Springwise: Zero cents per minute: 100,000 takers so far

Blyk targets 16- to 24-year-olds with its free mobile phone service, which includes 217 texts and 43 minutes every month. In exchange, of course, they get advertising—up to 6 messages sent to their phones each day. Britain's youth don't seem to mind, though—Blyk reached that 100,000-member target six months ahead of schedule. Response rates to the ads in question have also achieved a whopping average of 29 percent—far surpassing the norm, which tends to hover in the single digits.

Springwise: Zero cents per minute: 100,000 takers so far

Blogged with the Flock Browser

MediaPost Publications - Alloy: 62% Of College Students Watch TV/Video Online - 06/26/2008

Almost two-thirds of college students are streaming video and TV shows online, via services like Veoh, Hulu and Joost, as well as buying downloads from iTunes, according to Alloy Media and Marketing, which just completed the 2008 annual College Explorer survey.

Conversely, rates of TV ownership fell slightly, compared to last year's survey, from 82% to 79%--suggesting the increasing role of computers as personal entertainment centers.

At the same time, laptops are displacing desktops as the computer of choice: from 2007-2008, laptop ownership rose from 63% to 70%, while desktop ownership fell from 59% to 53%.

MediaPost Publications - Alloy: 62% Of College Students Watch TV/Video Online - 06/26/2008

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Shops Strive for a New Formula

Without interactive experts to bring ideas to life, he adds, the big ideas are like "a fart in the wind."

Shops Strive for a New Formula

Now that's the quote of the decade!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Vint Cerf: Video streaming to give way to downloading | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com

Honestly, this isn't immediately comprehensible to me. I need to read more. So, join me will you?

Cerf expects that video will be downloaded rather than streamed over time. With gigabit for second speed, users could download an hour of video in 16 seconds. "It's like the iPod--you can download music faster than you can listen to it," he said. Cerf also said that broadcasting, rather than downloading a separate copy to every user, is a good delivery model, and that users will have more control over which ads to watch.

Vint Cerf: Video streaming to give way to downloading | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Study: C-Level Execs Shift to Internet over Newspapers for Business Info

E&P reports on a study that shows C-level execs are reaching a tipping point in how they consumer news.

Study: C-Level Execs Shift to Internet over Newspapers for Business Info

A Forbes.com and Gartner Study has discovered a 37% increase in C-Level and senior management executives who choose the Internet over newspapers as their No. 1 source of business information.

Consumption of newspapers as the No. 1 source among this segment is down 36%.

Among the study’s findings:

The Internet continues to be the most influential and important source of business information for C-Level executives around the world, at 67%. This number has increased 37% since 2004.

Before starting the work day, C-Level executives prefer to access the Web rather than read the newspaper. The number of C-Level executives who prefer the Internet first thing in the morning has increased 22% since 2004, while those who prefer to read the newspaper first thing in the morning has declined 11% over the same time period.

C-Level executives consume media on the Web more than any other medium (TV, Radio, Magazines, Newspapers), at 41%.

“This study further underscores our belief that the highly desirable C-Level executive audience will continue to increase its use of the Internet as a primary source of business information, while newspaper consumption for business purposes will continue to decline,” Jim Spanfeller, CEO and President of Forbes.com, said in a statement.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Google Tests Using Your Search Data to Tailor Ads to You - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Google acknowledges that it is now testing ways to use some of the data it has been gathering to better aim search ads at Web surfers, although it won’t say how.

This small change in Google’s behavior was first discovered by Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, who earlier this year started a series of tests looking at which ads were displayed in a series of queries on Google’s search engine. He found that the ads you see on one search may be influenced by what you searched for a few minutes ago. Search for “Baltimore dining,” then something else, and then “T-shirt” and sometimes you will get ads for T-shirts from Baltimore restaurants.

This is important because it marks the first time Google is using the store of data it collects about people to target its advertising.Google is upfront that it places a cookie on the browser of all of its users. And it records the number of the cookie, along with what the user searches for and some other information.

