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AOL Breaks Free of Time Warner but is It Too Late for AOL?

aolJust eight years ago in 2001, Time Warner paid $147 billion to buy AOL.  Time Warner even went so far as to add the AOL name to the company’s corporate brand, creating AOL Time Warner.  Fast forward to 2009, and AOL has been draining money from Time Warner for years.  Finally, Time Warner announced that it’s cutting ties with AOL and spinning it off as a separate public company in a press release distributed today.  But is it too late for AOL?

As one of my undergrad professors always reminded his students, business is cyclical.  Companies merge and centralize, and over time, they split apart again and become more decentralized.  History repeats itself again and again, and so does business.  Time Warner got too big.  Just as AT&T did in the 1990s, Time Warner couldn’t handle all the various, disjointed aspects operating under its umbrella and realized, it’s time to concentrate on its core to survive.  First, it spun off it’s cable and broadband Internet services business, and now, it’s AOL’s turn to break free of the Time Warner corporate stronghold.  Time Warner has made the decision to focus on it’s core — media — through movies, magazines, and cable networks.  It’s about time.

With its pending release from Time Warner,  AOL has a chance to revive its brand and rebuild its business in order to actually appeal to a broader audience with relevant products and services.  Let’s face it — the online world moves far faster than a corporate conglomerate like Time Warner can move.  A new AOL actually stands a chance of succeeding in the long term. 

The Time Warner and AOL split should be a good thing for everyone, including consumers.  What do you think? 

Image: Flickr

Quantifying the Online Video Opportunity for Brands

The word among marketers for quite awhile has been that online video represents a significant opportunity for brands to deliver content in a format that consumers actively seek.  In other words, online video presents the opportunity to connect with consumers and engage them in branded experiences that they might not have access to elsewhere.

Still not sure if online video should be part of your brand’s marketing strategy?  Consider the numbers for a moment by reviewing the chart from Nielsen below.

nielsen_online_video_statistics

According to this chart, Google’s YouTube is by far the dominant player in the online video channel.  In the United States alone, over 100 million unique viewers watched nearly 6 billion online video streams in February 2010.  Clearly, people are watching online videos!  However, YouTube is a crowded and cluttered site.  How do you get noticed on YouTube against the viral sneezing kitten and Justin Bieber fan videos uploaded by teenage girls?

The key to getting noticed is not relying entirely on your online video destination to grow your video audience.  Online video should be an integrated part of your broader social media marketing strategy.  Yes, online video is an effective form of social media marketing when you create share-worthy videos and actually allow people to link to, embed, email and share your videos with their own audiences via blogs, Twitter, social networking, and so on.  Even your offline marketing should be integrated with your social media marketing and online video efforts.

As an example, Samsung created a unique marketing initiative that tied into the 2009 Super Bowl — one of the biggest annual sporting events in the United States — where consumers were invited to create their own videos explaining how they enjoy watching the Big Game.  The campaign leveraged traditional advertising as well as social media marketing with online videos, fan voting for the winning video, and more.

In other words, if you create an online video and publish it to YouTube, that doesn’t mean consumers will find it, watch it, or share it.  Your job as a marketer is to drive the audience to your online videos by creating integrated marketing efforts and creating amazing content that people actually want to see.

Miller Introduces the 1-Second Ad

miller_high_life1Who would have thought that a one-second beer commercial during the Super Bowl would get noticed?  Miller.

At a time when brands are competing harder than ever to get noticed between the clutter of messages consumers receive each day, Miller decided to break the television advertising mold with a one-second commercial. 

If you didn’t see the ad, check it out below.

 

What I love about this ad is its simplicity.  It reminds me of the Budweiser “Wassup?” commercials.  Of course, Budweiser had intended to push the word “true” in those ads, but “wassup?” became a term that permeated U.S. culture as fast as any Seinfeld quote like Frank Costanza’s classic “Serenity now!” 

You can see two Budweiser “Wassup?” commercials in the video below.

 

And for fun, here’s a “Serenity now” clip from Seinfeld.

 

So what does this tell us as marketers?  First, a well-placed ad with a simple message can work.  According to AC Nielsen, the one-second Miller ad moved the rating meter the same as the average 30-second commercial did during the 2009 Super Bowl, and sales for Miller High Life jumped the week after the commercial aired.  In other words, it really does pay to think out of the box and break the mold.  The question is whether or not your company is ready to be the next trendsetter.  In today’s economy, it could be what sets the winners apart from the losers (or at least the companies that will be here this time next year and those that will have to shut their doors).

What do you think?

Hat tip to Brand New Day for this post topic.

Image: Flickr

Brands that Made Headlines in 2008

Which brands were in the news in 2008?  I thought I’d put together a review of newsworthy brands (good and bad) by writing down the first 10 brands that popped into my head that made headlines in 2008.  Here we go…

1. Apple

Apple could do no wrong in 2008.  The iPhone, iPod, iTunes, new Macbooks, a laptop that fits in a manilla envelope – you name it, Apple has been hot in recent years, and 2008 was not an exception.  If there is an easier way to do something (and a prettier way), Apple will find it.  Apple is the perfect example of a thriving relationship brand that moved from cult status to actually steal some market share from the market leader, Microsoft, who has actually stooped to trying to counterattack Apple with ads that leave much to be desired.  Will Apple remain as popular in 2009?  We’ll have to wait and see, but I can’t imagine the love story will end anytime soon. [Read more…] about Brands that Made Headlines in 2008

Google, Keywords, and Trademarks – French Companies Cry Foul

gavelNews is making its way across the Internet today about two French companies that are suing Google because their trademarked names were purchased as search ad keywords through the Google AdWords program by the companies’ competitors, and ads were served by those competitors when people typed the trademarked names into Google. 

The two companies, Voyageurs du Monde and Terres d’Aventure, are suing for significant sums of money according to The Register, despite the fact that a judge has already determined that the loss of business to both companies as a result of the served ads based on those trademarked keywords was very marginal.  Apparently, two other companies have won similar suits against Google in France the past, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy and Meridien Hotels. [Read more…] about Google, Keywords, and Trademarks – French Companies Cry Foul