August 1, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

There is no digital divide between the sexes, according to this USA Today article:

An Oxygen Network survey released Tuesday found that more than three out of four women said they'd choose the TV over a diamond solitaire necklace. Women preferred a top-of-the-line cellphone to designer shoes by a similar margin. And a little white iPod narrowly trumped a little black dress.

These are among the results of the Girls Gone Wired survey by market researcher TRU for Oxygen. TRU surveyed 1,400 women and 700 men 15 to 49 years old to compare tech attitudes among the sexes.

In the Oxygen survey, 59% of women agreed with the statement "Women are much more tech savvy than they give themselves credit for." Among the men, just 38% agreed.

"Men and women are equally competent in the technology arena," says Oxygen CEO Geraldine Laybourne.

August 1, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

The New York Times takes a closer look today at the increasing use of heavyset black women in ads:

This caricature, playing on stereotypes of heavy black women as boisterous and sometimes aggressive, has been showing up for some time in stand-up comedy routines and in movies like “Big Momma’s House’’ and “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.’’ Often, the pieces are produced by directors and writers who are black themselves.

With black creators giving more acceptability to the image, it is now starting to appear more often in television commercials as well. Most recently some variation of this character has appeared in commercials for Dairy Queen, Universal Studios and Captain Morgan rum.

But despite the popularity of such characters among blacks, the use of the image of big black women as the target of so many jokes is troublesome to some marketers and media scholars.

“It is perpetuating a stereotype that black females are strong, aggressive, controlling people,’’ said Tommy E. Whittler, a marketing professor at DePaul University. “I don’t think you want to do that.’’

I think it'd be interesting to hear from the creatives who write lots of TV, as well as the broadcast producers about this, because it comes down to the individual scripts and spots: Do people write ads with this caricature in mind, or does the thought to cast these women occur during the casting process?

August 1, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

photo by Stephanie Diani

According to Ad Age, Lee Clow will be 63 on Thursday. The article mentions the possibility of retirement, but I find the fact that Clow stands at a large workbench all day, much more intriguing. Hemingway did that. The stand at a desk and work thing.

August 1, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

There are a few "reviews" of The Butter Trough on restaurant-finder websites, and there was a help-wanted ad on Craigslist, but alas, there is no such place.

Not yet, at least. From its website:

The Butter Trough is the world's FIRST 100% advertisement supported restaraunt.

Come down to our Atlanta Facility to enjoy food and fun with friends and family all for free. We are able to bring this great value to YOU, the consumer, through the use of directed advertisements from corporate sponsors. This means that while you are enjoying your bread, butter, and tea you will softly hear advertisements playing in the background via the tabletop speakers, multipatron television sets, and the butter trough multimedia displays scattered throughout the establishment.

Come down five times a day, or just once in your life - we guarantee you an experience that you will never forget. From the free food, to the bi-hourly butter "slopping" by Farmer Bob, or the kids butter-skimming contests there is something for everyone at The Butter Trough.

Not that we'll see an all bread-and-butter restaurant, but someone, someday, will figure out a way to get advertisers to foot the bill for an eatery like this.

August 1, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

San Francisco Chronicle sent a reporter to BlogHer on Saturday. The reporter took note of the growing corporate influence on writers and their blogs.

If the word "bloggers" conjures a romantic image -- of fiercely independent writers, untouched by corporate influence -- this may be the convention where that image begins to die. It also may be the convention where the divide between writers who want to pay rent through their trade and those who prefer to rant commercial-free becomes apparent. This year, BlogHer, billed as the largest national gathering of female bloggers with 750 attendees, has developed the BlogHer Ad Network to enable corporations and online writers form business relationships.

According to Elisa Camahort, one of three BlogHer co-founders, "We're the bridge between companies and these amplified influencers." Amplified influencers is Camahort's term for popular bloggers, people who might be able to shift marketplace opinion about products with a few kind words -- or harsh ones -- at the stroke of the "enter" key.

