We've posted a fair number of entries over the past month because we needed a way to introduce our platform.  What we're asking from both advertisers and consumers isn't light, and we needed to make a solid case before presenting our solution.  On December 3rd, just a scant 6 days away, we are launching our private beta (you can register for it here:  www.brandjury.com), and prudence dictates that we explain our specifics instead of focusing on marketing generalities. 

Advertisers not only need a new online marketing model, but want one as well.  For those unfamiliar with the problem, this AdRant post explains it well.  Some sites, such as Firebrand.com, are clearly trying to invent an effective way to advertise online.  But as AdFreak explains, Firebrand is not the glorious idea they tout themselves to be; users expect some sort of quid pro quo, especially when their quid is as objectionable as watching a long chain of television commercials.  Firebrand's quo, it appears, is seriously lacking. 

So what is our quo?  What we offer to advertisers is obvious:  unprecedented levels of ad-focused attention.  And we reward cooperative advertisers by increasing the visibility of popular ads they've crafted and revised within the Brand Jury community.  What we offer to users, while less obvious, is a conduit through which we can demand more transparent, less intrusive advertising with a real world utility. 

Our aim is to create a global public focus group composed of Internet users unwilling to ignore online marketing's disregard towards our media experiences.  We want to see marketers appealing to the senses of their customer base, instead of appealing to the bank accounts of bloated advertising agencies.  We've got a voice, and the internet makes it loud.  If anyone's going to fix the broken model of pop-ups, interstitials and paid links, it's going to be consumers. 

Join our beta, change advertising.  It's as simple as that. 

Popularity: 71% [?]

It appears as though you've got a real zinger of an ad running on the 'ol telly.  According to Jim Morris, the spot contains a "genuinely human moment [that] trumps spectacle and wizardry."  The moment?  A laughing baby.  I've stumped myself trying to connect a laughing baby with whatever service AIG offers…I'm pretty sure it's insurance, but I've never seen an AIG commercial that has made that clear.  Do they sell happy baby insurance?  

Morris helps explain the context for the daft ones like me:  ads should be used to either "illustrate a selling point or to encourage a brand bond."  Perhaps that's why I'm so terribily frustrated with what marketers shove down my throat so frequently.  I've spent the past decade or so responding to ads that build value in what's being peddled, when instead I should have been looking for nebulous "selling points" and contrived "brand bonds."  

I can't blame Jim; his bio explains that he loves the "persuasive art" of advertising and hates the business end.  But his blatant disregard for the itch that consumer advertising scratches is to blame for the junk we're confronted with on a daily basis.  When advertising gurus congratulate marketing campaigns focused on artistic quality and useless "human moments", advertising acolytes emulate what's being trumpeted.  Sure, pat yourself on the back for your scorn of the business end, but at least have the guts to admit that you've twisted yourself into nothing more than a film school drop-out striving not for increased sales, but instead for Clio awards and coctail party buzz. 

Think you could try and sell the merits of a product instead of trying to raise phantom goosebumps?  Give it a try…it's your job, after all.         

Popularity: 58% [?]

Warner Music Group's CEO should be congratulated for being so frank.  And he should most definitely share his newfound wisdom with his golf buddies in the online ad industry.  Care to take any wagers on when ad network warlocks will kiss our collective ring with as humble a revelation? 

Popularity: 42% [?]

Originality is important.  It is the fan that stokes the creative flames fueling innovation.  Bloggers, for example, ignored the rules set forth by traditional news networks and created a unique and nearly institutionalized system of reporting.  But while "outside the box" thinking is a crucial ingredient of innovation, discounting the importance of "inside the box" thinking usually leads to abject failure. 

Marketing is a recent victim of this mentality.  The prime motivator of any advertiser should be to compel a consumer to embrace what they are offering.  The best way to accomplish this task is obvious:  build value into a product or service offered by either solving a common problem or tapping into material desires.  Those who follow this ideal should have no problem converting consumers into shoppers and, subsequently, into buyers.  

However, this is easier said than done in markets bursting with competition.  When a field of competitors is appealing to the consumer base with identical strategies, prudent business owners should differentiate themselves with a less traveled approach.  Regardless of the approach taken, the prime motivator must remain despite the gilded sway of persuasion, hyperbole and over-promising.  Although "white-lie" marketing can bring a temporary increase in sales, the impending customer heat boils away repeat business and evaporates future revenue.  Nothing serves to erode a company's success more than the vitriolic bad-mouthing of a scorched customer base.  

