Alan Wolk › Comments

"I am so with you on that Steve, for the exact reason you site. Most people with huge following lists rely on things like TweetDeck or Lists to filter out 99% of their stream. That said, a lot of people don't want to have conversations - they like being observers, so they're happy to just watch the stream flow by and not engage, but listen." - Alan Wolk

"Can you explain how the logo suggests it? Or what the ad says that would make my mind go to JC Penney rather than Toys'R'Us? As for remembering it, I pass it several times a day - the line is very clever and memorable, but my point here is it does a great job of selling me on Toys'R'Us or the local indy toy store. Not JC Penney." - Alan Wolk

"It was all type - will try and take a picture next time I walk past one. Too cold to run outside now ;)" - Alan Wolk

"It was all type - will try and take a picture next time I walk past one. Too cold to run outside now ;)" - Alan Wolk

"Thanks all @Matt Hames: Agree 100% - many seem to have trouble figuring out that the website is sort of a fulfillment piece: I only wind up there *after* you've convinced me it's worth checking out. That convincing may be via an ad, WOM, DWOM, or search. But I've already bought into the fact that you might be what I'm looking for and so the site needs to stop selling me on the premise and start treating me like a customer. @Todd - agreed. Too many times I've had to hear "but it looks much better to have both links small over here" when the UX plan was to have one be more prominent since that's what users were looking to do next. @Tom C: Like the "in-the-flow" theory - the mindset though of "clever words + pretty pictures" is hard to break out of. @Tom K: "Marcom that provides the best experiences not the best ads" - that should be every company's goal. What's fighting that is that it's just so much easier to produce the best ads and let someone else worry about the experience. @Stuart..." - Alan Wolk

"@Paul & Leefeo - "noughties" doesn't work in the US. The word "nought" sounds distinctly old-fashioned and British to American ears, and a goodly percentage of the population has no idea what the word even means-- it's not in common use over here. It'll be interesting if noughties" catches on in the UK and not the US though." - Alan Wolk

"Thank you, Yikes. Interesting point you raise. My response to that is always "any brand could, but you ARE" Better to claim an area that actually matters to consumers than to try and stake your claim on some minor point of differentiation that is meaningless to consumers. That, and if you've decided to own "fun" it's highly unlikely that your competition is going to come in six months later and started claiming "we're fun too!"" - Alan Wolk

"A lot of that spam seems to be generated by malevolent forces: either phishing scams or actual hacks. Or at least the "Take the IQ test" spam I've been getting. Twitter seems to constantly be under attack: they seem to have cleaned up the Trending Topics spam that really threatened to undermine their ability to sell themselves as a source for real time search. (Trending Topics Spam = inserting hidden urls (or not so hidden urls) for $1 Viagra and the like in tweets with popular hashtags like IranElection)" - Alan Wolk

"You are one step ahead though Carl: you believe in your own pithy-ness and your only quandry is where to share it. Most people are not pithy and of that group, the vast majority are (thankfully) aware of their limitations and thus don't seek to post any thoughts or observations. This is not to say that they're ignoring social media: they're just more comfortable as observers than as active participants." - Alan Wolk

awesome concept, Alan. - Valeria Maltoni

Thank you. And the Hive Awards (and I) will be at the Web 2.0 Summit next week We should plan to meet up. - Alan Wolk from email

"Thanks for featuring us guys. While many of the Hive Awards categories are aimed at people outside the ad industry, there's so much overlap these days that people, especially those in digital shops, should find the show of interest. As you noted, the show is aimed at the people who do much of the heavy lifting in building sites and applications but who rarely get much credit for their efforts. Our goal is to help rectify that. Thanks again for the mention." - Alan Wolk

"Thanks for getting the ball rolling Gavin. I suspect many people use FB like your Mom: they follow the exploits of others but don't feel comfortable actually putting themselves out there for a wide range of reasons" - Alan Wolk

