AllThingsD » marketing

Activision's Hirshberg Says as CEO His Call of Duty is to Take Creative Risks

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:11:40 +0000

Activision Publishing’s CEO Eric Hirshberg said as the maker the most successful first-shooter, Call of Duty, it was a risk bringing a children’s game to market.

But he said Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, which attempts to bring physical toys to life through videogames, has been worth it.

“It was scary,” he said. “But if you truly have a break-through idea, then you have to have the confidence to treat it as one because they don’t come around very often.”

To be sure, the game was a major deviation from the company’s war-based roots.

It melds physical toys with videogames by using a “portal,” which is plugged into the game console. Once an Skylanders toy is placed on the portal, the character transports into the game and comes to life on the screen.

In 2011, the game was the 10th best-seller after launching in October and was the only title to make the list that wasn’t a sequel. Additionally, it was the only kids game.

Hirshberg appeared this morning as the keynote speaker at DICE, an annual videogame summit held in Las Vegas.

His speech’s titled “The Eric Hirshberg Experiment,” addressed how he has a nontraditional background as a CEO, but that Activision Blizzard’s CEO Bobby Kotick saw the usefulness of his creative background. Rather than being a trained operations or finance manager, Hirshberg is a marketing type that is more likely found drawing and bringing a sketch pad to meetings.

“There’s other creative CEOs, but they generally founded the companies, like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs,” he said. “But if creativity is at the core of your business, maybe it should be at the core of how they make decisions?”

Skylanders is just one case in point.

To make it the best experience possible, Hirshberg said they delayed the game’s launch by a year and spent the time getting the toys right, so they could compete side-by-side with characters developed by Pixar or Disney.

They also spent time making the game could work across platforms, so kids could play it at any of their friend’s houses regardless if they had a PC, Xbox, Sony PlayStation or Nintendo Wii.

As a result, every decision resulted in taking on more risk and spending more money.

Last night, Skylanders was voted as the most outstanding innovation in gaming as part of the 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, which are decided on by members of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.

“We knew a lot of things had to go right — the core to that was bringing the toys to life. We knew that was magical, and if we got it right, it would have huge potential,” Hirshberg said. “We had the whole package. We had a great game and a great story and then pushed with all of our might with a big marketing plan.”

Yesterday, Activision reported fourth-quarter results, reporting well above its internal guidance and Wall St. analyst expectations, driven by extremely strong sales of Call of Duty, but also strong Skylanders’ sales, as well as, stable subscriber figures of its online game, World of Warcraft.

Additionally, the NPD Group said yesterday that the Skylanders toys were a top-selling accessory in January. It said that Skylander toys were the highest-ranking item last month, and that collectively, Skylander accessories represented 22 percent of all accessory sales.

For sure, Hirshberg has early successes to point to, but the experiment is ongoing.

Can We Finally Say: Bye-Bye Booth Babes?

Joshua Weinberg — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:37:25 +0000

Isn’t it time for our industry to stop using “booth babes,” once and for all?

There used to be an annual tradition around Comdex — every year, a week or two after Comdex (and then later CES), InfoWorld or Computerworld would write an editorial complaining about the use of “booth babes” at the show.

These editorials and the maturing of our industry seemed to have had a great effect. Each year, there seem to be fewer and fewer booth babes at major tech shows. They are still there, just in smaller numbers.

Attitudes also continue to change. More and more companies are realizing that booth babes are out of place at tech shows. These companies have also begun to realize that booth babes may be a bad business move.

In writing this article, I Googled to find the gadget- and gamer blogs’ annual roundups of trade show booth babes, and was pleasantly surprised to find a comment from Daniel Cooper, an Engadget contributing editor, that said:

Oh, and regarding ‘booth babes:’ scantily clad women trying to tease the über-geeks at CES: if your product needs a semi-nude woman to sell it to nerds, you don’t have faith in your product.

As a launch consultant, I couldn’t agree more. Nowadays, to break through the noise, companies need an innovative product, a great user experience and clear communications. Booth babes provide none of these, and can even distract from the stories that companies are trying to tell. I have typically found that the companies using booth babes do not have much of substance to show, or are trying to mask other problems. And in the unusual case when it is a great product being promoted by a booth babe, many people miss it, because they make an assumption that it couldn’t be a great product if it is being promoted by a booth babe.

As we move into an era where we are no longer just selling technologies to enthusiasts but are selling to mainstream consumers, our industry’s collective attitude and image are important. This year, it was not an industry pub that was covering the issue, but the very mainstream BBC. Not only does this piece highlight the problem, but it tries to send the message that the industry can’t see what’s right in front of its face. If we don’t reform as an industry, we can expect more of the same. Every bit of negative attention focused on our industry is a moment when the media and customers are not focused on our industry’s products. And let’s not forget how many technology purchasing decisions are made by women. Is this the image we want to send these customers?

The industry has done a good job of encouraging women to move into science, math and technology, and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) did a good thing in “divorcing” CES from the adult video show, but for the industry to not try to do something about booth babes sends a very mixed message.

For whatever reason, be it business, social or other, as an industry, we should actively encourage a move away from booth babes at tech trade shows, once and for all.

Unfortunately, the industry does not currently take a strong stand against booth babes and one prominent press event organizer, Pepcom, uses them at virtually all its events.

Gary Shapiro, CEO of the CEA, owners of CES, said “As long as they don’t violate show rules, I can’t do anything about it.” While creating rules banning booth babes will probably never work, that does not mean that organizations like the CEA and Pepcom and others should do nothing.

But Gary also says “… and if some companies think it works, they are going to use models in their booths.” And I think that is where the challenge is for our industry: Educate companies that booth babes do not work, and are not welcome.

As an industry, we should endeavor to teach companies that best practices for launching products, exhibiting at shows and sponsoring events is more about great products and clear messages than sexy women. These shows should begin to include text to this effect in their exhibitor and sponsorship manuals, and should work on other ways to discourage this practice. In addition, industry publications and blogs should stop publishing booth-babe roundups, and should not use pictures of scantily clad women showing off tech products.

Lets get together as an industry and, once and for all, say, “Bye-bye booth babes.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this issue.

Behind the Scenes at Groupon's Tech Headquarters as It Prepares to Report First Public Earnings

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:00:33 +0000

In a three-story building in Palo Alto, Calif. — formerly occupied by Danger, the developer behind the T-Mobile Sidekick — Groupon has been trying to build out a Silicon Valley technology center, one acquisition at a time.

The pursuit was kicked off two years ago with the purchase of mobile app development shop Mob.ly. Mihir Shah, the company’s CEO, started recruiting for the social buying company, and then became the Groupon’s VP of mobile.

Since then, there has been a hodgepodge of acquisitions, including Campfire, which builds chat, calendar and media-sharing tools, as well as Zappedy, which makes a platform for merchants to redeem Internet-based offers more easily.

Last week, it continued with Adku, a low-profile San Francisco start-up that helps e-commerce retailers fine-tune their recommendation engines using external factors, such as whether it is hot or cold outside.

None of the teams have been extremely big or expensive, but Groupon insists that they already are having a major impact on the company.

That may be hard to believe in a company of more than 10,000 employees, most of which are salespeople who are not working on technology.

