We’ve been waiting for the right person to come along with that special combination of industry experience and a passion and committment for internet marketing that is infectious.  Well, we are proud to announce that we’ve added Shawn Fassett to the Pepperjam Team.  I’ll include a quick bio so that you can see that Shawn’s skill set and experience level are simply awesome.

Shawn Fassett is a veteran internet marketer and industry insider with over 6-years of experience leading numerous multi-million dollar online marketing budgets.  Shawn has developed a special expertise across all areas of internet marketing; However, in 2001, while working at Thomson Education Direct Shawn began a “challenging” yet “exciting” journey into search-engine marketing.  With years of experience behind him Shawn has developed an impressive and comprehensive skill set in both paid search-engine marketing (PPC), as well as search-engine optimization (SEO).  Shawn has developed a love and passion for search-engine marketing that is defined by hard work and relentless dedication to each client he serves.

Shawn has won numerous awards over his 10-year career in advertising and sales, including the prestigious New York Times Leadership Council Award (1998 & 1999) for superior sales and account management performance.

When not working Shawn very much enjoys raising his two beautiful young daughters, as well as working out and running.  Shawn is a marathon runner and suggests that he is determined to run-in and complete the Boston Marathon.  

Hello to all,

We at Pepperjam are so excited to be working exclusively with eFashion Solutions that we figured it was about time to blog about the relationship and where we are headed.  Let me start off by telling you about the fashion & entertainment affiliate programs Pepperjam recently launched on Commission Junction.  So far, we have launched Rocawear.com by Jigga Man (Jay-Z), BabyPhat.com by Kimora Lee Simmons, HouseOfDereon.com by Beyonce, AppleBottoms.com by Nelly, ShopJLO by Jennifer Lopez, and PhatFarm by Russell Simmons.  After their unbelievable success, we were given the second batch which included OrangeCountyChoppers.com (which we refer to as OCC), ShopElvis.com, and PhunkFashion.com.  When I tell you that it was an affiliate fight at Pepperjam as to who was going to manage the above programs, I am not lying.  Every senior manager wanted a little piece of the action, however the ones who prevailed are Megan Rogan, Kim Noler, and yours truly!  The accounts are hard work, but are very worth it.  We are excited, affiliates are excited, and eFashion Solutions is excited.

Ok, so now, I would like to introduce you to the programs that are in the works.  The next two that we are about to launch are DKNY.com and DogTheBountyHunter.com.  We were also just given the go ahead for OscardelaRenta.com, Rafe.com, and JudithLeiber.com. We have so many good ideas and we cannot wait to get this batch launched.  DKNY and Dog should be ready to go live on Friday!

I cannot end this post without giving props to Mike Ebert.  Mike is our direct contact for any and all affiliate needs, and he is awesome!  He is not only professional, but puts up with my constant harassment on a daily basis.  Thanks Mike!

I look forward to being a “blogger” and if there are any Super Affiliate’s out there that would like to join the fastest growing and most profitable affiliate programs on CJ, please contact me using robyn@pepperjammanagement.com.  I am willing to work to make your partnership with us very profitable and long lasting!

What do you know about space advertising and orbiting billboards? If you are like me you probably didn’t even know people were considering it. Well, good news friends I have all the information that you could ever want and in fact the story of space advertising is pretty interesting and if you think about it a very cool idea.

It Begins…

Space advertising is something that really came into its own as an idea in 1993 when a company named Space Marketing based out of Roswell, (go figure) Georgia wanted to launch a billboard into space in preparation for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. The catch was that consumers would need special glasses in order to see the rings (the billboard was to have the Olympic Rings on them) and these glasses would come with purchase of certain products.

Let’s get a peek at just how big a “space billboard” might be. “Space billboards would range from about half the size of the moon to the full size of the moon,” reports the Federal Communications Law Journal. “[They] would be visible all the time or only during daylight hours (mainly adjacent to sunrise and sunset); could last from two weeks to one year to forever … [and] would operate in a low-Earth and sun-synchronous orbit with corporate sponsors having the final say as to their ‘exact’ locations.”

Space Marketing CEO Michael Lawson was quoted in a company news release as saying, “A tremendous opportunity [exists] for a global-oriented company to have [its] logo and message seen by billions of people on a history making, high profile vehicle.”

