Pandemic Labs Co-Founder Quoted in Industrial Fabric Trade Magazine.
Pandemic Labs co-founder, Matthew Peters, was quoted extensively in an article in the January Issue of the Industrial Fabrics Association Review magazine (page 42, titled “Catch the Fever”). The article, offering a high-level view of Viral Marketing, is filled with helpful quotes from social media thought leader Beth Kanter and Blendtec Director of Marketing, George Wright. The piece provides a brief history of viral marketing along with some valuable commentary and is a great read for anyone looking to catch up with the past few years of viral marketing news.
It’s interesting to see how each industry individually takes to Viral Marketing. It’s particularly interesting that, if this article is anything to go by, the industrial fabric industry seems to be very open to this new form of advertising. In fact, this article makes obvious to me a ridiculous assumption I was secretly harboring about “older” industries. Having worked in tech companies throughout my career, I had unconsciously assumed that non-tech industries were colder to these new technologies. Specifically, I had assumed that the earlier adopters of these types of marketing would come from the tech sector. Clearly this is faulty logic once I actually spend two braincells on it, and this article serves me a slice of humble pie.
The article embraces not only the history of viral marketing success (all the way back to the original BMWFilms), it embraces that history without the usual push-back from more traditional marketing thinkers that demand traditional marketing ideas and metrics. This excites me personally as, something I view as, an “old industry” is embracing a new technology better than most tech companies I’m working with!
In a similar, ‘tech isn’t as forward thinking as you’d assume’, vein Matt and I attended a tech industry panel event the other night that had a relatively high-profile group of panelists. In the Q&A, someone from the crowd asked a question that caused, in my mind, a very telling and depressing series of events. The question was, “What is the future of pre-roll video advertising?”. The panel took turns attempting to answer this question and it was painful! The comments ranged from, how ‘a study’ showed that pre-roll ads longer than 15 seconds actually “did better” than shorter pre-roll ads, to, how companies are now able to target pre-roll ads “better”. The small knot of social media folks I was sitting with started muttering unhappily. Did NO one see that pre-roll ads are demanding something that can no longer be demanded online? Do any of the CEOs of these extremely successful 
tech companies see that consumers will NOT put up with pre-roll ads since the exact video they hoping to watch is probably available in 10 other places online with no ads at all? Finally, after much floundering from the rest of the panel, Mike from Polaris Venture Partners saved the day with his dead-on, one-sentence answer “Pre-roll is dead!”. To me, the success of online, interruption-based advertising isn’t even a question. Its days are already numbered.
To sit and watch powerful tech people, who theoretically have some power over the future of my technological experience, not grasp the engagement marketing/interruption marketing difference, is unsettling. Couple that experience with the full-on embracing of viral marketing by an industrial fabric industry trade publication and companies like ours suddenly feel like they might be barking up the wrong industry tree when offering our services heavily to the tech industry.
Whatever the implications to the industry as a whole, the Industrial Fabric Association’s viral marketing article is a great read for someone looking to catch up with some of high level points on viral marketing.
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- Randy Nichols.
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My son, 24, had sexual contact with three girls when in high school. He went on to college at St cloud state Mn for special ed teacher. He broke off the relationship with the girl friend when he was in college as the distance wouldn’t allow for a “real” relationship to survive. In his second yr. he was able to student teach and chose to live at home and teach at his old high school where his ex-girlfriend wasa senior. She talked how she had sex with that teacher and of course, social services got invovled. He was represented by John Shiro in Fond du Lac co. court and pled no contest or else guilty and was sentenced to 9 months jail and five years probation. Certainly a fair sentence in my opinion. He recognizes that he has no more career inteaching but has been put in a virtual hold on life by his probation officer. He has been unable to hold a job or accept jobs because there might be minors around, unable to attend church, unable to go to his grandmothers for a X-mas meal with family,and was not allowed to go to AA meetings in an attempt to stay sober. In his first year on probation he went to Mn. fora fishing trip and drank beer, a violation. He was offered an ATR for alchohol and it worked, but he feels he needs the support group of AA. This is being denied by his PO. He was ordered not to see his fiance in Dec, she is 21 or 22 , but he ignored that rule feeling that it was a violation of his civil rights. I don’t know the role or guidelines a PO can put on an individual, but we feel that he has been unfairly treated over the past two years by her. He wrote a greivance letter to her supervisor in Nov. and has not gotten a response. His Po has a nephew who at the age of 18 molested a 13 yr old girl, got probation, and reoffended a year later with a 14 yr old. He was convicted and sent to prison. We ( my family ) feel that this has affected her emotionally and sees that all deserve the same treatment. This is long, and I apologize, but the bottomline is that my son seems to have gien up all hope on a future of any sort, and is wondering if he should consider a motion hearing or sentence modification. He has faced no new charges but now faces six to ten parole violations. One is seeing his girlfriend, another is that he had a grocery receipt for a bottle of wine in his car. This was a last minuteX-mas gift from his girlfrind to us. We still have it in fact. I am sure he will face revocation with just one year left of his five yr probation term so my son feels like he needs to do something proactive. A friend of mine is Washington CO. DA, Todd Martens. He said in the beginning to contact you like five years ago but unfortunately you were out of town and I was too nervous or frantic and contacted Shiro. Don’t know what to do to help out my son but don’t see that the punishment fits the crime and not real sure of what a PO’s job really is.Any suggestions and if you are interested, any estimate. This PO also had issues with Dr prescribed meds. My list seems endless and we thought we could hold out to the end of probation, but nowit doesn’t appear so. One last thing, I deer hunt with Todd and have not shared these issues with him. But if you see him, I am known as minnow mike. Thank you for your time.