Almost 50 million views – - for an ad!  Beyonce’s Pepsi ad has 10 million views (May 21, 2013)

You know it’s an ad when you watch it.  But it’s so worth watching.

You wouldn’t skip that on a preroll!

Ended David Karp (founder of Tumblr) his announcement about upcoming Yahoo-acquisition. He is not the only one amped up about the deal. Internet has been buzzing about the Yahoo´s recent acquisition of Tumblr. On theory marriage of Tumblr & Yahoo looks rational. Will it be that on practice?

What will Yahoo get from Tumblr?

1. Reach (especially to the young target audience)
Currently Yahoo has over 700 million unique visitors/month and Tumblr with its 300 million unique visitors and over 100 million blogs might help it bypass the 1 billion-visitor threshold. Yahoo is buying growth.
Tumblr user base is also the youngest among the different social media channels. It is stronger than any other social network within 13-18 and 19-25 demographic. As the buying power of teens and tweens increases even more, this target audience becomes more and more lucrative for marketers. It is therefore important to reach them young and maintain that relationship.
2. Gateway to Social Media & Mobile
Like many of its peers, Yahoo has been struggling with social media & mobile. It actually has a more impressive track record with screwing up potential social media opportunities (Flickr-which has been rewamped today as well, Geocities, Del.icio.us) than utilizing them. By buying Tumblr, Yahoo will get healthy social media which has been designed to be mobile-first from the beginning.
3. Street Credibility
Yahoo has not been a flavor of the month in recent years. Tumblr acquisition is exactly the kind of bold move that shareholders love. It is also the most prolific action Marissa Mayer has yet announced after taking the helm of the struggling company last year. Will it be the right move? That remains to be seen.

What will Tumblr get out of the deal?

Coherence & Monetization
Being the most user-friendly blog platform has its benefits, but also certain challenges. Tumblr is also the world´s most NSFW blog platform filled with porn, politically incorrect gifs and one-off-jokes (not even saving the founder David Karp). How Tumblr will maintain its characteristic quirkiness, but become “brand safe”? Currently adult sites are the leading category of referrals for Tumblr. Yahoo, as a household name, will give more legitimacy for Tumblr and probably help to clean up its act.
Tumblr has also been struggling with monetization and its business model throughout its whole existence. Whatever you say about Yahoo, you cannot dispute their skills and strengths on traditional ad sales. With Yahoo sales teams with interactive advertising (Tumblr) on their toolkit, it will be quite interesting selling point. The challenge is to find ad solutions which are seamless and enhance user experience.

What next?

Based on the statement from Marissa Mayer, it is quite improbable to see radical changes with Tumblr in the immediate future. The model for the Yahoo/Tumblr-coexistence will probably follow Instagram/Facebook –route where Instagram has remained relatively independent from Facebook. Many are likely to draw parallels between this acquisition and the quite ill-fated Geocities-acquisition from 14 years ago, but I am not that pessimistic. Tumblr definitely fills certain problematic gaps within Yahoo´s current strategy.

The crucial questions are whether the synergies that look obvious on paper come to fruition in action and was the price right?

Tumblr tends to be more visual, more instant; less of the analysis, more of the bite-sized. Of course all these rules are there to be broken but those truths about the platform most likely explain why lots of people (and by people I mean newspapers, magazines, broadcasters etc) are struggling to work out how to use it.

As a counterpoint, here are four traditional media outlets that are using it well:

1. Financial Times
2. The Economist
3. The Times
4. New Statesman

In my Press Gazette column this week I explain why they have mastered Tumblr.

This service is only available to a few brands that have partnered with Pinterest so far, including eBay, Target, ModCloth, Sony and Netflix. The idea behind this new enhancement is to get more information in front of users, without them having to click through links to the original poster. Traditionally, if a user came across a particularly delicious looking picture, they would have to dig their way through the post to try and find the link to the recipe. Now the brand posting this picture can simply post the recipe along with the picture itself, like below:

This is a win-win for both the brands associated, and Pinterest itself. With more comprehensive pins, brands will be able to gain an edge over traditional pins, gaining more followers. On the Pinterest side, having all this information available directly on the news feed, users will be less likely to navigate away from the feed to try and find the information they want. We think this new option creates a huge opportunity for brands who are willing to take advantage of it. It will be interesting to see what brands decide to partner with Pinterest and jump on this new way to reach their fans.

-Mike

Javelin Throw: Traditional Marketing

Seppo Räty, the epitome of no-frills javelin thrower

- Fixed amount of trials: In javelin you get six trials to prove that you are worthy. In traditional marketing you do couple of campaigns a year.
- Individual: You only worry about your own performance.
- No room for improvisation: You do what you have practiced and try to duplicate your practice performance. If things start to go sidetrack, it is hard to make changes in competitive situation. Same with big marketing campaigns, when they veer off-the-track you cannot really save them. When javelin is released, you can only hope for it to be a good throw.
- Make it or break it –situation: You either make the throw or not. Your bi-annual campaign is either hit or not. Success of the whole year is judged based on that single try.

Basketball: Modern marketing

This dunk is one of the many baskets done on the single game.

- No limit on trials, but limited amount of time: Trials depend on your opportunities you get during the game. The best players seize the good opportunities, but occasionally take bad opportunities as well.
- Collaborative: The success is not only based on the individual, but on how well your team is playing and also the level of your opponent.
- Room for improvisation: Practice is important and creates the core of what you do well. Your core skills also contribute to the average probability of succeeding (among other things). That is why it is important to invent as you go along. Success is about talent, hard work & many trials. More you try, the luckier you get.
- End-result matters: Individual throw can go in or not. Only thing that matters by the end of the day is the total amount of shots you got in and have they contributed to your team win. Some shots are more important than others though. One of the most important skills nowadays is the skill to recognize those important shot opportunities and seize them.

If we want to succeed in this changing world, it is not sufficient to improve our technique in the existing game. We have to totally change the sports we are in.