At the convention, brand-name companies lined up to greet their potential business partners. The lunch break was sponsored by Weight Watchers. Funding for the keynote seminar was provided by Johnson & Johnson, which also used the event to launch momver sations.com, an upcoming "virtual park bench" for motherly blogs. And the sex talk forum was sponsored by Elexa, Trojan's line of "sexual well-being products created from a woman's perspective."

In the past, companies that dared place their brand on a writer's site typically picked an A-list blogger such as Daily Kos, and risked the wisecracks in return for the high volume of page views.

But now, through niche ad networks like BlogHer, a company can purchase a "parenting bundle" and get placement on three dozen blogs written by mothers.

August 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to USA Today, Wyndham Worldwide, which completed its spinoff from Cendant on Tuesday, now plans to bulk up its top hotel brand with better marketing and a new, more consistent look.

CEO Stephen Holmes acknowledged that the Wyndham brand has suffered from varying standards at its 87 hotels, all in the USA. The result: Travelers don't know what to expect.

To reinvigorate the chain, Wyndham recently tapped noted designer Michael Graves to redesign its décor and furnishings, giving the hotels a more contemporary look. The new design will begin to appear at Wyndham hotels by the end of the year. Wyndham also plans to open hotels abroad by the end of the year, starting with Europe, Holmes says.

Holmes keeps a list of 35 global markets that he hopes to target in coming years. The company's goal is to grow to 700,000 rooms by 2010 — up 33% — across all its brands, which also include Howard Johnson, Super 8, Ramada, Days Inn and Travelodge.

August 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Rueters reports that an old outdoor campaign is being recycled to promote a new documentary film.

In an effort to tap into anti-war sentiment, billboards will appear in New York and Los Angeles this month declaring "War Is Over! If You Want It."

The statement is not so much political as commercial: independent film distributor Lionsgate is using them to promote its documentary "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," set to open September 15 in both cities.

The billboards are a reproduction of those created and posted by Lennon and wife Yoko Ono in 11 cities in 1969 as a protest against the Vietnam War.

The one difference to the original billboard is that the Web address www.joinnutopia.com will appear at the bottom. The link is for a site Lionsgate created to highlight the conceptual country Nutopia, which Lennon and Ono created when the government tried to deport him.

[via Adfreak]

August 2, 2006 by Matt Bergantino | Permalink | 0 Comments

Stephen Colbert stirred the Wikipedia pot on Monday when he coined a new word--"Wikiality." You Tube has the footage and Newsvine has the story:

In the segment, Colbert logs on to the Wikipedia article about his show to find out whether he usually refers to Oregon as "California's Canada or Washington's Mexico." Upon learning that he has referred to Oregon as both, he demonstrates how easy it is to disregard both references and put in a completely new one (Oregon is Idaho's Portugal), declaring it "the opinion I've always held, you can look it up."

Colbert went on to encourage his fans to vandalize entries on "elephants" as an experiment in "truthiness." I prefer the Howard Stern fans who prank call radio shows. But that's just me.

August 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

CNN/Money reports on a Census Bureau survey which indicates 19.5 million U.S. businesses have no employees on the payroll, up 4.7 percent from the previous year.

Businesses without a payroll now make up more than 70 percent of the nation's more than 27 million companies, with annual sales of about $887 billion.

Building contractors, Internet service providers, nail salons, e-shopping and mail-order houses, lessors of real estate, formal wear and costume rental stores and motorcycle dealers were among the fastest growing of the smallest firms.

Florida led the nation in the growth of these small businesses with a 7.6 percent increase. Georgia climbed to second place with a 7.1 percent increase.

August 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 6 Comments

According to New York Times, a regional convenience store chain treats its employees right, which leads to happier customers. In fact, many of these happy customers have become online evangelists for the brand.