Obviously everyone was up in arms and space billboards are actually prohibited by law in an act passed by congress in 2000. What brought me to this story in the first place is that later this week an Ohio attorney will present a paper, “In Defense of Advertising in Space,” at the International Astronautical Conference. In his paper he is arguing that banning space advertising is completely unjustified and inhibits us from exercising our rights as free citizens to freedom of speech and print.

Here are my initial thoughts: IT’S BANNED!!!! In theory I would love to see billboards floating through space, it would bring us closer to the romanticized age of The Jetsons and certainly, like the CEO of Space Marketing says, would make history. But think of the billions of people that would see your advertisement floating around the earth. Imagine if it could change languages so that the country it is over at the time can get your message. Not only that, it would be a completely interactive ad. Imagine going to your telescope to find the newest ad in space, and the ad says something like “Find this first and win a million dollars, sponsored by Pepperjam” Very, Very interesting and I hope it is something that the ad industry is able to revisit and repeal the ban.

The negative side to all of this includes people whining about pollution of our natural resources and blah, blah, blah etc… (Just Kidding Folks!) Of course it is very important that we regulate it somehow, if it is ever to happen. Essentially what would happen is that everyone would try to outdo one another, as is human nature, to have the biggest and best attention grabbing billboard blocking out a lot of the sky and that, I will agree, is definitely a downside.

So if this idea of space advertising is ever to come to fruition it must be very exclusive, very expensive and have a time frame on how long the billboards can stay in space, a CPO (Cost Per Orbit) if you will. Regardless, it needs to be thought out and regulated in order for it to appeal and appease a great majority of the people if we are ever going to actually see it.

Here are some famous space advertising endeavors: (taken from AdAge.com)

1993: Arnold Schwarzenegger buys an ad on the side of a rocket to promote “Last Action Hero.”

1996: Pepsi pays Russia to float a can outside the Mir space station.

2000: Pizza Hut puts its logo on side of Proton rocket in Kazakhstan and delivers the first pizza to space.

2001: Lego promotes its “Life on Mars” set by sending it into space-along with 300 Lego aliens-on a Russian expedition.

2002: Pepsi considers giving away a ride on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and ‘N Sync’s Lance Bass looks for sponsors to pay his way. Both plans fizzle.

2006: A Russian astronaut is expected to whack a golf ball into orbit off the International Space Station as part of a promotion for Element 21, a golf-equipment manufacturer.

Google made it official about 10-minutes ago that they will buy YouTube for $1.65 Billion (notice the capital B) in stock.  Does this make YouTube’s founders the largest shareholders of Google Stock next to Sergey, Larry and Eric Schmidt?  Anyway - kudo’s to Google for having some pretty serious kahunas.

I’ve already blogged about my feelings regarding the Google - YouTube acquisition, ala GooTube HERE.  Anyway, my final reflection on this is that MySpace was purchased by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. for about $565 million about a year or so ago.  At that time many experts concluded that Murdock was knutz for acquiring MySpace for so much money.  However, they were wrong.  In fact, MySpace’s three-year revenue projections topple $3 Billion (note the capital B.)  Will YouTube generate this kind of cash for Google? I think yes if MySpace is some kind of projection for what YouTube can generate considering over 100 million videos are downloaded on YouTube every 24-hours.  Am I concerned for Google having to purchase eyeballs for a ridiculous amount of money - YES.  However, in this day and age of Web 2.0, fast growth, and viral marketing, Google may have had no choice but to purchase YouTube - Heck - Google is a marketing machine.  I’m excited about purchasing GooTube ads within my centralized Google account within the very near future.  Until then, my fingers are crossed that the YouTube phenomenon continues under it’s new owner.

Most of you have already read that Google is in talks to acquire YouTube for a reported $1.5+ billion.  In fact, TechCrunch and ShoeMoney.com broke the news in the online world after the WSJ reported that the talks began to heat up.

