I spent most of the PSFK’s San Francisco conference furiously typing on my phone about Riccardo Ricco, so I’m glad that they’re putting the sessions online. Here’s a panel talking about social media use for brands:

There was a lot of talking about how awesome social media is, but here are the two most useful points that I’ll be working into my projects:

• Be valuable to consumers and be very specific. Example: Special K created a microsite called “2 weeks, 10 pounds” instead of a general nutrition portal.
• Look outside the PR/marketing team for employees who are fluent social media users. Social media is conversational, so look for people who are used to talking to customers.

The panelists were George Parker (AdScam), Rohit Bhargava (Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence), Lynn Casey (Team Noesis), Adrian Ho (Zeus Jones), and Mark Lewis (DDB). More videos from the conference are here.

Well, sort of. MTV has a announced a new ad network based on “Tribes”, i.e. different subcultures within their audience. It’s a scaled-up version of the Hype Circle network that former Kadisco client Sneakerplay is a part of. They have a very specific look and get great CPMs, even if they don’t do a lot of volume.

What’s interesting is that it’s a move away from automation. The need for relevancy  is so great that you can’t rely on searches and tages; whoever’s managing the network really needs to know the subculture and make judgement calls about what sites (or areas of sites) to include and what ads the audience will respond to. Hype Circle seems to work for advertisers, so there’s definitely potential for this model even if it’s more labor-intensive.

via TechCrunch

Here’s a screenshot from Cyclingnews that I noticed while researching the next ROAD column.

(no, this does not mean that the bikes are put away.)

There were a lot of teams on the market for title sponsors this year. Despite the new sponsorships announced before the Tour, it looks like the first team to fold will be Roger Legeay’s Credit Agricole, according to VeloNews.

To my knowledge, they’re the only current “ASOtour” program with roots in an actual cycling club: Velo Moto Club de Paris. Check out this picture of Roger Walkowiak from 1958, their first of over 40 years as a pro team sponsored by Peugeot. Afterwards, it was Z, Gan, and Credit Agricole since 1998. Former riders include Eddy Merckx, Greg Lemond, Stephen Roche, and Chris Boardman. Thor Hushovd aside, the recent years have been a slight decline for them: 9th, 11th, and 15th in the ProTour from 2005-2007.

Most importantly, they showed a lot of class with Saul Raisin. They didn’t just honor his contract after his injury, but they really included him as part of the team until it was clear that he wasn’t going to race again.

There are some cool videos here, unfortunately not embeddable. But check out the 2001 TTT win at the Tour with Bobby Julich, Jonathan Vaughters, Thor Hushovd, Jens Voigt and Stuart O’Grady in yellow. Chris Boardman’s Merckx-beating hour record is great too.

Someone should post those on YouTube before Credit Agricole takes the team content off their website.

The team formerly known as Saunier Duval-Scott is now… um… Scott-American Beef. There’s not much information on line about the Chihuahua, Mexico based meat processor, but they were briefly “de-listed from the list of authorized plants to export to the United States” in 2004 - see page 60 of this report (pdf) from the USDA. Gross. Here’s what they had to say about the sponsorship.

“We consider that what happened at the Tour is sad but do not have to condemn the whole team, who always showed fair play,” said Ricardo Creel, president of American Beef. “Those who are guilty must be punished, but all other honest racers, as well as the whole staff of the team, must be able to end the season with complete peace of mind.”

I guess I’m happy for them to have found a sponsor but it’s certainly an odd pairing. I wonder if Scott’s contract included veto power of the co-sponsors. Still no word from Kadisco client SRAM on their future involvement with the team following the Ricco mess.

via VeloNews

I was looking at the Fail Blog just now, then I came aross this story on ReadWriteWeb. Apparently, some guy at Deloitte looked at a bunch of branded online communities and found that:

Thirty-five percent of the [corporate] online communities studied have less than 100 members; less than 25% have more than 1,000 members - despite the fact that close to 60% of these businesses have spent over $1 million on their community projects.

As RWW points out with insights like “They are stupid,”  the study misses the real reason that corporate social networks fail: nobody cares.

Puma has released I-Cycle, a series of video shorts featuring the founder of the Recycle-A-Bicycle program in New York, actor Matthew Modine’s Bicycle For a Day, the guy who had the first pedicab in New York, the organizer of the Bicycle Film Festival, and Puma’s bike collecting CMO.

