A few months ago John Shankman created a campaign for RadioShack that I promised the readership a scoop of ChasNote around. Unfortunately this post never came to be. But here for you now is not only that interview, but also a preview into a new campaign. One that I think will continue to extend the Brand of Shankman and his dominance over the current shift that is occurring in media.
Tell me a little about the RadioShack campaign, what sets it apart?
The more general take away is that RadioShack added a lot of value in building out the Invention Lab platform in partnership with Makezine. It’s advertising that is interesting to the target audience. That DIY crowd and backyard scientist. It wasn’t so much about reach and frequency although the campaign did have a component that played to that; it was more about creating a really engaging and enjoyable experience for a large compilation of some of RadioShack’s most important customers.
Tell me about DeadSpin, I’m fascinated by your media consumption?
It introduced me to the blogosphere and, more broadly, independent digital media. This was back in 2004 and I was stuck at ESPN.com and Yahoo!, and this isn’t to say that those media properties aren’t valuable in their own right, but the day Bill Simmons linked to Deadspin forever changed my life. Blogdome (editors note: this is where Deadspin links to the day’s best sports blog posts) opened up a whole new world to me. I thought, “Really?! This exists?!” The amount of awesome content and communities that I found by following links from blog to blog was mind blowing.
As a media property, Deadspin changed the game. Traditional sports media began to take itself too seriously and was getting too wrapped up in making sure they kept on getting the access only they were getting. And because of the constant availability of sporting news and the Internet making the world smaller (reading an article about the Seattle Seahawks while in Tulsa, OK is as easy as actually being in Seattle and reading the beat reporter’s filings), the talking heads dominating the sports media landscape resorted to simply spouting inflammatory viewpoints and contrarian hyperbole for the ratings; the fan began losing their voice and what was important about sports along with it: the fun and escape from real life that sports provides. Essentially, the sports media world needed to get G-checked. Deadspin provided that checks and balances. It follows the Gawker model by throwing bombs at the established rulers to become a ruler yourself. They provided the platform necessary for a good writer who is passionate about something to have his voice heard without journeying through the back breaking ranks of the established media institutions.
The other component that made Deadspin a real, digital media success story is one word that I focus on when trying to create a valuable marketing program: community. The community at Deadspin is tremendous. Read through the comment threads and you will see real audience engagement: people commenting in the same thread mulitple times and true feelings of loyalty. Granted this had a lot to do with the wonderful community leadership and writing skills of Will Leitch who has since left Deadspin for greener pastures (http://nymag.com/nymag/9317/)multiple, but the point remains the same: Because of the communities online and the interactive nature of the digital medium, brands have a real opportunity to engage, and more importantly, support communities with their marketing programs. If brands do this in an interesting, transparent and valuable way like RadioShack did, then the brand will be rewarded with brand affinity and brand equity that lasts a lot longer than a flighted marketing campaign.
Speaking of sports…… Tell me about your new campaign.
It’s similar to the RS Invention Lab in the sense that its bringing to market something that the target audience will find interesting and valuable. Once you have that sort of wind at your back and you’ve found a scalable, quality and safe community for a world class brand like AOL, the rest is easy. Luckily, Federated Media represents SB*Nation which is an amazing community of sports bloggers and individual sports team blogs. AOL FanHouse recently acquired a great fantasy football platform called Fleaflicker that players can use as instead of Yahoo!, ESPN or CBS Sportsline to manage their fantasy football leagues. There are value-propositions that Fleaflicker offers, that their competitors can not, the problem was though how do we make the fantasy sports playing community at large aware of this in a way that will cut through all the other ad messaging out there? And so, Fan House Leagues was born. I hope that the FanHouse community and SBNation community continue to use this brand asset to promote both of their brands for more than just this season. Helping to support a community like this goes so far in today’s marketplace.
What is next? What gets you excited?
Opportunities with brands. I love working with my passions. Premium content a.k.a. watching good television is coming online. I love the distribution opportunities that digital media offers this premium content. It becomes a matter of matching up a great value proposition with consumers that are interested in this type of content. These opportunities seem to be getting richer and richer by the day.
What do you see your self doing in 2 years?
Media mogul? Working in a French vineyard? I don’t know what I’m doing tonight, let alone in two years. Seriously, I imagine I’ll still be at FM.
If you could give brands one piece of advice for marketing online, what would it be?
Communitize your brand. Make sure you are engaging and supporting the communities that contain your customers in a valuable and transparent way.
It has been a little over a year since I moved to New York(yikes!) and I am excited to head back to San Francisco in a few weeks for a concert that just makes sense. 
