Ready for the Super Bowl ad blitz?

At $1 million-plus a pop for media time and production, Super Bowl TV spots own a piece of the American psyche. The jury has been out for a long time whether the ads actually can translate into real long-term ROI (particularly for certain market segments), but they sure as everything build awareness.
Some ads, like the all-time favorite 1979 Coke ad with Mean Joe Greene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffOCZYX6F8), resonate for decades. With a transparent swipe at then-dominant PC-maker IBM, Apple choose the Super Bowl to introduce its Macintosh computer (complete with clunky black and white screen, Xerox Star-like operating icons, and no useful add-ons or viable software) with the legendary Orwellian "1984" ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8) that only aired on commercial TV once - ever. A few months later Apple co-founder Steve Jobs resigned, rejoining the then-floundering company as CEO 12 years later.
Many Super Bowl ads - like the original soft-porn-ish Go Daddy Internet domain ads - have generated widespread controversy for tastefulness (or lack thereof) and whether or not they ever accomplished anything from a marketing perspective (E.g., the multi-million-dollar e-commerce ads aired during the dot-com pre-bust - remember any of them other than the "herding cats" spot from EDS?).
MSNBC has assembled its take on the most "infamous Super Bowl ads of all time," so if you haven't had enough already, go here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28900883/

Don't Think Social Media Works? Who's in the White House?

Much has been made of our new President Obama as the first post-boomer President, first non-Vietnam-era President and a host of other tag-ons. Given the evidence of the past year, one issue is for certain: Barack Obama is definitely the first Internet President.
As ADWEEK pointed out earlier this week, Obama "rocked the Web" with online and streaming video of his inauguration freezing up hundreds of thousands of servers across the planet. If you didn't know how to text message while in the Capitol earlier this week, you likely experienced a hiccup or two trying to upload video or iPhone photos to your e-mail, much less connect on an actual cell phone call.
What has already been documented and will continue to produce numerous books and "how-tos" is the Obama campaign's extensive use of Social Media. Obama's campaigner staffers adriotly took complex issues and beat them small into bite-sized pieces for months, securing deep buy-in and commitment for a candidate who proved that he knew how to "listen" - albeit digitally.
Today, with a finely-honed multiple-million email contact base, Obama can instantly flash right over the heads of traditional TV, radio and print media, speaking with a credible and authoritative voice directly to his constituents. With the ultimate digital "fireside chat," Obama knows that Social Media works and works well.
The point? If you or your company is not right in the middle of figuring out how online communication can benefit your operations, the time is now to get busy. Just ask John McCain how important it is.

CIO Top Ten Business and Tech Books

Walk into a Borders bookstore and wonder what -- if any --new business books you should buy? CIO magazine has issued its take on the top 10 "must-read" business and technology books published in the past year.
Of particular note for yours truly was John Kotter's new book A Sense of Urgency. Kotter outlines specific tactics in how businesses can overcome complacency. Complacency in the middle of a recession is (of course) a potential business-killer, and given Kotter's outstanding work on change management, this would be a definite "must-have."
CIO also picks a range of tech-associated tomes, many focusing on what Social Media really means and how your company can integrate this established trend without losing your corporate shirt. One I plan to pick up is Billion Dollar Lessons -What You can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years. We've all seen the fall of MCI/Worldcom, Enron and now Lehman Brothers, so this should be a good, albeit not very happy, read.
For more information, go to: http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Books/Top-10-BusinessTech-Books-of-2008/?kc=CIOMINUTE01212009CIO1

Apple without Jobs? All Will Be Well, Says Apple Insider

Robert X. Cringely, the legendary former InfoWorld columnist, weighs in about the recent health issues swirling around Apple founder Steve Jobs. Cringley's conclusion? Apple will be fine, regardless of the outcome.

Read excerpts below from Cringely's blog or go to http://ow.ly/3VZ for the whole story:

"I knew things were bad when Steve Jobs didn’t make even a token video appearance at Macworld...So now Steve is off on his six month (or longer) medical leave, readjusting those hormones, and the press is abuzz with what the heck Apple will do without Steve."

"Apple will be fine.

"Steve Jobs is an amazing chief executive, clearly the best of his era, but that doesn’t make him irreplaceable. True, he saved Apple, but now Apple is saved. The company is rich, has growing market share and a mindshare dominance envied throughout the computer AND music AND video AND mobile phone industries. Steve could die tomorrow and Apple would be fine for years to come. Apple might even be better."

"Steve, for all his design insight and high standards is also a pain in the ass, but it is his narcissism – keeping the whole company on edge and terrified, will he or won’t he? – that has to have taken a toll and may well land the company in court. Twenty thousand people are sitting around wondering whether their jobs are endangered because he is ill and that’s just crazy."

"In the long run the goal won’t be to replace Steve, anyway, but to transcend him, because Steve was far from the perfect leader."

"The last time Steve Jobs left Apple, back in 1985, the entire company breathed a sigh of relief. Steve back then was an undisciplined brat...It took learning to run NeXT on a budget and almost losing the company to teach Steve how to be a leader. It took learning to leave Pixar alone to teach Steve that there were some things – many things – best left to others more talented than he. Those two experiences, added to his fall from grace in 1985, made Steve Jobs the leader he is today. Still all elbows and shoulder blades, he somehow makes it work."

"I feel for the guy. It’s not his health scare, but his lack of true friends that worries me. When your best friend is Larry Ellison you know you are in trouble. But that may be the best that either man can do. "

"So here’s to Steve Jobs, may he return in six months or go off and do anything else he likes. But don’t worry about Apple.

"Apple’s on a roll."

The 20/20 View from the Fiscal Giants

As I wrote recently in my Chicago column in Midwest Business, I now occasionally wish that I had added a PhD in economics after I finished my MBA at Cal State Los Angeles in the late 1980s. The reason? In short order we can all expect the coming onslaught of books and talk show appearances (producers booking talent at CNN Lou Dobbs please take note) about 1) What REALLY happened in the fiscal world in 2008; and 2) how certain economists predicted the financial crisis long in advance (hence, their consulting fees are well worth the six figures they wish to command).
In the meantime - and absence the much-needed PhD in economics - I've begun an informal collection of the growing mea culpas from those who surely should have known better in the subprime fantasy days.
Currently up to bat is the quote from the formal press release/resignation letter announcing Robert Rubin's departure from the board of beleaguered Citibank. Rubin, who served as Clinton's Treasury Secretary during both of WJC's terms, simultaneously collected a cool $115 million while (as the Financial Times reported) he endured widespread criticism for "lack of oversight as Citi bet heavily on assets backed by subprime mortgages, and of failing to take responsibility for the company's troubles" (after the Citi board ousted its CEO in late 2007 - when Citi could have done something significant about its loan asset portfolio).
Rubin's mea culpa? "My great regret is that I and so many of us who have been involved in this industry for so long did not recognize the serious possibility of the extreme circumstances that the financial system faces today."
Cough. Cough.
And what about former Fed chair Alan Greenspan, who presided over the fiscal architecture together with his colleague Rubin (pictured together above) in the 1990s that made all of this current maelstrom possible? Here's his comment: "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organizations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and the equity."
Well, hats off for post-mortem candor. Doubtless this list will be growing over the coming months.

Fortuna favet fortibus.