Confessions of a Jaffe groupy

Thank's Tom De Bruyne for calling me a Jaffy groupy :). I don't really consider myself a die-hard fan but last weekend in Gent at the "Stichting Marketing", Joseph delivered a great keynote speech. And it was not a simple re-hash of previous speeches. Of course a number of theme's come back all the time, but that's only logical. So I gladly accept to be called a Jaffe groupy today.

Here are some random highlights I noted down:

"Embrace the hate, fear the apathy and the indifference."

4 key drivers of what makes new marketing emerge:
- Broadband > In the sense of "always on"
- Wireless > Being mobile (in the toilet, travelling, etc.)
- Search > The ultimate opt-in, search happens on my terms (as a consumer)
- Network > Always connected to likeminded people

"Viral marketing is the lazy marketers' guide to new marketing."

And for the many people who have trouble understanding Joseph's South African accent combined with all the marketing newspeak, here is a small "Jaffe lingo for dummies":
- Second Life:
An online virtual world in which Joseph Jaffe started his agency called Crayon.
- Crayon: "Wascos"(in dutch), what kids use to color drawings.
- Crayola: The N°1 brand in for crayons in the US.
- Top of page: Showing up at the top of page of search results e.g. in Google
- Being above the fold: Same as of page, but high enough to be seen on a screen without having to scroll down. Refers to the fold of a letter you take out of an envelope.
- The funnel of trust: The long term process of winning consumer's trust
- The Tipping Point: Famous book by Malcom Gladwell who later wrote "Blink". The tipping point is the point at which things start spreading like a virus.
- The Wisdom of Crowds: another must-read book by James Surowiecki about how many people together are more intelligent then individuels.
- Web 2.0: Much disputed term for a number of new things happing online, ranging from technical gimmicks (e.g. Ajax) to the web as a catalyst for communities.
- Net Promotor Score: Another book to add to your library: The Ultimate Question. Jaffe explains the idea of net promotor score during his speech.
- Organicaly promoting a brand: Natural word of mouth, not induced by an award-mechanisme.
- Silent salesmen/women: People who organically promote your brand
- A million of my closest strangers: Today on the web people have very easy access to like-minded people, e.g. through a blog you can reach and influence many people without really knowing them.
- Lurker mode: Lurking means you read or listen in on a conversation (e.g. read blogs, listen to podcasts, etc.) without contributing yourself.
- Walk my talk: Not only talk about something but also do it in practice.
- Podshow: One of the leading "new media companies" mainly active in podcasting.
- Adam Curry: MTV VJ in the eighties, internet entrepreneur in the nineties and now considered the 'inventor' of podcasting ("The Podfather"). He's also the man behindshow together with Ron Bloom.
- Ron Bloom: Adam Curry's partner in crime at Podshow.
- Involvement and not interactivity: Take interactivity one step further, foreget about how many times people click, but consider what they are thinking when they click (or don't click).
- Tony Robbins: A well known motivational speaker.
- Comcast: A US Telco operator similar to Telenet in Belgium.
- VOD system: Video On Demand system
- Frappr: Cool website where you can stick yourself on a world map, try it out on this blog's Frappr map in the right column.
- A different ball of wax: Something completely different, similar to "A different ballgame".
- Mashup: A mix of different elements thus creating something new, can be a mashup of music, but also a mashup of internet services (e.g. a mashup of Google Maps and a list of houses for sales). Internet technology is ideally fit for creating online service mashups.

Here's where you can listen to the speech again and read more about the conference:
Joseph Jaffe at Stichting Marketing Keynote speech as a podcast
Stijn Vercamen covered the conference on De Standaard (in Dutch)
http://www.jaffejuice.com/

Later today I'll be writing up a summary of the conference for Digimedia .

I also had the opportunity to grab a few drinks with Joseph on thursday evening during the party at ONE. Robin Wauters from marketingblog.eu made some nice pics. And Joseph simply is a cool dude!

Ideas, conferences, podcasts ... life's great

I just came back from a very interresting meeting in London with our Agency.com collegues worldwide. A lot of great strategic thinking there, nothing I can talk about but ... keep an eye on us :-)

This morning I listened to Joseph Jaffe's last podcast show, and hurray! I'm in it. The subject we launched (how to measure engagement generated through interactive media) is one to persue on longer term. So please react, give your opinion, etc. If we as a community can come up with some answers I promise I'll put it in a whitepaper. Let's do some open-source-style collaboration in developing the communications trade here.

Got some speaking opportunities coming up too. Tomorrow I'm talking about some of the award-winning work we did for Eurostar in a highschool in Ghent. It seems students need to be motivated to choose for interactive marketing as opposed to traditional advertising. The appeal of a making a TV-spot still appears to be higher then building compelling interactive experiences. I find that very strange, so looking forward to chat with these youngsters and motivate them for the marketing of the future.

Lastly, I'm also in a panel at the "customer first" event, talking about blogs. I'm proud to be in the panel with some cool likeminded bloggers: Kris Hoet, Clo Willaert and Jean Paul Declercq. The discussion is moderated by Marco Derksen from Marketingfacts.nl. Looking forward to that too.

Jaffe & Curry story closed

Both Joseph Jaffe and Adam Curry have closed the discussion on the hostage taking of Adam's interview. Part two of the interview (very interresting) is out on Across The Sound now. In the end I'm most impressed by how a few simple words on a podcast (one word if you ask me: "hostage") can start an online wildfire that grabs the attention of so many people.

Joseph (yes, the man himself) reacted on my post with some more interresting thoughts.

As he's in Belgium next week, speaking on a conference, and I'm still contemplating (or gathering the courage) whether I'm gonna yell "Bend over, bitch" when het gets on the podium. :-)

Joseph Jaffe discovers how difficult marketing through social networks can be ...

This is an interresting one. Joseph Jaffe -new marketing guru- has run into trouble with Adam Curry. He did an interview with Adam and Ron Bloom (they're the guys behind Podshow.com). He ran the first half of the interview in his podcast Across The Sound and then (quote) "held the second part hostage" untill Adam Curry would "give him some love" (read: "promote Jaffe's show") on the "Daily Source Code" (a much listened to podcast by Curry).

Adam responded in his typical way (half fun, half serious) and claimed back the right to use the second part of the interview untill (go listen to the podcast). I agree with Curry, Joseph's idea about keeping the interview hostage is fucking lame. But the story gets even better. Apparently Joseph sent Adam an apology of some kind, but Adam won't play it "for Joseph's own protection". A lot of negative reactions also towards Jaffe.

Looks like Joseph is running into a similar problem as Agency.com when they launched their failed atempt to leverage viral marketing in a pitch for Subway.

New marketing and social media, it's not all that easy. But if you ask me, it all comes down to common sense, being transparent and honest, and a minimum of emotional intelligence.