But Adku’s co-founder Carlos Whitt, who is joining the company along with five others from his team, said the entrepreneurial vibe in the building is “ridiculously exciting.”

“The opportunity, the innovation and entrepreneurs are all there,” he said. “It’s a good intersection.”

Still, Groupon has not been able to attract every entrepreneur it pursues. It had been actively trying to buy other social start-ups, such as Gowalla. That particular deal went to Facebook. Another would-be Groupon acquisition target, Clever Sense, was won by Google.

No matter, according to Mob.ly’s Shah, who said Groupon is actively evolving beyond a daily deals service into a company that builds a set of key marketing tools for local merchants that increases sales, cuts costs and boosts productivity.

Some of the early tools include online calendars to make it easy for spas or gyms to book appointments online, and rewards programs that allow merchants to identify loyal customers who return and spend a lot of money.

Groupon also recently revamped its merchant center, where its customers can manage their daily deals and other programs in an online dashboard.

Shah said the idea is to create a marketing suite that makes small businesses more efficient and productive.

“We never want to stand still and be a big company,” he said.

But the big question is whether those tools will be sticky enough to keep merchants coming back to offer new deals, which is where Groupon gets all of its revenue from. That’s because most of the new tools are expected to be given away for free and not generate any additional income — at least for now.

It will also have to be enough to keep away other close competitors, such as LivingSocial, Google and Amazon.

The ability to spur innovation and keep ahead of rivals will be on the minds of analysts when Groupon reports its first financial results as a publicly held company this afternoon.

Wall Street is expecting the company to report three cents per share profit on revenue of $475 million in its fourth quarter earnings, according to Thomson Reuters.

That’s up from $430 million in revenues in the third quarter and will be Groupon’s first profitable quarter in nearly two years

In particular, analysts will be listening for updates on some of the company’s core programs, such as Groupon Now, which is its mobile product that allows consumers to purchase deals minutes or hours before redeeming them based on their location. Other metrics may be shared regarding loyalty and retention programs.

This is also Groupon CEO Andrew Mason’s first big chance to speak to the investment community since the end of the company’s quiet period (which he wasn’t really good at keeping, anyway).

Groupon’s stock increased nearly three percent yesterday to close at $24.19, which is just above its IPO price of $20 a share.

Microsoft Pares Marketing Staff

John Murrell — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:45:47 +0000

Microsoft said Wednesday it was laying off about 200 employees in the course of restructuring its marketing operations to consolidate duties and eliminate overlap.

Amazon's Stake in LivingSocial Reveals Steep Losses for the Groupon Competitor

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:42:10 +0000

LivingSocial’s financial results for the past year were reported by Amazon today, revealing that the company continues to trail behind Groupon by a wide margin.

Amazon, which has a 31 percent stake in the second-largest daily deals company, released the figures as part of its quarterly filing today with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

It said LivingSocial’s 2011 net loss totaled $558 million on revenues of $245 million.

The footnote was first reported by Geekwire’s Todd Bishop this morning.

Chicago-based Groupon, which is the daily-deals leader, will report 2011 results next week. But based on its results for the nine months ended Sept. 30, it is still much larger. In the nine-month period, Groupon recorded a net loss of $238 million on revenues of $1.1 billion.

LivingSocial was always presumed to trail behind Groupon by a fair margin, but now we are able to see exactly how wide the gap is.

However, a source close to LivingSocial said the numbers reported by Amazon are somewhat deceiving. They do not reflect the full year of international results, including the results from some fairly large acquisitions, such as Ticket Monster in South Korea.

The source also said the losses are artificially high because of non-cash expenses, such as stock-based compensation, which soared as the company increased its employee base from 500 to 6,000 in the past year and made 11 acquisitions.

According to the source, the company’s gross bookings, which include both the merchants’ and LivingSocial’s take-home sales, totaled between $750 million and $800 million, not including some foreign investments.

In contrast, Groupon’s gross bookings for the first nine months of 2011 totaled $2.8 billion.

A LivingSocial spokesperson declined to comment.

LivingSocial’s operating expenses, which totaled $686 million for the full year, also reflect steep marketing costs that were incurred early on to acquire thousands of new users.

Groupon was criticized for making those same investments while it was going public.

In the filing, Amazon also revealed that the book value of its 31 percent stake in LivingSocial was set at $208 million, up from the $192 million reported in Amazon’s previous filing.

That implies that the company’s valuation increased over the past year. It is now presumed to be valued at somewhere between $4 billion and $5 billion. Groupon’s public market value is hovering around $13.5 billion.

Despite LivingSocial’s steep losses, the Washington, D.C.-based company is not running out of cash. In December, the company secured $176 million in new funding. The round, which could swell to as much as $400 million over time if new investors join in, is expected to be enough to delay the need for an initial public offering.

Q&A: Facebook Researcher Paul Adams Says Real Influence Is in Our Inner Circles

Liz Gannes — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:10:51 +0000

Social technology researcher Paul Adams made waves in the past couple years as a thought leader and a hiring target. Now he has written a book.

Adams jumped to Facebook from Google last year, as the two companies were preparing to go head to head on social networking, his area of focus.

This wasn’t just a random hire — Fortune recently called Adams ”one of Silicon Valley’s most wanted.” Adams joined Facebook after Google had started development on Google+, whose central concept of “Circles” of friends can more or less be traced to some of Adams’s thinking about how social networks should resemble real-life relationships.

That lineage is publicly known because a slide deck Adams made on the topic was widely circulated online in 2010. He was working on turning the ideas into a book called “Social Circles.” After Adams left for Facebook, Google quashed the book, something he publicly complained about last summer.

Now, Adams has reshaped some of his thinking into a new book about social influence that is targeted at marketers. Called “Grouped: How Small Groups of Friends Are the Key to Influence on the Social Web,” the book was released in December.

In fact, since he joined Facebook, Adams has changed his focus to working on advertising products, both as a product manager and a researcher.

“Grouped” references much of the same research “Social Circles” would have, according to Adams. The new book also includes some data drawn directly from Adams’s new employer.

For instance, Adams writes that an internal Facebook study of private messages, chats, wall posts, “Likes” and comments on status updates determined that users directly communicate with an average of only four people per week, and six per month.

Based on that and other findings, Adams argues that targeting close relationships between people with similar lifestyles that carry the most potential for marketers.

(What’s interesting, but perhaps a topic for another day, is that Facebook as a company has recently been pushing what seem like opposing perspectives about how information is spread between diverse and distant Facebook contacts, and how marketing on social networks can quickly spread across many degrees of separation.)

Here’s a slightly edited and condensed write-up of a phone conversation I recently had with Adams about his new book:

Liz Gannes: What are you doing now at Facebook?

Paul Adams: I’m a researcher, working on ads products.

“Grouped” is about how influence works. Give us the brief version of your take.

The main argument I was making was that, at a very basic overgeneralized level, people are most influenced by their friends.

There’s this myth of “influencers” popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point.” It’s popular in marketing because if it’s true, it’s perfect — you just find someone who’s heavily connected and your product will start jumping off the shelf.

But people are most influenced by those around them, whether physically or emotionally. A lot of us are influential, and all of us can be influenced, given the right context. It comes down to the relationship we have with people, and also credibility.