The I Love Wawa group on MySpace.com has more than 5,000 members, making it the largest of several Wawa-related groups on the online-community site. Over on Livejournal.com, there’s a group called We Love Wawa, with about 950 members. This would be pretty ho-hum if Wawa were an indie band or video game. Instead, it’s a chain of convenience stores, with 550 locations in five states on the East Coast. Many of the postings to these groups involve praise for Wawa’s house-brand goods — coffee, hoagies, etc. But the most intriguing factor in Wawa loyalty may be something else: the service.

Can anyone from the Mid Atlantic states confirm this report? Is the service at Wawa really worth writing/talking about? I believe it is, but I'd love to hear it from someone who shops there.

August 2, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

"Advertising has a problem. It's not efficient. Yes, you can buy results-only advertising, but the waste-to-results ratio runs in the same range as lotteries. And yes, Google has revolutionized advertising by 1) making results affordable to nearly everybody, and 2) moving the waste to where it's best tolerated, which is by servers pumping out stuff most people don't mind ignoring. But it's still waste. The day will come when something new will connect demand and supply directly and efficiently. (Maybe Google will do that too... who knows?). Then advertising as we know it will be a goner. I've been predicting this for a generation, by the way, so I'm not holding my breath. But trust me. It will happen." -Doc Searls in Linux Journal

In response to this conjecture, Mack Collier made an insightful rebuttal on Marketing Profs:

Doc's a smart guy, but he lets his hatred of marketing cloud his judgment whenever he speaks on the subject. As a result, he is constantly coming up with his latest 'theory' on how at some future point, marketing, and people that make money off marketing, will go away.

Of course neither will happen, because people don't WANT to see marketing go away. Do we all want more efficient marketing, and less marketing that gets in our way? Absolutely times two. But what Doc and other members of the 'a world without marketing is the world for me' crowd forgets is that people WANT to be sold to. They want to be 'romanced' by companies seeking their business, they want to comparision shop, and many of us actually ENJOY shopping, at least for certain items.

Right. Like shoes. People enjoy shopping for shoes. I do. And I know of others.

August 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Jim Coudal does not like Agency.com's pseudo-viral, a video the agency used to pitch the Subway account. Instead of whining about it, he made his own mockumentary, in response.

Adfreak posted the Agency.com vid two days ago and they now have 67 comments on their post. Seems lots of people want to weigh in on this feeble attempt to be cool and different. And viral. It's all about being viral. If you're not viral today, you're livin' in Nowheresville.

August 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to Poynter, Ana Marie Cox, formerly of Gawker Media's Wonkette, is now the Washington Editor of Time.com.

Richard Stengel, managing editor of TIME said, "Ana Marie is a sharp and witty observer of the Washington scene and has the ability to spot political angles in surprising places. In her new role, she'll bring her great web instincts to covering the hot topics of the day."

August 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to ClickZ:

The Coca-Cola Company has morphed its longtime corporate Web site into an international brand portal with user-generated content in mind.

The new site, designed by AKQA, marks the first global integration of the company's digital presence. It's available in 26 countries and six languages, and will be promoted online and offline by brand managers in those regions.

"Throughout Coke's history, we have seen people use the brand, its icons and heritage as a creative source," said Marc Mathieu, SVP for global core brands, in a statement. "In the '60s, it was Andy Warhol, today it's people all over the world on the Internet developing their own interpretations of the brand. We believe the independent creative process is a vital part of our heritage. With this site we want to give a further opportunity for these imaginative minds to be part of our creative process."

[via Random Culture]

August 3, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to the official press release, MTV is strengthening its reach to the student market via acquisition.

mtvU, MTV's 24-hour college network and a division of Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Y2M: Youth Media & Marketing Networks, the parent of College Publisher, the largest interactive network of online college newspapers in the US. The network reaches over five million college students via 450 online campus papers – the most powerful local media brand on campus.

"This acquisition is in line with our business strategy of moving forward in the digital space and continually expanding our online portfolio of music, gaming, news and entertainment," said Judy McGrath, Chairman and CEO, MTVN.

"Student publications are the lifeblood of college campuses, and we're looking forward to supporting them with new tools and advertising opportunities – empowering them to expand their offerings and audience, as well as improve their financial performance," said Stephen Friedman, GM, mtvU.