One thing that jumped out at me immediately was that the interviews were done on the bike, not in the studio. Being able to see the person talking instead of just hearing a voiceover during a riding shot makes it feel so much more personal. Also, Puma branding is almost non-existent. I noticed a shot of the Bike Film Festival guy wearing Pumas and there are obviously some kicks in the video with their CMO. But Puma has smartly told interesting stories about bike culture, not about their products

via PSFK

The BBC has published a guide for its producers on how to use social networks and other social sites to promote the BBC and its programming. The principles that they outline are essential for any marketer who wants to use social web sites in a way that feels natural and appropriate to users. Here are their spot-on recommendations about Tone of Voice:

We should be sensitive to the expectations of existing users of the specific site. If we add a BBC presence, we are joining their site rather than the opposite. Users are likely to feel that they already have a significant stake in it. When adding an informal BBC presence, we should “go with the grain” and be sensitive to user customs and conventions to avoid giving the impression that the BBC is imposing itself on them and their space.

For example, we should respect the fact that users on site X are not our users; they are not bound by the same Terms of Use and House Rules as we apply on bbc.co.uk. Attempts to enforce our standard community rules on third party sites may lead to resentment, criticism and in some cases outright hostility to the BBC’s presence.

This is not to say that behaviour likely to cause extreme offence, for example racist insults, should be tolerated by the BBC on a BBC branded space on a social networking site. It should not. Neither should behaviour which is clearly likely to put a child or teenager at substantial risk of significant harm. But where we do decide to intervene, we will normally need to do so with a light touch, sensitive to different expectations and a different context from bbc.co.uk

via NewTeeVee

Good news came on Monday that High Road Sports, the former T-Mobile team, has signed Columbia Sportswear as title sponsor for its men’s and women’s teams through 2010.

Outside of the implications for cycling, what’s interesting to me about this deal is the shift in Columbia’s brand. Earlier this year, they dropped the agency that developed their long-running ad campaign featuring their everyman president, Tim Boyle, being tormented by his mother under harsh conditions to test their jackets. Now, with a major global sponsorship like High Road and a slew of other athletes and events, Columbia appears to be deemphasizing a playful, approachable tone in favor of high-end performance. The last year has been pretty rough for them, which might explain the new, more North Face-y look.

In any event, this is great news for High Road and it’s really encouraging that they and Riis Cycling were able to sign major deals this spring. Reports of cycling’s demise may once again have been exaggerated.

I caught the final Giro d’Italia broadcast on Versus today. Liggett and Sherwin tried their best to add some drama to the race for the pink jersey but there was really no chance of Alberto Contador losing time to Ricardo Ricco in a flat time trial. It was great to see SRAM going 1-2 overall!

Whenever I watch cycling on TV, I keep a running list of who’s advertising. A lot of the spots go to advertisers that make broader buys on Versus, but Cyclysm Sundays is clearly a target for a few brands. Hampton Hotels, whose USOC push also includes a sponsorship of USA Cycling, was a sponsor of the broadcast and had plenty of spots. Because grass is green, Scotts sponsored a “Green Jersey Update” covering the Giro’s KOM jersey. Specialized was the only Versus advertiser from the bike industry, with spots featuring Tom Boonen and Paolo Bettini. I noticed that Garmin sponsored the Giro itself, with good signage around the time trial start house. Then there was Captain Morgan as a broadcast sponsor.

Cycling makes sense for the first four brands. Hampton and Scotts presumably like the demographics. Specialized and Garmin make applicable products. But Captain Morgan? I understand why they’d sponsor a contest to party at the Playboy Mansion on Halloween, but I’d love to hear the rationale for their interest in cycling. If anyone from Diageo is reading this, hit me up!

Brandweek has a story about how Levi’s has instructed its lead ad agency to change course in order to accomodate the success of this video:

“[Jumpin' In] was supposed to be a small seeding activity,” said Robert Cameron, vp-marketing at Levi Strauss, San Francisco. “We didn’t know it was going to blow up. So we’re meeting with [lead agency] BBH on how to chase this. What do we do to adjust the strategy and ride the wave?”

I think that’s the right way to look at it. You never know when this kind of video is going to blow up, and lots of campaigns misfired by assuming that theirs will. But you do get lucky, you need to move quickly in order to take advantage.

In 1987, 5-time Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault and legendary NBA disappointment Derrick Coleman both used products that were recently released in a colorway inspired by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian. For Coleman, it was the Nike Dunk sneaker. For Hinault, it was a Look bike. Here are the current versions:

More thoughts on this in my upcoming ROAD Magazine column…

via VeloNews, Sneakerfiles and SoleFresh