In your book, you give a bunch of examples about how experiences like games or shopping can be made more valuable with friends. But I have to say, I’ve tried plugging in Facebook to Etsy, and I don’t think it was terrifically helpful to know that my friend who likes “Harry Potter” might want a Harry Potter shirt. And I’ve used Facebook Connect on Airbnb to try to find hosts who have friends in common with me, but really, that seems like finding a needle in a haystack.

It’s definitely early. Influence in general is really complex, and we’re at the very early days of understanding how it works. There’s interaction and there’s personalization. The Etsy example is personalized based on interests. The Airbnb one could be a bit more social, because [connecting to Facebook] creates opportunities for conversation.

The amount of information that we’re generating is increasing exponentially, so I think over time there will be a ton more information around what people are interested in, and who they know.

Who is the intended audience for “Grouped”?

The primary focus of the book was people working in marketing — Coke, Nike, huge global companies, but also people working in the agencies they hire. I think it’s generally applicable for lots of areas of business, but I think that’s the community that needed it the most.

Marketing, for the last 50 years, has been about interruption, and it’s basically a race to the bottom. All these guys are trying to come up with more and more creative ways to interrupt people. We have a finite amount of information processing, and that’s not going to change in our lifetime.

There was a great book, 10 years ago, by Seth Godin, about Permission Marketing. We need to be thinking about a world where people put their hands up to say “I like something.”

How has the initial reception to the book been?

I think it’s still very early. Because I’ve worked at technology companies, you think you either launch things and they take off, or they die — but the publishing industry is not like that. The initial reception seems good. There’s not really a Twitter hashtag, and it turns out there’s all these other crazy tweets including that word, but the tweets I’ve seen have generally been positive.

I’m surprised the book hasn’t been more popular, given there are so many people these days doing social media marketing.

The kind of marketing on Facebook now is the Wild West. People are calling themselves “social media gurus,” but you can’t be an expert in something that hasn’t been around for a while. Those guys are trying to differentiate themselves without much reflective thought. And the other challenge is that I’m trying to say, “What you’ve done for the last 50 years is wrong, you need to reframe how you think about the world.” And that’s hard for people to hear.

Isn’t that the premise of every business book?

I guess that’s fair, but I’m not really framing ["Grouped"] as the next great thing. What I’m saying is this is about how people have always interacted socially. It’s not about technology.

What’s the story about how this evolved from the book you started writing about social networks at Google?

They’re two different books. The first book was about social behavior, how you might build a social network that reflects real-world behavior. The second book, in my mind, is pretty much a different book, but with similar sources, because they’re canonical research.

The first book — it’s pretty open knowledge that Google blocked the first one. I kind of tried to persuade them otherwise, but I failed. I looked at my options, and used the same source material and started a new book.

What are some of the untapped frontiers for social influence?

One of the things I feel about strongly is, I talk to creative agencies — the guys that create all the content for ad campaigns — and they kind of look at all these technologies and wonder if they’re passing them by. When I talk to them, I say, “This is a huge opportunity. All these platforms — Facebook, Twitter, Google+ — are all just containers for content, and you guys specialize in creating good content.” Once they understand why people share content, it’s an amazing opportunity.

What about all the stuff Facebook tells advertisers about how recommendations from friends and “Sponsored Stories” are better than traditional advertising?

That’s still true. It goes back to credibility and influence. The ad formats we have that feature your friends have a higher engagement rate. One interesting metric is “likelihood of purchase,” which is incredibly hard to move, and these friend campaigns do tend to move it. But people forget that the content is a huge lever — if I can just get my friends to share the content.

It feels unusual to find a guy like you, in Silicon Valley, who’s really passionate about the future of advertising.

I’m not so much interested in advertising as I’m interested in influence. That was one of the reasons I came to Facebook, was it was an amazing opportunity to work on that problem. It might be a little idealistic, but my goal was to move the world of advertising to something that was really relevant to people.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

Honest: Jessica Alba's Now an E-Commerce Geek (Video)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:05:48 +0000

From the Web 1.0 Matt Damon-Ben Affleck debacle to the stunt-casting of Justin Timberlake as a Myspace impresario and everything in between, I have been more than dubious about any online effort by a celebrity.

Not surprisingly, it is usually a lot of special effects but little in the way of substance, from an entrepreneurial point of view.

So it was nice to be actually impressed by actress Jessica Alba’s fledgling effort to break into online commerce, via a new site called the Honest Company.

Using an interesting online subscription model and aimed at the modern mom, Honest sells its own private-label, eco-friendly and hipster baby diapers and biodegradable wipes, as well as organic bath/skin care and green cleaning products.

Alba, who is Honest’s president and one of its co-founders, was inspired to bootstrap the start-up after having kids and being confused as to how to find nontoxic products for them in a marketplace of questionable offerings.

Thus, she and Christopher Gavigan, author of “Healthy Child Healthy World,” hooked up with an experienced entrepreneur — Brian Lee, co-founder of ShoeDazzle and LegalZoom — to create Honest, which just launched.

Selling its own products using a monthly “bundle” model differentiates Honest from comparable sites, such as Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP, which focuses on classy recommendations of a wide variety of similar fare.

Right now, the online-only Honest effort is using Alba’s high profile and online clout — many millions of fans and followers on social sites like Facebook and Twitter, for example; and also viral marketing, via mommy bloggers — to get noticed.

But the proof will be if Honest can keep its customers coming back every month for more, as it expands its line. (So far, the reviews of the products have been raves, such as this one from salt & nectar.)

Here’s Alba talking about Honest with Lee, in a video interview at the company’s Santa Monica, Calif., HQ:

[ See post to watch video ]

SAP Names New Marketing VP, One With a History

Arik Hesseldahl — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:59:38 +0000

Business software giant SAP has hired Julie Roehm — a former Wal-Mart marketing exec with a resume that includes time at Chrysler and Ford — as its new senior VP of marketing. According to Advertising Age, Roehm will report to SAP’s chief marketing officer, Jonathan Becher. SAP doesn’t appear to have issued a statement on the hiring, but Roehm has updated her LinkedIn profile to reflect the move.

If the name seems familiar, then perhaps you remember something of the episode resulting in Roehm’s acrimonious departure from Wal-Mart. The retailer hired her in 2006 in an attempt to bring its brand image into the 21st century and make Wal-Mart an acceptable choice for higher-end consumers.

A lengthy Wall Street Journal profile that year ran through the highlights of Roehm’s pre-Wal-Mart career: Racy double-entendre-laden ads for the Dodge Durango; a campaign with the tagline “That thing got a Hemi?” promoting Chrysler’s muscular engine. In 2004, she hatched an idea for something called the Lingerie Bowl, a pay-per-view event, tied to that year’s Super Bowl, which was to feature scantily clad women playing football. Car dealers and conservative groups complained, and Chrysler withdrew its sponsorship. Early successes at Wal-Mart included a 2006 TV campaign that poked fun at electronics retailer Best Buy.