THE PRICE TAG IS SIMPLY RIDICULOUS 

What if Google buys YouTube?  Well, first, I think the price tag is absolutely, unconditionally, undeniably, ridiculous.  In fact, at a $1.6 billion buyout, YouTube would be priced at the same price Google was worth on the day it IPO’ed.  YouTube is no Google, even then.  YouTube was created less than two years ago and since has shared a leadership position in the video sharing space with MySpace, while Google flounders in the top 10 websites for sharing videos.  While I’m loving what I’m seeing in terms of the online space heating-up with more and more M & A’s (think Linkshare at $425 million, PriceGrabber at $485 million, Shopzilla at $525, million, MySpace at $580 million, etc…) in the last year than we’ve seen since the dot-com celebration (which I personally enjoyed!) in the late 1990’s, the valuations I’m starting to see seem a little bit over-the-top.

WEB 2.0 / TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION RULE

I’d like to sum up my feelings about where the internet is going and why “new” start-ups like YouTube are gaining so much traction, so quickly, with one word - NIMBLE.  A few months ago I was talking with an unnamed friend who happens to be an executive at a publically traded company.  She said to me that while her company is growing at an unbelievable clip, her concern and that of other execs at her company, is that the company has gotten so big that they no longer innovate at the same speed they did when they were smaller and more nimble.  See, the problem for larger companies is that there is so much red tape that is typically associated with everything that it becomes almost impossible to compete with smaller, nimbler, companies like YouTube.

The future of the internet today, tomorrow and within the next 12-months is Web 2.0 and technology innovation - the newest and hottest technologies of 2005 have been replaced by the newest and hottest technologies of 2006, which will be replaced by the newest and hottest technologies of 2007.  Who is going to invent these technologies?  Google - possibily, but I would argue what my friend was arguing - it’s unlikely as Google continues to get bigger and bigger bec/ they will increasingly move slower and lack nimbleness.  In fact, when you are as big as a Google or a Microsoft you are in many ways at a considerable disadvantage to release new products at a fast pace - look at Google, for instance, who is being criticized for releasing too many products too quickly (by the way, this is a problem unique to Google and the “Google Way” since Google allows their employees to spend up to 20% of their time inventing new products - I’m totally for this way of thinking, in fact - I think it’s awesome - this is how Gmail and Google Maps were created, but the problem for Google is that they are so big that they lack the nimbleness to incubate the products fully before attaching them to the Google name.)  Anyway, Google is a search-engine and people want to use the Google search-engine.  They want to see other companies like YouTube and MySpace and Linkshare incubate products that are equally innovative, but unique to the innovator.

Another reason why I think newer, innovative, nimble companies are at a considerable advantage to become the next YouTube is because I believe that many of the reasons they have been able to differentiate relate to the technologies they use to build their product.  For instance, Shopping.com is a comparison engine that was built using “point and click” technology…no ajax, no dynamic HTML.  Instead, for years Shopping.com has taken visitors on a wild goose chase throughout the shopping.com website to find products, read reviews, and write reviews.  Even today, if you find a product on Shopping.com and want to read a review of that product you are required to click a link, which takes you to a separate page (I would argue this disrupts the shopping experience) where you can read reviews.  Interestingly, the reviews are provided by epinions.com, a company that is / was more nimble and Shopping.com purchased bec/ they figured out a way to get a ton of people to write reviews, while shopping.com was failing in that area.  Anyway, so get this, if you decide you want to write a review on shopping.com you can’t….well, at least not on their wesbite.  Instead, you click yet another link from the shopping.com website and they transfer you over to the epinions.com website where you can open up an account if you don’t have one and start writing that review.  What happened to your shopping experience at this point?  Well, if you don’t find yourself frustrated by the shopping.com experience you must have much more patience than most people.  Why do I mention this “point and click” example?  Because the shopping.com system is outdated and people no longer want to point and click around a website if that same experience could be integrated…Using AJAX iWeb 2.0 companies like pepperjam.com have used ajax to fully integrate the comparison shopping experience by allowing consumers the ability to read and write reviews, check out special offers and deals, and compare prices all without leaving the unique user experience - while the product is still in BETA,  this is a good example of using Web 2.0 technology to attract visitors, while watching the bigger, slower moving companies stick to the same old technology that had become outdated and boring.

So what does being nimble mean?  What are the benefits of being nimble? 

To move quick, to take chances, to welcome risk, to innovate on the fly, this is what it means to be nimble….When you have to go through a series of hoops to gain approval or are forced to BETA-Test everything to death, you lack the nimbleness found in smaller start-up companies. 

