Can Star Power Resurrect Myspace - Weigh In...Again

Do you still have a Myspace page? Do you even remember your log in? Neither do I. The last time I checked my Myspace page, it had to be 2005.

The story of Myspace's meteoric rise and equally meteoric demise is very well known. Justin Timberlake's and the Vanderhook brothers' acquisition of the network made headlines. And, JT's major Myspace announcement at this year's CES made somewhat of a ripple. But does Myspace have what it takes to come back?

JT is at the reigns, not only as co-owner, but as Creative Strategy lead. And he's cool. He's funny. He's talented. And, as we've seen over the past few years, Hollywood has really been the impetus for creating and curating content. So that must be an elixir for success, right?

Well, the new Myspace is supposed to be designed for social entertainment - music, TV, movies. Recently, the Myspace 3 (what I lovingly refer to JT and Vanderhook brothers as) unveiled a new music player. Later in the year, Myspace will unveil Myspace TV, its social entertainment sharing platform, available on connected TVs and mobile devices. Myspace TV will eventually expand beyond music to encompass movies, news, sports and reality channels, with a growing lineup of today’s most popular broadcast and on-demand content.

"We're ready to take television and entertainment to the next step by upgrading it to the social networking experience," said Timberlake. "Why text or email your friends to talk about your favorite programs after they've aired when you could be sharing the experience with real-time interactivity from anywhere across the globe?"

Sounds awesome - If it weren't already done.

Youtube is rolling out its premium branded content channels. We have social networks dedicated to music and there are plenty of new platforms going gangbusters on TV (GetGlue, Miso). So what is left?

Perhaps the appeal of Myspace and all of it iterations will be the fact that all of these social entertainment experiences can live in one place. Or, and it's quite possible, JT will properly leverage his star power and rally an unprecedented level of support and openness from Hollywood (with respect to content), giving fans the most intimate and immersive entertainment experience yet.

I am not sure, but if I am going to find out, I'll need to remember that damn login.

Managing the Artist Through Transmedia Storytelling

So we can all nod to the fact thattransmedia and storytelling is the future of content and that brands are the main drivers of this progression. When you begin to look at brands or media as conveyorsor a narrative, you begin to understand the intrinsic social fiber of media, audience or market behavior, sentiments and actions (including insight into the influencer segment ofyour audience) and breakdown the brand story and messaging construct across all platforms.

You will note that some platforms such as mobile and emerging media, is left out of this diagram, but should be included.

Transmedia storytelling can come across as a fairly convoluted

theory, but Gunther Sonnenfeld does a pretty good job or chopping up the Beyonce brand into cerebral bite sizes.

But how is understanding this narrative helpful when managing an artist's brand? Well, if you understand the potentiality of all the various dialogues and conversations that

can and will include your artist/brand, then you'll be able to help craft and evolve those stories and complex interactions. Being an effective steward of your artist's brand is more than facilitating album deals, branded clothing or perfume lines, or the occasional endorsement deal, its about massaging their brand narrative through intertextual dialogue between the fans and community that are interacting with the story (or creating one).

Huh?

I will once again point out Sonnefield's breakdown of the Beyonce brand, using the baby bump announcement as an example, we can begin to see how her team helped evolve her brand story (these of course are based on a her stellar management and marketing team's stewardship over the years):

Other artists doing a great job of purveying their brand narrative across transmedia platforms - Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas, and Janelle Monae.

Like I said before, it seems very difficult to understand, transmedia storytelling, transmedia branding, transmedia marketing and messaging, but if we first know that our artist's brands are going to be visible across all media platforms (whether we want them to or not), and begin to understand what drives the fan's sentiment, behavior and subsequently their actions across these mediums, we can tap into transmedia storytelling to transform their careers and brands.

Industry Rorschach – Negotiation As A Way of Life, A Way of Work

Whether you believe it or not, we negotiate in our lives everyday. Pleading and offering concessions to your kid to do his homework – that’s a negotiation. Buying a house? That’s definitely a negotiation. Disputing a charge on your credit card bill? Well, you get the point. So, if negotiation is a part of our routine tasks, what determines if you’re good at it or not? And what about jobs and industries that rely on you to be a successful negotiator? Does your everyday negotiation exercise actually hinder or help you?