Google Tests Using Your Search Data to Tailor Ads to You - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Wordle - Miguel Gonzalez Word Cloud

Wordle - Miguel Gonzalez Word Cloud

Scott Johnson sent a link to Wordle. So I made my own Word Cloud from my professional bio. Looks like I talk about myself a tad too much.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Traditional Media Not Dead Yet for Marketing, Study Says - TV Decoder - Media & Television - New York Times Blog

A study to be released on Wednesday finds that advertisements appearing in traditional media like television are still “much more likely” to have made a positive impression with consumers than ads running in digital media.

The study, called “When Advertising Works,” was conducted by Yankelovich in association with Sequent Partners. The Center for Media Design at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., provided assistance.

The study covered 16 types of media. Besides TV, the traditional kinds included billboards, magazines, newspapers, radio and movie theater commercials. The digital kinds included e-mail messages, Internet banner ads, social networking Web sites, video games and video-sharing Web sites like YouTube.

When asked what kind of an impression the ad made, 56 percent of survey respondents said traditional media ads made a positive impression, in contrast to 31 percent who said that about digital media ads. Thirteen percent reported a negative impression of traditional media ads versus 21 percent for digital media ads. Thirty-two percent said they had neither a positive nor a negative impression of traditional media ads, in contrast to 48 percent who said they had neither a good or bad impression of digital media ads.

Traditional Media Not Dead Yet for Marketing, Study Says - TV Decoder - Media & Television - New York Times Blog

On the other hand, advertising is NOT dead. It is NOT the end of advertising as we know it. Discuss.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

MegaPhone is an excellent example of emerging platforms applications that are both (a) amazing and (b) very accessible -- both for consumers to use and marketers to deploy.

Brought to You by . . . Anyone? - washingtonpost.com

"While spending on Internet marketing has been growing dramatically over the past decade, the top 50 or 60 brand marketers are very much underrepresented," said Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group. So far, the online industry has been "growing by grabbing the low-hanging fruit."

As with television, radio and other media, advertising dollars will shape what is and what isn't available on the Internet.

There are, to be sure, billions to be garnered from online advertising -- about $21 billion last year in the United States, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. And analysts expect that figure to double or more in the next decade.

Yet for all the growth in online advertising, there are some doubts that the advertising revenue available is enough to pay for the kind of content -- articles, videos, etc. -- that Internet visionaries have predicted.

Brought to You by . . . Anyone? - washingtonpost.com

Can the Web build brands? Matt Freeman has been saying "Yes" for as long as I've known him (which predates his fame and renown -- depending on what pack you run with). Honestly, most of my day-to-day colleagues and day-to-day clients remain skeptical. I can't say I blame them. But the pace of change is a daily source of frustration ... for me and practically everyone I know in the agency business.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

MediaPost Publications - Nielsen To Debut Out-Of-Home Viewing Data - 06/19/2008

Nielsen's long-awaited service to track out-of-home viewing, a co-venture, will begin yielding data later this summer. The system offers the tantalizing prospect of measuring viewing in bars, hotels and workout gyms--something networks have argued they don't receive credit for from advertisers.

What will be called the Nielsen Out-of-Home Report--a joint venture with Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI)--was announced in April 2007 with an expected launch that September. Then the debut was postponed until this past April, and now again until this summer. It will be the first time that Nielsen provides any out-of-home viewing data.

The data that covers viewing of national broadcast and cable networks will be culled from a panel of 4,700. Panelists will carry cell phones from AT&T that run the software that allows tracking of the exposure to programs (participants receive $50 a month).

In addition to the national service, Nielsen will begin offering out-of-home data in six local markets by the end of the third quarter, according to a presentation by Nielsen Senior Vice President Kevin Svenningsen at the Promax industry event Wednesday.

The six local markets--with 500 panelists each--to be tracked are New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston and Denver.

MediaPost Publications - Nielsen To Debut Out-Of-Home Viewing Data - 06/19/2008

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Thirty Countries Exceed 100% Per Capita Cell Phone Usage (But Not the USA)

By the first quarter of 2006, notes the report, thirty countries had already exceeded 100% per capita cell phone usage. In that same year, there were about 241 million mobile phone users in the US (roughly 80% per capita mobile phone penetration). The U.S. market is not expected to top 100% per capita penetration until the year 2013.

