Just Exactly Who Is Edward Bernays And Why Do You Keep Talking About Him, Jack?
Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s nephew. Here’s a picture of Eddie…
Bernays was in the Public Relations business. In fact, he was the first person to use the term “public relations”, in place of the word propaganda which had some negative connotations.
Bernays used the psychoanalytical ideas of Freud to manipulate the public.
Some of the stuff he did almost seems cool like, popularizing the idea of bacon and eggs for breakfast.
Some stuff was not so benign. See, a lot of it worked by getting groups of people to act irrationally. From the P.R. Museum…
In 1928 Hill hired Bernays to expand the sales of his Lucky Strike cigarettes. Recognizing that women were still riding high on the suffrage movement, Bernays used this as the basis for his new campaign. He consulted Dr. A.A. Brill, a psychoanalyst, to find the psychological basis for womens smoking. Dr. Brill determined that cigarettes which were usually equated with men, represented torches of freedom for women. The event caused a national stir and stories appeared in newspapers throughout the country. Though not doing away with the taboo completely, Bernays’s efforts had a lasting effect on women smoking.
So, in essence, Bernays used these psychological principles to make a buck.
But, that’s not all…
“If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it”
Bernays also used his tactics while doing work for both political parties, our government and many other governments around the world. Joseph Goebbels was a big fan.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”
To quote Rebecca Gunter speaking of Bernays, “He broke the world”.
Watch this BBC documentary for more mind boggling insight…
Hey Indie Music Act, FaceBook Will Not Be Your Marketing Friend
Remember a few days ago when I was ranting, rambling, blowing and going on about, among a lot of other things, the problems with relying on social networks, such as your good friend FaceBook, to market music?…No? Didn’t think so; here’s the relevant part for today’s discussion…
And, it brings up thoughts of how these social networks make it difficult to promote music effectively. I know that your FaceBook news feed is probably chock full of people pushing the same tracks over and over but, it’s not effective.
If the platform did not include friend limits and allowed a way for artists to locate possible fans then, indie artists could use it to build an audience. MySpace, was like that in a way but corrupted and corrupt. They allowed some to spew rampant spam and effectively shut down others when the numbers showed promise. FB evidently learned some lessons there.
The bottom line with big social networks is; they already have the traffic and you feel that’s why you need to be there. They control the revenue and would just as soon not have people leaving the site to buy your product…unless you are part of the corporate empire that drives the ad revenue.
Well, take a look at what they’re saying today over at DMN…
Facebook can – and will – change the rules on you overnight, often with little or no advance warning. These could be annoying alterations, excellent enhancements, or dramatic shifts that could utterly shock your business model. Which is exactly what happened on Wednesday, leaving everyone else scrambling to adapt.
This is all part of a major layout overhaul that revolves around Timeline, and the changes could have a dramatic impact on artists and Facebook-centric businesses.
The biggest of the changes seems to be this: as part of the shift, bands can no longer make their app page their default landing page (for example, RootMusic’s BandPage). Instead, all visitors will be sent to the Timeline-loaded front page, with apps relegated to a tab (though bands can direct-link). Which means far less control for artists, and a potentially monstrous setback for businesses like RootMusic (and to a lesser extent, FanBridge, ReverbNation, and others).
But wait! There are more game-changing shifts being splashed in your face, most likely with little-or-no advanced warning. That includes certain limitations on your gigantically-revamped, 815×320 masthead photo. For example, a band cannot incorporate any marketing language, special offers, Like buttons, or any calls-to-action into this showcase pic.
Hey, I don’t “Like” the sound of that.
The Real Reason The Ad Supported Business Model Doesn’t Work
VEVO is coming under a lot of scrutiny lately but, this post isn’t about whether they pay artists/publishers and what not. I saw a quote from VEVO C.E.O., Rio Caraeff, at Digital Music News and nestled within that quote is something that’s getting close to the crux of the biscuit…
“We (VEVO) pay every single video licensor fairly (based upon all revenue, not just revenue generated from video watch pages like some other services do), on-time and on the same commercial terms no matter whether one is a major or independent label or distributor.”
So, forget about artists getting stiffed for a bit. Concentrate on the word “fairly”.
The “fairly” is in regard to the ad rates; what the aggregator (VEVO) charges the advertiser.
See…somewhere, somebody or some entity has determined what is a fair advertising rate. Somebody is the arbiter of fair on the World Wide Web and the determined fairness is not being questioned.
As I’ve said before, Google sets the rates…they are the power player in the world of advertising. VEVO is basically a partnership between traditional major record labels that, in turn, partners with Google (go figure) on ad revenue.
Beyond the fact that Google garners the more-than-lion’s-share of all web ad revenue is the fact that they don’t have to do any heavy lifting. They don’t have to chase sponsors, the sponsors come to them and not just because Google is the only real game in town…because it’s cheap.
You got to hand it to the Goog Gods because, not only do they control the prices and, effectively corner the market, they are the go-to on the analytics and thus, control the data.
Consider some traditional advertising stuff for a bit; if you run an ad on the radio there is no way to tabulate the number of people who turn up the radio during the commercial as they drive down the road…there is no way to tabulate how many people actually read a billboard as they drive by. The factors that determine ad rates boil down to the number of impressions (people exposed to the ad) and the effect on the advertisers bottom line.
Now, within the mix you also have to consider demographic characteristics and stuff like the quality and creativity of the actual advertising.
With web advertising, there are a whole new batch of parameters most of which revolve around some sort of click ratio. If an ad gets clicked, the rate goes up exponentially. As a web publisher I am aware of this first hand as very little of the data I get involves actual impressions but there is a ton that has to do with performance and the criteria is clicks. This is an important point because if you look around for advice on how to improve ad revenue (as a publisher) the focus is inevitably on how to improve click rates by ad placement and focusing content to narrow subject matter in order to make relevancy easier to accomplish on the part of the aggregator.
Nobody ever seems to bring up the notion that a crappy ad or a crappy product might have negative effects on these click rates. That’s why, traditionally, impressions have been the key criteria. If you are an advertiser and you get eyeballs looking at your ad; you are very much responsible for making that ad interesting enough to get results.
Once again, Google is going to get the majority of all web ad revenue so, the rates are secondary…keeping their market share consistent while total web ad revenue grows is primary.
Now, let’s distill the original thought here; why ad supported business models aren’t working.
To be fair, they are working for the aggregators, the ad agency (Google) and the advertisers but not for the the people creating the actual web content. The content creators are getting screwed because the ad rates are too cheap!
If you are involved in any way with creating content or creative content, all of this should matter to you. It should matter because not only is creativity not being justly compensated, if this lack of compensation continues creativity will diminish in general as time goes by. Yes, there may continue to be a glut of stuff oozing around that purports to contain creativity but, the development of the real stuff requires practical support.
I’ve been putting a lot of thought to all of this…I’ve also been wracking my brain to come up with some solutions, not just for my own fiscal purposes but because I believe strongly in the notion that creativity flourishes when there is some sort of compensation system in place and wish to promote such.
And, to that end, I have been working on some ideas to develop an alternative to the web advertising status-quo based on impressions, demographics, human research and interaction rather than logarithms and old fashioned footwork. I don’t have all of the puzzle pieces together yet but I’m getting there and will update as I go.
As always, I would love to hear any input on any of this stuff…leave comments or hit the contact button and, if you are a content creator and would like to know more about what I’m up to, get in touch…meanwhile, I’ll look out across the landscape and ponder.
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Pribek At Zazzle
The post to blame: Most Peculiar Mama (Don't Eat Your Cat)
