Our Time. Our Money.

For those of you who have been checking this blog patiently (or not so patiently) wondering when I was going to stop sharing theories and start sharing solutions…the time in now. A few friends of mine and I have been trying to tackle this problem/opportunity. Frankly, it’s taken a bit longer than I had hoped, and we still have a ways to go, but today we are announcing the invite-only beta launch of Gomper.

The Gomper Companion is a simple little application that enables you to rent a small portion of your computer screen. You get paid for your time, not your actions. When the Companion is open and you are using your computer, you get paid. You can close the Companion in one click at any time and everything returns to full size. The consumer is in complete control.

Gomper is completely free to join. This is not about charging consumers, it’s about paying consumers. And this isn’t a trick to stick you with Spyware or other garbage. Just the opposite…the goal of Gomper is to be a consumer advocate. To give consumers a voice and a seat at the table. If it’s not good for you, it’s not good for Gomper.

The advertisements you’ll see in the Gomper Companion are very similar to ads you’ll see when you are surfing the Internet. Both are from advertisers paying money to reach you. Only with Gomper, the money flows to you, not to the companies that collect you. And as the money starts flowing from advertiser to consumer, I’m confident Gomper members will have a very different opinion of advertisers than most people. When advertisers see better results with ads to Gomper members then the ads they buy from media middlemen, they’ll spend more with Gomper and all our members will get a raise.

In other words, as more and more people join Facebook, the more money Facebook executives make. As more and more people join Gomper, the more money you make. Since the money is being spent buying your time and attention, this just makes more sense.

Please check out www.gomper.com. As mentioned above, we are in an invite-only period, so the information on the website is still pretty vague. But I encourage you to request an invite as we already have ~50 people using it and will be expanding the invite list very soon.

I’ll be posting more details more frequently now. Please post or email me with questions, comments, feedback, skepticism, support….whatever. If a year from now, Gomper has 1 million members, we will change the world. I hope you will choose to take part.

I would imagine Blogging 101 graduates would frown on this long and complicated subject line. Truth is, I don’t love it either. But I’m too confused to think of anything simpler.

I’m reading about Yahoo’s massive new advertising campaign that is about to launch. Yahoo is buying tens of millions of dollars of advertising from competing media companies with 2 goals in mind 1) reposition the brand to a dwindling consumer base and 2) reposition the brand to advertisers, reminding them how many of us they still reach.

A media company like Yahoo spends 10+ million in advertising with competing media companies, like USA Today. All with the hope of grabbing the consumers’ attention away from USA Today and over to Yahoo. If the advertising works, they will go to other advertisers and ask them to spend $10+ million advertising on Yahoo. Maybe USA Today would be interested in buying ads on Yahoo. They can get their users back.

Why do advertising sellers buy and sell ads to/from each other? In this case, advertisers are no longer convinced that Yahoo has control over enough of what they want…our time and attention. Likewise, advertisers are not sold on USA Today having enough control over our time and attention. If they did, USA Today wouldn’t have to resort to taking ads that help grow their competition.

The whole process makes very little sense. The only thing that makes sense is this: Everybody wants to either buy our time and attention or demonstrate that they have control over our time and attention. Yahoo is willing to spend millions just to try to convince advertisers they still got us. The point of all this? The value lies within us. We are who advertisers want. We are who media companies want. We are in control. If we seize it. Paying consumers makes a lot more sense than paying competitors to share their consumers.

Starbucks surprised Wall Street recently with better than expected quarterly earnings. One of the primary reasons for the uplifting results? The halo effect Starbucks received from the massive ad assault for McDonald’s McCafe brand.

McDonald’s advertising spend increased Starbucks’ sales. OK. A quote from Starbuck’s CEO Howard Schultz, found in this article in AdAge, follows at the end of this post.

This has to be another example of the inefficiency in the current value exchange in the advertising economy. Despite McDonald’s spending $100 million to buy your and my time and attention, we started going to Starbucks more often. We went to McDonald’s for coffee too, so the ads worked, but couldn’t it be better? Couldn’t McDonald’s get more value out of their ads while reduce the value the ads create for their huge competitor?

The ad sales reps at USA Today, NBC, Facebook, et al…the people who got paid a good amount of money for selling $100 million worth of our time and attention to McDonald’s…do you think they remember the ads are from Mickey D’s? Or do they go home to their spouse and say, “I landed some coffee advertiser today…forget their name”.

If the money flowed directly to consumers, maybe we would remember, and be more loyal to, who delivered the message. And the money.

Oh…and Mr. Schultz’ quote on the subject:

“As you know, extraordinary advertising dollars have been spent by fast-food companies trying to attract coffee consumers during this quarter,” Mr. Schultz said. “Many commentators and industry watchers have been concerned that this marketing spend would have a negative adverse impact on Starbucks.” But on the contrary, he said, the “various marketing campaigns,” including Starbucks’ own first branding campaign, have “created unprecedented awareness for the coffee category overall and has actually had a positive result on Starbucks’ business.”