer.
[Mr. Anheuser-Busch Media Buyer!]

Anheuser-Busch has slashed radio spending that will hurt the broadcasting industry especially large radio companies like Clear Channel.
[Let’s play Monopoly!]

The bigwigs say they’re just moving money around. Sure. Moving it out of reach from Hits 97.3FM.

Why spend money in a local market when you can buy Super Bowl spots like they’re on the Dollar Menu?
[waldrobe malfunction!]

So crack open an ice cold newspaper classified section, Mr. Anheuser-Busch Media Buyer. Because it’s either that or picking up a shovel down in the Clydesdales‘ stables.
[Mr. Anheuser-Busch Media Buyer!]

Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, Missouri Leuven, Belgium.

—————
(After writing this, I have new respect for the copywriters who do the Real Men of Genius campaign. You have to get the cadence exactly right or it doesn’t work.)

Source: Chris Houchens

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One of the 5 or so books that are in my head ready to be written is about the marketing power of Oprah.

It’s tentatively titled “The Oprah Effect” and it would look at the products/services/people that she has “touched”. The book would examine the marketing impact these things (both in her own empire and the things she endorses) have picked up from her and how businesses could achieve the Oprah effect without Oprah.

(Aside: It’s the one book in my head that I won’t write without a good publisher behind me. So if you’re a good publisher or know one — it’s chris AT shotgunconcepts dot com)

Anyway — because of the potential of the book, I monitor what’s going on with the “O” probably more than is healthy for a 30-something male.

Here’s something that I’ve noticed in the past couple of weeks. Oprah has supposedly participated in a 21 day cleanse where you purge caffeine, sugar, alcohol, gluten and animal products from your diet. She has endorsed it through her media channels and even blogged (I think with a ghostblogger) while she did it.

Ah. The blog. While Oprah is the queen of traditional media, she is not the queen of new media. I think Heather is. (Dooce currently has over 9200 comments on one post. She’s running a contest, but still.)

Heather started the cleanse at Oprah’s beckoning and she and her friend got sick because of the cleanse. (Apparently, your body needs toxins. Pass the nacho cheese, please.)

So you have the world’s most powerful woman endorsing something that the world’s most powerful female blogger got deathly ill doing. Who will win? Traditional or new media?

Source: Chris Houchens

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So today was Bill Gates’ last day. However, there was an incident. As he tried to leave the building for good, this popped up in the door:

He couldn’t get it to go away and none of his keys worked. Eventually, he just had to turn the power off to the building and walk away in a huff. When they open back up Monday morning, Steve Ballmer will have to run a scandisk before he can come in.

There is a widely held belief that Bill is the devil. I don’t necessarily think HE’S the devil. But his company and his products certainly can be. I think it’s because the brand and the company didn’t develop along with Bill. He would have been a good candidate to develop an accidental brand, but the growth probably overshot him.

Seattle PI’s Todd Bishop found a Bill Gates e-mail from 2003 by sifting through the documents in the antitrust suits. When you read the email, you can see Bill’s frustration because everyone of us has had the problems with Windows that he’s describing in the email. And there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Bill was concerned about usability and making the product work. The problem with MSFT was (is?) the company culture and the individuals below Bill.

The lesson for any organization is that fanatic attention to detail and quality assurance can’t fall on one person. It has to permeate the entire group. The one guy approach may work when the company is small. But if you grow enough to be called a monopoly, it can’t work.

Source: Chris Houchens

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You never want a tragedy to strike in your town.

But if it does, the local newspaper’s online edition should be the source for constant updated information. And that newspaper should assume that it will get hit with a load of visitors from both local and national traffic. There should be a plan with the web host to deal with an influx of visitors.

If there’s not, when the workplace shooting occurs, your online newspaper will look like this:

(Screenshot @ 7:46am 6/26)

And it’s not just news/media that need to think about this. What if your site went to the top of Digg/Reddit/etc tomorrow? Would you be able to capitalize on the opportunity? Maybe you should call your web host today and make sure.

Source: Chris Houchens

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