TreeWorks Blog

I was thinking this morning that if one asks 100 people which is their favorite Beatles song, one would probably have 50 different answers. (Which probably does not happen with Frank Sinatra or AC/DC.) And I bet one can find more of this kind of information. Or writers. And just like that, wandering from thought to thought I got to Confucius’ words, “In matters of essence, all people are alike. In matters of behavior, all people are different.” It’s like: we want the same things, but for different reasons. (The fuddy-duddy could even say that the reverse is possible: we want different things, but for the same reasons.)

But I shall just abridge: the classical pattern of sale is the Pareto distribution – 20% of the clients bringing 80% of sales. That also because the information costs are high and then one prefers to focus on the 20%. In the Internet era, however, things change: that 80% that were not the best clients (because they wanted all kind of weird things that did not exist) get to generate more than 80% revenues. But the theory still says one needs some mainstream / best-seller products to move the tail. To make the people explore the niches of your shop.

I was thinking today that the reverse also works for brands that are already established. (The long-tail is the favorite start-ups’ theory, we know it.) What about using your old achievements to push the public towards the thing you want them to do at a time being.

Let’s look for instance at televisions and online video. Let’s say I am a television post that has all the rights for a certain show (call it a reality show) that has been filmed in the last 5 years. And it’s still going. If I place the entire archive on the Internet, free of charge, I may convince my potential public to watch the next episode and not the concurrence’s show. So better ratings for a show. Plus promos for shows in the same category if I feel so. Plus advertising. Plus cross-selling – the ones that want to buy DVDs (superior quality + bonuses).

Cannibalism? I do not think so. I was reading last year that the favorite before the Oscars was Spielberg’s Munich. Disney – the producer – took so many protections when making the DVD for the ones that voted that, over 25% of the persons that got the DVD were not able to open it on their players. DRM problems, encrypting etc. And Crash won, sending the DVDs unprotected, without excessive control of the lists etc. On the long term, who lost the money? Anyway the both movies were already on the file-sharing.
Let’s look on the other side also: South Park. Its longevity is based on the fact that it spread the viral way. And on the long way this means good and cheap marketing, so bigger profits.

Put in a sentence it goes like this: placing old content, that either brings little revenues, either none, as a trailer to the present content seems to me a very good way for the big content owners.

While reading these sentences I can choose to perform from one of these actions: read the e-mail, delete it or mark it as a spam.

I usually do not open the emails that come from unknown addresses or ones that have vague headlines. I do open emails from sites I have logged on, but not always follow their links and most of the times I take a glance at the content and that’s all. From time to time I get an email telling me I haven’t visited a specific website for some time and probably someone who manages the answers evaluation is wondering if I want to keep my account. Other times I order products online and after that I keep receiving offers or just events invitations.

Thus, day after day, I open and delete newsletters, latest products offers, news of order forms. It does not really mean so much for me, but it sure does for people who generate them.

B2C Internet Direct Mail Communication - direct, personalized, targeted - is more and more used. Because an email is less expensive than a letter, a print or a tv ad, the results of a campaign can be measured, the resources are limited and the messages can be customized for a specific target.

The questions you need to answer before implementing an internet direct mail campaign are:

• Who do you send the emails to?
• Where do you get the addresses from?
• What will be the format of the message?
• What about the content?
• How will you measure the results?

For instance, HTML email strengthens the message, but are preffered by the unexperienced users. That is why it is advisable to let the users choose their desired format. ROI (Return Of Investment) is an efficient method of measuring the results of a campaign. The rate may vary depending on the product, industry and target.

You can find the answers to all these questions, as well as how you can avoid being labeled as a spam generative here.

That is why I think Google bought YouTube. Nowadays people don’t consume philosophical systems like the Kantian Criticisms, because they switched on essays’ collections. They don’t buy tones of sophisticated food in order to prepare some tasty delectable dish, but they buy pizza and microwave it. And when we get to a restaurant we want a really quick serving. Because we also have other things to do.

Right-on-time delivery of every pleasure and every need. We hear more and more often “Today I’ve seen the X season” of some comedy show.

Because:
1. the actual public can no longer wait a couple of minutes for something to happen. They want the continuously flowing jokes and they get this easier from the 20 (or 45) minutes per episode series than from the 2-3 hours long artistic movie.

2. because the public doesn’t really want to experiment, they want to consume something they know they would like.

3. because the actual public wants to consume at his own pace – on DVD or computer, and not in front of the TV set – at the hour someone has decided the public from that specific target is likely to be in front of the TV screen.
The novel populated with non-substitutable characters is dying. Almost no one wants to feel the disintegration. But they do want sharable stuff. Long live WOW. And chick-lit novels.

Therefore, the new small-multi-energy nutrients-pill-concentrated-in-a-small-space-format will win. BTW, have you seen that commercial at some detergent which is now 30% more concentrated, so the 3 kilos packet becomes a 2 kilos one, washes the same and costs, of course, the same as the old 3 kilos packets?

I am looking forward to the artistic aspects of the new format: visual 30 seconds long haiku. Right-on-Time Satori onYouTube.

Leaving poetry behind, I say that “Google Tubes & Tunes” will be an important distribution channel for some tough guy from Hollywood, TV or music industry for maximum two years. Remains to see how they will solve the intellectual property problems.
PS. Romanian Television, are you on? Gag of the day with Iri, Moni, Jiji, Adi, Tetelu and the rest of the illustrious are pure gold. (Actually PROTV and, in a smaller amount, Realitatea and Antena3 have already started doing this. I would say that the Flash-based video executions are much more indicated than the mpd, avi, mov ones.) Especially since the viral effect already exists – we all get them on email from the enthusiastic ones, they can be found on torente or on other sharing forms.