To answer this question and gain some insight into what it’s like to have negotiation as a career skill, I reached out to Jakob Conner, owner of Jakob’s Ladder, an entertainment management company, and attempted to “negotiate” my way into getting a fictitious artist signed with his company. After about 2 hours, I was able to successfully get my artist signed; a major win for me since I was up against an artful negotiator. However, I had to give up an advance. After our mock negotiation, I was able to ask Jakob some direct questions about his experiences.

What do you find to be the most important skill in negotiating?

“People skills- hands down. If you are a person that cannot relate to people, do not have compassion and empathy, then negotiation is going to be a brutal, full contact sport. You have to remember that you’re dealing with people from beginning to end.”

Have you ever had any bad negotiation experiences? If so, how did you overcome them?

“Oh, I’ve had plenty. I think my worse negotiations had to do with me making bad assumptions about the other side; assumptions about their personalities or their positions in a company, it makes for a bad strategy. I’ve had to leave the room, take breaks and come back into the conversation with a clean mental slate in order to help talks progress.”

What do you do when you find that you’re not able to reach a mutual agreement?

“You try your absolute hardest to make negotiations work. And I’ve always walked into talks knowing what I was going to ask for, and with an open ear to what they were asking for, as well as a few alternatives, but after that, if negotiations do not work, they you have to make peace with that.”

Do you worry about being fair? If so, what kind of checks and balances do you have in place to ensure that you’re being fair?

“I don’t take much joy in being ruthless and squeezing everything I possible can from the other party. Yes, I worry about being fair. Depending on the deal, I always refer to precedence to guide me through the ins and outs of the deal.”

Do you find that having sharp negotiation skills improves other areas of your life?

“Absolutely. Negotiation has made me a better communicator, and has given me more patience.”

Any advice for me, or anyone moving forward in their careers regarding negotiation?

“I would say the most important advice I can give to anyone again is to realize that if you strip off all of the titles, and stereotypes, and assumptions, that you’re dealing with people. And with that comes people’s hopes, fears, needs and desires. Acknowledge those in the beginning, and you’re on your way to a successful session.

Excellent advice from Jakob, being that I entered our negotiation exercise nervous, knowing that Jakob had more experience and power at the negotiating table. The best move I could have made for myself (to ease the nerves) and for the other team was to shift the focus of power, acknowledge their experience/status, and move forward with my recommendations.

Although this was a mock exercise, it gave me a taste of what it’s like to negotiate in the entertainment industry where you’re often sitting at the table with moguls.

Industry Rorschach – An (unauthorized) View Into Digital Publishing Negotiations – Positioning and Coming To Terms

Publishers are eager to recapture the momentum they have lost since they began launching iPad editions last year. Since the introduction of the iPad, Conde Nast’s Wired Magazine has sold 100,00 digital copies, but has since seen sales drop dramatically, further cannibalizing publishing profits.

With consumers complaining about paying the cover price for an iPad version (even being paid print subscribers), publishers looking for ways to stop hemorrhaging money, and Apple’s content interests, a viable solution for all parties needed to be created.

“Our negotiations with Apple came down to reconciling Apple's need for a quick-and-easy purchasing process with their [Condé Nast's] desire to sell several different iPad packages and to receive data about who is buying the publisher's apps,” stated Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of Internet services, as quoted in The New York Times.

From a leverage and power perspective, Apple had the advantage moving forward in these negotiations, its disruptive device has forever change how consumers and brands interact. And since tablet owners are increasingly consuming more digital than print content, publishers are playing catch up. However, Apple did not enter negotiations without knowing that its interests lie in the need for content for its then new subscription service. Apple’s restrictive app policies were a major contention point for Condé Nast heading into negotiations. Painstaking negotiations ensued, as Ashley S., counsel team member for Condé Nast report, but major tenets of the negotiation include:

• Apple makes 30% on all purchases made through an app- this was a position Apple will not budge on. (This was not necessarily a contention point for Condé Nast, since the majority of their money will be based on ads for the digital editions)
• Publishers receive names, email addresses and zip codes only (if customer opts to share information)
• Condé Nast to offer digital only, or print-plus-digital subscription options at a monthly or yearly price

In the end, the negotiations help modify Apple’s app buy-flow process and shaped a mutual agreement around the customer relationship and digital publishing. The deal also signified two powerhouses negotiating in what may now be considered a baseline or objective criteria for additional Apple-Publisher deals.

