Noisy launches

Here's something startling obvious that often gets lost in the noise of an exciting product launch:

The product is the thing.

The company is not the thing. (An exception perhaps is Apple - which uses its powerful corporate brand to great effect.)

The distribution channel is not the thing. (Your distributors may incorrectly argue the point, especially VARs.)

And most certainly, the ad is not the thing. (Your agency's creatives may disagree, especially if the ads are spotlighted in an article like this one in Advertising Age.

Once you go down the path of suggesting that a "creepy" and "unsettling" advertisement is "doing its job" because people are talking about the advertisement (and not the product per se) you can quickly find yourself sliding down a slippery slope trying to quantify 'mindshare' and 'visibility'.

To be certain, if the ads are effective, they'll be talked about... but more importantly, so will the product. A truly effective advertisement quickly steps back and allows the product to take the spotlight.

After all, no one wants to hear the announcer keep talking once the band takes the stage.

The Rules Of Business Still Apply

Remember the dot-com days? When profits didn’t matter, and the new currency was ‘click-thrus’ and ‘page views’? The bubble was built by the general public’s fascination with this new thing, ‘the Internet’, and e-commerce companies along with their telecom counterparts (installing ever-greater capacity) rode the bubble toward a sudden and inevitable burst.

Social Media is beginning its shakeout. MySpace is struggling. YouTube is gaining traction as watching video online becomes a standard media, and Facebook is seeing continued growth, but much of it outside the U.S. as this market becomes saturated and curious Boomers drop off the site. LinkedIn integrates a number of useful applications and solidifies its position as a professional’s social media rolodex.

Now comes Twitter, off its highs of the CNN / Ashton battle for a million followers, a month after an Oprah mention, a curiousity to most and not yet monetized. Studies have indicated that most new visitors stop visiting after a month, and now a report that May’s growth on Twitter was anemic, although, importantly, the time spent on the site (by its active members) grew substantially.

So what’s next for Twitter? I’m not certain, but it is critical to recognize that Twitter’s celebrity users are essentially spokespeople and pitchmen for the site, not a business model in and of themselves. According to the rules of business where a company has an established and vocal ‘tribe’ of followers in its niche, the focus should be to provide value to its most loyal customers (visitors). This may mean perhaps, more integration with the hordes of third-party Twitter applications being developed, recognizing its role not as an interactive medium but a broadcast medium and provide services accordingly, and determine the best way to monetize the platform without alienating a customer base that is not used to be ‘pitched’ with advertising. It is then that Twitter can begin to expand and regain interest among businesses and individuals who will leverage the platform and applications using methods tested and proven by the early adopters.

‘The Oprah Effect’ will only get you to the lip of Geoffrey Moore’s chasm. The rules of business still apply as Twitter attempts to cross it.

Full disclosure: www.twitter.com/jimgardner

Supercomm Returns

Remember Supercomm?

'Back in the day', as I catch myself using phrases my father once did, Supercomm was the 'it' event of the telecom industry. It was the type of event where if you were in the business you had to launch something, or close a deal, or both, and then come back year after year with a bigger, better display - this show sucked the life out of many annual marketing budgets. And like car shows and builder shows, long before American Idol it was a haven for singer-dancers to take a break from waiting tables and be discovered in an exhibitors booth – by showcasing their unique talent of staying in key while rhyming "Motorola".

Sponsors TIA and USTelecom had split the event years ago, each claiming the mantle of Supercomm to fair to middlin' success, but in recent years their shows came together again as NXTcomm. Now, realizing that even years on from its heyday the name Supercomm has cachet, and with the June 09 Chicago event Supercomm is once again Supercomm.

According to the news release, TIA and USTelecom say the name change reflects recent developments in communications. That's a political statement in a political year. It's clear to me and other observers that the Supercomm cachet means a return to old style 'if you aren't here, you're not anywhere' power the organizers would like to regain. The demise of Supercomm was followed by confusion, weakness in both events, and general dissatisfaction with trade shows in telecom. I count myself among many irritated exhibitors who wanted TIA and USTelecom to reunite – which they did as NXTcom, then, now, properly, again as SuperComm.

Bring out the rented ficus and double padded orange carpet. I've clients to call.