The Next Web, via All Facebook, reported today that Facebook is encouraging advertisers to link back to Facebook pages (as opposed to their brand site) through a significant discount on ad sales. 50% to be exact.
In light of last week’s kerfuffle between Google and Twitter regarding Google’s recently launched Search Plus Your World, this is an interesting move on the part of Facebook. In comparison, Facebook’s move seems much more organic and subtle. While some accuse Facebook of perpetuating a “Walled Garden,” others see it as a natural progression. Why wouldn’t Facebook reward advertisers for inherently social campaigns?
Google’s move seemed to kick up a lot more dust—in part because of said quibble with Twitter that overshadowed much of last week’s CES. But mainly because of accusations that Google has stripped privacy by not allowing users to opt-out of personal data showing up in Google search results. You can toggle between social and non-social search but many argue that this isn’t good enough. And further the argument with the assertion that it’s not so much “social search” as it is “Google social search.”
We’re curious to hear what you think. Just how objective do you want your search engine to be?
There seem to be a lot of lines fading recently, particularly when it comes to the Internet. 2012 is sure to be a banner year for social media law, what with all the Facebook citations in divorce proceedings and social media evidence in court.
Which brings us to perhaps the most hot-button topic of all right now: SOPA. Sure, a lot of the major players in the raging battle over SOPA are financially motivated (who isn’t these days?), but it brings about a really, really important question: how long can the Internet remain largely unregulated by the government? (And, a topic for another time: are bloggers considered journalists?)
We’re just posing questions here, not necessarily editorializing or even waxing poetic about the end of the Internet as we know it. Trust us, everyone and their tech-savvy little brother are weighing in on the issue. It was only a matter of time before the elected Luddites decided they wanted a place at the e-table. But would it kill them to educate themselves first? Or at least bring in some experts who can?
Let’s be honest, SOPA probably won’t pass as is, but the debate ain’t going anywhere. And, as noted by John Biggs of TechCrunch:
“SOPA is a straw man. We can keep our freedom on the Internet. However, as we give big businesses more of our time, attention, and personal information, we build a cage of our own making, no SOPA required.”
Passion can be a real pain the ass. Just ask Denny Tedesco, the director of the documentary The Wrecking Crew. We ran across Denny after this post bubbled up and was noticed by Guesthouse Projects—the music PR firm that’s been helping Denny get the film in front of audiences. They pointed us to Tedesco, who is as passionate as they come and one of the good guys.
His film charts the story of the legendary group of musicians known collectively as “The Wrecking Crew” that were the go-to session players in L.A. in the 60’s. This group played on hits for the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, Sonny and Cher, Jan & Dean, The Monkees, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Mamas and Papas, Tijuana Brass, Ricky Nelson, Johnny Rivers and were Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound.
Denny, whose father Tommy was a guitar player with the collective, grew up around this scene and was determined to tell the story from the perspective of those who lived it. The film is a fascinating look at the music business for many reasons, the most obvious is how strangely… professional these guys were. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But rock ‘n roll history, not unlike reality television and the nightly news, thrives on sex, drugs and war. If it bleeds it leads, as one old-time news guy once said.
But what this film reminds us is that the music business is just that—a business. Despite the decadent lore, if you wanted the perfect steady bass line to kick off a two and half minute hit and the meter is running on studio time, you didn’t hire the drunk guy who trashed his hotel room last night. Nope. You hired one of the Wrecking Crew.
Seems it’s always been true: call a pro.
How is the lesson of the film relevant to what we do at Creative Asylum? Don’t worry, we’ll find a connection (we always find a connection). With a lousy economy, budgets for commercial spots, promos, digital experiences, music, movies, campaigns, basically all “commercial” art, is being cut.
It seems more and more agency creatives are being expected to do more for less and that any misstep holds the potential to throw the financial success of the project out the window. We fret, grumble, then shake it off and get to work.
