Conan O’Brien’s Viral Marketing Campaign
You’ve likely heard of the Jay Leno – Conan O’Brien rivalry that happened over an NBC late night spot. NBC and Jay Leno blamed Conan O’Brien for failing ratings when it was likely due to a younger audience being more interested in the Internet as medium than television. Just as TV replaced radio and relegated it second-class status, the Internet is fast doing the same to TV. Unfortunately for Conan O’Brien, he got caught up in that.
However, unfortunately for Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and his fans are more Web-savvy so you could say they are the future.
Pace Lattin does a good job of defending that position in a SiteProNews article. After Conan’s abrupt release from NBC, the late night funny man and his fans went on the viral attack and saved his reputation for another generation. That’s the lesson. Never discount a comic whose face is in the mud. He’ll make mud pies and spread them all over cyberspace. Isn’t viral marketing fun?
Will Search Engine Marketing Merge With TV?
Screenwerk has a great read here on the Internet on TV.
Imagine sitting in front of the tube watching your favorite TV show and up on the screen (in the corner of the screen so as not to interfere with your viewing) comes a little popup box. It’s your friend who lives thousands of miles in L.A. sending you a chat message through Facebook. You type a message into your remote control to let him know that you are watching a show and you’ll chat in fifteen minutes.
A couple of minutes later you get a another popup box. It’s your mother on Skype. You shout at the TV, “I’ll call you in 30 minutes!” OK, she hangs up.
Across the bottom of the screen you see little text ads scroll by every five to ten minutes. You calmly say to yourself, “Those ads are really annoying.” But then you remember those $60 cable bills. One of the ads, much to your chagrin, catches your attention. (Those ads are provided by Google, by the way.) You pick up your remote and click the ad – a little popup box appears in the top left corner. You’ve been taken to the advertiser’s website.
Since you are still watching your show, you leave it the way it is. When the show is over you send a message to your Facebook friend, “Let’s chat.” You dial your mother on Skype. And you enlarge the website panel in the corner of your TV so that it takes up the full screen. What a multi-tasker you are!
Is this the future of Internet TV? Will you someday be able to chat, talk on VOIP and surf the Internet all on TV? Gone are the commercial breaks, gone are the cable channels and their high-priced monthly bills. Programs are paid for by revenue made from pay-per-click ads. Search engine marketing is bigger and more effective than ever. Can you see it? Am I dreaming? Is it possible?