Google is an exciting company. Every week the geeks are up to something something new and good. This week in Google, the search and advertising giant announced it will enter the sustainable energy market and make a bid for wireless spectrum, opening a path to the gPhone and a new, more open (and internet-like) consumer option in mobile. Ad Age has the mobile story: Google will enter an upcoming auction for a wireless …
Facebook Does An About Face On Social Ads
Well, that was fast. Just three weeks in to the glorious future of advertsing as reinvented by Facebook, the soc net is stepping off. Adweek frames the situation. Under mounting pressure from consumer privacy groups and its own community, Facebook has moved to scale back its plans to publish accounts of its users' purchases and other commercial activity. As of late Thursday, Facebook users must now proactively …
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Ad Creep Reaches PDFs
Yahoo and Adobe are combining forces to monetize content published in Adobe's PDF format. For advertisers, Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo! extends reach by delivering advertising across a new channel of content, while also providing the ability to track advertising performance, just as they can today with ads placed on Web sites. Todd Teresi, senior vice president, Yahoo! Publisher Network said the move "is a …
Army Strong, Offer Stronger
If you think your client's product is a tough sell, try selling the Army in the fifth year of a war. Today's Wall Street Journal looks at the new approaches the Army is taking--appealing to Mom and Dad in order to sign up Junior: The Army has been enlisting youths for decades by promising them money for college. Starting in January, it will try out a different sort of pitch in selected cities: offering up to $40,000 …
The Man Who Repurposes Media For His Own Purposes
Ad Age sent a writer to Vancouver, BC to meet Kalle Lasn, "advertising's angriest and most prolific heretic." I always imagined the Adbuster as a young turk, but I was wrong. Born in Tallinn, Estonia, in 1942, in the middle of World War II, Mr. Lasn spent his early childhood in a German "displaced-persons camp" before emigrating to Australia and earning a degree in applied mathematics. He spent five years running …
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Men, Women, And The Ads They View
An article in Ad Age highlights some of the differences between men and women while shopping for electronics: This just in: Men and women shop differently. Shopping for a big-screen TV is an exciting process for men, who definitely find it easier than shopping for groceries or shoes. For women, it's stress-inducing and requires careful consideration and research. Men and women also had opposite shopping styles. Women …
Publishing Obscene Odes On the Windows of the Skull
Just about any agency can make great ads for the right client. And the right client often comes in the door as a pro-bono opportunity. I don't know if The Beat Museum is pro-bono or not, but I can't imagine they had much money to spend. Grey's San Francisco office created the campaign, which can be seen in full at Adrants. …
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Walled Gardens Begin To Crumble
According to The Wall Street Journal, a perfect storm is brewing in mobile land. In a major break with industry practice, Verizon Wireless said it will allow consumers to use any compatible cellphone on its network and allow open access to the Web and third-party applications. Verizon Wireless' announcement comes just two months before the FCC auctions off a large chunk of lucrative radio spectrum, which wireless …