Spotrunner

Umair Haque deconstructs Spotrunner:

From the Spotrunner site:

"It used to be difficult - and expensive - to advertise on TV. Only big companies could afford to do it because it involved hiring an ad agency to make the actual ads, and a media buying company to make sure they got on TV at the right time. Now Spot Runner does everything for you, and at a price any business can afford. Here's how:

The Ads: We have a vast library of TV ads for countless industries. You choose the ad you want and then personalize it by adding your company name, or images of your products, or details about an upcoming promotion. We charge you for making those personalizations, and for getting your personalized ad ready to be broadcast on TV.

The TV schedule: Once you've chosen your ad we help you create an effective schedule of TV networks and times to ensure that your ad is seen by the right people. Then we send off your personalized ad and make sure it runs where and when it's supposed to. Our prices include all the time and effort it takes to do that."

From Umair:

"Spotrunner creates value by leveraging plasticity to reshape the TV value chain, making it hyperefficient. Spotrunner has targeted with great accuracy a specific edge competence that is deeply disruptive to it's target industry - plasticity kills traditional advertising dead.

But Spotrunner is just a mote in a storm that's about to strip advertising to it's core - the commoditization of social meaning is accelerating everywhere around us; through communities of connected consumers, through the explosion of micromedia, through the fall of global trade barriers fueling an explosion of global brands. Smart brand strategists are going to begin to shift away from the simplistic strategy of engineering (commoditized) meanings into brands."