Dave’s Take

In his new book “Free,” Wired Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson makes some compelling arguments for offering free items in your next marketing campaign. Anderson calls his radical marketing structure “Freeconomics,” and argues that giving consumers something for free can spur sales of other items – i.e. giving away a free cell phone spurs people to spend more on use plans; give away free game consoles and make your nut on the sales of games for the console, etc.

To prove his point, Anderson sites the British comedy troupe, Monty Python and how they turned a free giveaway into cold, hard Euros. Since the advent of sites like YouTube, fans of M.P. have flooded the Internet with free videos of famous Python sketches. Great for the amusement of viewers, terrible for the troupe’s bottom line. So, what did the famous British comics decide to do to protect their rights? Instead of suing everyone involved even remotely with the free postings (a la RIAA), the Pythoners decided to try a freeconomic model for selling their videos. They put all their skits on YouTube for FREE. Then, they provided a hyperlink to their own website where they offered all their tapes for sale. Guess what? The sale of Monty Python DVDs went from nothing to #2 on Amazon, an amazing increase in sales of over 23,000%!

Now granted, not everyone has something to sell as iconic as Monty Python videos, but still as a marketing model for freeconomics, it’s proof that free can mean big bucks if done properly. If not, free can be a quick ride to the poor house, as Anderson explains on the other side of a free-based psychology. When something is free, people tend not to care as much about it and as a result, they don’t think as much about how they consume free things. Free can encourage gluttony, hoarding, waste, guilt, greed and thoughtless consumption. So, how do we use free to its greatest potential?

For one thing, we can charge less than market value. Anderson believes that charging a price, any price, encourages much more responsible consumerist behavior. He sites examples of where charging customers a minimal fee as low as one dollar has prevented people from abusing the freeconomics model for products or services. Psychologically, humans translate the word free more often with worthless than they do value. By charging a minimal price for something, you sidestep that thought process, leaving the consumer with a feeling of beating the system rather than one of buying something worthless.

Another way we can enhance free offers is by divulging the reason why something is free. Consumers understand that Sprint is giving them a free phone so they will buy their air time from Sprint. It’s only when motivations remain hidden, do consumers stop to wonder why something is free. And once they begin to questions a marketer’s motive, they have pretty much decided not to participate in the giveaway.

In closing, it’s best to remember that free can raise suspicions, yet it has the power to grab attention like nothing else. If done properly, adding a free component to your marketing campaigns can provide the boost required for success. Use freeconomics incorrectly and all you have is another free thing no one wants or needs.

In what may be the strangest idea for a magazine ad, CBS and Pepsi have teamed up to create the world’s first video print ad. That’s right, video print ad.
To promote their new Fall schedule, CBS has decided the best way to attract new viewers is by placing paper thin video players in the September 18th edition of Entertainment Weekly. Will it be a successful alternative to standard ad channels, or will it be remembered as yet another loser, like last season’s brain storm of putting new show logos on supermarket eggs?

How it works: Readers who open the page containing the ad will see a small screen flicker on. Once booted, an introductory video will play, featuring actors from the CBS show, “Big Bang Theory.” They will explain how to use the player and what shows it features. By selecting from any of the five different buttons, readers/viewers will be enabled to watch a video montage from “How I Met Your Mother” or “Two and a Half Men”; a funny ad from Pepsi promoting their new Pepsi Max; a sneak preview of “Accidently on Purpose” or a preview of “NCIS, Los Angeles”, “The Good Wife” or “Three Rivers.”

While declining to reveal the exact cost of the campaign, industry insiders peg the production costs of the inserts at around $13.00 each! That’s an incredibly high per-viewer cost. Not only is it expensive, but reports from initial viewers/readers indicate it’s annoying for it’s loud playing volume and inane programming choices. Apparently, CBS hopes to increase exposure by making sure everyone in the room gets to hear the promos. Can you imagine what opening several of these on a plane would sound like? Forget about cell phone access, the new fight starter on American airlines might well be found in magazines with video players. Somebody call TSA.

As someone who has always endorsed new technology, I am highly suspicious of this groundbreaking idea. Why would I want to watch loud ads for shows I could care less about? I love TiVo because it allows me the ability to skip ALL of the ads contained within my shows. Now, they expect me to not only watch their boring promos, but to do so in the middle of a magazine article? I quit subscribing to Entertainment Weekly years ago when their ad pages overtook their editorial pages. These new video print ads will not only reinforce my feelings about not reading their magazine, but will probably make me avoid CBS and Pepsi for the near future.

Among the federal agencies charged with the regulation of commerce, perhaps none have been as neutered as the Federal Communications Commission. The past eight years have not been kind to the agency responsible for protecting consumers from telephone, internet and television scams. The “no regulation is needed of the free market” mentality of the Bush Administration all but gutted the agency. If nothing else, the lack of presidential support certainly ruined morale within the organization. During W’s rein, the F.C.C.s mission went from investigation and prosecution to the Sgt. Schultz approach of, “We see nothing!” Unfortunately, the new boss seems like the old boss when it comes to logical enforcement of federal communications laws and regulations.

