“Why rent an audience when you can buy your own? That’s the new philosophy of marketers who are spending money this year to build out a social networking presence through ‘earned’ media rather than paid media,” says Daisy Whitney.

Daisy Whitney’s New Media Minute is produced and sponsored separately from Beet.TV.

Old media is scrambling to become new media while new media keeps expanding and improving. I am watching Jay Leno’s last night show this morning on NBC Direct.  I don’t watch network TV anymore… as a rule. But, I got here via Yume. And, I am enjoying the show, in part for the clever use of video in both the Leno Show and in the embedded advertising.

The fact remains that this is still an attempt to put old media into some ill-fitting new shoes. While the pros in the Leno Show’s editing booth have concocted some funny video clips, the developers at NBC and their counterparts at Mitsubishi need to go back to the drawing boards, ‘cuz this is a miserable way to try to watch a TV show. By maintaining their control over the content, they have succeeded in destroying mine.

After reloading the locked-up automobile ad, I figured out how to step past the 30-second roadblock to get to the second segment… and the Leno Show streamed on. The second ad from Honda had a larger video footprint, looked better and worked without locking up my screen. The third ad was a major improvement built with Flash rollovers – like the fourth ad.

Meanwhile, on the open-source social media network, major businesses like Pepsi are abandoning the Super Bowl and investing in growing their own social media footprint. Small businesses can do the same and even faster… because this is marketing at the grassroots level where handmade and homemade are often more successful than major corporate productions as evidenced by NBC, Mitsubishi and Honda.

LINKS:
Social Media Spending to Hit $1.3 Billion This Year

Alonzo Bodden on Leno…

Brilliant!