Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Mike — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 00:38:18 -0000

In the Philippines, too many companies try to sell *online* services using *offline* marketing tactics.

I see the US isn't completely rid of such insanity.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Fqs5sJWzTH — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 00:20:10 -0000

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Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

electrica — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 20:27:57 -0000

Vaspers Spots "Blogging Delivered-AT&T" in Peoria!

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Goebbels — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:34:07 -0000

Adam, since the bulk of SBC's business is local telephone service and business data services it is everyone (not just old ladies, kids, etc...) in a large southwestern region of the U.S. primarily. Just reaching bloggers wouldn't help them at all; they have to reach ALL current and possibly future customers.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Adam — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:07:00 -0000

Hey Goebbels:

You weirdly assume that rebranding is all a numbers game. Who is AT&T trying to reach? Is it little Suzy going to school? The luddite parent? Out of town visitors?

Or maybe, just possibly, would it be better to reach key IT decisionmakers, early-adopter geeks, trendsetters, etc. Gee, you think maybe those sort of people pay attention to blogs? Just possibly?

Maybe if you spent a little less time foaming at the mouth, knee-jerking against Scoble, you'd actually take time to acknowledge some of the benefits of blogging as it pertains to PR (hint: there's a lot there, despite the hype).

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Rob McIntosh — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 19:50:16 -0000

Goebbels - What a dumb dick you are!

I would not be suprised if you and scobleizer are in bed together as all advertising/PR is hype for crap companies (or people in this case) want to make you think you need thier product,service (a blog is a communication service at it's fundemental level). Your continued rants doing nothing more to raise the scobleizer hype.

Who's the real idiot!

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Christopher Coulter — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 03:55:56 -0000

Each statement of yours [Scobles] gets progressively dumber and dumber.

Yeah, I've noticed that too, downward spiral, but the weebles wobble, yet don't fall down -- ends up writing a book that sells out to the saps, making a major mint. Irony, that. But the progression of dumbness, is backpedaled and excused over with 'don't feed the trolls'. And merry merry onto the next new new thing.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Goebbels — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 19:32:09 -0000

By the way, I should add: isn't it massively lame and pathetic to switch from saying that "blogs could do it" to "well, admittedly blogs would not do it, but it would create atizzy in traditional media outlets which would be both more impactful and larger than the relatively paltry effect of the bloggers"?

Aren't you essentially admitting bloggers couldn't do it? That traditional medias commentary on the blogs would do it?

Pathetic and foolish.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Goebbels — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 19:17:54 -0000

"If at&t gave out a billion to bloggers the press would go into a feeding frenzy."

And? How the hell would that accomplish rebranding SBC? Where I live I've received two mailers, their are TV commercials every commercial break on most major channels, and many billboards, and many newspaper articles. And it's about re-branding: solidfying the new image, not just a silly tizzy because they foolishly threw money at bloggers.

"By the way, how did Google or Amazon happen?"

Umm, several guys formed businesses based on millions of venture fund capital and opened for service. Is it your theory that SBC can provide cellphone, traditional phone, business services, internet access, cable access via a website or something?

"They don’t even advertise."

Yes, they do. Jesus.

Each statement of yours gets progressively dumber and dumber.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

scobleizer — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 02:25:07 -0000

>So I’ll leave you and Robert with this simple question: are you asserting that this massive rebranding can be accomplished soley through blogs?

If at&t gave out a billion to bloggers the press would go into a feeding frenzy. The people reached would be far more than just who reads my blog.

By the way, how did Google or Amazon happen? They don't even advertise.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Janine — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 17:03:06 -0000

I saw the same bilboard (in Detroit) a few days ago but it wasn't up for long. AT&T has replaced it with another bilboard but I forgot what the newer one has on it. Obviously the newer one didn't capture my attention like the blogging one did.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Ken Lotich — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 14:46:56 -0000

On my way home from work, they have one of these billboards off of Montague Expressway (in Milpitas, Calif.) as you head onto the 880.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Goebbels — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 20:11:14 -0000

"Goebbels, I have to say that despite Microsoft’s recent advertising attempts (”Start Something”), it’s been Scoble’s openness, along with various other things Scoble has pointed to, that has me convinced things are Microsoft are changing. I’ve only been reading for six months."

In other words, you are a sucker for advertising. Why do I care? Scoble has NO decision-making ability, he has few high-level information or even contacts. He's a marketer, and you've decided that since you like the guy, you like the company. Am I supposed to be impressed? I'm not.

"Blogging & the internet is changing the nature of advertising, so why won’t you admit it?"

No, it hasn't. Advertising still wants to create an image for the consumer, it still wants to explain how its products or services work and are desirable to the consumer, it still wants to convince the consumer through flash, appeal, testimony, whatever that the consumer likes the product.

What we have here is a clear example of where blogging cannot achieve the purpose: one of the most massive rebrandings ever. (And let's not forget: this is SBC which purchased some of AT&Ts assets renaming themselves AT&T; not AT&T.) Rebranding requires creating an image (literal and figurative) with the user and hammering over and over. There is no way even 10,000 bloggers could achieve what this very simple ad, in addition to many, many others can via billboards, direct mailers, magazine ads, tv ads, and numerous other advertising outlets (including blogging). What is clear is blogging is just one mode of advertising, but that it works in the same way as traditional advertising. (It may have particular strengths and weaknesses as any mode of advertising does have.)

But... just because the ad says "blogging", it's Scoble's absurd theory that paying 1,000 bloggers 1 million dollars each would achieve a massive national and even multinational rebranding? Absurd. The purpose of the ad is primarily to say: remember SBC, remember AT&T, well we're now one company, this is our new logo, this is a new tag line, we'll be harking various services via the "Word. Delivered" tag (not just blogging) to try to create a new mission and image for our company going forward.