[via MIT Convergence Culture Consortium]

August 4, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Lewis Lazare wonders how many young men in Miller Brewing's crosshairs can trace the Man Laws campaign back to its origin—the mythic King Arthur and his knights of the round table.

Given the state of education today, and a waning interest in reading, at least when it comes to serious literature, we doubt most of the target audience for this campaign knows -- much less cares -- where Crispin got its inspiration.

But we do appreciate the glorious tale of King Arthur and his knights, and after observing this "Square Table" campaign play out ad nauseam on television, radio and the Internet for several weeks now, we have concluded it might be the lamest effort Miller and its roster of agencies have produced since the brewery began to upgrade and focus its advertising.

Of course, Miller drinkers for the most part are not Dartmouth educated aesthetes, like Lazare, so I doubt they mind a commercial with Burt Reynolds in it.

August 4, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Yelp.com founders, Russel Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman

Business Week is running a feature on the new NoCal rock stars. You know, the young turks that lurk just south of San Francisco.

Digg founder, Kevin Rose and his fellow wealth punks have little in common with the sharp-talking MBAs in crisp khakis and blue button-downs who rushed the Valley as the NASDAQ climbed. In the late 1990s, entrepreneurs were the supplicants, and Sand Hill Road, dotted with venture-capital firms, was the mecca.

Now, it's more like: Maybe we'll let you throw a few bucks our way -- if you get it. Otherwise, get lost. That's possible because the cost of jump-starting a good idea has plummeted. At the same time, the sources of money have multiplied, swirling in from new VC shops, angel investors, and strategic partners galore.

The article mostly looks at Kevin Rose (who has 11,000 "friends" on MySpace) and his rapid rise from obscurity. But it also addresses old school business concerns, like competition. Business Week points out that AOL's Jason Calacanis tried to replicate Digg at the reinvented Netscape. He also tried to lure Digg's top 50 contributors with $1,000 a month to switch to its site, which led Rose to rant on his weekly podcast that Calcanis and AOL were trying to "squash Digg."

August 4, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Greg Storey of Airbag Industries is less than impressed with the new Technorati website redesign.

It's my understanding that drug users sometimes have flashbacks that cause them to hallucinate and do unexplainable, unimaginable things. So when a friend told me to go see the new Technorati website and it finished loading, the first thing that came to mind was that drug users with a Jolly Rancher fetish are now in control of the bus.

Technorati is a blog discussion search/indexing engine, or that's what I had been made to believe. This new magically-delicious site would have me believe it's the next social app of the future...future...future...future. I kept looking for a way to "Digg" blogs and blog posts but found nothing. I'm guessing that by the time the redesign project got to that phase it was time for the munchies. I could be way off here and this is merely an homage to early Web 2.0 design circa early 2005 — an inside-joke or way to get free publicity with headlines like: "What hath Technorati become?" or "MyYahoorati?".

A bit harsh, but very funny.

August 5, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Adfreak points to funny man, Rob Schneider's full page attack ad in Variety, used to ridicule Mel Gibson and promote Schneider's new film in one fell swoop.

August 6, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

A New York Times business writer looks at fast food product development, but finds manipulation of language instead:

Corporate jargon can sound austere when used to describe something like the Mashed Potato Bowl, a new menu item at the restaurant chain KFC.

To a fast-food gourmand, the product appears to be a simple, casserole-like mélange of puréed potatoes, corn, fried chicken and cheese, all smothered in brown gravy.

But to Patty Scheibmeir, a senior director for product innovation and development at KFC, the Mashed Potato Bowl is a “convenient meal solution,” a phrase that makes it sound more like a computer security patch than a stomach filler.

The article goes on to explain that KFC's food is hard to eat on the go. Hence, the need for convenient meal solutions.