However, Wal-Mart fired Roehm at the end of 2006 over accusations that she carried on a romantic relationship with a subordinate, Sean Womack. Wal-Mart also accused her, in a court filing, of using company-paid travel to conduct the affair. Roehm was also accused of accepting gifts from executives of an ad agency she ultimately selected, which Wal-Mart said violated company policy.

What followed was a full-blown ad-industry scandal. Womack’s wife turned over emails between Roehm and Womack, more or less proving the affair. Roehm sued Wal-Mart in 2007, accusing then-CEO Lee Scott and other senior executives of accepting gifts of travel and concert tickets from suppliers, and benefiting from preferential prices on items like boats from the Minnesota billionaire Irwin Jacobs. It only got uglier, until a judge dismissed her suit; the lawsuits appear to have ended.

Roehm doesn’t seem to have much history working on campaigns for business-to-business products of the kind that SAP produces. Even so, given her reputation for trying to shake things up with sleepy brands, it will be interesting to see what she does with SAP.

SAP is definitely on the move. Two months ago, it spent $3.4 billion to acquire SuccessFactors, a cloud-based maker of human resources software. That deal was only the latest in a string of deals by traditional software companies to roll up cloud-based outfits. SAP is also making noises about its own cloud, and will probably want to spend lavishly to market its Business ByDesign and HANA products this year, which SAP’s co-CEO Bill McDermott discussed last year with AllThingsD. That’s going to require some new marketing messages that will probably be like nothing the company has ever done before. It will be fun to see how it evolves.

Sequoia Grabs Googler to Head New Comms Role Aimed at Helping Entrepreneurs

Kara Swisher — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:22:26 +0000

The move to beef up communications expertise at the prominent Silicon Valley venture firm continues: Sequoia Capital has hired Andrew Kovacs, a well-regarded senior manager from Google, for a new job to help its portfolio companies with public relations and other related issues, sources said.

Google’s top flack Rachel Whetstone told staff about the move this past week, sources said, which will take place in mid-January.

Kovacs (pictured here, looking very GQ), who has been at the search giant for five years, has most recently headed PR for its apps unit.

His appointment comes after competing firms, including Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, bolstered talent to the comms areas of their firms, in order to better service the companies they invest in.

This is especially important to early-stage start-ups and their often young entrepreneurs, who usually have little experience with the media or with marketing. But such expertise is increasingly important in the crowded and ever-noisier tech sector, as companies try to rise above the fray.

Sequoia already has a longtime marketing partner, Mark Dempster, to whom Kovacs will be reporting, serving the firm’s companies in the U.S. and Israel. Kovacs will not be working on PR for Sequoia itself.

Some of Sequoia’s better-known start-ups include Dropbox, Tumblr and Eventbrite.

Go Daddy: Never Mind That SOPA Thing, Look at Naked Danica Patrick

Arik Hesseldahl — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:54:38 +0000

Days after suffering a public-relations pounding that resulted in the loss of as many as 37,000 domains, Go Daddy, the privately held domain-name registrar and Web host, is resorting to its tried-and-true weapon for generating attention and maybe business: A nearly naked Danica Patrick.

Readers of today’s New York Times got an eyeful of Patrick, the auto-racing driver who has starred in numerous provocative Go Daddy TV spots, in a full-page ad that appeared in the newspaper’s A section. (I snapped the image at right with my iPhone.)

If Go Daddy is looking for a tactic to help it change the subject from its sudden about-face in supporting the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) now before Congress, this probably isn’t it. Having initially supported SOPA — and faced with a sudden exodus of thousands of customers who moved their domain-name registrations to other outfits — Go Daddy suddenly had a change of heart, and issued a statement saying it “no longer supports SOPA.”

Resorting to cheeky ads isn’t exactly going to reduce the outrage people feel against the company. Its CEO, Bob Parson, sparked a smaller controversy when he posted a video of himself killing a wild elephant in Zimbabwe and then letting locals feast on it. A small boycott effort slowed the company’s growth for a few weeks, but ultimately caused little damage.

But 37,000 domains lost in two days, plus all the negative press, can’t help but get some attention. Hence the about-face, and the attempt, cheap as it may be, to try to change the subject. Perhaps another outrageous TV spot during the Super Bowl? One wonders if the group of private equity firms that bought out Go Daddy for $2.25 billion earlier this year — they include KKR, Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures — still think it was a good deal.

An App That Helps You Install That TV You Just Bought

Lauren Goode — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:50:19 +0000

Get out the hammer, the screws and the iPad.

A new app feature from Aurasma is aimed at taking the pain out of product assembly, by tapping into augmented reality and creating a visual guide for mounting a television — maybe that brand-new one you just bought — on the wall.

Despite being a slow year for TV sales, manufacturers got a boost over Black Friday weekend, and a recent report says one in five U.S. broadband-enabled households plans to buy a flat-screen before the end of the year. Not surprisingly, around 28% of consumers find the process of installing their TVs to be frustrating, according to Kelton Research.

Could a visual how-to help?

In order to access the step-by-step guide, consumers first have to to download the Aurasma app, then aim a smartphone or tablet at an Aurasma-created installation guide. The augmented reality technology, which gives interactive context through a phone or tablet by using GPS, video and other sensory data, prompts a sequential “how to” guide for installing a flat-screen display on the wall. (You can see how it works in the video here.)

An AR app is a nifty idea for those holiday gadget purchases, but right now, Aurasma only has “auras” for how to mount a flat-screen on the wall and how to install an HP router; the company sees more product-assembly instructions in its future. The Aurasma app is free and works on iPhone, iPad 2 and Android devices. It is also available as a free SDK for app developers who want to build on the AR technology.

Augmented reality isn’t new: The first AR project is believed to have been developed at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory back in the 1960’s, though it was years later before it was called “augmented reality.” It is commonly used in sporting events — to project ads or other graphics on the field during a football game broadcast, for example — and has been increasingly making its way into gaming as well.

In recent years, marketers have begun targeting augmented reality campaigns at smartphone users, who can use an app or AR-friendly browser on their devices. Users simply point their smartphone camera at a poster or product and receive a digital layer of information, which could include an ad, price point, instructional video or a where-to-buy option.

Aurasma, an augmented reality platform created by HP-acquired Autonomy and based in San Francisco, launched in June 2011 and has since reached two million downloads. The company says it is currently working with around a thousand brands worldwide to power interactive campaigns, including Panasonic, BMW, Universal Music, Paramount Pictures and Virgin Atlantic.

AOL PR Exec Hollars Becomes Andreessen Horowitz PR Partner

Kara Swisher — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 02:17:23 +0000

After the departure of top AOL exec Brad Garlinghouse, it’s probably no surprise that his longtime public relations exec Kiersten Hollars would be next to go. And she is indeed leaving to take a job as a PR partner at Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. She’ll be reporting to marketing partner Margit Wennmachers there.

AOL Names Jim Norton as New Head of Sales

Kara Swisher — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:00:00 +0000

AOL, which has had some turmoil in its executive ranks of late, has promoted Jim Norton to be its new head of sales.

The New York Internet company said Norton would be “responsible for sales on all of AOL’s owned & operated properties, including sites like The Huffington Post, Engadget, Stylelist and MapQuest,” as well as a range of other areas.