Clearly, YouTube is a perfect example, because the company started small they were able to be a sort of renegade in that they didn’t really differentiate between copyrighted and non-copyrighted videos.  While this is likely to come back to be a serious legal issue for YouTube (or Google, it allowed YouTube to capture infinite market share and dominate the video sharing space.  Think about it, YouTube didn’t really have anything to lose as a small, fast-growing company.  In fact, they were able to stick their necks out and take chances that resulted in a massive, loyal, almost cult-like usership.  One of the reasons that Google and others have had difficulty gaining traction in the video space is bec/ they are so big (and public) that they have to play by all the rules. 

The benefits of being nimble are quite clear.  First, you place your company in a position to quickly gain a loyal following - when you can offer something better, more innovative and quicker, users will love you.  Also, once you are able to establish that loyal following you inevitably catch the attention of the larger, less-nimble, deep-pocketed companies.  In order to remain competitive and grow, these larger companies are forced to acquire you or wait too long and you may acquire them!

I’m a pretty large Google shareholder so I want to see them continue to grow.  However, I think that the pricetag of $1.6 billion is too large for a company in YouTube that is likely to be replaced by someone who innovates a newer way of sharing videos within the next 12-months or less.  I like the idea of the acquisition, but it should be for less than $1 Bill, with a capital B.

OK, Not really, but there is a little standing contest here at Pepperjam today and it goes a little something like this. Drink 3 Redbulls and chase it with a Mountain Dew within 15 minutes all while avoiding puking or having a heart attack and you can win $100 Dollars. (I think 15 minutes is a little long, I’ll do it in 5) Anyway here is out first contestant,

IN GAME ADVERTISING!!! Ok, I am sure that for most people this means nothing. But for the gaming world it has recently been a hot topic of debate. On one side you have the advertisers, who recently have become much more aggressive with their campaigns and in-game ad placement. On the other hand you have two groups of gamers; the first vehemently opposes in-game advertising, while the other thinks along the lines of “if it adds to the realism of the game, what’s the difference?”

Let’s look at each one respectively. The advertisers themselves are taking a big risk with this type of advertising. It is very, very new ground that goes beyond simple product placement. The best example of this right now is Second Life. For those of you that don’t know what Second Life is, it is just that, a second life, but online. It has recently attracted A LOT of attention from the advertising world. The big draw is that there are no rules here. The whole land is user created from the buildings, to the billboards to the economic system and companies are starting to pick up on this, recently there have been many companies opening “brick and mortar” stores in second life that reflect their real life stores and in some cases this has helped drive sales in the real world as well as help some of the players of Second Life make some real money. The beauty of this system is that like in the real world if you are skilled at something in-game you stand a good chance of making some real money (i.e. someone can hire you to build houses etc…) The real tell of all of this is that some websites track the conversion rate of Second Life money to U.S. Dollars. If you want to learn more check out secondlife.com and this wiki. Anyway, back to the point. Advertisers are doing a lot of interesting things within this game. They are helping to build the in-game economy, they are building stores and creating brands and branding. Eventually there will be designer clothing that you could buy in game to put on your character. It is very interesting and should be watched closely because essentially they are selling things that don’t exist except in digital form. (Weird.)

Next let’s look at the gamers. In the first instance in-game advertising in Second Life is actually a great experiment and stands almost as an exception to this whole argument. If we look at gamers and console gaming (ps2, gamecube, xbox) we see a completely different story. Console gamers are very loyal to the purity of video games and when they see advertisement popping up in there favorite lands they (me included) start to get a little angry. The point being, that we play video games to escape reality and to get a little rest from the real world, when we see familiar real life things start to pop-up it kind of ruins the experience. Advertisers need to respect the culture of gaming or risk having their games boycotted or rated poorly, which could also affect the publisher of the game. On the other hand, in game advertising will bring the price of video games down especially with the current console cycle coming up (wii, xbox 360, ps3). It is a double edged sword that will be debated for a long time coming.

I think that in-game advertising has the potential to be a very good thing, not only for advertisers but for gamers as well and as long as advertising never interrupts the gameplay, a la in-game commercial, gamers and advertisers should fall on neutral ground and be able to get along.

P.S. Check out this wired article http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70153-0.html. It is just one example of how people are making a substantial about of money online through Second Life.