The Disruptive Nature of Social TV

Social technology, such as social networking, has become an ubiquitous platform that has completely transformed how human beings connect, share, communicate, and now even watch TV. And social technology has not even begun to mature….

Right now, the industry is witnessing a spattering of new companies have caught wind of the emerging Social TV market and are developing content, interfaces, platforms and devices that deliver more relevant, customizable and relevant entertainment with embedded social features such as sharing, chatting and games. For example, the recent YouTube redesign and the announcement that Youtube will be producing its own contents will only add more fire to marketplace. Yet, in spite of how new the concept and technology of Social TV is, it is one that is continuing a model of disruption of traditional media that began with cable and accelerated with the adoption of the Internet. But what does this disruptive model mean?

For one, giving viewers more power to control over what they watch completely destroys the one-way conversation entertainment publishers have enjoyed for decades, which mean they must work harder. Ultimately, publishers will have to pursue a relationship with their audiences - sometimes from scratch. But with that extra, more responsive work to create compelling and social entertainment content comes the benefit of more data and essentially newly discovered streams of revenue such as advertising and digital goods. ReadWriteWeb’s Alicia Eler provides an insightful overview of the nature, trends and future of Social TV here.

As Social TV becomes more prevalent, publishers will need to ground themselves in the notion that the old ways of entertainment content and distribution are over- now is the time to give consumers more of what they want and less of what they don’t.

Walmart Defines What a True Bricks-and-Mobile Strategy Is

Walmart does a lot of things that, well, defy common sense (I’m thinking about every single Walmart that I’ve been to ANYWHERE ALWAYS has only 3 lanes open). But when they do something right, man do they do it right.

Recently, Walmart announced their revamped iPhone and new iPad apps that will merge online and in-store shopping like never before. Using mobile to truly establish a relationship with the customer, the apps feature options such as home barcode scanning, enlists Siri to create lists, creates budgeting tools and integrates coupons (from Coupons.com) and Walmart inventory. Walmart stores service 140M customers a week, an undisclosed percentage of those customers are smartphone customers. Nonetheless, according to Walmart, the Walmart customer is adapting mobile technology on pace with the general population, so this move is a good look.

Walmart’s mobile strategy is set to prove a few strategic points to retailers and marketers - for retailers, mobile is a prime channel for relationship marketing. It’s one of the few spaces where you can customize an intimate environment and interact (one-on-one) with the the customer. For advertisers, this is another sign to move away from the stagnant thinking that mobile is only a vehicle for advertising messages- think about engagement.

You can read the story in its entirety at Ad Age.

What do you think?

Socialize your next event - New Tools for the Event Marketer

You've finally convinced your client to integrate social media into their current campaigns. You've maybe even convinced your client to use social media to promote one of the events they have produced. You've done your job- congrats! But perhaps that was the old way of social media event marketing. Yes, I said old.

It's difficult to keep up with the barrage of new social tools in the event planner's arsenal, but some are definitely worth exploring. According to EMI Research, social media tools and events go hand-in-hand, as they help drive the human experience offline with the use of technology (EMI Research, 2010). Here, we take a look at a few that can turn a humdrum client event into a connected client event.

BumeBox

Bumebox allows the event marketer to tap into real-time social media by allowing brands to schedule special promotional events for a specific period of time. Any posted content interaction that occurs during the event is immediately posted on the brand website - a much more simplier, streamlined process than collecting Twitter hashtags, posting links to Youtube (media is actually displayed). Event goers can comment, vote and engage in real-time.

DJTXT

While good music is essential to any soiree, it's pretty difficult to please everyone. DJTXT gives everyone a chance to play DJ by uploading a playlist and allowing your party-goers to text "like" or "dislike" to change the song selection, or upload song requests into the queue. Now, how fun and interactive is that?

Mobile Barcodes

Marketers love using mobile barcodes in direct mail, retails, and events are no exception. Placing mobile barcodes on site at an event connects the experiential with the mobile- and allows you as the event marketer to capture valuable data, or influence behaviors (purchase, brand interactions, etc.).

These are just some of the tools that an event marketer can use to create a seamless, cross-channel event that blends the boundaries between brand and consumer engagement.