"@Ben: I wonder if FB's marketing team thought about it beyond "we'll get heavy users to proselytize light users" -- so much of what goes on there just seems random. That said, it does seem that there's a sense of "okay, now what?" from a lot of users: they've found out what their long-lost friends are up to, realized why they'd become long lost friends, wasted too many hours on Bejeweled Blitz and figured out that writing on someone's wall wasn't the most efficient way to make lunch plans and the vast majority of them still don't feel comfortable posting articles or even status updates. Which is not to say they're dropping out, but there's definitely a sense of "okay, now what?"" - Alan Wolk

"Agreed. Excellent point: technology changes so rapidly, that by the time the rest of the world catches up, it will likely have evolved into something completely different. Good to hear from you. (Assuming this is Dave C.)" - Alan Wolk

"Thanks Matt for providing more insight into a topic I admittedly don't know a whole lot about." - Alan Wolk

"Thanks for the thorough and illuminating explanation Ben Two questions: 1. Are the stats you're citing fairly consistent across industries and types of products/services? 2. Can a distinction be made between banners than function as DR vehicles (e.g. contain a specific offer such as "click here to download a $10 coupon") vs banners that function as animated print ads whose sole call-to-action is something to the effect of "click here to learn more?"" - Alan Wolk

"You're having a different argument HJ Which has always been part of your unique charm. Nasty anonymous blog comments on gossip sites are a lot different that "Congratulations, buddy" on Adweek. As for Disqus, it's one of the most widely used commenting platforms. But given your evaluation of it, I should be quite flattered you've taken the trouble to respond. Twice." - Alan Wolk

"Still not following you. Not talking "negative commenters." Did not mention it in the post at all. Just wondering why POSITIVE commenters were afraid to leave their names on a message as banal as "congrats, buddy" Nothing more. Nothing less. BTW: What sort of spam did you get from Disqus. I've near heard of that before. They are having some issues this week, it may be part of it - if you can forward the email to me, I've found they are quite helpful in clearing these things up." - Alan Wolk

"@Ben: Thanks again. That's quite an education there (for me, anyway.) Really appreciate you taking the time to spell that all out in a clear and concise manner." - Alan Wolk

"Thanks for the thorough and illuminating explanation Ben Two questions: 1. Are the stats you're citing fairly consistent across industries and types of products/services? 2. Can a distinction be made between banners than function as DR vehicles (e.g. contain a specific offer such as "click here to download a $10 coupon") vs banners that function as animated print ads whose sole call-to-action is something to the effect of "click here to learn more?"" - Alan Wolk

"You're having a different argument HJ Which has always been part of your unique charm;) Nasty anonymous blog comments on gossip sites do indeed come from anywhere and everywhere, but they are a lot different that writing "Congratulations, buddy" on a news story on Adweek As for Disqus, it's one of the most widely used commenting platforms. But given your evaluation of it, I will deem it a high compliment that you've taken the trouble to respond. Twice." - Alan Wolk

"Thanks for chiming in HJ, late or not. Your post, sadly, reaffirms how behind the times most BDAs are. The world has changed a lot in the last two years. Most of the digital agencies I work with expect their employees to have a robust social media presence and are baffled by the notion that a BDA creative director would be furious to see one of his minions congratulating a former co-worker. Hence the title of the post "Fear and Loathing in Adland"" - Alan Wolk

"@Yikes: Even if they offer something beyond the typical print or TV-based campaign, I'm not sure what effect it would have. Or are you suggesting that Goodby get involved in product development and R, the two areas Yahoo needs to work on before they can advertise in any medium? @Josh - welcome aboard. You raise some interesting points, but I suspect it all hooks back to not having the right product: if Yahoo wants to help consumers "use the web more easily to navigate their life" I'm not sure how the current site does that or why it's preferable to say Facebook or Google. As I'd noted, the reaction from the tech press (and I'm talking consumer tech press, not the hardcore geeks) to Yahoo's new offerings was underwhelming. So while the Ogilvy campaign could have done a better job of directly communicating the message Yahoo wanted, the proof points still seem to be absent. @Wade - the change to the home page was fairly dramatic... it just did not seem to be the sort of change people..." - Alan Wolk

