Expert Professional Advice

People really seem to enjoy the BP PR Campaign 2010 video and cartoons – so here we are on the anniversary of the spill and it gives us a chance to visit this video again. As well as the BP second spill.

The BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the kind of thing horror films could be made out of, and sadly, the damage done will probably be with us for perhaps fifty to one hundred years.  And certainly the family members of the workers who perished on the rig will be dealing with the emotional loss of a loved one. British Petroleum’s PR efforts focused on the clean up — but as we’ve all experienced, sometimes it is not easy to remove a stain from a shirt, so how can the Gulf of Mexico be easily cleaned from the unprecedented tarnishing of oil?

BP PR Campaign 2010 – The best home videos are here

SPAM OF THE WEEK:

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Reminds me of how these types of spam messages appeared on Facebook and the funny moderator responses to push back on the spam comments:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Temp/130531211069

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Im-No-Expert/26539272496

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Crooked-Friends/12879002239

And here’s one for a job scam:

Overheard in the office:

A male worker in his mid-twenties swivels his chair around and turns toward a female worker, early twenties, the newest employee and probably her first time working in an office.

Male: Would you go on a date with Tiger Woods?

Female: No.

Male: What if you hadn’t heard about his past – then would you go out with him?

Female: No. He seems like a boring person.

Male: Boring?

Female: Yes, him, as a person, boring.

Manager: You realize you come in here at nine o’clock in the morning and you leave at six at night, right? And he’s the one who’s boring? He has sex all over the world. He definitely knows how to have fun.

CinemaCon allows exhibitors and studios to present new developments in the theatrical business. The theme of the convention is unity and it is carried out by having what was previously known as the ShoWest convention that occurred simultaneously in two separate hotels, unified into one hotel convention.

Marketplace data:

Global box-office receipts reached an all-time high of $31.8 billion in 2010, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

I could easily contend that the fact that gross receipts are higher globally is due to inflation, a greater quantity of theater outlets compared to twenty years ago, and more films being offered, perhaps with a greater marketing emphasis. Here’s my response to a cinema marketing email invitation:

Did you know that the Box Office is breaking records?

·         2009 was the highest grossing year in box office history and had 8 of 12 top grossing months of all time

Box office revenues are higher due to inflation (I trust that they haven’t adjusted for inflation) and perhaps premium 3-D add-ons helped and perhaps that there are a greater quantity of films being released and more distribution locations.

The top three films of 1980 represented around 410 million dollars. In today’s dollars we’d need around 1 billion to 1.2 billion dollars in revenue just to match the top three films of 1980. The top three films in 2009 had combined revenues of 1.45 billion, 2008 = 1.16 billion, 2007 = 997 million.

A year without Avatar (2009) or Batman (2008) and revenues are below 1980 just comparing the top three films. 1980 had one sequel film in the top three (Empire), while the last few years of blockbuster films have relied on a built-in and well developed audience from sequels, something earlier periods were lacking.

Concerns:

Studios have less revenue due to a decline of DVD sales. According to media-tracking firm IHS Screen Digest, U.S. sales of DVDs last year dropped 43% from the 2006 peak of $13.7 billion.

Here’s a thoughtful and sincere message from the editor of American Way magazine, an American Airlines publication. I’m adding my own comments, the editor discussed service journalism and even used an example of a flight that Montel Williams was on and the resulting efforts based on an article that was presented to Mr. Williams.

I’ve rarely found any compelling in-flight reading material… although for some folks it is easy to get wrapped up looking through the Skymall catalog. I did just such a thing last month to see if I was missing anything – I’m not. Probably the best article I remember was on Iceland Air four and a half years ago about traveling to other remote islands.

“Honestly, we were guilty of the same hubris. After all, the economy was booming, new magazines were popping up all the time, and selling advertising was no harder than answering a ringing phone.”

I remember those days like it was 1999… any advertiser was willing to place a bet on a decent website. In fact, I used to say to colleagues in the cafeteria, “Sure, for only $2500 a month for sponsorship…”

“One in-flight runs 20-plus-page advertorials. From a publishing standpoint, who can blame them? It’s a lot cheaper to use stock photography and canned stories and advertisements than it is to commission original work.”