While the old Nigerian prince scam has taken thousands of gullible Americans for millions, it’s nothing compared to the “respectable” campaigns that make the Nigerians look like the rank amateurs they are when it comes to separating hard working people from their cash. Products that promise to melt the pounds away, make you look twenty years younger, or take away your back pain forever are running without regulation 24 hours a day on televisions everywhere. How do they get away with selling the modern version of snake oil? Easy, the FCC is in charge and Congress is happy with its direction.

Does anyone familiar with drug efficacy seriously believe that the unregulated supplements business is honest and trustworthy? Take it from someone who knows people who work in the industry, the supplement market is about as regulated as the wild, wild West was in Jesse James’ time. Thanks to Senators like Utah’s Orrin Hatch, the supplement business has been left to regulate itself. Supporters of the industry claim that since they don’t use any regulated ingredients, they shouldn’t be as scrutinized as the drug industry. Critics argue that most supplements either contain ingredients that can be harmful to humans, thus requiring regulation; or they don’t contain anything of value and therefore should be banned from promising any useful benefits.

Every time I see an infomercial or sixty-second spot for weight loss supplements I want to scream. How in 2009 can ads for obviously bogus products run unchallenged on American television? There can be no debate with anyone remotely logical that a pill that promises to take pounds of fat off the human body without exercise or diet does NOT exist. It is a simple impossibility. Yet these organic pill-pushing hustlers are allowed to spend billions of dollars annually on broadcast advertising targeted at those in society least likely to resist -– the truly desperate. And I have yet to meet anyone who bought a house at auction for $300.00. Can you get rich on the Internet in this recession? You bet, but only by selling a fraudulent plan via infomercial that suckers wannabe millionaires.
America is facing a boatload of serious problems right now. War, recession, race relations, drug abuse, trade deficits and rising crime are but a few of the things we need to work on and find solutions for. These issues will take a lot of work from a lot of people. Bogus product advertising is something that requires no new laws, increased budgets or radical thinking – they’re illegal now, we just need to enforce the law. Why the FCC doesn’t just start shutting these crooks down immediately is beyond me. I understand the power of lobbying, but the back room deals involving these guys has been exposed for the sham it is. We need to contact our representatives and demand they insist the FCC do its job. If nothing else, it might help people realize that there is a secret to weight loss and it’s called “diet and exercise.”

Innovation is a wonderful thing. Take video and film editing for example. When I first started out in the world of film and video, only highly trained and practiced editors were used to cut my projects. The old days of Grass Valleys, CMX, flat beds, one-inch, Chyron and quads are long gone, but they do serve as a valid reminder of what is required to do a professional project – dedicated staff. Nowadays, technology has evolved to the point of allowing anyone with a modicum of talent to assume the role of professional editor or producer – an assumption that can cost a project dearly.

The belief that anyone can edit a project professionally all began with the Media 100 in the mid-90s. The Mac-based editing machine was the first to really integrate the intuitive logic of Macintosh computers into the editing bay. Gone were all the mysterious buttons old school editing pros had trained on and knew how to push in the right sequence for the magic that is advertising and entertainment to emerge. Gone too, was the necessity of multiple tape machines, cold rooms and tape ops. Which may or may not be a bad thing. I’m betting the tape operators union would say bad, production company owners would say good riddance. In any event, with the advent of the Media 100, all that was needed for editing film and video was the interface and a couple of Macintosh hard drives.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Media 100. It was the first editing system I felt comfortable operating by myself – and therein lies the problem. While I have supervised literally thousands of hours of editing, producing everything from thirty-second spots to episodic TV, I have no business self-editing. I am a writer/producer/account manager who is comfortable and dare I say competent behind a keyboard – just not an editing keyboard. It has been my experience that editing, like writing, is something just about everyone seems to think they can do. And in all fairness, anyone can write, maybe just not very well. Editing is in itself an art form reserved for people who have editing in their DNA. It’s not that they are smarter or more agile, it’s that they have a certain je ne sais quoi they bring to the edit from hours of training and experience. Your temporary receptionist on the other hand, doesn’t.

Just because your office manager purchased a used version of Final Cut Pro doesn’t mean that anyone in the office can learn to use it during his or her lunch break. As silly as this sounds, I am amazed at the number of clients I run into who take my script and video and hand it over to their IT manager for editing. They truly believe that technology has replaced talent and who needs to pay for talent when they got technology? Needless to say, after the project is delivered, I am often called upon to take the “completed project” over to a competent editor for a final cut that looks and sounds professional.

My point is that companies can save themselves a lot of time, money and aggravation by utilizing the services of a professional editor to begin with. While most edits are now done on the user-friendly Final Cut Pro, (by the way, it’s called Final Cut PRO because it requires a pro to really utilize its amazing capabilities) technology is no excuse for competence. If your middle-school daughter just read a book about Photoshop, would you let her design your new corporate logo? On the same line, just because the janitor knows how to use a Mac, it doesn’t necessarily mean he or she should be cutting your company’s latest commercial. It all goes back to the old saying, “You get what you pay for.”