Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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The overwhelming theme at this year's Summit? Marketing and advertising have changed forever in today's social landscape. These fun messages just remind us of this.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A few weeks ago, during a visit with my almost four year old niece, Zoey, I heard her scream, "I hate commercials!" during a commercial break as she watched one of her favorite TV shows.  Toyota, this is your nightmare.  Or at least, this will become your nightmare in about 12 years, when my sixteen year old niece starts begging her parents for a car.  It will probably be whatever make and model her friends are raving about at the time, not the car she saw advertised on TV or the Internet.  [For the record: I am the very satisfied owner and primary driver of a Toyota-made automobile.]

All of this brings to mind a short essay called "Brandalism" written by Banksy, the semi-anonymous British street artist that some authorities call a vandal.  He happens to be my favorite artist, as I find his work to be more thoughtful and politically and culturally relevant than most of the work I see in contemporary art exhibits.  Moreover, his work is truly public, whereas most "art" as we commonly know it sits in private collections, to be appreciated by only a privileged few.  In his book, Wall & Piece, Banksy writes:

"People abuse you every day. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

"You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

"Screw that. Any advert in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

"You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't owe them any courtesy. They have rearranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs."

To some, the passages above probably sound a bit militant.  To me, they are a wake-up call and a vision of the future.  The day is coming.  My niece is already there.  Colin Anderson, the 'community organizer' behind the Facebook group mentioned above, is already there.  With those qualifications, he'll probably be President one day.  The question is when will The Advertisers get there?

It will take some time.  In the meantime, advertisers will attempt to delay the inevitable by paying their agencies to build websites that allow us to create clever commercial mash-ups that we can send to our friends and post on our Facebook profiles.  In my opinion, that's the equivalent of handing out free bags of rocks for us to throw at our friends' heads (see first rock reference above).

For the record, I don't have the perfect answer to this quandary.  At Bazaarvoice, we're developing alternative ways for consumers to learn about brands, products, and services and arm themselves with the information and confidence to make the best decision for their needs.  The consumer perspective is the most important one in our product development process, although we sell to . . . The Advertisers.  Products like Ratings & Reviews, Ask & Answer, and Stories are the result.  We're in the first phase of a massive change in the power structure, and we're doing what we can to make that transition a smooth one, one that CMOs and CFOs and CEOs are comfortable with.  We're enabling companies to engage and communicate with consumers in ways they would have never conceived of just a few years ago.  A great example is the Christmas campaign launched by Canadian Tire using our Stories product.  Rather than bombard consumers with a repetitive advertising message (and risk a backlash like the one Toyota has recently experienced), Canadian Tire has simply enabled their best customers to create and BE the advertising for them.

In closing, if you are responsible for your company's advertising spend or if you report to the person that is, please read and share this post.  This post isn't a threat, it's just an opinion piece, and my opinion is that there are other "Saved by Zero"-style backlash movements out there just waiting to happen.  Don't be one of them!  There are more authentic, creative, and meaningful ways to accomplish the same goal and enlist the passion of your most loyal and satisfied customers at the same time.  If you give your customers the tools, they'll become the Sales & Marketing department you wish you had – millions strong, absolutely ecstatic about your products, and willing to work overtime to help you succeed.  (No offense intended to Bazaarvoice's Sales & Marketing teams, who are the best I've ever worked with!)

TechCrunch also wrote about Obama's plan to host fireside chats on YouTube, reminding me of FDR's fireside chats during another challenging time for our nation.

We live in a very historic time, and I'm trying to soak it all up to learn for the long-term.

Update 11/17: Just noticed Francois Gossieaux's post on the subject of cause marketing in the Obama campaign in his Facebook status update.  A good read.  Let's hope that Obama leverages the Millennials for civic causes, given his social momentum.  BTW, Francois does some good interviews, so it is worth following his blog.

Update 11/19: Twittermaven writes about Obama's success on Twitter being copied by the G7.

Warning: the video has profanity.

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Did Leroy Jenkins' ridiculous battle cry and bravado drive awareness for World of Warcraft?  You bet.  It is much more compelling than an advertisement.  This is word of mouth in action – as captured directly through the players real-time let down due to their cowboy friend, Leroy.  You can hear the anguish and passion in their voice.  They've spent a lot of time building their characters, and Leroy blew it up for them.

There are now well over 15 million views of Leroy Jenkins videos on YouTube.  That's reach.  And look at all of the mash-ups.  Many are not that interesting (that is why I sorted by view for you in that link), but people actually care enough to make them.