Included by the author is the Simmons New Media Study released in April 2008 comparing the usage of different mobile functions among consumers in the U.S. While 59% of people who have used a cell phone in the past 30 days have text messaged, and 49% have taken photos, less than 2% have shopped by mobile and less than 5% have used mobile GPS.

Research Brief » Blog Archive » Thirty Countries Exceed 100% Per Capita Cell Phone Usage

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Internet Advertising Revenues Up 18.2% YOY, $5.8 Billion for Q1 ’08, Second Highest Quarter Ever

“We continue to experience significant growth and vitality in interactive marketing, media and advertising,” said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB. “We expect growth to continue, as consumers spend more and more time online, and marketers find more – and more innovative – ways to reach them through digital media.”

Internet Advertising Revenues Up 18.2% YOY, $5.8 Billion for Q1 ’08, Second Highest Quarter Ever



Quietly. Slowly. This enormous industry has grown into a beast. This is an exciting time in the media space. However, it is volatile. Hang tight.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Making Cell Phone Games a Public Spectacle

Next time you're in Times Square, put on your game face. You may be able to challenge the weirdos around you to a videogame on MTV's big-screen billboard. The controller? Your cell phone.

It's the latest project from MegaPhone, a mobile gaming company founded by Jury Hahn (above). Looking to connect strangers in public places, Hahn dreamed up the idea of multiplayer cell phone games where people can interact with rivals they're battling onscreen. Here's how it works: When players dial a special phone number shown on a public screen like MTV's jumbotron, avatars representing the callers pop up on the display, identified by the last four digits of the participant's cell number. They're controlled using the phone's keypad or, more often, by speaking (or shouting) into the handset. Scream "shoot" in one game, for example, and your basketball player shoots. Who are you schooling? Look for the other goofballs yelling at their phones.

Making Cell Phone Games a Public Spectacle

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

"Advertising is the art of persuasion," says Wenda Harris Millard, the newly named co-CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and former Yahoo! ad sales head. "Technology is a great facilitator, but that's all it is. Technology isn't what advertising is."

Will Cannes Make the Leap?

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Cannes Fringe

CannesFringe reports from the Advertising Festival

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Pew Calls for Broadband Census

Chris Miller, former head of Chemistri/iLeo; now head of Element 79's interactive practice, takes notes on Pew Internet & American Life Project initiative to take a comprehensive American Broadband Census at BroadbandCensus.com.

In case you haven't been paying attention (and why would you), US broadband speeds are a joke compared to other Net-enabled nations around the world. We now rank 20th in the world ... just behind Lichtenstein ... and dropping.

A deep dive into digital marketing » Blog Archive » Broadband speed survey

ThinkGeek :: Stainless Steel 8GB Video Watch

High pixel count and frames per second make viewing a joy. Plus this watch has a built-in voice recorder, multiple OSD languages to choose from, a built-in high quality speaker as well as a earphone jack, the ability to view JPEG pictures and listen to music at the same time, and so much more. What more could you ask of such a beautiful looking watch? Be the envy of all your friends and blow them away with your shiny new toy.

ThinkGeek :: Stainless Steel 8GB Video Watch

Calling Dick Tracy ... calling Dick Tracy ... Fortunately, this uber nerdi gadget (pronounced JA-JAY) only runs on Windows. I will not be embarrassing myself anytime soon.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tracking Video: How Audience Behavior Measurement Works

How It Works
Our patent-pending data collection approach captures every video interaction in every video from every viewer, from play to pause to rewind to forward-to-a-friend and more. When you're planning online video marketing and advertising strategies, Visible Measures VisibleSuite provides precise performance measurements including how audiences find, view, interact with, and share each online video.

