SXSW Considering Turning Austin Into The Olympic Village, Complete With 'Brand Equity'-Protecting 'Clean Zones'

from the the-worst-people-to-ask,-and-the-worst-answers-to-get dept

Whether you believe Austin's SXSW to be a venerated institution or believe it's outlived its usefulness, you probably believe the last thing it should do is morph into a many-tentacled IP monster a la the Olympics or the Super Bowl. And yet, that appears to be something those behind SXSW seem to be considering.

SXSW consulted with Populous, the design and planning committee that has worked with organizers for the Olympics, the World Cup and the Super Bowl in the past. Dan Solomon of Texas Monthly notes that most of the outrage aimed at this partnership has very little to do with impending IP ridiculousness and thuggery, but rather at the possibility that SXSW might have to relocate at some point in the future.

Immediately, local media seized on the idea that SXSW is implicitly threatening to move out of Austin if the massive changes suggested in the report regarding the way the city and the festival interact aren't made. The Austin Business Journal ran with the headline "Festival overload could force SXSW to move away from Austin, report says," while Culturemap Austin asked, "Bullying tactics or lack of options? SXSW says without changes it may leave Austin."

But that's not the biggest story here, says Solomon. He quotes SXSW co-founder Roland Swenson as saying its basically "unimaginable" that the conference would be held anywhere but Austin. It's not the nearly-nonexistent threat of relocation. It's the potential re-imagining of SXSW as a something more notable for its IP enforcement than for its many concerts and events.

The more disturbing recommendations are laid out in terms that wouldn't look out of place in Philip K. Dick's dystopias. Or Anthony Burgess's, for that matter.

It recommends the creation of a "Legal Injunctive Zone," or a "Clean Zone." According to the report, the "Clean Zone" would be a perimeter around some part of the city that:

"protects the brand equity of SXSW and its sponsors but would be made to work with existing businesses and their interests so as to uphold sponsor values and private property rights—in return this may involve a financial exchange linked to the permit process that provides the City with additional funding for security and safety personnel."

The report also recommends "soft searching" attendees for "forbidden items" -- presumably anything not bearing a major sponsor's logo -- as well as busting up nearby events not officially sanctioned by the SXSW committee.

In order to ensure the profitability of SXSW, the city will have to abandon its equitable treatment of vendors and event organizers.

The current policy of the City with respect to the permitting process as ‘first come, first served’ and/or ‘must treat everyone equally’ appears to have become detrimental to event planning process and management of the key stakeholder interests. The SXSW event is one of the largest events in the world, and bespoke treatment is needed to facilitate a continuing safe event in Austin.

Note that the report conflates profitability and protection of sponsors' interests with "safety." It speaks highly of "brand equity" and uses these buzzwords to justify the deployment of tactics sure to land SXSW on the receiving end of First Amendment lawsuits.

"Clean Zone" ordinances tend to pop up in cities with one-time events like the Super Bowl or the All-Star Game, and their constitutionality is usually challenged quickly: The ACLU sued the city of New Orleans over theirs before the Super Bowl in 2013, resulting in a settlement that restored most of the rights that were restricted before the event. A federal lawsuit filed in Dallas was settled in 2012 after a man was cited by police for having a van with Best Buy logos on it within the Super Bowl clean zone.

The organizers may feel the current business model -- one that allows non-SXSW entities to benefit from the influx of attendees without kicking back a portion of the revenue -- is unsustainable in the long term. It may be, but the workarounds suggested here are much worse, especially in the long term.

"Clean zones" tend to end up in lawsuit settlements that are either late-breaking compromises, or months (or years) later cash payouts, as in Dallas. But the questions surrounding a SXSW clean zone would be harder to kick down the road, given that the event happens every year.

SXSW may be making more of an effort to protect its image and secure its legacy, but following these suggestions will only make the event more famous for the antics of its IP enforcers than for the concerts and conferences held under its name. It's one thing when a once-in-a-decade or once-in-lifetime event puts a city under the control of "brand equity" martial law. It's something else entirely when it's year after year.