Comedy Central's hit South Park created an entire episode inside of World of Warcraft as well.  Were they inspired by Leroy Jenkins?  Probably.  In any case, it is hilarious too.

And, of course, Leroy Jenkins has turned into a celebrity of sorts in the videogame world.  Here is an interview of him at BlizzCon 2007.  Blizzard Entertainment, the makers of World of Warcraft, were smart to leverage him.  World of Warcraft now boasts 10 million subscribers, or an impressive 62% of the estimated MMOG market.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Clients are leveraging our Stories product to find their Leroy Jenkins (or their "Jareds", should you want a more well-known example from Subway).  Stories can include user-generated text, photos, and videos.

In our webinar this past Tuesday, I enjoyed presenting with John McCullough, Director of Marketing at James Avery, on how they are using Stories (email us if you would like to see the recorded version).  The level of customer engagement is awesome to see – passion exemplified.  Read some of the James Avery customer Stories (note there are six categories for their Stories).  And then venture over to Philosophy to read some of their customer Stories: here is their award winning story about mothers during their Mother's Day Stories contest.

This is incredibly powerful: our clients are literally breathing personality, passion, and "connection" into their businesses online.

While all of the findings are of interest (mobile, widgets, personalization, etc.), this year I was most struck by three big trends:

•  The global traffic share gains of YouTube, Facebook, Hi5, Wikipedia, and Orkut – all making the global top-10 for the first time.  I remember when Time selected "You" as the "Person of the Year" for their Dec. 2006 cover.  They may have called it too early.  Social connection online has truly arrived.  The growth of these sites are staggering, highlighting the power of community, user-generated content, and word of mouth online.
• The share gain of Amazon.com relative to large, multichannel retailers.  They led the way with customer reviews over 10 years ago, and have become a Wikipedia of sorts for broad, product-focused reviews.  And they continue to innovate at a staggering pace, spending over $3 billion per year on R&D.
• The uncharted territory we are in with the recession, truly making this our most important presidential election in history.  Although Bazaarvoice is growing at a very fast pace, beating our financial projections repeatedly, we are also cautious and watching the economy closely.  And I know that most, if not all, of our clients and partners are doing the same.

In case you missed the link above, you can read the full report here.

And if you have some more time this weekend, you may also want to check out Steve Jobs' recent keynote on the iPhone 2.  While I carry a BlackBerry myself (my wife carries an iPhone), the power of the iPhone's new programming language (and SDK) to deploy corporate applications as well as the new AppStore (reminds me of Salesforce.com's AppExchange) signal a new type of Apple.  With these moves, they are embracing being an "open" platform and focusing on B2B at the same time.  This should lead to an accelerated adoption of Macs in corporations, as the iPhone uses the same OS and user behavior historically shuns change (or seeks familiarity; heck this is human behavior not just 'user' behavior).  In any case, his keynote may lead you to believe that the iPhone 2 will be the dominant mobile computing platform for corporations in our near-term future.

We uploaded several Bazaarvoice videos to YouTube recently, with the most recent being our two-year 'behind the scenes' video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Note: "Behind the scenes" may be a bit overstated. Obviously there aren't a lot of pictures of working…that would be boring and strange. But trust me when I say we work as hard as we play!

In any case, I view the Mozilla news as very significant.  Just like del.icio.us and StumbleUpon have Web browser plug-ins that drive high adoption of their services, so will "The Coop".  Instead of visiting Facebook as a Web destination, The Coop integrates it directly into your Web browser.  Kelly Mooney of Resource Interactive showed a great demo of "social shopping" at the Shop.org Annual Summit last year.  Resource Interactive had created the demo for Victoria's Secret Pink.  Via mobile and the Web, they made it appear easy for an in-store shopper to share an outfit that she was thinking of buying with her friends online.  Everyone benefited from the resulting feedback and shopping list it created for all.  Millennials have been shown to follow each other more than the more "independent" generations of the past, so the Resource demo seemed like a natural evolution.  And it is no mistake that The Coop chose Facebook as their embedded partner, as Facebook is most heavily used by Millennials.

The Coop will accelerate the hyper-education of consumers that is underway.  It is just a matter of time when consumers have nearly instant access to global peer ratings and reviews on any product, service, place, person, or thing.  Access no matter if they are shopping online or offline.  While that may sound scary, it will actually be a beautiful thing.  Markets will become democratized, the voice of the marketplace will be "rediscovered", smart companies will react quickly, and as a result "consuming" will be driven to higher levels as shoppers gain more confidence to buy when leveraging the wisdom of the crowd.  Manufacturers will build better products, service providers will respond with better services, and companies will become more customer-centric.  Everyone will benefit, but the short-term disruption will make the old guard question the revolution underway.  Change is often difficult.