Well guess what? It’s always been like that. The reason the Wrecking Crew existed was to make sure the project sounded great the first time. That the artistic leader, whether it be Brian Wilson or Frank Sinatra, had a team of pros backing him up that didn’t make mistakes. The budgets have always been tight and the deadlines always mattered. Otherwise Sonny and Cher or the Monkees would be playing on the records, not incredible, trained, focused musicians with sheet music in front of them.
This is not to say the characters in the Wrecking Crew aren’t fascinating. They are, after all, still musicians. It’s just that they happened to be really good at their jobs.
So we’ve ferreted out our own self-serving message in the this new documentary. What does the director want us to know about it? Well, partly that music licensing is a fortune and he’s still raising money to clear it all before a distributor will release it.
How do you make a movie about these musicians without featuring their music? You don’t. Denny just went for it and made the choice to sort that out later.
Now the film is done, it rocks, but it can only be shown in select screenings until enough money is raised to clear the over 100 songs used. The unions are being very cooperative and he’s getting close, but is still soliciting funds to get it cleared properly. He’s taking his cause to the people directly by asking for donations to get this amazing piece of music history on the big screen.
So there it is. A little story about a movie, professionalism and passion.
Check out his site and watch the trailer.
We’re not buying that 2012 is the year Los Angeles slides in to the sea. We’re staying on Sunset Blvd. despite the warnings of the Mayan calendar via Roland Emmerich. If we’re wrong, then regardless, it will be Creative Asylum that will be standing on the hill during the fires and destruction, raving like lunatics that it’s all a conspiracy.
There’s always one that just won’t leave. And that will be us.
That’s because, despite the chaos of 2011, we’re extremely optimistic about 2012. Our version of 2012 looks more like Rocky II (he wins) than Day After Tommorow. It’s a feelgood ending.
There’s no question that seismic shifts are on us all. The economy cracked in 2008 and the results are only now being felt. But as the economic landscape shifts, new opportunities arise. Nothing has ever remained the same. What makes us optimistic is the rise of new ways of doing business.
This new economy will favor the nimble, the creative and fearless. Making sense of chaos is not possible. But being aware of it is. The companies and people that will survive in this new landscape will be the ones that adapt quickly. When the iPad challengers attack, it will be the creative companies that make their content, apps, and advertising that can do well.
As everything, and we mean everything, goes mobile, there will be a need for infrastructure, marketing and creative. It’s completely exciting.
Same with the cloud, the cementing of social media as democratization, gameification—these are revolutions that are happening as we speak. And as the old ways collapse, the new is built on top it. Instantly. There are two reaction to radical change: lament or embrace.
We’re embracing. Happy New Year!
It’s the end of the year—time for fruitcake, reflection, drunken holiday office parties, and many a “Best Of” list.
We think it’s the perfect time to reflect on some of the biggest tech trends of 2011. One such trend, while still a nascent movement, is the emerging importance of the second screen. As an agency with roots in entertainment, our interest is particularly piqued by the surge of second screen apps and synchronized social networking around content.
Let’s look at the facts:
A January study by Yahoo’s advertising division revealed that 86% of people who use the mobile Internet use their mobile device while watching television.
GetGlue, a check-in app, reached 1.5 million users this year (as of September).
Miso just announced a new product called SideShow, which is basically crowdsourced second-screen experiences, like a fashion feature to go along with the latest episode of Gossip Girl. Companies are thinking outside the “check-in” feature and imagining a world in which you watch TV while learning who the actors are, what they are wearing, and where you can buy that couch on Suburgatory.
We’re pretty stoked about this trend as it opens many a door for marketing integration into a world where commercials are fast becoming obsolete. Plus, it leaves us excited to see what’s in store for next year.
Your move, 2012.
In a constant push to improve the quality of the Creative Asylum online experience, we’re happy to announce our latest endeavor, a video series called Available Light: Creative Conversations from the Cat and Fiddle.
This series of webisodes sprung from a simple concept. We find interesting people we like, buy them a beer or other choice beverage at the Cat and Fiddle and chat about their process, interests, dreams, predictions or favorite movies. We let the conversation meander, then cut it down later.