I do not know a single blogger that can reach all of the demographics that SBC must reach; I do not even imagine 10,000 bloggers put together have the same reach that SBC must achieve. And I think it's clear that some silly bloggers typing away about SBC cannot achieve rebranding goals: make the audience aware of the new name, logo, and vision as well as visual ads.

So, Scoble, the alleged marketing wunderkind for Microsoft (when he is actually just a low-level tech evangelist who makes movies and writes poorly thoughtout blog entries) makes the silly mistake of claiming that SBC/AT&T is behind the times, wasting money on something that could be accomplished soley through blogging because the ad mentions "blogging" when "blogging" is in fact almost entirely irrelevent to the campaign.

So I'll leave you and Robert with this simple question: are you asserting that this massive rebranding can be accomplished soley through blogs? And, is yes, are you aware of how irrelevent and foolish that makes you sound to anyone who knows a piss about advertising?

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Guzzard — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 19:54:40 -0000

Plus, Scoble, Jumping the Shark is frakking lame.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Guzzard — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 19:53:27 -0000

I am saying that they should offer these things as services. I am saying that they are *just* repackaging the same ol' same ol'. They continue to worry more about image than service and quality. They are more of a NETWORK company, true, however delivering a BLOG, who cares. Combine the over-bearing ad campaign with something NEW! Overpriced, crap is what at&t is selling.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Jake — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 16:07:54 -0000

Guzzard, I don't get it.

Why would IPTV or VOIP be acceptable to you "if they don't create content"

They don't create the TV/Video content for IPTV and they certainly don't create the voice conversations for VOIP.

But they run the network and the pipe to your home to DELIVER them. Just like blogging. I believe this is part of their "Your World. Delivered" campaign.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

artivated — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 15:49:25 -0000

one thing
http://artivated.com

regards

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

anon — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 14:47:31 -0000

I wish this blog had karma points like slashdot so I could give a +5 insightful to Chris' message #28.

Mr. Scoble, does slashdot count as a web 2.0-ish or "blog" thing? I'm puzzled why "web 2.0" is suddenly a "new thing" when these tools and implementations have really been around since the late 90s.

Is "web 2.0" Microsoft's sly rebranding of past innovations/functionality as if it were their own?

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Christopher Coulter — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 12:11:08 -0000

Just in from the Media Bistro folks...

IDEA OF BLOGGING OVERSOLD (ADAGE)
Simon Dumenco: There is no such thing as blogging. There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing-writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology. It's just software, people! The underlying creative/media function remains exactly the same. WaPo: Schools warn teen bloggers. Riverfront Times: Video blogging, or vlogging, is taking the web to the next level.
http://www.adage.com/news.c...
http://www.washingtonpost.c...
http://www.riverfronttimes....

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Christopher Coulter — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 11:59:22 -0000

that has me convinced things are Microsoft are changing.

Is that so? Hey, in that case, special price on this bridge in Brooklyn, reduced, must-sell-now. Song and dance and blogger smokescreens, all it takes to convince you that things are changing? Then the marketing puppets can count you as a smashing success, the overall picture is differing however; just talk to the CIOs on the Software Assurance front-lines.

And if blogs are what did it, then venture to Mini-Microsoft, the worst enemy is them, themselves, even the harshest press critics are mild in comparison to that self-whipping. But I would argue THAT's true openness, telling like it is, without fear of being blacklisted or labeled. What you get on Scoble's blog and the countless others like it, is only a bad photocopy of reality, filtered thru nose-level view marketing, posing as new frontier openness.

Blogging is just the latest wrinkle in Internet media, it will change and expand, it always does, and once you reduce the revolutionary hype triumphalism talk from the self-appointed incestuous toolmakers, it becomes all commodity adapted and industry-consolidated. Simple history will tell you that; just usual boom and bust to commodity cycle. Nothing new under the sun, just lottsa upper crusts making a killing offa selling the story and writing books, all Amway and MLM-style.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Guzzard — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 05:47:45 -0000

What at&t doesn't mention is that their service sucks. Long distance is dead, they are they same old phone company. I hate at&t and no amount of advertising, especially this lame campaign is going to change my opinion about them. Perhaps if they had a billboard that said "VOIP" Delivered or "IPTV" Delivered, but really "Blogging?" c'mon, they don't create content, that's like the power company claiming to deliver your computer because it supplies power. Power to Vonage, power to Word Press, Power to SKYPE, power to all the companies that actually deliver.

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

karan — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 02:52:30 -0000

Comment No. 5: check out the latest A List Apart article =)

Goebbels, I have to say that despite Microsoft's recent advertising attempts ("Start Something"), it's been Scoble's openness, along with various other things Scoble has pointed to, that has me convinced things are Microsoft are changing. I've only been reading for six months.

Blogging & the internet is changing the nature of advertising, so why won't you admit it?

Scoble, keep up the good work, and ask for a pay rise some time =)

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Robert Scoble — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 02:16:17 -0000

BlogReader: did you see the Tablet PCs used on 24?

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

Vassil Mladjov — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 02:03:07 -0000

Yes, I saw this on the way to Vegas as well in the middle of CA. This was funny since when I talked to the AT$T people at CES, they could not understand why and how could AT$T use blogs for their PR or to sell it as services (W2.0). Check my post and a pic of the ads. http://vassko.blogspot.com
vassil

Re: Blogging jumps the shark on at&t ads

BlogReader — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 01:37:58 -0000

I found it telling that the cell phones used on this season's 24 are from Sprint, while at&t is left to advertise during the breaks.

If the cell phone carrier isn't good enough for Jack Bauer it isn't good enough for me.