Earlier this month, Viacom flexed its media muscle by demanding YouTube take down more than 100,000 videos created by Viacom properties like MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central — and YouTube complied. Copyright infringement was the “official” grounds for the mandate, but Viacom execs added that they wouldn’t reach content deal with YouTube was that ignoring the law just wasn’t worth the sacrifice. That the monetary value of buzz generated by YouTube is just overvalued hype.

Well, for those of you who thought Viacom was committing online suicide, guess again. Turns out you don’t get to be one of the most powerful corporations in the world for nothing. This week, Viacom announced it would launch its own video blitz, sidestepping YouTube by enabling users (read: bloggers) to embed content directly from its own sites. While they’d originally said buzz generated by a YouTube presence wasn’t worth the cost of a content deal, Viacom’s plan to invest millions in its own online capabilities shows exactly how valuable it thinks that online buzz is. (In fact, the company is actually laying off 250 of its television staff and hiring 500 for online properties.)

Dollars or no dollars, one thing is clear: Viacom respects the power of the user. By enabling bloggers to share their work legally, the company’s extended an olive branch to an influential group of consumers. It’s made an

Which brings me to a broader point — building successful brands is no longer about mass awareness but rather mass advocacy. Companies are beginning to see that pushing ads might generate brand recognition from afar, but pulling consumers gives users a sense of ownership, and thus deeper loyalty.

If you think about how you feel about brands, there are varying levels of your engagement. From the most basic awareness to undying loyalty, it’s that deeper investment that really fuels your choices, doesn’t it?

In the past, marketers have followed the AIDA model, a framework to geared at dissecting how consumers make choices.

A – Attention (Awareness): attract the attention of the customer.

I – Interest: raise customer interest by demonstrating features, advantages, and benefits.

D – Desire: convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs.

A – Action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.

But in a world cluttered with choices and competition, AIDA is no longer enough to build a successful brand.

We as marketers need to think beyond the single consumer in a vacuum and instead consider how they’ll affect the behavior of other consumers. We tell our clients our job isn’t just to get press – it’s to create evangelists. Evangelists preach the word of your brand to anyone who’ll listen, giving ringing, credible endorsement.

Now, conversation between consumers is nothing new – but it’s the power of the blogger that’s given it limitless scope. And by putting its content in the hands of bloggers, Viacom is making an aggressive attempt to harness their power as evangelists. The company’s certainly taken a page from YouTube’s book, could this signify a new model for content sharing and leveraging user-generated evangelism.

I couldn’t help hearing the pain in JetBlue CEO David Neeleman’s voice as he accepted on-air calls from irate customers during his three-day PR mea-culpa this week. I heard it on NPR. The host said that the board was lit up with people eager to blast him for last week’s inhumane treatment triggered by an ice storm.

JetBlue left 10 of its planes on the tarmac at JFK stranding passengers for hours — one flight for nearly 11 hours — with no food, bad air and worse — no communication of what was happening. As I could hear in Neeleman’s voice, this wasn’t just a blip in JetBlue’s service model. This was a direct and nearly fatal blow to his carefully orchestrated brand experience.

The company’s mission is the first thing you find on www.jetblue.com: “Our promise: to bring humanity back to air travel.” Against all odds, this unfortunate instance will not be fatal to JetBlue. The brand will recover — not because of the seven years of built up good will; and not because of its new “Passengers Bill of Rights” unveiled on the Today Show. Not even for the extraordinary lengths the company is going to revamp its crew and flight schedules at a cost of millions. But because of the simple act of courage that Neeleman’s voice conveyed. He said he cared. He showed he cared. In the end, that’s all the public really wants.

In Crisis 101, the underlying question in every reporter’s interview and behind every hurt and angry customer’s rant is simply, “Do you care?” For JetBlue, the answer was a resounding yes.

See a message from Neeleman below. It’s on the company’s website as well as on YouTube.