AOL has rejiggered its advertising execs and strategies several times in recent years, and Norton is not precisely replacing its former advertising head Jeff Levick (who left for Spotify) and is more akin to another top former AOL ad exec Mark Ellis (who left for Yahoo).

That job has now been folded into the portfolio of Chief Revenue Officer Ned Brody, to whom Norton will report.

“We need to become faster in our operations,” said Brody in an interview this morning about the shift. “We brought in Jim to bring in singular focus on selling.”

Brody said that AOL is working on how to increase the “value proposition” of its variety of advertising and marketing offerings and to quicken the process.

Norton came to AOL from Google in 2009 and before that worked in a wide range of ad jobs.

Here’s the official press release on the move:

JIM NORTON NAMED HEAD OF AOL SALES

New York, NY — December 9, 2011 — AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) and Ned Brody, Chief Revenue Officer, today announced the promotion of Jim Norton to head of AOL Sales. Effective today, Jim will be responsible for sales on all of AOL’s owned & operated properties, including sites like The Huffington Post, Engadget, Stylelist and MapQuest. Additionally, he will also lead the sales of all cross platform marketing solutions, including display/Project Devil initiative, video and mobile. This announcement is reflective of AOL’s commitment to putting the strongest leaders in place to service clients in the most efficient and effective manner. Jim will continue to report to Brody.

“Jim has proven himself within AOL to be a fantastic leader,” said Brody. “He not only has deep knowledge and incredible expertise in the marketplace, but a real ability to effect change.” Brody added, “Customers want the best products and packaged solutions all in a fast and efficient manner. Consolidation of leadership under Jim will place even more focus on putting our clients front and center and deliver on their goals and needs.”

“It’s a tremendous honor and opportunity to take on this new leadership role,” said Norton. “It allows me to continue to work with some of the best sales professionals in the business. It’s also a privilege to work with some of the world’s biggest brands.” He added, “We want to continue to be the preferred media partner for marketers and agencies.”

Jim joined AOL in 2009 and was SVP, AOL Advertising’s Advance Sales team, which focuses on national and regional advertisers across all categories, as well as new business. He was also VP of Product Sales working with AOL product teams on maximizing their offerings to advertisers, including MapQuest, Patch, AOL Mail, AOL Video and Mobile. He also managed AOL’s Search and Sponsored Listings business, and helped launch and manage AOL’s self service advertising platform, Ad Desk.

Jim has over 20 years of experience in the media business. Prior to joining AOL, he spent 3 years at Google most recently as National Sales Manager for Google’s Agency Activation team. Prior to that role, he was a Senior Account Executive on the National Tech B2B team servicing many of the leading global tech marketers. He’s also held a number of traditional sales and marketing roles, including four years as Sales Manager at Tribune Broadcasting’s WLVI-TV (Boston’s WB), radio ad sales at Kiss 108FM and a variety of brand marketing roles at Miller Brewing Company and GMR Marketing. He’s a life long Bostonian and graduated from Boston College with a BA in Communications and BC’s Carroll Graduate School of Business with an MBA in Marketing and Technology. He’s married with three children and splits his time between Boston and New York City.

Facebook Loses "The Godfather" Exclusive to Google's Game Network

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:38:21 +0000

Kabam has chosen to exclusively launch its newest big title, The Godfather: Five Families, on Google’s game network instead of on Facebook.

“It was strictly a business decision,” said Kabam’s COO Chris Carvalho, quoting a line from The Godfather.

Carvalho said that in return for Google getting a 45-day exclusive, Google has agreed to drive traffic to the game through various marketing techniques. In addition, Google only takes a 5 percent cut of revenues from virtual goods sold inside the game, compared to Facebook’s 30 percent cut.

Together, those two incentives could make for a more profitable game, even if Google’s audience is much smaller.

“We’ve found our games monetize very well on the Google+ platform, and their team to be incredibly responsive and willing to get things done quickly and efficiently,” Carvalho said.

At last count, roughly 40 million people have joined Google+, and to date, it has a total of 28 games. In comparison, Facebook has more than 800 million users worldwide, and literally has too many games to count.

Getting heard above all those distractions on Facebook can be costly, so clearly Kabam feels it has a better chance to stand out on Google.

It will be important to see if other developers feel the same way and follow in Kabam’s footsteps. If so, Facebook may feel pressure to make games easier to find (other than the developer purchasing more ads), or even adjust its revenue cut, as some have suggested may occur with increased competition.

In all, Kabam has three other games on Google+: Dragons of Atlantis, Global Warfare and Edgeworld.

The Godfather will not be the first exclusive on Google+ Games. Rovio launched Angry Birds first on Google+, and still hasn’t officially launched yet on Facebook (probably due to the large costs, since Rovio is known for being outspoken about Apple’s 30 percent revenue cut on mobile devices).

Kabam has licensed rights to “The Godfather” movie from Paramount Digital Entertainment to build a big-budget social game for Facebook, based on the American Mafia classic.

Kabam, which is based in Redwood City, Ca., is known for making hardcore social games that appeal to gamers typically found using videogame consoles. That differs from Zynga, the leading social games company, which makes mainstream games for the largest audience possible.

The game, which launched today, is set in the Prohibition era of the 1930s, preceding the setting of the first film by about 10 years. Players and five crime families will battle for money, power and respect, with the goal of becoming the “Don” of a family.

The illustrations are cinematic, with extremely dark and menacing graphics, which is a dramatic shift from the cartoonish art and happy, smiling characters found in most Facebook games today.

As Expected, Yahoo Marketing Head Departs Company

Kara Swisher — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 01:31:43 +0000

Yahoo marketing head Elisa Steele, who was recently involved in an internal overhaul that shifted the major marketing functions back to the regions of the Silicon Valley Internet giant from its global centralized one — is leaving the company on Friday. At the time of the reorg, Steele had indicated that she was likely leaving Yahoo and sources said she has no plans as yet to move to another position.

Circling the TV Ads: Google+ Hawks Itself (Video)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:34:41 +0000

Google, which doesn’t do a lot of this kind of advertising, has posted a commercial on television for its social networking effort, Google+.

The search giant has done it before for its Chrome browser and other products, but it’s a rare occurrence. So, here’s the ad, which pushes the motto: “Sharing, but like real life. That’s a plus.”

The reference is to the onerous method of sorting all the various people in your life into “circles” as part of the service. While many find it exhausting (me!) to constantly be defining social relationships, it is apparently now a marketing plus.

Get it? Plus!

Exclusive: Zynga's Van Natta Moves to Strategic Adviser; Feld Off Board, Paul In

Kara Swisher — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:30:08 +0000

In a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning its upcoming IPO, Zynga is expected to unveil two key management and board changes at the online gaming phenom:

Chief Business Officer Owen Van Natta — who came to the San Francisco-based start-up several years ago to help CEO Mark Pincus grow it and develop it — will step down from his job and become a strategic adviser focusing on major partnerships. He’ll still remain board member at Zynga, but will give up millions of pre-IPO shares by moving out of his operational role.

And director and venture investor Brad Feld will leave the the board, which VCs sometime do as companies move to a public offering and add members with more specific business experience.

In his place, longtime entrepreneur and investor Sunil Paul, who founded a company called FreeLoader with Pincus many moons ago, will join the board.

