I was inspired by Obama and Ron Paul. Grandfather Howard Dean and Joe Trippi must also be proud of my accomplishments.

Early this morning we (that being Fixion Media) launched a pilot program at Blabbermouth.net enabling independent artists and record labels to share in the cost of advertising. Much like Google ads, except branded and far more relevant, our shared Indie banner template shatters the barrier of entry for clients of all sizes.

Here’s an example campaign from the original story posted by Blabbermouth.net:

Double Banner Features:

• Shared banner (2 ad spots available per banner)
• More than 50% discount compared to “non-Indie” banner campaign
• Top-of-page “Leaderboard” placement alongside other premium advertisers
• Your ad rotates within a BLABBERMOUTH.NET-branded double banner frame
• Ad Specs: 350px x 70px - GIF, JPG, or Flash - Max 50KB File Size
• Click here to view a demo of the Double Banner.

Campaigns ranged from $75 to $150 USD.

The long and short of this story is that it was our goal to sell 10 campaigns in 48 hours. It’s a quick blitz; a cash infusion that is certainly scalable. Less than 24 hours in and we’ve closed 7 deals. This being a new campaign offering for Fixion Media at Blabbermouth.net, interest may be yet to peak. We don’t know yet. The important part is that we will likely meet our target by this evening.

But the experiment in itself was to test the “top down” versus “bottom up” donation strategy used frequently by politicians these days. Rather than sell our inventory to the higest bidder–which in remnant terms is nothing short of an insulting figure–we have looked to the community that is loyal and familiar with Blabbermouth.net. Visitors include all types of music fans and a significant porition of the rock/metal industry that find value in the site’s content and reach. In this case we wanted to know how much support we could count on only from the grassroots. The “top down” strategy in our case would have been to max out our leads, max our existing client buys, and seek new clients externally. The “bottom up” strategy allowed us to listen to the community and listen we did.

Publicly the comments on Blabbermouth.net’s message board have been very insightful. Mind you, it didn’t help that it’s April 1st. Some called this out as a joke but in any event it helped generate some added buzz on the side.

The most important part of this experiment: we now have 7 great new clients and hopefully more will decide to be more aggressive in the digital marketing space–especially first timers.

The real trick to keeping this momentum going a la Barack Obama is to keep POW-ing our client base (a la Andy Nulman). We have to keep innovating and building new products to further complement the needs of Indie advertisers. Soon enough you won’t be seeing Classmates.com ads or Google Ads anymore. And that’s music to my ears.

Filed under: Fixion Clients, Case Studies, Publisher Side, Vertical Ad Networks, The Future, Music Industry, Leadership

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I just think that AOL is a bit misunderstood. Maybe a bit shy too. It must be blowback from years of screeching modems and the ominous litany of “WELCOME TO AOL” intros.

But memories aside my mission is here is to espouse the virtues of AOL’s new sense of self. To me, it nearly begins and ends with Platform A. The acquisitions of TACODA, Third Screen Media, Lightningcast and ADTECH along with more recent deals the likes of Buy.at and Goowy have put AOL on a firm path. The shedding of AOL’s dial-up business will concretize the situation enormously. Also noteworthy of course are such offerings as TMZ and other digital real estate.

Microsoft’s failed bid for AOL [correction: I accidentally reported AOL, I really meant Yahoo!. Corrected at 12:17 AM Tuesday Feb 12th, 2008] was interesting. Now there is already talk about Yahoo! getting into game. While I understand the corporate need for consolidation, I think it will only hinder AOL’s recent progress. Yahoo!’s public brand doesn’t even exist to anyone under 30. Semantics aside, at some point we’ll find the need to curtail these big-name mergers for the very sake of preserving the function of branding.

Let us be realistic: most people like to shop at big box stores. Even if every local business went down tomorrow I guarantee that a segment of the population would drive to the next town over for a humane shopping experience.

I can already feel the Google fatigue. Can you feel it too? Yahoo! was exhausted long ago. I used to love them. While behind many of these names there is an apparatus far more serious and complex than the public often sees or understands, sometimes it is best to let that go for the sake of 98% of us that are chipping up to these guys.

I’ve chosen to mention AOL above because it derives from a personal and business perspective in that Fixion Media (my company) employs ADTECH’s services. (ADTECH is an arm of Platform A.) While I realize that Yahoo! buying AOL would help access to new markets, this situation runs of risk of hindering a sense razor-sharp focus that AOL has been giving off for months now. It is one of the main reasons we signed with ADTECH. In fact, we did more research on the parent companies of the major ad platforms than we did on ADTECH itself.

While aggressive posturing might be a sign to the industry that AOL is ripe for the taking, sometimes it disappoints me that most corporations are innately lazy, thereby lacking the will to completely flip a company into what it could and should be.