"I think you may be misinterpreting the column Ben. Or perhaps I wasn't being clear. Because I really don't disagree with anything you've said. To your first point, I specifically pointed out that ad agencies generally do a poor job of finding the sort of content their consumers want (that line about the Teutonic techno king) and that it's a delicate dance that requires balancing uniqueness with mainstream appeal a la "Slumdog Millionaire." So yes, you'll brook no disagreement from me when you note that most CMOs will make poor judges of what their customers are looking for in terms of content. As to your second point: where you read "As consumers outside their core audience grow increasingly frustrated with the banality of the content their peers are sharing..." to mean ALL or MOST consumers, I was talking about a very small percentage of consumers, the sort who may be attracted to niche brands and niche markets-- not mainstream brands and mainstream markets. So again, I am in..." - Alan Wolk

"This is a test comment" - Alan Wolk

"Excellent synopsis of the great divide Nick. Nothing more to add - you've nailed it." - Alan Wolk

"Ana: while everything you just laid out is by and large true, at least in my experience, the fact remains that large clients are equally complicit. They give lip service to digital, but still spend the bulk of their budgets on print and TV. As such, they're still looking for creative directors who can deliver in that medium and they're the ones who give the agencies the money to pay them." - Alan Wolk

"@Ana - that is the crux of it. That Ad Age article is pretty eye-opening - senior partners at big NYC law firms pull in around $750/hour. Despite a slew of evidence to the contrary, agencies have convinced big-spending clients that certain creatives will give them results that are markedly different than others. This may have been true in the days before cable television, when there were 3 TV networks in the US, but it's of dubious value now. Still, the bulk of the money is still flowing to traditional agencies for traditional media and despite getting the lion's share of press, the budgets given to digital agencies is considerably smaller. @Craig, Stephen, Len & Nick: It is indeed too bad that advertising types can't have a civil conversation online. As I said, I suspect that's a function of the subjective nature of our business and the widely-held presumption that "anyone can do this." When people are being paid lots of money to do something with no real measurable results (e.g...." - Alan Wolk

"@Ben (the inestimable Ben Kay, author of the UK's best ad blog, "If This Is A Blog, Then What's Christmas?) Good to have you back buddy. And in rare form too-- love the 324-degree thing- actually made me LOL. Agree about Just Do It moving beyond sport. But 100% agree about buzzworders getting annoyed when you ask them to explain the buzzword or what they meant. And while it probably wins me no points, I love being the guy who raises his hand and with a slightly blank look asks "I don't get what you mean by "brand personalization" Can you explain that a little more." And they all just get flummoxed and angry at that question, because it means you're not buying in to the Conspiracy of the Buzzword, which says that you'll all keep quiet about not know what the catch phrases really mean and so long as you all keep using them, it's okay @Warren-- another big welcome to an old friend: Warren Berger is a former Adweek columnist (he was the Brian Morrissey of his day) and an established..." - Alan Wolk

"@Ben (the inestimable Ben Kay, author of the UK's best ad blog, "If This Is A Blog, Then What's Christmas?) Good to have you back buddy. And in rare form too-- love the 324-degree thing- actually made me LOL. Agree about Just Do It moving beyond sport. But 100% agree about buzzworders getting annoyed when you ask them to explain the buzzword or what they meant. And while it probably... more... - Alan Wolk

"Very true Ben - that's an excellent point about consumers having long memories about products. It's sort of how I feel about FPGs (Familiar Packaged Goods) - our memory of them and feelings about them are often fixed at the time we first tried them and if that experience was negative, the brand has a lot to overcome." - Alan Wolk