There has been lots of talk in the past weeks about Kim Kardashian.  When I spoke recently at Web Summit in Dublin, I touched upon the explosion of social media, growing a whopping 80% from 2013 to 2014. On the heels of all this, Kim allowed the release of a series of nude and provocative photos in the social sphere from a photo shoot she did for Paper Magazine, which was quoted in Adweek: “November 12, our traffic hit 6.6 million page views with 5 million of those being unique visitors. This is just direct traffic to the site, and does not include the billions of impressions created on social channels and news outlets.”

Not coincidentally, Kim’s “celebrity” status just reached an all-time high in terms of pop culture reach. This apex happens to coincide with the breakout success of her new Kim Kardashian’s Hollywood app which reportedly generates roughly $700,000 per day (projecting to net out approximately $200M per year).

The lesson from all this: in order to create enough weight to cut through the clutter in today’s world of fragmented media, one must be able to penetrate both traditional (mass media) and new media (social media). Kim and her “momager,” Kris Jenner, started figuring out long ago how to create “buzz” as Kim became known as a socialite and used their TV show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, as an engine to stimulate ongoing interest in her life. With all the talk about Kim’s recent photos in Paper Magazine, it is just one of the many catalysts that have been used for years by Kim and her team to fuel interest and spark conversation around her. This started early on with Kim’s sex tape then continued with her series of “train wreck” relationships and social exploits that were well-documented on the show where art imitated life. As a result, Kim increasingly became the subject of “pop culture” coverage (weekly magazines, TV shows). Then Kim discovered that by using social media, a significant number of people were interested in engaging with her directly.

In 2011, the Founder of Skechers, Robert Greenberg, decided to purchase an ad during the Super Bowl broadcast, and as CMO and President of Skechers Fitness Group, he challenged me to find someone that could not only star in the ad but also get a lot of “PR” as he called it—showcasing Skechers entry into the walking/fitness business. At the time, Kim Kardashian had about 1.7M Twitter followers, was regularly featured in a number of weekly publications, and was pretty well-known for her series of high profile failed relationships as documented in her weekly reality show. She had also done a lot of one-off endorsements—some successful and others not so much. However, one thing seemed evident, Kim had lots of balls in the air like so many women today and was challenged with a rigorous work schedule that made finding time to work out challenging. That was one reason, I thought she would be a credible candidate for our walking product . Moreover, because she already attracted regular attention in the media, I was hoping we could use the lead up to the Super Bowl to activate “earned” media, meaning traditional PR, coupled with social. It was a grand experiment to push the outer limits of how social and mass could combine to create exponential exposure.

The ad we designed was to have “art imitate life” and we staged a secret (“embargoed”) TV/video shoot where all we publicly announced was that Kim was going to “break up” with someone in front of the projected 110 million people which comprised the Super Bowl audience. At the shoot we didn’t let the media on the actual set but kept them outside and fed them video sound bites from Kim where she “teased” the spot and expressed her remorse and trepidation at the reaction of the audience to this “break up”. Not only did traditional media respond to the story enthusiastically, such as USA Today, weekly TV, print and electronic publications, but it also snowballed throughout the world of social media. The result was that we generated nearly 2 billion media impressions before the Super Bowl ad broke, which then garnered another 200 million or so views.

Watch the Kim Kardashian Skechers Super Bowl spot here if you want to see who she broke up with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzXSi6TTKpc

Following that campaign, Kim’s Twitter followers swelled pretty quickly to more than 15M. Soon she and her advisors devised an even more sophisticated, effective and efficient content production strategy around making Kim a personal media company aligned around Instagram photos and videos. This focus was particularly effective this past year since social interaction has grown at the rate of 80% with Instagram being the highest platform of all. Currently Kim has nearly 30M Twitter followers and over 22M Instagram followers.

So now you have all Kim, all the time. Open Yahoo, Kim’s on the front page. Open MSN or AOL and Kim’s on the front page. Go to the newsstand: she’s in People, Us, etc. Turn on TV, Access Hollywood, ET, she’s there as well.

So what does this tell us? In order to build a powerful brand in today’s fragmented world, you must address all forms of media (traditional and new media) and build critical mass as quickly as possible. Once you reach critical mass, with the right content production strategy, you can convert celebrity to brand and identify numerous unforeseen revenue streams like our friend Kim Kardashian has done.