Comments the video has already gotten show the public’s response to JetBlue’s crisis response:

xjaspx (5 hours ago)

I will still fly jetBlue, even though the airline kindda screw up the past few days. Thank you jetBlue for recognizing a problem and doing something about it! jetBlue always has been and always will be one of the best airline in the industry.

ldorfman (5 hours ago)

This is the way a CEO should act in such situations! Good Luck jetBlue!
A very satisfied customer

What’s remarkable about Neeleman’s three-day PR juggernaut is what he didn’t say. He didn’t say that other people or organizations were to blame. He didn’t say that he is in a tough industry. He didn’t say that the circumstances were beyond his control. He simply said – and simple is the key here — “I’m sorry. You’re right, we screwed up, and we’ll do our best to make it up to you.”

The radio caller that I heard began with a blast. “Do you know what you did to me?” You’ve lost me as a customer forever.” Neeleman took the punch. He continued to show the caller that he cared. By the end of the call, the anger had subsided. The caller asked him to pass on praise for the JetBlue staff and crew that did their best under difficult circumstances. That single turnaround for that customer was the sound of a brand being rebuilt.

Over the next six months, JetBlue might run TV ads showing their new bold actions. They might hold town meetings in cities particularly hurt by their inaction. They might enact new standards for the entire industry. But in the end, the bulk of the recovery is already underway. They told us and showed us they cared.

Isn’t that what anyone really wants?

Of all the 7 Wonders of the Modern World – the Empire State Building, Panama Canal, etc. – I have to say my favorite is the mobile phone. Ok, so it’s not on the list. But it should be.

The 3GSM World Congress is this week in Barcelona, Spain. I have to admit, I can’t get enough of the new mobile technologies that are going to make my life exponentially better. Ok – so it’s not true. I’m not addicted to my Blackberry and I’m not even sure what half the new toys at 3GSM do.

(This new Nokia phone has mobile TV – see the photo below.)

But there was one thing that really stuck out to me in the coverage of the congress. Jason Dunn, executive editor of Smartphone Thoughts, said, “Right now, we’re still in the grabbing-everything-we-can stage and people will consume, consume, consume. I think we’ll get to the saturation point. … People will say, ‘I don’t want to get e-mail at 11 p.m. at night.’”

I can’t say I agree with Jason. Not because of my own personal tendencies, but because of those of the people I work with.

About a year ago, our agency moved to all laptops. I thought the change would be marginal at best, but I was wrong. Instead, 80 percent of our staff probably takes their computer home every evening. The percentage is higher on the weekends. We work early in the morning and late at night. And we’re not alone. We get emails from our clients at all hours.

The more I think about it, it all comes down to competition. At least here at Braithwaite, each of our account people wants to work the longest and the hardest of the group. It’s something we value, and it’s helped our agency grow. It’s also something I can’t imagine changing. (Nor would I want it to.) Internal agency competition spurs technology “addiction” which spurs growth.

This December, two members of our team (ok – I’m one of them) got Blackjacks. They (we) have become addicts – emailing as soon as they wake up, before they go to bed, while driving and a host of other times I can’t mention here. Will the Blackberry addicted ever reach a point of saturation? I can’t imagine that happening, and I know them pretty well. After all, I do email all hours of the day and night.

This little guy has stirred up quite the buzz.

It’s one of two Mooninites – Err and Ignignokt – from the Comedy Network show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” that showed up about three weeks ago in 10 U.S. cities (including here in Philadelphia). These light-briteish glowing signs took on identities much different than the bully aliens they play on TV, causing major roads and bridges to be shut down in and around Boston. That’s right – the Aqua Teens’ nemeses were believed to be a tool of terrorism.

It seems silly now, but the fear and confusion was real. Real enough to cost of the city of Boston hundreds of thousands of dollars in police time handling frantic calls about angry, lighted bombs on subways and bridges.

Luckily, nothing blew up in Boston, but the same can’t be said for the marketing world. Two members of the Aqua Team installation crew have already been arrested. In the next few weeks, we’ll likely see a number of companies re-thinking their viral marketing campaigns because their medium of choice may be perceived as dangerous. So the question for marketers in the next days and weeks will be, how can we fight the negative perception of viral marketing that has been created by the Mooninites? Is it even worth it? I think it is, but I’ll leave that for future blogs.