Tracking Video: How Audience Behavior Measurement Works

I may have blogged this before. The URL is cached in my Flock browser. So ... pardon the redundancy. But this company has new news. And they're the only one I've seen that promise (at least) to track the impact of online video beyond counting views.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Advertising - Shows Created by Brands Walk Tightrope With Viewers - NYTimes.com

Dos Equis beer will present a reality series on the Mojo HD cable network that will chronicle the search for an assistant to a character who is featured in the brand’s advertising campaign, a person of wealth and taste known as the Most Interesting Man in the World.

Advertising - Shows Created by Brands Walk Tightrope With Viewers - NYTimes.com

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The Location Is The Message

To illustrate how the new life pattern research can be applied, Bowen provided the “Digital Outsider” with detailed data on the “mobile millennials” cluster. If you look at the illustration on this page, you’ll see a map with push-pin icons highlighting key intervals for reaching the valuable consumer targets, starting when they leave their homes in the morning and fill up their tank at a local gas station, to the video rental store they stop at on their way home from work or school in the evening.

“The idea is to map that back to where advertisers can most effectively intercept them during their daily life, so that they can reach them in the most contextually relevant environment,” Bowen explains.

Digital Outsider » Blog Archive » The Location Is The Message

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Twitter / Over capacity

Twitter / Over capacity



Now I just want to squeeze the effing life out this beached whale! What in the world is wrong with Twitter?! They'd better watch it or the audience is going to walk.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The Winning Online Branding Strategy

Too often, we advertisers focus on the fact that online advertising is so deliciously measurable that we forget what it is we really want to measure. Because of this, we optimize for the wrong metrics, putting us on the wrong sites and networks. Would it meet your goal to have campaigns that have a wide reach but end up hurting your brand? Take low cost, direct response campaigns for example. It's great to spend low for each customer acquisition. However, if you are a high-end fashion brand, showing up on every site out there, including alongside questionable content in social media sites, could hurt your brand equity. Your goal may not be to reach as many potential buyers as can be.

MediaPost Publications - The Winning Online Branding Strategy - 06/12/2008

I was talking about this exact issue yesterday in a client meeting. It takes a great deal of patience and effort to sort through these issues. Our work culture - both on the agency and client sides -- doesn't yet allow us to take that time. Or to take it seriously. Until we change, we will only fall farther behind.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

IDC - Press Release

The Internet will go from the number 5 medium all the way to the number 2 medium in just 5 years, making it bigger than newspapers, bigger than cable TV, bigger even than broadcast TV, and second only to direct marketing. Video advertising will be the principal disruptor of Internet advertising over the next five years by attracting the most new marketing dollars. Its revenue will grow sevenfold from $0.5 billion in 2007 to $3.8 billion in 2012 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 49.4%. This growth will take place because brand advertisers will shift significant amounts of money into these video commercials, primarily from broadcast television and to a lesser extent from cable television.

IDC - Press Release

Blogged with the Flock Browser

FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - ‘Lifestreaming’ challenges social network hierachy

FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - ‘Lifestreaming’ challenges social network hierachy

A new generation of social networking sites is gaining support in Silicon Valley, challenging the established models of leaders MySpace and Facebook.

FriendFeed, a service founded by the creators of Google Maps and Gmail, is at the head of an anarchic counter movement of “lifestreaming”, where users themselves aggregate and order their online social activities from multiple sources.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

MediaPost Publications - Study: Image-Oriented Emails Not Getting Delivered - 06/06/2008

It's back to the drawing board for marketers, whose image-oriented email campaigns are increasingly being blocked by default and Web mail clients.

That's according to Jeanniey Mullen, Email Experience Council founder and a chief marketing officer at Zinio. The Email Experience Council, the email marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), released "Retail Email Rendering Benchmark Study." The 41-page study examines the email design practices of 104 top online retailers tracked via RetailEmail.Blogspot, and examines their performance in an images-off email environment. It also includes the results of a survey of 472 marketers regarding rendering issues, conducted in conjunction with SubscriberMail, the sponsor of this study.

"The results of this study underscore the importance of proactively designing email to compensate for image suppression," said Jordan Ayan, CEO of SubscriberMail, in a statement.