There’s no lighting (thus the name), no uptight interview conventions with imposing production gear, no big crew or uptight producers gathered around a monitor in the back of the room whispering.
The goal is to create a relaxed environment for our subjects and hear what they have to say on a variety of subjects.
One of the great gifts of doing the kind of work we do is the people we meet along the way. This community is a wildly diverse gang of storytellers. They are ambitious, smart, opinionated and creative; some of them are photographers, screenwriters, production execs, and network VPs. The tie that binds is passion and an interest in navigating the rapidly changing landscape of film, TV, music, fine art, marketing and advertising.
These pieces will be short and sweet—probably about 2-4 minutes. Eventually we will release the longer version audio only on iTunes, but first things first.
So here they are. We have released two episodes to start:
Jim Wright is a photographer and director and Erich Hoeber is a screenwriter of films like “Red” and “Battleship”). They’re cool guys. Enjoy what they have to say and look for more to come. If you have ideas for subjects, let us know through our social media channels. We are always looking for more people to chat with on “Available Light.” If nothing else, you’ll get a free Stella on us.
Enjoy!
The explosion of social media, of perfectly smart and optimized search engines, of Google’s slow and steady rise to the top of the information chain—it’s all probably a good thing. We use it, we love it, some of us make a living finding new ways to utilize it. Having information at our fingertips is still something new and utterly amazing. You hear a song you like at the bar, pull out your smartphone, fire up the Shazam app and 20 seconds later you not only know the band and song name, but you are part of their fan club, have downloaded the song and have reserved tickets to their next gig. And you never even MOVED.
Wikipedia’s million-plus pages of intertwined information makes us better informed than we’ve ever been. Arguing the facts over dinner has become a typing race to see who can humiliate whom faster with the facts. Intellectual superiority (at least in public) in 2012 is defined by iPhone typing speed and dexterity. One wonders if evolution will begin to favor quick people with skinny thumbs, eventually weeding out slower, fat-fingered people because they can’t Google fast enough and therefore don’t get to mate.
Where it’s heading is obvious, although none of us know what it will look like. The answers will always be there, hovering in front of our eyes like B-movie spaceships. All we’ll have to do is look at it, pass it on, and we have passed. Instant expert. It’s way better than ignorance, right?
Perhaps.
But what about the quest for knowledge? The actual quest as in “a long or arduous search.” And we’re not necessarily referring to the academic quest for the Latin root of the word “survive” or some scientific unlocking of a random genome (although these are clearly more important). We’re talking about our own personal mini-quests for knowledge. Things we would like to know.
Since this is a marketing blog and we do a lot of entertainment work, let’s take it down to it’s most basic level: being a fan.
Not even five years ago, it was much harder to be a real fan of something. Ten years ago, it was borderline really hard, and prior to that, you had to be a little weird. Knowing where the lead singer of Guided by Voices taught 4th grade before he became a singer took some digging. You went to shows, met other fans, gossiped and learned. You read magazine articles and kept them and read them again until you had absorbed the work of the writer so completely that they were practically your ideas. You worked for it.
It was total pain the ass, and people knew it, and you were rewarded by having those people say “Wow!” or “I didn’t know that” when you educated them on your specialty. Little victories, but extremely satisfying.
If it was something more scholarly, like, say Edgar Allen Poe you were into, well that took reading…books. Remember those? You’d recognize them by the smell. And you didn’t read just one. Because any devotee knows, the baseline for any perspective is reading at least THREE books about your subject, then you start the “cool stuff nobody knows about” phase. You dig for the trivial. You go back to the obscure. The mundane.
The short version: it used to be a lot harder to be a fan, maven, buff or devotee.
So this is a small moment of silence for the passing of the quest.
That said, nobody really knows anything, even experts, unless they were actually there. And is the stripe of a fan how much they know or how hard it was to learn it?
There’s a good chance less than handful of people on the planet were in Robert Pollard’s 4th grade class.