Watch Kim and Kris introduce the Skechers launch here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaaDw_HNqLM

I spoke at the Web Summit in Dublin, Ireland last week alongside some of the  most innovative companies and people in the world. The most influential leaders in the Technology world were there or have attended in the past.

My presentation focused on how to identify, position and accelerate the value of high growth brands— particularly as relates to converting the “fame” of an athlete into a brand with long term value. I used my work with Shaquille O’Neal (“Shaq”) and Oscar De La Hoya (“Golden Boy”) as examples and presented a formula for how this can work most effectively— and it is relevant to any celebrity or high growth brand.

I also talked about how brand building has changed so much in a world where media has gone from concentrated to fragmented because of the emergence of so many TV networks and the growth of broadband and mobile. And because of mobile devices, the consumption of media is absolutely exploding. For example, social media engagements grew 80% from 2013 to 2014— staggering! And of all the “growth” platforms on social, it appears that Instagram is growing at the most rapid rate in enlisting engagement.

When I began representing Shaquille O’Neal out of college, he was relatively unknown. Through our work together, Shaq was the first athlete that ushered in the convergence of sports, entertainment, music, marketing and technology. And today he is a worldwide brand.

The strategy I developed early on and applied to Shaq was called Marketing Coalition Systems (MCS). The components of MCS are below:

• Only work on the remarkable— something special and unique unlike anything else in the world. In sports “winning” is a huge component of remark ability
• Create a brand positioning for that remark ability— express it in a creatively compelling yet simple way to define the value proposition of the star athlete or entertainer
• Create a “mission statement” that expresses the vision of the brand should it reach its ultimate goal
• Define the primary and secondary “engines” that will give the brand marketing weight in this world of fragmented, yet exponentially growing media and communications. Make sure to use all available communication platforms to amplify the brand message and, most important— make sure the content that is communicated is “on brand” and “remarkable”.
• Build a “coalition” of marketing partners that will use their marketing budgets to provide more weight behind your brand. I call this using OPM (other people’s money) to grow your brand value
• Host a Summit where the marketing coalition comes together and aligns their future marketing communications consistent with your brand positioning and is creatively compelling. I created the concept for a “marketing summit” in the mid-1990s with Shaquille O’Neal when we were launching the “Shaq” brand. It turned out to be quite effective in creative massive marketing weight.
• Always be aware of the latest developments in technology as an amplification tool but remember you have to start with great content that is remarkable/shareable or the technology will be useless.

Finally, it is really interesting with the explosion of social media (and it is just beginning) how athletes and celebrities today have an opportunity to engage, activate and even monetize their audience in unprecedented ways. Kim Kardashian stumbled upon this with her mobile app, “Kim Kardashian’s Hollywood” which reportedly generates $700K per day! I expect to see lots of experimentation around that model in the future for celebrities or athletes with large social followings that can be activated.

We are still in the early stages of this new form of media and its impact on brand building. Let me know of your experiences or insights about best practices and opportunities for the future.

Lots of discussion about it. The impact on cable costs to consumers. Whether money was left on the table.

Simply put, the NBA’s current media deal is groundbreaking in the same way its last media deal was—both setting new benchmarks in the media world. Last time, the NBA ushered in the move from an “exclusive” Network only deal to a “hybrid” media/cable deal including ESPN (Disney) and Turner (TNT). This resulted in increased coverage across multiple platforms that did not exist previously.

The latest NBA media deal is a milestone for the world of “new media” by re-upping with those same partners but commanding an astonishing price. The reason for this dramatic increase is that so many new forms of media and communication are incorporated into the deal—from traditional broadcast to “over the top” to every platform of social media and communication. The increase in media consumption over the last 10 years has been dramatic and sports content sits at the top of the list when it comes to that increase.

Everything now should be measured in terms of “share of attention”—and that’s not just limited to TV viewership (cable viewers). The NBA has an enormous social following—and that share of attention is what justifies the huge increase in rights fees. Could NBA have gotten more as Tim Leiweke says—by giving Facebook and Google a shot at “bidding”. I’m not so sure after speaking with some top media executives. Bottom line, ESPN and Turner were willing to pay whatever Commissioner Adam Silver asked—and his asking price really stretched the boundaries of what is economically justifiable for these rights. In the end, loyalty and good business prevailed and a seemingly great deal was struck for all long term partners.