Honeyshed: Wickedly Exciting

May 31st, 2007

Talk about the collision between commerce and media. Some time this summer, Publicis is going to drive the launch of Honeyshed, self-described as, “MTV meets QVC.” Now, we should all recognize as eloquently stated in this Bubblegeneration blog post, that is actually a redundant statement. Regardless, I bow down to the revolutionary zeal that it had to take for an advertising executive to utter those words. To illustrate, a quick trip down memory lane….

A couple of years ago I was talking to Mitch Oscar, the interactive television guru at Carat. We were talking – as one often does with ad agency executives – about what was cool and what wasn’t. ‘Shopping,’ Mitch said, ‘is not cool. It’s grimy and pedestrian.’ Anyone who has spent time on Madison Avenue knows that that quote encapsulates the conventional wisdom of the advertising world.

So for Andrew Essex to include the ultimate retailer in the description of what most observers are describing (for lack of a better label) as a “branded entertainment” destination is not only astonishing but thrilling. Heck, here he’s even comfortable analogizing the whole concept to a mall. You may accuse me of reading too much into the semantics being used, but this is important stuff. Lots of commentators are riding Bubblegeneration’s coattails in slamming Publicis’ assertion that people love brands, but give Publicis credit for effectively allowing that people do hate advertising and recognize that they are creeping, however cautiously, toward the obvious common ground that people DO love products. Let’s forgive them for now if they still have to call them “brands” in order to continue to justify their own existence.

Admittedly they haven’t been copying me on drafts of the business plan (here’s the definitive article on Honeyshed to date), but I think my biggest fear is that the ambition is too big, that they are biting off too much at once & it will be very difficult to bring it all together in a coherent whole. If I understand it correctly, they will literally be trying to run live content at the same time that they are trying to compete in the ridiculously competitive “viral video” sweepstakes business (both services implying a dedication to a destination vs. giving themselves an easy fallback as a syndication play). And one wonders if the CGM side of things was tacked on at the last minute….have they decided what happens when they get the kind of videos that the NY Times described this past weekend in the CGM area?

If they can keep the aperture tight enough to get some traction, the implications will be vast. For one, it will suggest that agencies can create destinations for their clients and don’t need content providers in nearly the same way that the traditional media business is predicated on. Much more importantly, we’ll learn vast amounts about how wide the span actually is between brand “discovery” (the dream) and the grimy, pedestrian business of retail. Let the show begin….

PS – Haven’t seen anyone else blogging about this, but how about the participation of Smuggler Productions? As noted below, they are also involved in a big way with eBay’s video push. This has to make them the hottest professional production shop in web 2.0. Ah heck, why don’t I just go way out on a limb and predict that eBay will be a launch partner of Honeyshed.

Entry Filed under: Collison of Media & Commerce