MediaPost Publications - Study: Image-Oriented Emails Not Getting Delivered - 06/06/2008

Dispatch from the front lines of "Duh!"

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Helpful. Or Creepy?

What if you could look at your cell phone and see a heat map of where everybody in the city was at that very moment? The more people at any given location, the redder it would appear on the map. That’s what Citysense does. It is a mobile application that is supposed to help you figure out where the hottest clubs and night spots are so you can go there (or avoid them, depending on your preference).

It senses where the most popular places are based on the location information emitted by everyone’s cell phones, shows the places with the most activity, and then links into Yelp or Google to help you find out what is at that location. Over time, it learns about where you like to go (fancy restaurants or punk rock clubs) and shows you other people like you, and where they are—right now. And it does all of this anonymously. (You can’t see your where your actual friends are). Citysense only works in San Francisco right now. It is available as a mobile download for the Blackberry and soon for the iPhone as well.

The application is essentially a demonstration for a startup called Sense Networks that is emerging from stealth mode today. Citysense is built on top of the company’s main technology platform, Macrosense. The company ingests billions of data points about people’s location from cell phones, GPS devices, WiFi, and even taxis. The company also collects geo-location data from everyone who downloads Citysense, or any future app (although, the company considers the data to be yours, and you can delete it from the database at any time).

Location-Tracking Startup Sense Networks Emerges from Stealth To Answer the Question: Where Is Everybody?

The question is, Is this an advertising medium? Because you can't advertise ON it. But if you're an advertiser with a product that can benefit from the buzz of being "hot spotted" in real time, then this is thrilling. From TechCrunch. Thanks to Mike Brooks for the tip.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

“No one wants a relationship with their mustard.”

Well, exactly. (Unless, it is Col. Mustard, of course, who is endlessly fascinating!)

This odd but spot-on observation was about why big packaged-goods advertisers–who are the really big spenders of the ad business–might be less than interested in leveraging social-media advertising and its promise of deep engagement with consumers.

No one wants to interact over mustard or mayo or ketchup or most products that pay the rent up and down Madison Avenue.

Social Ads Not Cutting the Mustard? | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Microsoft's Ballmer on Yahoo and the Future - washingtonpost.com

Among other things, he confirmed that Microsoft's discussions with Yahoo have continued, predicted that in 10 years all media will be delivered via the Internet and professed that he is confused by Google's moves in the mobile-phone market.

Microsoft's Ballmer on Yahoo and the Future - washingtonpost.com

Ballmer goes big by predicting that all media - including newspapers and magazines - will be digital by 2018. Okay. That's his opinion. And he could be right.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The Berlin School Blog: Professor Robert Weisz on the Need to Manage Emotions

The Berlin School Blog

Emotional intelligence, that is the degree to which the business leader is able to understand and manage emotions effectively in the workplace, is a key success factor in leading creative teams and organisations in today’s business world, according to Professor Robert Weisz, faculty member at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.People have four basic emotions; fear, anger, joy and sadness. When under stress, these emotions are triggered impact our effectiveness. When our emotions are in balance we are content, creative and productive and in a state of growth. On the other hand, when out of balance we are in a state of survival. The role of the creative leader is to manage the emotions effectively in order to create an environment conducive to growth and creativity.

The Berlin School Blog: Professor Robert Weisz on the Need to Manage Emotions

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Groundswell Presentation

| View | Upload your own

Robot Conducts Symphony - Advertising Lab: future of advertising and advertising technology

AP: "Honda's ASIMO robot conducts the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as it performs 'Impossible Dream' during a concert in Detroit, Tuesday, May 13, 2008." Watch video (if you can get it to play past the pre-roll).

Robot Conducts Symphony - Advertising Lab: future of advertising and advertising technology

This is just for fun. But I love robots. And a few minutes before I die, I want my brain embedded into one of these Sony pups!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

MediaPost Publications - Mobile Feedback: Screenvision Launches Cinema Polling - 06/05/2008

Screenvision is integrating interactive polling via mobile text messages into its pre-show advertising. Depending on its success, the interactive polling, set to debut in the top 10 DMAs around the middle of the month, may eventually extend to Screenvision's High Definition digital network of approximately 7,000 screens; altogether Screenvision reaches about 14,000 screens, when analog theaters are included. The first advertiser to associate its brand with the poll feature, Verizon Wireless, is sponsoring polls about the audience's musical tastes. They will then be calculated via a live feed, with the results instantly displayed onscreen in the form of a bar chart.