It is, but I think my viewers deserve better. The article mills online do an awful job by collectively wasting thousands or millions of reader hours with content that is nearly devoid of anything helpful… they seem to be a copy of a copy of a copy, of a poorly worded original.

“And we committed to making our content varied, entertaining and, most important, consequential. I’m proud to announce a very positive, very measurable result from our efforts.”

I feel the same way… I’m happy when I see folks sticking with us through various updates and registering or clicking the feed. I aim not to abuse the privilege with too many silly updates. I’d rather be helpful to our readership.

“Indeed, we at American Way know our role in the publishing world. We’re here to inform, to entertain and, whenever possible, to help.”

A brief Perry Lawrence bad review on the Web TV Show in a Weekend:

His presentation wasn’t great, although on a positive note it did offer a few tips:

-Increase video length slightly to delay unrelated videos

-URL usage in the first line of description

-Promote your own videos within the delay before the close of the video

-Ask your audience to complete only one action step (subscribe, comment, etc.)

Perry’s AskMrVideo might be one thing, perhaps helpful, but here he is asking for $1997, then reduced to $1497 for a package he claims has a value of $5437, which is inflated beyond belief, because no one is paying him $2997 for Laser Production Calls, and he invents a value of $297 for a strategy call, but again, who would pay for such a thing? The presentation was poor in certain areas, such as in production value – it was as if he had no presentation experience, although he claimed to be able to create wonderful videos we never see anything great, and he talks briefly about being able to help you create your first three web videos, which could be helpful to a complete novice, but then he closes with buy now – of all reasons – to get a Flip video camera as a bonus for the first few people. But it would be foolish to spend $1500 in order to get an item worth approximately $100. Most of the rest of his offer is generic and that same information is posted on various blogs for free – templates for web videos, how to choose a domain name and set it up quickly, distribution, etc. but the strange thing is he tried to position it as valuable rather than common. Outside of trying to sell stuff about how to create web videos it appeared during his sales presentation that he has no experience in video marketing or brand building for corporate clients.

I know some folks may have an interest in this so reach out, I can show you how to establish your Web TV Show in a Weekend and save you up to one thousand dollars compared to his offering. (comments @ expertprofessionaladvice)

Flawed media statistics — it seems the newsroom of mainstream media will broadcast and publish any silly thing. Here’s a few examples with regard to “social media.” Either they don’t know statistics or they don’t understand social media… probably both.

Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.  (the media got that correct, but it makes sense, you don’t expect to return to searching for the same thing on a weekly basis, as opposed to checking in weekly with friends)

Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year (you mean during the sixth year of operation, fine)

If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest ahead of the United States and only behind China and India (Would you compare your TV to a country? There are more TV sets than Facebook users. Or how about comparing mobile phones to global population? We could declare mobile phones are the world’s biggest country.)

iPhone applications reach 1 billion downloads  in 9 months. (one billion downloads from the Appstore, fine, but there is nothing social/no direct social media connection regarding downloading an app for iPhone and iPod touch.)

People enjoy sweeping generalizations – that explains the wide readership of authors who draw upon anecdotal evidence to present their “research.” Remember Outliers? Does someone practice TV hosting for 10,000 hours like I do, or do they just take advantage of the TV marketplace, who they know in the TV business, and what their agent can bring to them?

Although one’s progress or success in their chosen field benefits from practice… what was interesting was to place the emphasis in terms of hours, rather than days, months or weeks to get the reader thinking about how one uses each hour on a daily basis.

Here’s another example of a sweeping generalization – it’s easy with a book generator:

***Update:

One of the most interesting uses of Twitter, FB, Skype, etc. ~ anything the media would call social media, is the global coordination people are engaged in due to technology. We are seeing unprecedented amateur news coverage and global sharing and global response as people use technology to communicate as it relates to unrest in the Near East or to engage in productive response to troubled communities in Japan that need assistance with supplies.

SPAM OF THE WEEK: Would You Like To Work With Us???

SPAM OF THE WEEK:  SPAM OF THE MONTH CLUB

Smart Money February 2010 issue: The cover lies about the articles… Fraud – Lies – Fake: Welcome to Smart Crapper magazine!

Notes:

*** Thanks @stocktraderdude