May 17, 2006

"Take your clips and put them out there..." says Bolt president

A 5/15/06 Ad Age article concentrated on a poll of 400 12-34 year olds who said they used the net more than tv, and that they could not name the top four tv networks. The poll was conducted on Bolt, "a 10-year-old Web site that six weeks ago relaunched itself as a place for users to upload videos and photos."

What I found more interesting were the quotes from Bolt's president, Lou Kerner. He praised Fox's Family Guy's viral strategy and denounced Saturday Night Live's pulling of "Lazy Sunday" from the viral stratosphere. His advice to tv execs?

"Take your clips and put them out there on these different sites. Let the kids take the codes and put them into their social media profiles so they can show their friends and their friends can collect that as well," he said. "That viral marketing is (the) best possible thing they can do to drive more people to the broadcast channel or their own dot-com site."


This rocks. This guy "gets it." Assuming those clips are engaging to the user, this method put the power of advertising, which is simply the communication of an idea to another, in the hands of the users. Let them talk about your product. Let them sell it to their friends. Let them talk about you and you stop your talking for once. Source

This reminds me of something I heard on a podcast recently. At a dinner party, it is recommended to rather than "be interesting,' be interested. Tv folks: sit back, listen to the users and take it all in. You don't have to talk a mile a minute and force things down users' throats. They might want to say something. Let them say it, and share it with their friends.

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