Filed Under: brand equity, brands, clean zones, sxsw, trademark
Companies: populous, sxsw

DailyDirt: Be Careful What You Ask For

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The internet can be a rather dangerous place to ask people for suggestions. This is especially true for big brands and pop singers (eg. Taylor Swift's promotional contest that voted for her to play at the Horace Mann school for the deaf) who have a significant number of haters just waiting for an opportunity to troll. Marketing folks have been trying out some experiments in gathering "user generated content" from the internet, and here are a few of cases that didn't go quite as well as planned.

• Coca Cola has apologized for its "Share A Coke" website in South Africa that apparently didn't limit user input to people's names. Filtering user input is a lesson that seems to be re-taught again and again. [url]
• McDonald's asked people to share stories of their favorite memories of the burger chain giant, but not everyone had cheerful, glowing things to say. The #McDStories hashtag was pulled from promotion after just a couple hours. "#McDStories: McDialysis? I'm loving it!" [url]
• Back in 2009, Skittles turned over their main website to anyone on Twitter who simply mentioned "skittles" in their tweets. Was that campaign a success or a failure? Tell us in the comments below.... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: advertising, brands, campaigns, coke, crowdsourcing, marketing, share a coke, skittles, ugc, user generated content
Companies: coca cola, mcdonald's, twitter

Amazing: A Long, Detailed Article On Hollywood's Struggles... That Never Mentions File Sharing

from the a-failure-to-take-risks dept

On the Media points us to an worthwhile article at GQ by Mark Harris that explores why all the major Hollywood studios are so afraid to invest in new quality films these days. Instead, it's all about sequels and derivative works -- anything that comes prebuilt with a "brand" because the marketing execs at the studios believe that with that brand, it's more likely to clear the hurdle to get enough people to pay to go see it:

Such an unrelenting focus on the sell rather than the goods may be why so many of the dispiritingly awful movies that studios throw at us look as if they were planned from the poster backward rather than from the good idea forward. Marketers revere the idea of brands, because a brand means that somebody, somewhere, once bought the thing they're now trying to sell. The Magic 8 Ball (tragically, yes, there is going to be a Magic 8 Ball movie) is a brand because it was a toy. Pirates of the Caribbean is a brand because it was a ride. Harry Potter is a brand because it was a series of books. Jonah Hex is a brand because it was a comic book. (Here lies one fallacy of putting marketers in charge of everything: Sometimes they forget to ask if it's a good brand.) Sequels are brands. Remakes are brands. For a good long stretch, movie stars were considered brands; this was the era in which magazines like Premiere attempted to quantify the waxing or waning clout of actors and actresses from year to year because, to the industry, having the right star seemed to be the ultimate hedge against failure.

But after three or four hundred cases in which that didn't prove out, Hollywood's obsession with star power has started to erode. In the last several years, a new rule of operation has taken over: The movie itself has to be the brand. And because a brand is, by definition, familiar, a brand is also, by definition, not original. The fear of nonbranded movies can occasionally approach the ridiculous, as it did in 2006 when Martin Scorsese's The Departed was widely viewed within the industry as a "surprise" hit, primarily because of its R rating and unfamiliar source material. It may not have been a brand, but, says its producer Graham King, "Risky? With the guy I think is the greatest living director and Nicholson, Matt Damon, Wahlberg, and Leo? If you're at a studio and you can't market that movie, then you shouldn't be in business."

Inception was not a brand, which is why nobody with a marketing background is too eager to go find the next Inception—although ironically, any studio in town would eagerly green-light Inception 2. On the other hand, as you read this, the person who gave the go-ahead to Fast Five, the (I hate to prejudge, but...) utterly unnecessary fifth installment in the Vin Diesel–Paul Walker epic The Fast and the Furious, is sleeping soundly right now, possibly even at his desk. On June 10, 2011, he will bestow on several thousand screens a product that people have already purchased four times before. How can it miss?

The article opens with a nice description of how no one in Hollywood thought Inception would succeed, and how they kept coming up with excuses as to why it would fail, or why it was an exception. They never seemed to consider the idea that people would actually be fine with supporting a good movie rather than a brand. Honestly, the first half of the article sounds almost identical to Kevin Smith's Sundance speech about what Hollywood is focused on these days. They don't take risks. They don't focus on quality. They focus on what's the closest to a formula they know will sell.