Zynga confirmed the changes to me in a statement by Pincus:

“Owen is a valuable business partner. He’s made great contributions to Zynga and continues to be an important part of our team.”

Sources said the changes related to Van Natta around are not part of a recent controversy around a Wall Street Journal story about clawing back of some share options grants of early Zynga employees who had become less involved in the company. While the company cannot actually take back already vested shares owned by those staffers, the article has put a lot of scrutiny on Zynga and raised questions about how to cope with the kind of hyper-growth some Internet firms experience.

That’s certainly been the kind of rocket ride Zynga has been on, as it has grown from a small social gaming company on Facebook to a high-profile public company.

Zynga is in the final stages of its IPO process, answering questions from the SEC that are typical. If all goes well, Zynga execs are expected to go on a road show after the Thanksgiving and go public by the end of the year at a market valuation of close to $20 billion.

That was different from when Van Natta officially got to Zynga in the spring of last year — after a rocky experience running the doomed Myspace. At the time, he told me at the time that planned to be focused on scaling the business and did not consider himself a long-term operating executive.

Since then, he has helped Pincus hire a series of experienced gaming execs, including a chief operating officer, a chief marketing officer and others.

Zynga was Van Natta’s third high-profile Web company in recent years. He was a top early exec for Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook until early 2008, and in 2009 he took over News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace, a job that lasted less than a year.

Early in his career, Van Natta was also was a top strategy, marketing and deal exec for Amazon, which bought an early social networking start-up called PlanetAll that he worked at.

It will now be interesting to see what Van Natta does next, but it is unlikely he will take a permanent position. He is a longtime angel investor in Silicon Valley, including in hot start-ups such as Asana and still holds a significant stake in Facebook.

But, in moving out of his job at Zynga, he will be giving up many millions of shares of a rich trove he was given when he arrived at the company. That said, Van Natta already owns millions of accelerated vested shares and will get another large grant as a board member.

Translation: Don’t cry for Mr. Van Natta, Silicon Valley — he made $42 million last year from Zynga shares alone.

Digital Marketing Start-Up Thismoment Raises $7.3 Million From Sierra Ventures

Kara Swisher — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:30:58 +0000

Thismoment, the San Francisco-based digital marketing platform provider, said it has raised $7.3 million in its first institutional venture round from Sierra Ventures.

Before this funding, the company raised $4.25 million since 2008, when it was founded as a content-sharing Web site.

The company, which serves brands and agencies with its Distributed Engagement Channel platform, said it is aimed at “managing content, conversation and creative assets across earned, owned and paid media channels.” That means marketing “initiatives across Facebook, YouTube, brand sites, rich media ad units, mobile devices, tablets and digital outdoor placements,” as well as a platform to manage these social marketing campaigns.

Sierra’s Mark Fernandes will join the board. Other investors include private equity firm Fenway Partners, as well as well-known digital execs Shelby Bonnie, Jason Hirschhorn and Mika Salmi.

Thismoment said it will use the new funds to expand operations in the U.S. and also add them internationally.

Microsoft Appoints Online Unit's Yusuf Mehdi to Run Xbox Marketing (Plus Internal Memos!)

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:49:00 +0000

Microsoft said today that longtime company veteran Yusuf Mehdi will be shifting roles to head marketing for the unit that includes its Xbox gaming division. Previously, Mehdi was in charge of the company’s online services division audience efforts. He will now report to Don Mattrick, president of the Interactive Entertainment Business.

Here are the internal memos on the move from Online Services Division President Qi Lu and from Mattrick:

Hi Everyone,

This email is to inform you that Yusuf Mehdi, Chief Audience Officer for OSD, will be moving on to a new and exciting chapter in his career, working for Don Mattrick, President of the Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB), as the Chief Marketing Officer for IEB, effective 12/05/2011.

Yusuf and I have been discussing his career plan for several months, and we both felt with OSD and OABG’s success and momentum, the time is right for Yusuf to take on a new challenge for Microsoft. With more than ten years of service in Microsoft’s online services businesses, he has been a trusted adviser, a great leader of people, and has helped get us to where we are today in OSD. We are fortunate to have had Yusuf be an important part of OSD for the past ten years, and are equally fortunate that he is staying close, helping IEB continue its great momentum as it becomes a global entertainment brand for Microsoft.

Throughout my tenure at OSD, Yusuf has been a key member of the OSD LT and a trusted partner, from whom I have learned a tremendous amount about marketing, the industry, and Microsoft. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Yusuf and I am confident he will do an amazing job for Don, and continue to be a great partner to OSD and a great advocate for Bing and MSN.

Yusuf has been involved with leading Microsoft Online Services businesses longer than anyone else on the OSD LT, and has been a pivotal leader at critical milestones of our division’s journey from the early days of MSN, to the original MSN and Live Search products, to the launch of Bing and the consummation of key strategic deals for OSD and MS, including Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter and Nokia. Most importantly, he has built a world class marketing, business development, strategy, and product management organization that has made incredible contributions to the success of OSD and Microsoft. I want to take this opportunity to express my heart-felt thanks to Yusuf for everything he has done for OSD.

I have asked each of Yusuf’s direct reports to step up their contribution to help lead through this transition period. On an interim basis, all of Yusuf’s directs will now report into me. I have also asked that Mike Nichols help with coordination of the OABG ROB and represent OABG at the OSD LT level, in addition to maintaining his current responsibilities as GM of Bing Product Management.

Please join me in congratulating Yusuf in his new role, thanking him for his many contributions to Online, and wishing him all the best.

Thanks.
-Qi

From: Don Mattrick
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 3:33 PM
Subject: RE: IEB Global Marketing News

After 21 years of outstanding service, Mike Delman has decided to retire from Microsoft at the end of the calendar year. Mike’s decision will allow him to spend more time with his family. He will also continue his non-profit efforts with Children’s Hospital and lecture at the USC Graduate School of Business.

While there’s never a great time to lose a valued leader, the time is right for Mike and the business to transition as we embark on our next journey to significantly grow our business in the next five years.

Between now and the end of the year, Mike will lead marketing through our biggest holiday ever, continue to set us up for long-term success, and work with me and Janet Zimmerman to identify his successor.

Mike’s marketing contributions at Microsoft are innumerable — he joined Microsoft in 1990 as director of corporate communications, responsible for advertising, collateral, point of sale, direct marketing and worldwide packaging for the entire Microsoft product line. Mike later became the director of marketing for Microsoft EMEA. He also served as general manager of the MSN and managed worldwide marketing operations, data and analytics, advertising, relationship marketing and events in the Central Marketing Group.

In 2008, he joined IEB as the CVP of IEB Global Marketing. Here in IEB, Mike played an extraordinary role in redefining the marketing organization. Specifically, under his leadership, the marketing organization has deepened the connection between marketing and product development, reinvigorated our research and business intelligence efforts, and set the course for repositioning Xbox from a core games brand to an entertainment brand for everyone. Over the same time period, the Xbox business doubled. I also want to thank Mike for his leadership in working with the team in EMEA to drive growth and success in that region.

Please join me in thanking Mike for his years of great work, and a heartfelt congratulations on his upcoming retirement. He has always been a strong strategic advisor for me, and I look forward to spending the next few months together.