Now go Google “Robert Pollard” and “4th grade.”
Boom. You’re an instant expert.
We have divisions in both Panama City and Cebu City, but Creative Asylum’s world headquarters is located in the heart of Hollywood. And when we say the heart, we’re talking the bleeding-but-still-beating heart, not some tourist reproduction at Universal Studios or a wax museum facsimile. We park at the ArcLight, formerly the Cinerama Dome and walk past world-famous Amoeba Records to get in the front door, first strolling through the courtyard where a few scenes from Casablanca were filmed. But what’s wildly unique about LA is it’s complete indifference to it’s own entertainment history. It’s a geek’s game, generally, tracking locations and noting what was filmed where and when. Luckily, we also happen to be fully staffed by such geeks, and therefore have decided to occasionally post about local entertainment history that’s within stumbling distance from our front door.
If you have to drive, it doesn’t count. We’re talking a stone’s throw only.
Which leads us nicely to Sunset Sound on the corner of Sunset and __. When the urge strikes to eat healthy, many CA folks can be seen strolling towards SUBWAY for a 6″ turkey and some chips (to counteract the healthy part of the meal, of course). On the way, we walk by a nondescript building with a very 70’s sign that says “Sunset Sound.” We grab the grub and saunter back.
But what’s gone on inside that grey little building has changed the world, quite literally, especially if you’re a music fan, a degenerate partier, or both. Because inside is where at least a few of your life’s most memorable soundtracks were recorded.
We’ll get to the rock and roll in a bit, but let’s start with with something cuddly—Bambi. Yes, the soundtrack to Disney’s Bambi was done at Sunset. So was 101 Dalmations and Mary Poppins.
But enough of the kid’s stuff. Then came the not-so-wholesome. The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Steet overdubs. Dirty. The Doors’ first two albums. Led Zepplin, Elton John, The Beach Boys (Just a little album called Pet Sounds), Van Halen, Warren Zevon and on and on and on. Here’s a partial list of the music and musicians that have “worked” at Sunset Sound, leaving ashes, empties, and some amazing music:
Studio I
Van Halen, Paul McCartney, James Taylor, Macy Gray, Bee Gees, Doobie Bros., Whitney Houston, Barry Manilow, Oingo Boingo, Luis Miguel, Rolling Stones, Dave Grusin, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Lee Ritenour, Fourplay, Richard Thompson, Yes, Brian Wilson, Beach Boys, Annette Funicello, Carly Simon, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Bangles, Fishbone, Randy Newman, Sly & Family Stone, “Fabulous Baker Boys”, Vonda Shepard, Tom Petty, “The Firm”, Sheena Easton, Patti Austin, Aaron Neville, “Mary Poppins”, Sam Cooke, The Turtles, “101 Dalmations”, Lovin Spoonful, Buffalo Springfield, Janis Joplin, Genesis, Kenny Loggins, Jackson Browne, “My Best Friend»s Wedding”, Reel Big Fish, “Dr. Doolittle”, “The Truman Show”, “Tootsie”
Studio 2
Van Halen, Led Zeppelin IV, Sheryl Crow, Smashing Pumpkins, Matthew Sweet, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Celine Dion, Earl Klugh, Alanis Morrisette, Michael Jackson, Toto, Lita Ford, Robert Palmer, “Dick Tracy”, “Dune”, “Days Of Thunder”, “Rocky II & IV”, Ry Cooder, Richard Marx, Aretha Franklin, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Crowded House, Bob Dylan, Jennifer Holliday, Olivia Newton-John, Melissa Manchester, Barbra Streisand, Roberta Flack, Rick James, “Major League”, “Great Balls Of Fire”, Michael Feinstein, “Wayne’s World”, “Wayne»s World II”, Alice Cooper (Muscle 73), Leo Sayer, “The Waterboy”, “The Big Lebowski”, “Pleasantville”, Doyle Bramhall, Weezer, “The Prince Of Egypt”, DDT, Poison, Andy Williams
Studio 3
The Surfers, Elliott Smith, Social Distortion, Sugar Ray, Mary Lou Lord, “Midnight In The Garden Of Good & Evil”, Earth Wind & Fire, Prince, Dan Fogelberg, Hiroshima, Rancid, k d lang, The Wallflowers, Beck, Mr. Mister, Stevie Nicks, Belinda Carlisle, Kix, Desert Rose Band, Air Supply, Counting Crows, Deborah Harry, Jody Watley, Neil Diamond, Rita Coolidge, Lionel Ritchie, Sam Phillips, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Jones, Van Dyke Parks, Gillian Welch, The Refreshments, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Thisway, Melissa Etheridge
If you can’t find at least one band you don’t love in that list, we then apologize for wasting your time. Grab a sub sandwich and walk on by. But if you’re a fan of music history, it’s right around the corner. Stop by, we’ll take you there.