MediaPost Publications - Mobile Feedback: Screenvision Launches Cinema Polling - 06/05/2008

Blogged with the Flock Browser

YouTube - Shell Game Interactive Video

YouTube - Shell game hard - Straight from Google Labs. Notice the Google t-shirt in the background. This is a very good development for engagement in online video.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Geeky. Very Geeky.

The MySpace Intervention

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Ooyala: Backlot

Ooyala Backlot is a video management platform that gives you control over the delivery, organization, analytics, and monetization of your online videos.

Ooyala: Backlot

This is the player used on Bebo. Very nice interface. Great visual experience. Need to look into its promise of analytics etc. Note to self: Read this later.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Habeas Study Confirms Strong, Ongoing Demand for Email in Direct Marketing, Mobile and Web 2.0 Applications

"Far from being eclipsed by Web 2.0 and other emerging communications methods, consumer expectations suggest that email will be the workhorse channel around which future online communications will revolve," Cahill continued. "This tells us that email will be as central to online commerce and communications in the future as it is today. Organizations that build trust with consumers by implementing forward-looking online reputation management strategies will differentiate themselves and gain a long-term competitive advantage by establishing themselves as a trusted online brand."

Habeas Study Confirms Strong, Ongoing Demand for Email in Direct Marketing, Mobile and Web 2.0 Applications

Blogged with the Flock Browser

MediaPost Publications - Top TW Exec Promises Net/TV Will Converge - 06/03/2008

The long-ballyhooed convergence of the Internet and TV is coming, perhaps within the next year, according to the top executive at Time Warner Cable.

TWC will soon offer a device--a wireless cable modem--allowing the Internet to sync up to the big screen. And further "network everything in your home," per CEO Glenn Britt, although details were not provided.

Britt said Friday at an industry conference that "the idea that the Internet is separate is going to very quickly go away--you're going to get everything on whatever device you want." He noted that Apple TV has been an unwieldy "first step," and in general, it remains "pretty hard" to bring Internet streams to the TV.That, he said, will change in no more than two years. "It's going to be very easy," he said.

MediaPost Publications - Top TW Exec Promises Net/TV Will Converge - 06/03/2008

That's some big talk. Does TWC have enough credibility for this to hold up? Isn't TWC about to be spun off by the mothership? Meanwhile, yesterday a DM piece dropped in my mailbox at home -- it was from AT&T for U-Verse. Welcome to the new Cable Wars. This is just beginning to get interesting. Then again, will a recession dump all over this party? Will millions of Americans simply cut the plug and adopt rabbit ears for their shiny new HDTVs?

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Lifestyles Condoms Aim for the Funny Bone

Lifestyles Condoms new series of online videos entitled Noah and Baron Talk Man Sh*t. The Webisodes, posted at www.lifestyles.com, run three to five minutes and depict American stand-up comedians Noah Starr and Baron Vaughn as they venture across Europe.

Lifestyles is looking to inform consumers about their product both by using humor and with open discussions about sex. "The Noah and Baron videos embrace the idea that safe sex can be fun sex at the same time," said Carol Carozza, vp of marketing at Lifestyles Condoms, Red Bank, N.J. "Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls, but safety and open lines of communication should always be top priority."The video shorts are representative of Lifestyles Condoms' advertising theme, "What's yours?" Agency AMP, Boston, handled production, which took place in The Netherlands, Sweden and Slovakia.

Lifestyles Condoms Aim for the Funny Bone

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Video Insider » Blog Archive » As Recession Ensues, Will Most Advertisers Default To Easier-To-Justify TV Buy?