Best,

Don

Clearspring Buys Data Science Start-Up XGraph

Kara Swisher — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:00:14 +0000

Clearspring, the social-sharing company — in an effort to increase its business as a marketing analytics player — has acquired XGraph, a data science company.

Clearspring declined to provide the price it paid for XGraph, but said the deal was in cash and stock. The start-up raised $3.75 million just over a year ago.

The combined company has 85 employees — 70 at Clearspring and 15 at XGraph.

Execs at the the McLean, Va.-based company said the purchase will increase value to advertisers and publishers via audience targeting and data science. Clearspring is best known by consumers for its AddThis social-sharing tool, which provides a lot of detailed user data.

Clearspring raised $20 million in funding in May. At the time, the company said it planned to spend its new cash on acquisitions that leveraged data and built audiences more efficiently.

The New York-based XGraph focuses on modeling and monetizing the Web’s social graph.

“We get a lot of data points every day and making sense of them is something we have already been doing, but XGraph fits the bill to go even further in the multi-graph use of data,” said Clearspring CEO Ramsey McGrory. “It puts us in a position to be the market leader for the application of data.”

Key Compton, CEO and co-founder of the three-year-old XGraph, noted that the industry has become data-driven in new ways.

“People are connected to each other via social connections in a multi-graph platform,” said Compton. “I think there are some really interesting opportunities to access the data.”

Here’s the official press release for the deal:

Clearspring Acquires XGraph to Create Largest Multi-Graph on the Open Web

Company accelerates growth by deepening data team and technology

McLean, VA and New York. NY. — November 1, 2011 – Clearspring, provider of the largest social sharing and analytics platform, AddThis, announced today it has acquired XGraph, Inc., a leading data science company focused on modeling and monetizing the web-wide social graph. Clearspring’s massive reach and proprietary real-time data processing capability, coupled with XGraph’s audience technology, create the largest multi-graph platform on the web — mapping 1.2 billion user’s connections by brand affiliation, intent and social behavior.

The investment in XGraph’s data science capabilities marks another step on Clearspring’s rapid growth trajectory. XGraph’s team has deep data science expertise with applied backgrounds in advertising, sociology, mathematics and computer science. Their unique technology dynamically organizes users by shared connections and interests. XGraph’s team and platform will drive Clearspring’s existing efforts with publishers, advertisers and agencies forward while also setting the stage for new innovation.

“Clearspring is at the epicenter of two major shifts online — the web becoming social and personal, and advertising becoming data-driven and accountable. The common thread in both changes is data. To compete in this new world, companies will not only need the ability to access and process big data, but also have the ability to activate that data to create value for consumers, publishers and advertisers,” said Ramsey McGrory, Clearspring’s new Chief Executive. “The combined company has the people, technology and data to enable our clients to stay at the forefront of these changes. 2012 will be a breakout year for Clearspring.”

For advertisers, agencies and trading desks, Clearspring will immediately be able to provide the largest multi-graph audience targeting capabilities available on the open web. By using this technology to identify a brand’s core audiences and finding millions of other connected and like-minded people online, the company can now drive more efficient spending and increased campaign performance. Clearspring also plans to leverage this new capability to deliver publishers unique audience insights, monetization capabilities and actionable data products in the coming year.

“Most companies only capture one dimension of how we’re all connected, whether it be our friends or people we share with — a single graph approach. XGraph not only models these social connections, but also multiple other types of connections such as brand affiliations, intent and more — a multi-graph approach,” said Key Compton, XGraph’s CEO. “We’re truly excited to leverage our technology to unlock the value of Clearspring’s massive data set and help publishers and advertisers truly harness the power of the web-wide interest graph.”

XGraph is headquartered in New York with an office in Silicon Valley. All XGraph employees based in New York will join Clearspring’s office there. Clearspring plans to keep the office in Silicon Valley. The combined company will have 85 employees nationwide.

Former Myspace Music Head Holt Lands as COO at Maker (Plus Cool Video!)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:10:33 +0000

Courtney Holt, who stepped down as president of Myspace Music early this year, is taking a new job as COO of Maker Studios.

Holt has been an adviser to the Venice, Calif., new-generation production company — which makes and distributes more professional original content to the Internet, mostly via Google-owned YouTube — since the summer.

“It’s a natural fit to work with a great team and a natural evolution for me,” said Holt, who has been monitoring the online video space, despite many years in the music sector. “Being able to create an ecosystem of talent, distribution and production is a perfect storm of opportunity.”

The focus of Maker is to make Internet-only videos using better shared production tools, distribute and cross-promote them via a myriad of channels on YouTube and make money using the Google unit’s advertising system. Videos are original, and Maker also distributes those of other Web stars.

So far, the start-up has garnered $4 million in total funding from Greycroft Partners and GRP Partners, grown to 140 employees and logged 500 million monthly page views from its 300 videos per month.

“We have done a great job getting Maker up and running, but we wanted to take it to the next level with someone who gets what we are doing,” said co-founder Dan Zappin. “[Holt] has spent some time here, totally got it and we thought it was time to formalize the relationship.”

Zappin said Holt’s role will be to help Maker grow the business, still mostly on YouTube, but also make it in new ways. “Obviously, mobile is a big opportunity,” he said, while also noting Maker’s social efforts on Facebook and Twitter.

Recently, Google announced that it was handing out more than $100 million to dozens of partners to create new channels.

Maker is producing three of these channel categories, but hopes to be more than just a content creator.

“There need to be networks to do distribution and marketing for Web content creators, to be able to do so at a cost per minute and drive audience,” said Holt. “It is unclear if all will get that right and we think Maker can help.”

To get an idea of what it does, here’s an ultra-hipster video Maker did, as well as one I did earlier this year at Maker (which also has a newly redone Web site here):

[ See post to watch video ]

Potential Yahoo CEO David Kenny Now Much More Available

Peter Kafka — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:34:21 +0000

Akamai president David Kenny has stepped down after a year on the job — and in the midst of Yahoo’s CEO search, where his name has come up as a possible replacement for fired CEO Carol Bartz.

Kenny is also a Yahoo board member — joining early last year — and had quickly become one of the major forces in pushing for change at the company in the wake of the troubled Bartz regime.

In a statement distributed along with Akamai’s Q3 earnings, Kenny said he wants to “to return to my first passion of pursuing emerging opportunities on the consumer Internet.”

You can decide for yourself whether Yahoo represents an “emerging” opportunity or something else.

Sources said the departure from the networking company was mutual, although there has been an increasing amount of tension over Kenny’s involvement on the Yahoo board, which has been working on a massive strategic review.

Kenny, who was the initial leader of the effort, stepped down from that board task and also recused himself from any involvement in the simultaneous search for a new CEO.

Whether he will get the job is not a done deal by any means. He is among several candidates Yahoo has been contemplating pursuing, after only recently hiring Heidrick & Struggles for its executive search.

In fact, it’s not entirely clear Kenny wants to be CEO of Yahoo or if he would want to return to his roots at a consumer advertising agency. Another issue: He currently lives in Boston.