Check out the “history” page on the studio’s web site.
Remember back when United Colors of Benetton ads were controversial, eyebrow-raising, and just kinda awesome? Remember back when Benetton was a relevant name in the clothing industry?
This was pre-internet, before our laptops told us exactly what to wear and where to buy it. You had to work for it. For many non-big city Americans in the 80’s and 90’s, the only exposure to interracial open-mindedness they ever got was from walking by the Benetton window display at the mall. Sad, but better than nothing.
Benetton delivered a vision of tolerance. Even if that tolerance was mainly for really well dressed people. United Colors. Black, White, Asian, Native Americans all dressed awesome and just …hanging out? It’s easier to create that sort of cultural/fashion mash-up in 2011 because of the access we all have. But back then, that angle was hard.
Yeah, well, they’re back. Benetton just released this “Unhate” ad campaign that definitely harkens back to those days when their ads opted for shocking pictures that didn’t actually contain any clothing. They seem to be reclaiming the throne they created as a company that sells stuff, yes, but also has a message. Seems this time around, all they need is Love.
And kissing.
The ads feature world leaders smooching. Of course, It’s already caused some controversy…they’ve taken down a picture of the Pope kissing an Imam. God forbid. But we’re writing about it here, so they still win with that loss. There’s all sorts of stuff to explore on the website, including a kiss wall where you can upload your own pics.
So let’s check it out … and take a moment to tip our marketing hats to a company that deserves credit for creating a slightly more tolerant world, even if it was all just to sell more red sweaters.
If you’re into business startup stuff, then you should check out this solid series of profiles of entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes as they spill the beans on what they did, didn’t do, wish they’d done, etc., etc. They’re short—2 or 3 minutes. It’s an easy way to get inspired over coffee to stop sitting around drinking coffee and get off your ass and start a company. Techcrunch sets up the series better than we can so we’ll let them explain it:
“…Sprinkle Lab, launched a series last week that aims to speak to anyone and everyone interested in the world of entrepreneurship. The series, called “Now I Know”, will be releasing a new episode every Monday and Wednesday for the next six weeks that contains a lesson learned, a memorable experience, or personal philosophy from different notable figures in the tech space. It’s slightly reminiscent of The Startup Kids, but instead of focusing on young entrepreneurs, it shares musings on the big issues the tech industry faces today, dished out by experts — of every age.”
See, we told you they would do a good job explaining it. One of the reasons we dig it at Creative Asylum is because we are launching our own web series very shortly called “Available Light: Creative Conversations from the Cat and Fiddle.” Basically once every 2-3 weeks or so (damn, will we regret putting THAT in writing), we will be posting another profile of a smart, creative person who is making a mark in the world of marketing, TV, film, art or music. We do the interviews at our local pub, the “Cat and Fiddle” (BTW – we also use available light. Hopefully the name of the show now makes sense).
When we discovered Sprinkle Lab’s “startup version,” we were happy to see we weren’t the only people out there making content for the love of making content. Look for “Available Light” on this site soon — and thanks to Sprinkle Labs for creating “Now I Know.” Now we know.
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- More updates...