But what struck me as interesting about the article is that they don't mention file sharing at all. This is a really nice surprise. We keep hearing from the MPAA and others in the movie industry that the only reason some Hollywood studios are struggling (and, let's face it, "struggle" is a relative term, given the continuing records at the box office) is because of those darn kids on the internet with their file sharing ways. It's great to see that people are actually focusing in on the real causes of innovation stagnation in the industry, rather than picking an easy (but incorrect) target and lumping all of the blame in that direction.

One other interesting point is that the article notes that many of the folks who, in the past, might strive for a creative, high quality, Hollywood movie are, instead, now focused on getting a TV show on cable (HBO, Showtime, etc.). And, once again, this is a sign of how the world adapts. For all the complaints of how one area is struggling, it doesn't mean that good stories don't get told. They just adapt to the changing market. The only point that it seems the article could have paid more attention to is the state of true independent film these days (rather than the faux-independent stuff that's really from studios), and how there are all sorts of new creative ideas coming out of that market, as they no longer kowtow to the studio gatekeepers, but now realize there are alternative funding, distribution and promotion mechanisms out there.

Filed Under: brands, movies, risk, sequels, struggles

Companies Realizing That Content Is Advertising Via Web Series

from the well,-it's-a-start dept

The NY Times has an article about the rise of online "web series" shows that are suddenly popular, noting that many brands are creating such things as a way to produce interesting content online while getting some attention for their brand. It's yet another realization that advertising is content and content is advertising. The key point, that many say they realize (and hopefully they live up to it) is that none of this works if the content itself sucks. So they're working on these shows with a focus on making them good and enjoyable to watch first, and including the sponsorship as a secondary part of the effort. I'm sure there may be some backlash over this idea, but it actually makes quite a lot of sense. It gets more good content out there, and helps brands get themselves noticed and remembered not for intrusive and annoying advertising, but for sponsoring something cool.

Filed Under: advertising, brands, content, webisodes

With Viral Media, It's The People Passing The Links Whose Brand Is At Stake

from the important-to-think-about dept

There's obviously been a big push by companies these days to embrace "viral media" that gets passed around. There's lots of talk about the value of "passed links" or "earned links" within marketing and ad agencies. The idea is that if a friend passes along links to content, that content gets taken a lot more seriously than if it's pushed out there by a brand. But, still, some of these agencies don't quite realize what's at stake. Tim O'Reilly points us to an interesting discussion on this topic by Mike Walsh, where he notes that marketers seem to forget whose brand is at stake when it comes to passing around links. They are, of course, focused on the company who is their client (or employer), but ignore that it's actually the person doing the passing:

Stunning art direction is useless if no one actually watches your ad. In a world of audience networks, people will only forward your content to their friends and followers if it makes them look smarter or cooler by doing so. Their brand, not yours is at stake. You would be surprised how few marketers take that into account and are left wondering when their viral campaigns are socially vaccinated before they get off the ground.

This works in other ways as well. We often write about the fact that advertising is content and content is advertising, such that smart advertising these days is good content. So, we're always interested in awesome examples of this in practice. Yet, we recently received a submission for a video, sent via a marketing agency's IP address, pointing to a cool YouTube video. The video itself was, in fact, cool and has been getting sent around a lot lately. But, the video was actually an ad. At the very end, a brand pops up. I don't mind this at all, because it fits with the recognition that content is advertising. If the marketing agency had sent it in making that point, I might have been interested in posting it. Instead, the marketing agency pretended to be some random guy (hint: we can check your IP address!) who had "just found this totally cool video." It was so transparently fake that it turned me off from the whole campaign (and that particular marketing firm). Passing on links is a reputation play -- and while it can do good for some people, if you're just out there faking it, it can do a lot of harm as well.

Filed Under: brands, earned links, passed links, social networking, viral media

Is Hulu 'The Greatest Destruction of Media Value In Our Lifetime'?

from the that's-one-way-to-look-at-it dept

Hulu, the online video site that has content from most of the major networks, has largely been an early success. While it's thrown up some barriers to users, it's done a decent job of putting attractive content in an easily accessible format, and users have flocked to it. Still, we've wondered if the site will be able to survive in the long run because of the demands of its content providers, which seem to be behind its user-unfriendly moves. To get a glimpse of the thinking that drives these actions, check out a piece over on Paidcontent called Memo To Networks Re Hulu: You're Making A Big Mistake, written by a former TV development exec. He says that giving users what they want -- in the form of Hulu -- isn't a good idea because it undermines the TV networks' brands. He uses the example of NBC, saying its value isn't its programming, but rather "the more than 70 years that it has taken the network to create expectations for generation... The years that it has taken the network to train consumers to expect a level of quality that can't be matched."

