Super Affiliate Zac Johnson gets interviewed by Eric Schechter, Clickbooth’s Social Media Manager.
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Zac Johnson Interview with Clickbooth
Pepsi will reportedly be skipping its annual Super Bowl commercials, and will instead invest the money it would generally spend on those, in social media marketing. This would make the first time in 23 years that Pepsi will not have Super Bowl ads. Larry D. Woodard, President and CEO of Manhattan ad agency Vigilante writes in an ABC News piece: Pepsi represents one of the stalwarts, not just of the Super Bowl advertiser lineup, but of broadcast TV in general. In 2006, spending on brand, Pepsi was at about $150 million. Although brand spending has been decreasing in recent years, Pepsi has continued to spend tens of millions on TV. And the Super Bowl annually has the largest audience of any TV show. As television viewership has gone down, Internet usage, particularly social media interaction, has increased. The 2009 Super Bowl attracted an impressive 95.4 million viewers (approximately 42.1 percent of U.S. TV homes) and many of those watch the commercials as attentively as the football game. By contrast, in the important 18-34 demographic, a whopping 85 percent use social media (texting, blogging or social networking), and the phenomenal growth of social media has the attention of every major company. This holiday season, Toys “R” Us developed a Facebook page that grew at the astounding rate of between 40,000 and 95,000 fans per day after its late November launch. As the numbers Woodard mentions would indicate, the Super Bowl is always an advertiser’s dream. It costs big bucks, but there are so many eyeballs on those ads, and some people even watch the event just to see the commercials. Pepsi’s move really says something about how far social media has come in the advertising world in such a short time. The fact that the company is breaking such a long-standing tradition in favor of it says a lot. Of course social media will play its role in the further viewing of the Super Bowl ads themselves. They will no doubt appear on various video sites, and will be shared by countless people on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.
You may recall that a lot of entities -including Google, Yahoo, and Bing – released some top/best of/worst of 2009 lists back in late November and early December, seemingly forgetting about the last one-twelfth of the year.
Next year, Ford will be introducing it’s new version of SYNC , a technology it partnered with Microsoft on. This technology will allow you to have constant Wi-Fi in your car. All an owner of a SYNC-ready car would have to do is plug in a compatible USB mobile broadband modem (or air card), and they will create a secure wireless connection that will be broadcast throughout the vehicle. “While you’re driving to grandma’s house, your spouse can be finishing the holiday shopping and the kids can be chatting with friends and updating their Facebook profiles,” said Mark Fields, Ford president of The Americas. “And you’re not paying for yet another mobile subscription or piece of hardware because Ford will let you use technology you already have.” “The speeds with which technology is evolving, particularly on the wireless front, makes obsolescence a real problem,” said Doug VanDagens, director of Ford’s Connected Services Solutions Organization. “We’ve solved that problem by making SYNC work with just about any technology you plug into it. By leveraging a user’s existing hardware, which can be upgraded independent of SYNC, we’ve helped ensure ‘forward compatibility’ with whatever connectivity technology comes next.” “Using SYNC with existing mobile devices helps Ford provide the most value, the most flexibility and the most convenience for owners,” said Fields. “Constant connectivity is becoming a routine part of our customers’ lives, and we’re making existing technology more accessible without adding costs: That’s the kind of value Ford drivers have learned to expect.” Ford has proven in the past to be a particularly Internet-savvy company. This was evident from an interview WebProNews did with Scott Monty, who runs the company’s social media efforts: Ford says studies by the Consumer Electronics Association show that as many as 77 million adults make up the so-called technology enthusiast drivers population, more than half of whom express the desire for a connected communications and information system in their vehicles. They say over a third of Americans would be interested in the ability to check email and access Web sites in their vehicles. Have You Read This? > Google Earth Makes Leap To Automobiles > Google Develops Fleet Of Fuel-Efficient Cars > How Ford Does Social Media
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Ford Turning Cars Into Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspots
As you read this, the inboxes of 14 Facebook developers may be reaching the breaking point.
PayPal has launched a new “Send Money” app for BlackBerry. It is now available for free via the BlackBerry App World. “Have you ever gone to lunch with friends and forgotten your wallet, but remembered your BlackBerry? Well you longer have to be the friend who is constantly borrowing cash,” says Eric Duprat from the PayPal Mobile team. The app lets users quickly send money to people around the world – anyone in their contact list. “Users can also easily stay on top of their finances by checking their recent history and account balance directly from their BlackBerry smartphone,” says Duprat. The app is available in the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Portugal and Australia. The app joins similar offerings from PayPal for Facebook , Android, and the iPhone. It’s probably a good idea on PayPal’s part to be readily available to anyone from as many means as possible. Much speculation has the service’s competition heating up significantly in the near future. Both Facebook and Apple, for example, are rumored to be working on offerings that could intrude on PayPal’s territory. Last month, PayPal opened up its global payments platform called PayPal X, which provides APIs and a developer portal. This should play a big role in the continued relevance of PayPal’s service in an ever-growing mobile and social web.
Well, it’s official: Facebook is freaking huge.