John Battelle is pleased with the progress his new firm, Federated Media, made in 2006. I won’t gloat, but I will tell you all this: We beat my year’s estimated revenues by nearly 30%, and this fall, we were booking well over a million a month in new business. By mid January or so we’ll [...]
Hallmark Is Writing The Book On Integrated Marketing
December 27, 2006 By 1 Comment
The New York Times explains how Hallmark’s new lifestyle book is helping to reach female consumers, deepen its relationship with retailers and offer advertisers value-added exposure for their own brands. Hallmark Magazine is only in its third issue, but it has already attracted blue-chip advertisers like Kodak and Lindt chocolate. At a time when many [...]
Second Life Reality Check
December 26, 2006 By 1 Comment
From reading the trade press, you’d think every marketer was falling over themselves to get on Second Life, thinking the site’s popularity is exploding. But over at Valleywag, Clay Shirky parses the claimed numbers of “residents” and “logins” and finds huge discrepancies. He also suggests that reporters have simply parroted Linden Labs’ inflated numbers without [...]
Can A Fake Band Sell Out?
December 26, 2006 By 4 Comments
Maybe they have to pay out lots o’ life insurance for all those spontaneously combusting drummers, but as a huge fan of This Is Spinal Tap, I can’t help but be bummed out about this. Why Ogilvy has to do this to a good song, particularly by using it in a completely humorless way, I [...]
Tight Pants…Not Just For Indie Posers Anymore
December 26, 2006 By Leave a Comment
LA Times looks at the popularity of Santa Ana-based lifestyle brand KR3W. “KR3W’s smoking,” said Steve Carlson, general manager of Central Coast Surfboards in San Luis Obispo. “Each time I look at a new season line from them, I’m like, ‘Whoa, doggie man. This one’s testing me out.’ ” KR3W’s appeal is linked to the [...]
Bill Green’s Phat List Of Beefs
December 26, 2006 By 1 Comment
George Parker is the most pissed off ad blogger we know, but Bill Green can get peeved too. Here are some selections from his list of “12 or so things that bothered me this year.” 2) Cellphones + drivers. 3) Chillabrations, ‘Fash’-ons and anything blinged, pimped or ‘phat’-ted. 4) No Geico cavemen sitcom. 5) Non-drunk [...]
A Christmas Eve Message From A Billionaire Blogger
December 26, 2006 By Leave a Comment
On Christmas Eve, Mark Cuban, founder of HDnet and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, published a lengthy piece on his blog about advertising opportunities in high definition television. In route, he takes shot at the momentary darling of media planners everywhere. HDTV is the Internet video killer. Deal with it. Internet video won’t replace TV. [...]
Our Country Tis Of Thee
December 26, 2006 By 2 Comments
The Wall Street Journal reports on the potetnial downside for recording artists who license their songs to commercial enterprises prior to official release of their music on disc. John Mellencamp’s 21st studio album, “Freedom’s Road,” isn’t due out until next month. But his record label is already worrying that one song, “Our Country,” may be [...]
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