I thought this story was worth mentioning - The AP put out a story earlier today about Google buying the “garage” that Larry Page and Sergey Brin rented eight years ago in Menlo Park, CA.  In actuality - Google bought the entire house that is 1,900 square feet and includes a hot tub in the back yard that Larry and Sergey used to relax in between writing a search algorithm that led to a search-engine that has revolutionized the world.

Anyway - a link to the article on CNN is located HERE.  For those of us that are business owners it’s quite funny to think about the early days and what impact those stories have on telling the story of our success or failure.  For instance, I can still remember sitting in a Bertucci’s Restaurant outside of Philly in the summer of 1999 and jotting down a few ideas on a napkin that eventually became the original Grandma Jones’ Pepper Jam (GJPJ) label - GJPJ is an actual gourmet food product that my brother Rick and I began selling in 1999 - the product is sold all over the country and online at stores like Target.com, Overstock.com, Amazon.com, Epicurious.com, igourmet.com and many others - the product has also been featured on QVC.

That’s a story for another time - but the napkin story (I think I still have that damn napkin somewhere) is symbolic of the nostalgia I experience when I think about the early days of Pepperjam.  About 6-months after founding the gourmet food company I went off and founded the internet marketing company known in the industry as Pepperjam - those early days were hilarious - from working remotely during my grad school and law school days to making business presentations over the phone while I was at the beach (one of largest accounts I’ve ever managed came during one of those calls [client unnamed].)  I vividly remember my my grad school apartment (Radnor House Condos in Rosemont, PA).  I was at Villanova studying clinical psych when I first started Pepperjam.  I was absolutely amazed by the potential of the internet and I remember my roommate wondering if I was anti-social since I was locked in my room most of the time managing accounts and generating PPC ads for some affiliate stuff I was doing.  Writing this right now I can actually picture my roommate in the kitchen of our diggs cooking food, while I was in my room setting the stage to become one of the premier internet marketing agencies in the United States - I can actually smell the aroma of the food he’s cooking.  Yeah - it sounds crazy, but if Google can go ahead and reminisce by purchasing the “garage” that played a role in the creation of Google I guess I can reflect on that napkin and think about how crazy I must have seemed to others by being so darn driven to learn everything I could about the internet - hey, I guess things have actually worked out in my favor.

Do you have a story of how you got started in online marketing?  I’d love to hear your thoughts?

So, I use the Google News alerts tool to keep myself up-to-date on what’s going on in the affiliate marketing, search and online media space.  You know how it works - you give Google a list of keywords associated with news that you would be interested in (i.e., affiliate marketing, search, PPC management, etc.) and everytime that word is mentioned in a news article Google e-mail’s you notification with a link to the news story.  The Google news alert feature is pretty awesome - in talking with other industry insiders we find they all use Google news alert or some variation of it.  If you don’t use it sign-up HERE.

Anyway - I got a Google News alert today that I want to share - by the way - you do get quite a bit of junk news that you’ll need to sort through.  I was somewhat taken back by the title of the news release - “The Internet’s #1 Super Affiliate Reveals His Secrets of Success.”  Here’s a link to the release.  The person who put out the release, Ewen Chia (whoever the heck that is), self-proclaims himself as the World’s #1 Super Affiliate.

Well, I guess I’ll get to the point.  I’ve been pretty active in the affiliate space since the late 90’s and never heard of Ewen Chia.  In addition, pepperjamMANAGEMENT, the affiliate program management division of Pepperjam, has actively managed thousands of affiliates, hundreds of top-performing affiliates, and a couple Super Affiliates (you can count them on five hands since they are so rare) since we began managing programs in early 2000.  Who is this self-proclaimed Super Affiliate Ewen Chia?  Quite honestly - I don’t know - I’ve never heard of him and neither has anyone I know.  If you’ve heard of Ewen Chia please post your comments to this blog.

My guess is this guy is just trying to sell his e-book “Secret Affiliate Weapon.”  I would never want to discourage someone from purchasing an e-book, especially if you’re new to affiliate marketing.  However, Buyer should Beware when it comes to the author making self-proclaimations about being something they are not.  If a 600-pound individual was trying to sell you his secret sauce weight loss formula would you buy it?