Expect Microsoft to quickly follow Mozilla, as they did with tabbed browsing and other Mozilla-led innovations.  It is just a matter of time before social networking becomes intimately interwoven in all Web browsers.  And then we will all wonder why it took so long as adoption skyrockets.

And speaking of revolutions, have you seen the short film, "Web 2.0 – The Machine Is Us/ing Us"?  The Kevin Kelly article it references is brilliant, and the film itself is pretty cool.  It's a powerfully brief summary of Web history. 

He also knows a thing or two about word-of-mouth marketing.  Outside of the fact that he has made many investments that have to do with the subject, you may remember that Half.com bought the naming rights to a city in Oregon and renamed it Half.com.  This was a seemingly silly PR stunt (as I remember how the media initially reported the story at the time), but it paid off in spades.  Read Mark Hughes bio (a past speaker at a Word of Mouth Marketing Association conference) and you'll see what I mean.

1. In December, Time Magazine announced that their “Person of the Year” is “you”.  As in the “prosumer”, or consumer-turned-producer.  Do you agree that the power of the “crowd” was the biggest trend of 2006?

Yes.  I think we’re seeing a major shift in the online value chain.  The initial killer application of the Internet was email (one-to-one), followed by websites (one-to-many).  We’re now seeing the creation of a whole class of tools that easily allow people to create, organize and publicize content (many-to-many).  With so much content being put online every day, the big challenge (and opportunity) is to find ways to help people discover the stuff that is relevant to them.  Leveraging the “wisdom of crowds” to intelligently filter/recommend content is a very large and meaningful opportunity.  

Other than Bazaarvoice (of course), other “social media” companies in our portfolio include:

VideoEgg has built a very powerful distributed video network – and currently power the user-generated video of 5 of the top 20 social networks (AOL, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged, and MyYearbook).

StumbleUpon has developed an innovative (and addicting) way to harness the wisdom of crowds for website discovery.

Aggregate Knowledge uses the behavior of previous visitors to a web page to automatically generate product and content recommendations.

Wikia was founded by Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia.  The company leverages people's innate need to create, share, and contribute to the subject areas that they are most passionate about.

3. How do you think consumer-generated content will impact the world of advertising?

I see it having an impact in a couple of ways.  First, advertising goes where the eyeballs are.  Consumers are spending far more time consuming consumer-generated content so over time advertising budgets will increasingly move towards that space.  Second, it increasingly allows consumers to participate in the advertising process itself.  The traditional one-way advertising broadcast model is now evolving towards more of a dialog between advertisers and consumers.  Forward thinking advertisers are using the collective intelligence and creativity of their consumers to help them craft their messages and even create their advertising.  This will result in advertising that is much more personal and relevant.

4. Do you think Google overpaid for YouTube?

No.  With its massive user base and powerful community, YouTube has clearly emerged as the leader in the online video sharing space.  With online video advertising set to exceed $1BB by the end of next year, and Google's ability to extract the most value out of any given online inventory, the acquisition seems like a very savvy move on Google's part.  This is especially true when you think about the fact that we are only beginning to see the potential of video on the Web, and the opportunities that lie ahead in this space.

5. Given your experience at Half.com, what advice would you give our clients in leveraging their consumer-generated content?

I think it's important to understand the impact that consumer-generated content such as ratings and reviews can have on a business.  In addition to allowing your consumers to communicate with each other, they also allow online merchants to begin tapping into the wisdom inherent in their current consumer base, and leverage that to create a better shopping experience for everyone who comes after them.  Companies can no longer afford to not participate in the dialog that their customers are having about them and the products/service that they provide.

6. What is the future of consumer-generated content?  Where does all of this lead us 5 years from now?  10 years?

Consumers today are more empowered than ever. It is now cheaper and easier than ever to create content, share your opinion, and distribute it over the Web. While this will inevitably create an overabundance of content, it will make finding the content that is most relevant to you increasingly difficult.  Over time I think there will be less reliance on traditional “editors” (e.g. newspapers) and “packagers” (e.g. music labels, publishers and studios) and more reliance on automated discovery tools that harness the "implicit web" to allow people to find the content that is most interesting to them.

7. What do you think the biggest trend of 2007 will be?

Online video has reached a tipping point. Given the amount of innovation, new developments, and widespread consumer adoption in this space, I think video will continue to be the biggest trend of 2007.

I'm sure Josh would love to hear your comments, so please write in.