This year’s upfront selling season seems to have come with its own wrinkles that haven’t exactly continued the pattern of the past few. Instead of the continual devolvement and advertiser mutiny that we’ve seen in the past couple of years, what seems to have occurred is exactly the opposite — advertisers returning to spend upfront dollars, despite continued network ratings declines and further ad skippage.

This seems to be happening for several reasons. First, those same advertisers that held out in years past wound up paying even more in a scatter market that produced windfalls for select broadcasting and cable networks last year. Strike or no strike, they had to advertise somewhere — and the scatter market strategy wasn’t exactly value-priced. Not so sound a strategy for this year, it seems.

Second, we’ve got a ratings mess — complete with everything from program ratings to C3 ratings to average live commercial ratings — even to exact minute ratings. From the creative sidelines, it seems like there’s a free-for-all of buying criteria out there that makes locking in a TV CPM upfront… well, a lot less free for all.

Third, and perhaps most significant, is the acknowledgment that we’re headed towards a deeper recession — leading most traditional advertisers to forgo the whole “shift to digital” trend and simply fall back on the ol’ tried and true TV schedule that they figure will at least keep retail sales going and maintain their brand health measures in this uncertain economic/election year into next.

If you’re an advertiser, put all three factors together and you’re left with fear and control as your buying motivations. Which is not exactly a great place to be if you’re reliant on an industry in as much chaos and entrenched thinking as the agency business is. Combine the two dynamics and it’s not exactly a setup for guerilla-like innovative planning and gutsy creative execution either.

The real challenge for us agency folk is, instead of just taking the money, we should be out there helping lead the more enlightened advertisers to see that more inventive digital and enhanced TV programs can actually out-engage pure impression-based models based on effective frequency if they’re crafted correctly. That means demonstrating how to leverage the digital channel as more than just a vehicle to top off television awareness measures with rich-media banners. It means showing how we can truly immerse consumers in deeper, richer storytelling that is driven by their TV buys and helps activate more trial and sampling, e-couponing and sales results than simply telling the same old brand health measures and purchase intent story.

In these recession-facing times, those who lean into digital by going way beyond the brand site and rich-media banners is one way to separate the marketers and agencies on offense… from those just playing awareness defense. Even the networks themselves, notably ABC, NBC and Turner, have leading-edge, robust custom digital program offerings to help augment even the most defensive TV schedule with tremendous online engagement opportunities.

Meanwhile, if you’re like most agencies feeling the pain of marketer CFOs freezing or cutting budgets while they move to keep cash on the balance sheet and take a wait-and-see posture until Q4, your answer isn’t “wait and see” before you can truly judge whether the digital shift is continuing to expand. The answer is for us all to go on offense and prove why a more engaged consumer is more valuable than a mere impression.Otherwise, for most marketers, the move to digital will simply amount to Searching for more answers… and keywords.

Video Insider » Blog Archive » As Recession Ensues, Will Most Advertisers Default To Easier-To-Justify TV Buy?

A hearty "Amen, Brother" to Alan Shulman for this. Many factions among agencies and their clients are looking for a bail out like the early 00's dot com melt down. They can go back to all TV all the time while wagging a finger at the Net. However, I truly think the jury's still out. The recession may not run deep(er); what if we're in the second or third quarter of a get-along-hum-drum kind of economy that'll last for years? What then? Or what if a back-to-TV backlash simply doesn't work? The fall out could be severe. The winners few. And the losers might shock us.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Live ad by Honda designed to keep viewers tuned in - International Herald Tribune

Live ad by Honda designed to keep viewers tuned in. This is live, at 14,000 feet, over Spain," a man shouted over the roar of the wind, as he and a group of fellow skydivers plunged toward the earth near Madrid. Before deploying their parachutes, they created human formations spelling out the letters H, O, N, D and A.

Live ad by Honda designed to keep viewers tuned in - International Herald Tribune

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Search Engine Marketing | Austin, Texas | Apogee Search

Apogee Search uses proven techniques, powerful Web analytics tools, and a deep expertise in statistical evaluation to generate solid, measurable results at every stage of the search engine marketing process.