Before coming to Akamai, he was managing partner of VivaKi, the media and digital arm of marketing giant, Publicis Groupe. He came to the French concern after it bought relationship marketing services firm Digitas, which Kenny ran.

All that advertising experience is one of the reasons he is being looked at by Yahoo, which is contemplating doubling down in online advertising platforms and products if it does not sell.

Many assumed that Kenny’s move to the Web platform company meant that it would become more actively involved in Web media itself. But Akamai didn’t make any major moves or acquisitions during his tenure.

Meanwhile, back at Akamai, Kenny’s title will be assumed by CEO Paul Sagan, who had previously served as president as well.

Exclusive: Yahoo Overhauls Marketing Unit -- The Internal Memo

Kara Swisher — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:48:58 +0000

Yahoo is drastically rejiggering its marketing division, according to an internal memo sent today to employees from its Chief Marketing Officer Elisa Steele, in a move that seems to leave her future role unclear.

Steele was brought to Yahoo over two years ago by now-fired CEO Carol Bartz — whom she had been very close to — and charged with turbocharging and reorganizing the unit, which has never been strong.

While Steele certainly did overhaul the marketing department, some of her efforts, such as Yahoo’s pricey “It’s You” advertising campaign, have not worked out. And, largely due to the ongoing turmoil at the company, its brand has suffered under her watch.

The changes, which appear to be at the behest of Steele (though you never know at Yahoo!), will shift the major marketing functions back to the regions of the Silicon Valley Internet company from its current global centralized one.

“I believe we now need to bring marketing decisions, marketing talent and marketing budgets closer to the customer — and into the regions that depend on these critical plans,” she wrote. “We need to further link our marketing strategies to revenue growth, sales objectives and overall accountability.”

Since Steele took over the marketing department at Yahoo several years ago, she has been moving those powers to a more centralized system.

No longer.

In the internal memo, which I obtained and is embedded below, Steele outlines the shift, which will remove a lot of that control of marketing from the HQ and out to its business units.

Steele said in the email to the marketing team that she will remain at the company as CMO for now, although seems to indicate that she is also evaluating her future role.

“My current role as CMO on CEO staff is unchanged,” she wrote. “However, whatever I decide to do next for my career is my choice — and I’ll think about that on my own timeline.”

Sounds like an eventual departure to me, with Steele trying hard to stress she was going out on her own motor, even though giving up contro of big parts of your unit is unusual.

In any case, Steele obviously is betting now that on-the-ground control of marketing will help improve things for the beleaguered company. Here’s the memo:

Team,

It is critical for Yahoo! to grow faster and become more agile. We need to make decisions to accelerate the Regions’ growth plans around the world, and Marketing plays a crucial role in helping develop, support and execute these plans. We’ve built an integrated marketing machine that is an asset to help the company grow now and into the future. When we assembled a global and centralized organization in 2009, we took the opportunity to create best practices, establish consistency, deepen domain expertise, enhance functional capabilities and innovate for one of the biggest brands in the world. And, in the past 12 months, Global Marketing took home dozens of industry awards for marketing leadership in integrated consumer marketing, digital marketing and event marketing – including the acclaimed Cannes Lions, a Clio, a Webby and IAB Awards. Our Marketing achievements have been broad, deep and well recognized.

Now that we have this strong capability, it is time to leverage it even further. I believe we now need to bring marketing decisions, marketing talent and marketing budgets closer to the customer — and into the regions that depend on these critical plans. We need to further link our marketing strategies to revenue growth, sales objectives and overall accountability. Therefore, I want to put the marketing programs and tools we’ve developed right with the Sales and Audience teams responsible for the business outcomes.

It is with this in mind that I recommended a marketing reorganization plan to align to these objectives, accelerate decision-making and simplify roles. The plan centers on decentralizing the current global team into 2 types of specific teams:

1. Regional Marketing: Our regional marketing teams will move to report directly to the Regional leaders in Americas, EMEA and APAC.

2. Corporate Marketing: Our strategic brand, communications and marketing services teams will remain centralized and report into HQ.

This was my proposal to Tim for the best interests of Yahoo! today, and I am glad he agreed with my thinking. I really hope you will endorse and support these changes, too. Yahoo! needs your help and expertise to insure this important next phase is successful.

I want you to know how proud I am of your achievements and contributions. I also want to thank you for the incredible support you have shown me over the past 2.5 years in the current organization. It’s been an amazing brand adventure and working with each of you has been a great source of satisfaction.

My current role as CMO on CEO staff is unchanged. However, whatever I decide to do next for my career is my choice — and I’ll think about that on my own timeline. First, I will work with Tim, my peers and all of you to ensure a smooth transition — and that is my focus for now.

We have a meeting scheduled with the marketing leadership team on Monday and I can address any questions you may have about this transition.

Thanks,

Elisa

Exclusive: Groupon's IPO Road Show Set for Next Week

Kara Swisher — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 21:37:43 +0000

According to multiple sources close to the situation, Groupon plans to conduct its road show for investors next week, starting either on Monday or Tuesday.

While the decision to move forward could still change, it comes amid continued criticism of the Chicago-based daily deals company, which has had one of the rougher IPO processes for an Internet company in recent memory.

Just yesterday, the New York Times took aim at Groupon and its Wall Street bankers, retreading over the same list of issues, including controversial accounting, a too-large payout to its founders and issues around its marketing costs.

In addition, the social buying service has had some management turnover, with two COOs departing.

Lastly, it has amended its S-1 filing several times, for a variety of reasons, including an email to employees by its CEO Andrew Mason that struck regulatory agencies as a bit blabby.

That said, the initiation of the road show — where company execs will pitch its business to possible shareholders — might be an indication that Groupon’s results have improved in its recent quarter.

In the last quarter, the company lost $102.7 million on revenue of $878 million.

Also of concern is the stock market itself. Groupon, like several Web IPO candidates, had delayed its offering due to turbulent conditions.

Now, sources said, the company will go public on the Nasdaq exchange soon after the road show is complete and after pricing by its bankers.

That valuation will also be under scrutiny. Some had previously estimated that Groupon would have an IPO of up to $25 billion. Now it could be half that, sources said.

Well, we will presumably soon see, as Groupon plans to proceed.

What Will You Get for Christmas? A Stocking Full of Email.

Tricia Duryee — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:22:23 +0000

Email marketing is expected to rise 15 to 20 percent this holiday season, and so far, it’s already increased 17.5 percent over last year, according to a recent study.

Experian CheetahMail client data indicates that as part of the retail push, marketers will be sending coupons and offering deep discounts, such as 10 percent off or free shipping, as the shopping frenzy ramps up.

Email has proven to be a very effective channel, especially for new local commerce providers, such as Groupon and LivingSocial, and flash sales sites, such as Gilt Groupe, Rue La La or ideeli. But already some critics are using the words “deal fatigue” to signal that consumers are growing tired of seeing offers in their inbox.

While the study didn’t mention those sectors specifically, it found that one of the big contributors that has ramped up e-marketing since last year was the travel sector, growing by 126 percent, followed by media and entertainment at 77 percent.

In addition to pushing offers, Experian said, it was also trendy for the emails to link to social media, including Twitter and Facebook, and carry mobile-specific features, such as QR codes.

[Image via eyeidea/Shutterstock]