Unfortunately, the proliferation of "outside the box" thinking has perverted marketing's prime motivator with a million white lies.  Advertising's intent has strayed from increasing brand equity to gobbling up market share.  Marketing wars of attrition work when undercutting competition sacrifices profits alone, and fate does not smile on those companies sacrificing consumer confidence with unreal offers made in the heat of competition.  With nearly everyone brainwashed into thinking "outside the box", few understand the benefits of thinking inside of it.  Effectively, the only way to think "outside of the box" is to jump back into it, and we are not willing to wait for advertising smart enough or brave enough to dare such a feat.

Brand Jury is pure "inside the box" thinking.  We know the problem:  online advertising employs little more than interrupting conversations with crafty ploys.  Instead of inventing new "creative" delivery approaches, we are blowing the dust from what legion before us found to be tried and true.  Brand Jury's collaborative platform promotes the tranparent peer dialog between consumers and advertisers that will restore marketing's prime motivator.  It may be hard to imagine, but there is a way for advertisers to peacefully co-exist with internet users.  Open the box, look inside it, and you'll see how obvious the answer is. 

Popularity: 59% [?]

How severely is a 24 year old man's ego warped by an imaginary $20 billion wind fall?  Ask Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, who yesterday launched Social Ads, a marketing tactic capitalizing on the demographic data his site generates.  In theory, the idea is a good one.  Putting it into action will likely provide his downfall.

As if to help prove our point, Organic CEO Mark Kingdon called the plan a "brilliant Trojan Horse" and "a natural evolution, both advertiser-friendly and user-friendly."  At what point did people begin to consider deceit and fraud to be "user-friendly?"  Aren't they the primary tools of a trojan horse?

This is exactly what Brand Jury boils down to:  transparency.  Facebook became popular because people could trust it.  Zuckerberg created it to connect with his Harvard classmates, and in its early years was accessably only by people with a college or university email address.  Unlike the unrestricted registration at MySpace, Facebook's closed registration ensured that scammers, spammers and trolls couldn't tap into the network.  

There are literally thousands of approaches to monetizing Facebook that Zuckerberg likely considered, but in the end he chose to betray the trust that laid his golden egg.  Facebook clothes itself as a social netowrking tool, yet it's fairly obvious that it is nothing more than a crafty marketing ruse designed to lower guards by inspiring confidence.  His judgment has been clouded by his newfound wealth and celebrity status, and he's arrogant enough to think that his customers are too stupid to realize what he's up to.

At what point will advertisers recognize that honey attracts much better than vinegar?  Regardless of how hard Facebook tries to make this look like a pot of honey, the soured faces of unsuspecting and unhappy users will hopefully tip him off to this reality: we don't like to be fooled.   

Popularity: 49% [?]

What better way to illustrate modern marketing's critical flaws than to have the Better Business Bureau invade your peace with a crafty ruse?  For shame, BBB…for shame.

Popularity: 39% [?]

One of the most common questions we get is:  "Why would anyone want to visit a website specifically to look at an ad?"

It's a fair question.  Advertising has become so entrenched in our lives that most of us do what we can to avoid it.  Why then, should we expect to generate any traffic if what we offer is something that few enjoy and even fewer seek out?  Consider context for a moment.  There are number of things that people generally dislike; medical/dental appointments, shopping for a new car, filing taxes, etc.  Yet nearly all of us can likely recall at least one instance in which we couldn't wait to don a hospital gown, negotiate with a car dealer, or fill in a 1040-EZ.

It's not hard to figure out why:  a persistent pain may be remedied by a doctor, a man's boyhood dream of sports car ownership may come true, and a delicious tax return may await a lucky taxpayer.  It is certainly not true that every patient, customer or taxpayer will benefit in the same way, but a prudent business owner should never discount the fair percentage that do.  The long-tail of internet markets can reward the diligent as easily as it can bring industry giants to their knees, and collaborative advertising's context has a very, very long tail.

If you doubt any context that will create demand for a site like ours, go to YouTube and search for 'commercial'; you'll find 164,000 examples.  Furthermore, consider Super Bowl Sunday.  Of the millions of audience members watching the game, a good portion pays attention only during the traditionally funny commercial breaks.  Toss aside the political ax and ask yourself this:  would Fox spend the time, energy and money uploading Super Bowl commercials to MySpace for any reason other than to capitalize on a context in which people will want to see ads?  Rupert Murdoch didn't become mega-wealthy by chasing white stags and tilting at windmills.