Search Engine Marketing | Austin, Texas | Apogee Search

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Yahoo's BrowserPlus is a Game Changer. Finally! - Silicon Alley Insider

BrowserPlus is a browser plug-in unlike any other. As most of you know, a Browser plug-in allows you to add functionality to your browser that it is not built-in. For example, the most popular Browser plug-in is Adobe's Flash Player.The reason BrowserPlus is significant is because it is really the plug-in to end all plug-ins. The idea is that once you have BrowserPlus installed, you can install different feature modules as needed seamlessly and without restarting your browser. Right now, installing plugins, while not exactly painful, is enough of a speedbump that, outside the Flash Player, getting people to install them is fairly hard.

Yahoo's BrowserPlus is a Game Changer. Finally! - Silicon Alley Insider

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Enterprise Adoption of Web 2.0: It's Happening - ReadWriteWeb

If you're a business who has been ignoring the Web 2.0 trend and the spread of social media: look out, the tide is shifting and you're about to be left behind. The rise of social media didn't happen overnight, the power of the internet to unite people, the ubiquity of broadband, the rise of Gen Y, the development of new technologies for socializing on the web - all of these things and more have led to the rise of social media. And this new force is affecting change in the way that companies do business - now and for many years to come.

Enterprise Adoption of Web 2.0: It's Happening - ReadWriteWeb

The lead of this article seems a tad harsh ... or overly hyped up. Nevertheless, the message is clear. Social media for business and, duh, consumers is quickly reaching maturity -- or as I prefer to say around the office and with clients, it's becoming "normal."

Other examples of formerly "techie" activities that have reached normality:
- Getting email on your wireless device; the Blackberry is normal while the iPhone is superbly normal
- Browser plug-ins; Flash is normal
- Digital photography on both ends - a digital camera and web-based sharing/printing apps; Flickr is normal
- GPS; does everybody give their TomTom a pet name? (Ours is "Jane")
- File sharing; iTunes is normal; with Miro and legal Napster, P2P is normal
- Blogs; the Huffington Post and Maya's Mom are normal

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst Media To Release Interactive Web Content

They are preparing to launch new interactive web content (with an emphasis on the interactive part) and are doing a bit of a road show to see what Silicon Valley thinks of their ideas. I had a chance to see some of the content and hear their monetization strategy. And while I can’t say much yet, this is clearly going to be really entertaining stuff. Advertisers in particular are likely to flock to the platform.

Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst Media To Release Interactive Web Content

Blogged with the Flock Browser

MediaPost Publications - New MRM Chief Creative Reveals Plans For Agency - 06/02/2008

"In most big markets, MRMWW is already a full digital shop--the U.S., UK, Germany, China. If you look at Microsoft and Intel as examples, they already spend most of their marketing dollars on Web and digital efforts. As for the rest of our clients and surely for new business, I guess the question is not if, but when."

MediaPost Publications - New MRM Chief Creative Reveals Plans For Agency - 06/02/2008

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Fantastic 3D Visualizer Plug In for Firefox, IE and more

PicLens | Immersive Views Across the Web

PBwiki Makes Wikis for Business

Case Studies

The Financial Times is the world's leading source of securities pricing and financial information, providing news and information to over 1.3m people in 140 countries. In addition to the daily paper publication, the Financial Times includes a pan-European network of national business newspapers and online services as well as a strong portfolio of magazine brands, websites and events targeting specific areas of the financial world.

murketing » “Buying In”

"Buying In has vast social implications, far beyond the fields of marketing and branding. Most importantly, from the policy point of view, it obliterates our old paradigm of companies (the bad guys) corrupting our children (the innocents) via commercials. In this new world, media-literate young freely and willingly co-opt the brands, with most companies being clueless bystanders desperate to keep up. Consuming and interacting with products has become the new turf for the identity politics game, stirring the kind of savage feelings previously reserved for matters of ethnicity and class. I really don’t know if this is good news or bad news, but I can say, with certainty, that this book is a must-read."
– Po Bronson, author, Why Do I Love These People?

murketing » “Buying In”

Blogged with the Flock Browser