“For a long time, consumers have been coming to advertising spaces. But now, advertisers are coming to a consumer-created space. What does this mean?” Note: this is like 5 years old now. This is a briefing I gave to 100 financial analytics at UBS financial in NYC advising Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp on whether or not to buy MySpace.

1. The Marketing Landscape
Friday, May 26th, 2006
John Manoogian III
Director, Experience Design
Advertising and Social Networking
© 2005 ORGANIC, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

2. Social Networks
are the new malls.
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3. But these malls are built by users. Without any rules.
• Users are connecting with each other, goofing around, and sounding off
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4. People are putting their real lives + personas online.
• baring their souls online in exchange for human connections
• Movies, Books, Friends – profiles are people’s lives on public display. This is
the stuff they pin up inside their lockers.
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5. for a long time,
consumers have
been coming to
advertising spaces.
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6. but now,
advertisers are
coming to a
consumer-created
space
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7. how can
advertising remain
relevant in this
space?
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8. “The spirit of social
computing is the spirit of
leaving value in your wake”
> Bradley Horowitz, Technical Director - Yahoo
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9. Companies who do this will take the prize.
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10. let’s see how
marketers are
using the space
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11. Allowing users to play with brand identities: Axe - GameKillers
• Make the
characters
more real by
creating
custom
personas and
fictional
MySpace
profiles for
each of them,
which users
can add as
friends
• The profiles
“auto-approve”
your friend
requests
• Plus video
trailers
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12. Viral Comedy - Dodge Caliber – Pig and Bear
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13. What’s viral?
Marketing consumers transport for you.
Simple.
Why?
> It’s unique content or functionality they can’t get elsewhere
> Exploits the natural desire to be the first on your block with something cool
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14. A user-powered place to play: Fox + X-Men
• X-Men: expanding the functionality
of the network, empowering users
to do things they couldn’t do before
they became friends with the X-Men
> X-Men MySpace skins
> Portable viral movies – add the
movie trailer to your page
> New functionality – users get 16
“Top friends” instead of a “top 8” if
they add the X-men as a
> http://myspace.com/xmenthelaststand
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15. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
• This is about brand-building + loyalty building – NOT direct response.
> DM approach is boring for users.
• Media and production budgets become messily co-mingled
• It’s scary to “open-source” your brand –
> to succeed on a social network, you have to allow users to comment on you, to
actually control your brand a bit online – this is a scary thing. Anyone can (and will)
say anything about you.
• Rejection is painful.
> Advertisers and marketers are late to the social networking party
• The waters move quickly
> one misstep and you’ll drown
• Horror stories for users of transparency gone wrong / too far
• Will people really buy products they see on social networks?
• Metrics are pretty soft
> Tagworld can do this – will MySpace catch up?
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16. The Future / Further Reading
• MySpace is just the beginning:
> Social networking sites are multiplying rapidly
> Users flit between sites
> Filling out profiles again and again is a drag
> User-owned, merged profiles that can be plugged into any new site will emerge
• For more on social networks and emerging media, check out our blog
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17. Thank you!
Questions?
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