Topics for 3/7/2010 Show

Here are the proposed topics for this week's episode of The BeanCast, and as usual we'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.

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Please keep your comments succinct. Wordy comments need to be interpreted and I may not capture the essence of what you are asking. That's why I encourage the Tweet option to help keep the question or thought targeted.

This week's panel will be Scott Henderson (CauseShift), Joseph Jaffe (Powered), Jim Louderback (Revision 3) and Peter Shankman (Help a Reporter Out).

TOPICS

What the Viacom/Hulu Deal Reveals: This past week Viacom announced it was pulling out of Hulu. Which is a big deal, considering the Daily Show is the 3rd most downloaded property from the site. Jim, why is Viacom bolting now? What does the move reveal? Does Hulu need to worry? Viacom is not the only partner rumbling, as we all know. Will we see Murdoch pull Fox as well? Is an ad model viable for online video or is a consumer pay model the more viable option? Is the problem one of expectations — old media thinking, meeting new media reality? Can expensive, high-production values content survive online? Will we see them work out these problems or will we see more and more produced-for-web content start to thrive? Could the problem be solved by the long-promised addressable ad systems -- meant for cable, but could targeting also help ad models survive online? Is part of the problem silo'd thinking — do media producers need to be thinking about MORE channels when assessing ad models, rather than the performance of a single channel? (Things like mobile, Chrysler's new in-vehicle TV, etc.) Was the BBC on the right track with their expansion into all kind of web and mobile channels? Does the government moves to limit BBC online content make sense? Any predictions for the next few years?

Are Metrics Killing Creativity?: Quite a heated debate brewed over on Ad Age this week. Patrick Sarkissian, CEO of Sarkissian Mason, posed the thought that our reliance on metrics is killing creativity in advertising. Joe, are metrics and creative really that diametrically opposed to each other? Obviously people can get too caught up in metrics, but can't the same be said of creativity? What is this argument really about? How can a reliance on metrics be a bad thing? How can reliance on creativity without metrics be a bad thing as well?Google Patents

Location-Based Advertising: The patent application was filed six years ago, but Google was just awarded a rather vague patent that gives them ownership of advertising addressed to a users specific location. In other words, Google now owns location-based advertising, which is the model that 4square, Gowalla and dozens of other ad start-ups are based on. Peter, what does this patent really mean? Will we see Google start throwing it's weight around or is this really about protecting their own aspirations in the space? Why is a patent like this dangerous to mobile advertising?

Web-Ads Innovate Around Oscars: The Oscars are happening as we record this show, and E! Online is seeking to leverage their unofficial status as an online destination for the event by using their ad networks as an SEO tool. Instead of just seeking value for advertisers, they are looking at dynamically changing ads on the site to correspond to actual events during the show. So theoretically, an actor shows up in Armani and ads will show up on the site for someone selling Armani, which in turn will raise the site's Google rankings. Scott, what's your impression — is this innovation or just more gaming? Is a move like this really good for advertisers or is this purely going to benefit the site? Will we see more sites attempt this tactic in the future?

The Underwear Make-Good: I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it odd that running two different ads featuring people in their underwear was a bad idea during the Super Bowl. Apparently Dockers was none too pleased to follow CareerBuilder, because it made the Dockers spot look like a continuation of the previous commercial. Net result, CBS is offering the clothier 3 spots during the NCAA tourney. Is the CBS move opening up a can of words? Isn't part of the problem that the Dockers work was just not that impressive?