August 6, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Adobe Systems CEO, Bruce R. Chizen, 50, spoke to New York Times reporter, Juston Jones. Here's some of what he said:

"Adobe is everywhere you look.The fonts in daily newspapers may have been created with Adobe Type. The layouts in magazines are likely to have been made with Adobe InDesign. The graphics on soda cans or water bottles are likely to have been made by Adobe Illustrator or Adobe FreeHand. Adobe software is used in everything from car navigation systems to electronic I.R.S. tax forms.

This delivery of information across all platforms and media types is what is driving our business. And that’s why, even with a depressed stock price, we still have a market capitalization of $16 billion."

August 7, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to MyBusiness Magazine, Jason Fried of 37signals built his business with a philosophy he calls "Getting Real," a way of thinking that inspires those with limited budgets and few resources to create successful products.

"Big business loves mediocrity: They put process first and product second. As long as you go through this process and all these objectives are met along the way, then what comes out at the end is considered successful, no matter what. It doesn't upset anyone, but doesn't make them happy, either. It's safe. I can't deal with that," said Fried.

August 7, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

The actors unions and representatives of major national advertisers said they have reached a tentative agreement that extends their contract for two more years, according to Adweek.

The pact, which is set to run through 2008, is significant because it governs $2 billion worth of advertising in which actors appear.

The deal, if approved by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild, would give performers a 6 percent pay raise, and the contract would cover all electronic and emerging media.

August 8, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

If this Ad Age report is correct, supermarkets across the land can expect a run on bologna, mustard, peanut butter and jelly.

When Interstate Bakeries Corp. agreed to a product-placement deal with Sony Pictures to have its Wonder Bread brand incorporated into a Will Ferrell movie, it did so with a handshake and a prayer.

No money was exchanged, and the company -- currently in bankruptcy -- was hoping for some good exposure. It got that and more on the opening weekend of Mr. Ferrell's Nascar comedy, "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."

Not only did the film earn an estimated $47 million at the box office, but sponsorship measurement firm Joyce Julius & Associates, Ann Arbor, Mich., estimates that Wonder Bread received $4.3 million in exposure.

The Wonder Bread logo appeared clear and in-focus for 11 minutes, 32 seconds during the film. The brand was also mentioned by the actors on two occasions.

In real life, Wonder Bread is not a Nascar partner, nor does it endorse any driver, which is more than a missed opportunity, it's a cryin' shame and quite possibly unAmerican.

August 8, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA Today reports on a lucrative deal between online titans.

Google reached a deal Monday with the owner of MySpace.com to share at least $900 million in advertising revenues and become the exclusive search provider for the popular social-networking site.

Under the multiyear deal, News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media unit will add Google search boxes to MySpace and other sites, likely by the end of the year, and Google will provide search results and keyword ads targeted to people's search terms. Google will also get first rights to sell any display ads not sold by Fox directly.

"We think it's important that we move Google to where the users are, and the users are moving to user-generated content and particularly the sites of Fox Interactive," Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told analysts and reporters.

Besides MySpace, the deal covers most of Fox's other sites, including IGN, Americanidol.com, Fox.com and Rotten Tomatoes. Fox Sports is not included because News Corp. already has a deal with Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.

August 8, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Bono is one of six founding partners in Elevation Partners, a private equity group. According to New York Times, Elevation just acquired a stake of more than 40 percent in 89-year-old Forbes magazine and Forbes.com at a cost of $250 million to $300 million.

Roger McNamee, a managing director and co-founder of Elevation, helps mere mortals understand why Ireland's King of Rock, wants to play media mogul.

Bono was not directly involved in the Forbes meetings, but Mr. McNamee said that the singer was attracted to the magazine because it has a point of view, adding that Bono drove this part of the discussion and likes the fact that there has been a consistent philosophy throughout its history.

Forbes.com had 10 million unique visitors worldwide in June. The Times story makes clear the web property was the darling of the deal.

August 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner, in a foolish moment, told USA Today $4.00/gallon gas will not lead to fewer auto sales.

Despite the speculation about how high prices could run after the cutoff this week of BP's Alaskan crude, Wagoner says he thinks vehicle sales are unlikely to nose-dive.

