Microsite.com

The sweepstakes. Ah, yes, that ultimate fallback marketing concept. I guess when you have nothing to differentiate your product or service, run a sweepstakes.

David Armano, who writes a fantastic blog at Logic + Emotion, recently authored an article for AdAge titled “The Un-Dying of the Microsite.” The “Un-Dying”? Damn, I didn’t even realize the Microsite was ill. I guess I’ve been too busy hanging out at the 20 or so Microsites major brands have produced specifically for the Olympics. (That would be the 2008 Beijing Olympics.)

To anyone who wonders why a company should maintain an official – or even unofficial -- blog, I present the NetFlix Blog as exhibit A.

Last Monday (remember, I don’t try to report the news, just the why-it-matters part), NetFlix experienced a major disruption, affecting its distribution and shipping centers, that prevented it from shipping all its DVDs orders for the next three days.

This morning’s New York Times carries an article about the Olympics broadcast and mistakenly, I think, categorizes the battle as network vs. web. “[T]he Olympics are also a powerful illustration of the current battle line between the big business of network television and the emerging medium of Web video.”

Hey, there is no battle between the network and anything or anyone. Any more.

Before the Olympics began, I was curious which Big Brands would capitalize on the world’s largest social media event by using, of course, social media and other Web 2.0 tools.

McDonald’s, Coke, Lenovo, Johnson & Johnson, and Samsung all issued press releases proclaiming their Web 2.0 cred. And, I figured, after each coughed up an average of $72 million just to be “worldwide Olympic partners” and for the right to use the five-ring logo, they would each ratcheted up their web spending and produced gold-medal online efforts.

This will undoubtedly be the last Olympics where a major U.S. broadcaster tries to monopolize coverage and prevent millions of people from seeing events unfold live.

The entire concept of “delayed” (as in the opening ceremonies were delayed) will be history after August 17.

Last Friday, NBC, which paid $894 million for the exclusive rights to the Olympic broadcast in the United States, tried desperately to prevent unauthorized video of the four-hour opening ceremonies from popping up on YouTube, Justin.tv, and other sources.

What a difference a year makes.

In March 2007, Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, unveiled its first campaign called “Lovemarks” for its new client JC Penney. The TV spots projected a powerful, emotional imagery of the retailer. Even though I have no idea how the ads related to any selling proposition, they were creatively brilliant.