Wow. We've talked a lot before about how media companies overvalue their content and don't realize the importance of the services that distribute it, but completely ignoring the value of the content in favor of a TV network brand seems only slightly ridiculous. The guy is right in that network brands don't have any meaning any more, but it's not Hulu that did this. It was because the networks failed to keep up with changing viewer preferences and demands, and responded to the rise of the DVR and other new technologies with attempts to set up obstacles, rather than innovation. Viewers' loyalties now lie with individual shows, and the channel upon which they're transmitted is meaningless. The strong brands are the shows, not the networks. People simply set their DVR to catch all the programs, or they go to Hulu, ignoring the network. Even people who watch their TV the old-fashioned way don't have much awareness or interest in the network brands, beyond the evening newscasts (maybe). The former exec's advice for networks is to keep their shows locked up on their own sites so they can "stand by their brand." But where does the brand ever deliver the value that he thinks they have? Sure, the networks can try to prop up their brands by making things more difficult for their audience online -- but they've tried that strategy, and it hasn't worked. So perhaps opening up access to their content, and getting themselves (and their brands) out of the way, is a better way forward.

Filed Under: brands, hulu, tv
Companies: hulu

Advertising: The Revolution Won't Be Through Friend Requests

from the skip-this-step dept

Yesterday Facebook announced its long-awaited advertising program. This was inevitable: if you're going to justify a valuation just shy of Iceland's GDP, you've got to eventually propose a means of generating revenue. Facebook will no doubt earn quite a bit of money at the ad game. But the initiatives disclosed yesterday are likely to be a mixed bag — and not at all as innovative as founder Mark Zuckerberg would have you to believe.

The most straightforward of the new offerings is Facebook's contextual advertising system. Drawing on the vast amounts of data provided by its users and supplying metrics and query capabilities will no doubt prove to be lucrative. Much has been made of Facebook's particularly rich user data — perhaps too much. Although that data is likely to be better structured and therefore easier to leverage, it's not obvious that Facebook will be able to target ads to its users more precisely than, say, Google does within Gmail. Still, it's hard to imagine these ads being anything less than a huge financial success.

The same can't be said for Facebook Pages, which will provide brands with profiles on Facebook. Facebook has already tried this approach with Wal-Mart, and the results were disastrous. Not only did the nominally back-to-school-oriented page fill up with complaints about the retailer's business practices, but — perhaps more tellingly — many users attacked Wal-Mart and Facebook for bringing corporate shilling to their beloved social network. MySpace's brand profiles have met with a similarly lackluster response: An Inconvenient Truth's MySpace page was something of a marketing coup, but once the novelty wore off the practice failed to produce anything of significance. Although other companies will attract less ire than Wal-Mart, it's hard to imagine users being any more keen to engage with them (except, perhaps, for already-elite brands like Apple or Nike).

The final and most interesting prong of Facebook's strategy is Beacon, a system that will allow partner sites to post users' actions back to Facebook. Having your Amazon purchases or Netflix selections displayed in your mini-feed are the sorts of applications that are being hyped. As you might imagine, Beacon carries privacy concerns, as well as worries that the move will result in a further dilution of Facebook's already annoyingly low signal:noise ratio.

But to my mind the biggest unknown is whether the new data will be considered meaningful by consumers. There's no question that endorsement of a product by a peer is the most effective form of advertising available. Beacon is built with the hope that there are many marginal cases in which users would be willing to recommend the products they're consuming, but can't be bothered to take deliberate action to do so. But does purchasing a product necessarily mean a user wants to endorse it? Or do consumers prefer to curate their public purchases, picking and choosing the brands that they want to use to define their online identity?

It's not clear what the answer is, but I think there's reason to be skeptical of any initiative that attempts to automate individual peer recommendation. After all, genuine human enthusiasm is the sole reason why such recommendations are so effective.

Filed Under: advertising, brands, endorsements, privacy, social networks
Companies: facebook