Scott,

Yes, coop advertising and netweaving (or "pay it forward") are not the same animal. But, let me explain what is going one here.

Back in May of this year a business asociation held a mixer at a restaurant in honor of an upcoming western festival. A newspaper sales executive happened to attend. "Wow!" he thought. "I never new this town's festival was such a big deal. I wonder if some of the small business folks would agree to place display ads in my county-wide newspaper if I could put them all on the same page with an anchor article about their town's festival?" So, the ad man makes some inquiries at the mixer and sure enough there is significant interest. He goes back to his office and does research for news about the festival. He comes up with an article about the town written for a travel publication owned by his parent company. He has no picture of the festival or its parade -even it is has been an ongoing event for 45 years. He only has old pictures of the town. The article itself is written to folks who live outside the county - not in it. He decides to go with all this information, anyway. So, what you end up with is a rather dysfunctional article in the center of a newspaper, surrounded by display ads of local businesses. One of those display ads is actually competing with the festival for customers.

Well, here is what is so amazing. That centerfold piece brought great business to all its advertisers. The restaurant that was competing with the festival had its best month financially in its history. The vendors in the festival did great business - even though not one of them was an advertiser in the centerfold. Everybody won...thanks to a dysfunctional article in the center of a newspaper. Is that not amazing! One has to wonder what would happen if the article in the center of the newspaper had NOT been so dysfunctional?

Here in this particular county of Northern California we live in a "black hole" in terms of technological innovation. Just three hours from Silicon Valley, but there are no Wall Street Journals, New York Times, Times, Newsweek or Fast Company Magazines to be had. Sad but true. So, a small group of local business owners got together this morning to see if they might do something to change that situation and receive a business benefit in the process.

Out here it is possible to get in the local newspaper simply by sending an email. But, just because you can easily get an article into the newspaper does not mean anyone is going to pay much attention - unless you can afford to do it in a BIG WAY. That is where the idea of coop advertising and netweaving come together. We ask a company like Jott Networks, Skype or Google to provide us with a story about using their service as the anchor article in the centerfold spread of a newspaper. We do not ask them to pay us for printing this news in the center of the paper. We do it gratis. We pay the bill for the space in the paper, but at the same time benefit from the reputation of the business that is the anchor article. We pay for that centerfold spread with display ads from various local businesses who would be advertising in the newspaper anyway. However, we go a step further by using a service like Evite.com to promote the fact that this article is coming out weeks before it is actually published. In effect, we create a "buzz" for story in advance of its publication. We know what's forth-coming because we had full control of its design. Each display ad will have a landing page, so the respective small business owner can track whether his ad is generating any public interest by knowing how many clicks his landing page receives.

Netweaving promotes the concept of the The Golden Rule as you might apply it to business. Specifically, you want to help or serve the other guy before you serve yourself. So, here we are helping the anchor article company. A company like Google certainly does not need the help of small town businesses. But, if these small businesses could "connect" with Google through display ads in the center of a newspaper, it would likely garner them more attention than they would otherwise achieve. Remember, folks here are not very tech savvy. For them, reading how something as basic as Google Adwords and Google Adsense works is big news.

Coop advertising as I am choosing to implement it means all advertisers help pay for the placement of a key anchor article in the centerfold of a newspaper. In effect, the advertisers own that centerfold. They even provide the anchor article (with the help of a high-profile company). But, that is NOT how it looks. It looks like a normal centerfold with independent display ads surrounding it.

Hopefully, this will be an example of "success by design" - not by accident.

Lamar Morgan
CDMM
http://www.squidoo.com/CDMM
Attract more customers!

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