If content is king, then context is queen…for content attracts eyeballs only when it fits within a particular context.  You may doubt the existence of people salivating at the thought of communicating directly with advertisers, but you likely would have doubted a $20 billion price tag for a site like Facebook.  After all, why does anyone need social networking in an age when we've all got multiple emails addresses and cell phone numbers? 

Popularity: 36% [?]

Here's an interesting post that dances around what we're saying.  Marketers have all sorts of cash to spend, but have no idea how to do it effectively.  What kind of increase do you think we'll see in online marketing expenditures once a viable solutions exists?  How much of that will end up in the hands of developers and designers in need of capital to promote whatever innovations they have boiling in their heads?

Honestly, we're shocked that no one's done their own Brand Jury yet.  You'll likely be equally shocked once you grasp our "big picture".

Popularity: 45% [?]

Brand Jury is a response to a number of disturbing marketing trends, including what we see as a deficiency in market transparency.  A lack of transparency is not always, by itself, a bad thing.  Indeed, some organizations require a level of secrecy in order to compete.  In those instances, the only parties damaged by corporate secrecy are competitors unable to develop strategies mitigating whatever is secretly being concocted.  Furthermore, companies who maintain a privacy shield but practice good faith and fair dealings in the marketplace arguably cause consumers little damage.  Ferrari is loathe to release the cost of manufacturing a $255,000 599 Fiorano, but drooling F-car aficionados want only the 12 cylinder's bella machina, regardless of the surcharge. 

But how should we, as a market, approach the cowled machinations of a smiling corporate facade?  Make no mistake: due diligence does not lead to transparency.  We burden the unwitting consumer with due diligence when we should instead demand greater transparency from manufacturers and retailers.

Understand that transparency is not based on full disclosure, but rather on honest disclosure.  For example, BestBuy achieves transparency when advertising a rebate-free $125 Lexmark printer/toner/printer cable package.  BestBuy, however, doesn't think it will sell $125 Lexmark printers when Office Depot is selling the same printer (sans toner and cable) for $25 after $50 mail-in-rebate.  And so they follow suit by under-delivering on the over-promises made in last Sunday's circular.  

The problem arises when the sham price is couched as an honest and affordable bargain.  The practice amounts to little more than a polished bait-and-switch tactic looped gracefully through a permanent contract law pinhole.  I feel dirty when I'm greased up by the plastic smile of these painted crystals profiting through feigned transparency, and I know I'm not alone.  Isn't it time we asserted ourselves and demanded respect from the cats grown fat from our feeding?          

Popularity: 45% [?]

And why not?  Both companies have mastered the art of delivering packages to customers, which naturally makes them good at selecting the item being sent, right? 

Obviously I made that up.  But I did it to make a point:  if most can agree that delivering a gift bears no relation to selecting the gift being sent, why do we transform into Optimus Tard when ad networks and firms make the same argument?  I can understand why Marvel Comics would fall for the ploy…its survival depends on living in a fantasy world of nuclear-green purple-pant-wearing ogres.  But Stan Lee's not the only guy to pick up what ad firms are laying down.  

One has to admire their guile:  they successfully pulled the wool over our collective eyeballs and made us focus on delivery instead of message. They tell us not only that they know exactly where to distribute an ad, but also the ad that should be distributed.   I don't know about you, but I don't want the c-level boy-officers at Adbright picking out "my" advertising.  Aren't they the ones responsible for the atrocious ad-graffiti splattered across MySpace? 

A firm may know where the hot demographic hangs out, but don't ever presume that they'll show up bearing gifts anyone wants.  They do occasionally snag a click, a fact they trumpet to prove their value and close you into an agreement.  Conveniently missing from the pitch is the fact that each instance of user interaction is a sham, stolen with irresistible (and non-existing) i-pod/ps3/laptop freebies launching the unfortunate few into the 9th ring of malspamspyware hell.

Stan my boy, you're better than that.  You created Spider-man and the X-men after connecting with and listening to your audience.  Do you think we would have equally relevant superheroes had you instead surveyed your printer or delivery guy?  It's doesn't take a Professor X to answer that one.

Popularity: 36% [?]