See AOL. (Maybe.)

Filed under: Publisher Side, The Future, Adtech Helios IQ, Branding

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I took the first day of 2008 to personally re-launch Fixion Media. (www.fixionmedia.com)

Imagine if you could re-launch your company or personal brand in an instant? I must admit, this isn’t the first time I adapt the future of my company to the increasingly globalized and technolocally-centric world. Second admission: it gets more enjoyable every time I do it. This is what life is about. If you can apply your learnings to actual life every couple of years, the world is bound to look peachy and progressive.

To a prosperous 2008. Happy new year!

(Stay tuned for excellent coverage on this blog and podcast in 2008 about marketing, advertising, business, politics, and more. My plate is full. Dine on it at your leisure.)

Filed under: Rich Media, Fixion Clients, Announcements, Press Releases, Publisher Side, Vertical Ad Networks, Fixion Media News, Mobile Advertising, Online Video, Video, The Future, Music Industry, Adtech Helios IQ, Artists, Wealth

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I’m pleased to see savvy musicians like Matthew Ebel taking advantage of Feedburner’s RSS ad network:

I have come to understand that most music marketing campaigns are limited in range. In 2008, we are pushing our clients to adopt multi-pronged media plans that include the web, mobile, rss, video, and beyond. You’re definitely ahead of the game Matthew!

Filed under: Fixion Clients, Publisher Side, Vertical Ad Networks, Media Planning, The Future, Music Industry, Artists

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While it took a while to reach this decision for reasons that I can’t yet divulge, I’m please to finally announce that Fixion Media has entered into a service agreement with Adtech. Specifically, we will be using the Helios IQ advertising platform to manage our network. While we are currently testing the platform, a full rollout is expected by or before January 1st, 2008.

Tis a perfect way to start a new year and I’m confident that our publishers and clients will appreciate the upgrade in our technology. Gone are the days of open source servers and self-monitoring. Adtech will manage the technical aspect so that we can focus on our core competencies as a network.

Last year Fixion Media served more than 300 million ad impressions. Next year we’re shooting for a billion.

Filed under: Rich Media, Fixion Clients, Announcements, Publisher Side, Vertical Ad Networks, Atlas, Fixion Media News, The Future, Measurement, Adtech Helios IQ

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There has long been controversy brewing about site measurement. This time, a NY Times piece titled “How Many Site Hits? Depends Who’s Counting” is tackling the issue. Advertisers want to keep their budgets down and publishers wish to benefit from having accurate circulation counts.

One aspect of the debate is critical to me:

Both comScore and NetRatings are cooperating with audits by the Media Rating Council, a nonprofit organization that has approved ratings systems since the 1960s. Among other issues, the council is investigating whether the companies’ panels actually represent all Web users.

In my eyes, the actual makeup of panels from comScore or Nielsen/NetRatings needs to reflect the makeup of the internet population being monitored. I’ve never met a single person who is tracked by either company. I suspect that our core demographic of 18-35s are underrepresented as well.

I will only know for sure when Fixion Media ponies up tens of thousands for such measurement. We can only hope it’s more profitable than self-reporting traffic data.

Filed under: Publisher Side, Client Side, Measurement

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As an old-schooler circa early ’90s internet user, it’s tough at times to wrap my head around the sheer speed at which consumers of media users are integrating the web into their daily lives. In this AdAge article it is reported that 16% of households watch television online, which is twice as much as the previous year. Mandatory advertising and small screens aren’t going to stop this train anytime soon! On the flipside, the message for content producers is that there is money to be made:

“Over the next few years, the growing popularity of viewing TV episodes/shows online is going to have a huge impact on the way brands and advertisers communicate with viewers,” Shari Morwood, exec VP of technology, telecommunications and media at TNS, said in a release. “If advertisers can effectively leverage the online video platform, we should see much more interactivity and emotional connection between brands and the online TV viewing audience.”

I haven’t had an emotional connection with a brand since I fell in love Grey Goose’s intoxicating smoothness last weekend. But I digress. The point is well taken.

Filed under: Publisher Side, Media Planning, Television, Online Video

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After top-level meetings with our few big shooters–that is to say valued clients at Fixion Media–mobile advertising by way of your cell phone and/or PDA is peaking more interest than I anticipated for 2008.

Despite projections, I thought there was a bit too much hype surrounding the channel. I falsely assumed that looking at an ad on a screen that is a mere few square inches would take a couple of years to grip. Quite the opposite. Some even predict that wireless devices will replace much of what we currently use computer desktops for.

Regardless, the mobile medium is a great incentive for digital publishers to develop in order to expand on new revenue generating channels. The popularity of display / in-page advertising will be strong for years to come but mobile advertising along with other emerging channels will be the icing on the cake.

Filed under: Publisher Side, Media Planning, Mobile Advertising

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