"We have actually been a little surprised how the market has held up through ... $3-plus gas that we've had here over the past year," Wagoner said Tuesday.

August 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Turkish newspaper, Zaman, brings us this twisted story of two beverage behemoths gone bad:

India parliament agreed on ban of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo products following last week’s discovery of toxic chemicals in the Indian manufactured cola products.

The New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment said last week that tests conducted on 57 samples found pesticide residues in Coke and Pepsi products that were 24 times above the limits set by the Bureau of Indian Standards.

The local authorities in Mumbai, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, Hayrana and Rajastan have imposed a ban on the sale of Coke and Pepsi at government offices and schools.

India's Supreme Court last week gave the two firms six weeks to reveal the ingredients of their products. Some legislators in the federal parliament have called for a total ban on sales of soft drinks.

Coca-cola and PepsiCo control 90 percent of India’s soft drink market.

August 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

San Jose Mercury News takes a closer look at Nick Denton's Valleywag, a.k.a. Nick Douglas.

The 22-year-old college dropout has ruffled Silicon Valley's feathers in the seven months since valleywag.com launched. The site has established itself with a daily quota of 12 items, a mixture of gossip, rumor and wry riffs. Plus, Valleywag gives the technology world something it secretly hungers for -- Hollywood-style glamour.

``When a blow-up happens and it's strictly tech, it really is boring,'' said Douglas, who was plucked from his Pennsylvania Christian college a semester before graduating by Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker Media, to start Valleywag. Denton had followed Douglas' postings on a site about blogging called Blogebrity. ``The best thing for the tech industry is if it goes Hollywood.''

That would be best for Valleywag, too.

Frankly, I'm surprised there isn't an equivalent ad blog that gossips ruthlessly about ad people. You know ad people would eat that shit up. I'm not inclined to offer such fare here, but I trust someone, someday, somewhere will.

August 9, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Grant McCracken, a man with a Ph.D. in anthropology who has taught at Harvard Business School, examines the way Microsoft and eBay avoid treating problems like spam and phishing that daily impact their customers and their brands.

For some reason, Microsoft thought that spam was my problem. How cavalier. Apparently, the author and vendor of my email program was quite happy to expose me to daily difficulty. Maybe Microsoft thought that spam was a third party opportunity they were obliged to leave to the likes of Symantec.

Plainly, Microsoft is not a consumer centric organization. A consumer centric organization would have said, "Good lord in heaven, we have exposed the consumer to misery. Let's fix it." Instead they were sometimes mute on the problem and sometimes cavalier.

McCracken switched to Google's Gmail, a program that takes spam seriously.

Now on to eBay...

Everyday, even with Google filters in place, I receive phish and faux emails from Ebay, insisting that my account needs reviewing, that my orders have been lost, that payment was not received, that my account will be suspended!

I still use Ebay, but I can't help thinking, "do they not understand this is happening? Are they being cavalier on this one? Do they somehow think that email and, by extension, the security of an Ebay transaction and relationship, is my problem?"

I don't use eBay, but I use Pay Pal, a company owned by eBay. I receive phishing scams every other day from someone posing as Pay Pal, which means I can never trust anything I receive from Pay Pal, even if it's real. Clearly, this is a MASSIVE problem for Pay Pal's brand credibility.

August 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 8 Comments

According to Newsweek, Peter McBride can take off his polo shirt and maintain his preppy image. McBride, 22, has a Polo pony tattooed on his chest. His decision to brand himself with a brand is increasingly common. Gaje Pou, a New York City tattoo artist, says getting inked with designer or corporate logos is "definitely getting more acceptable." Logo requests range from Chanel and Gucci to Windows and PlayStation.

August 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Ad Age reports that Showtime placed a scent-strip ad in the Aug. 24 issue of Rolling Stone to promote the second season of "Weeds," a show where a suburban mother (played by Mary-Louise Parker) sells marijuana to keep the mortgage paid.

"It smells like hippies wearing patchouli," said a MediaWorks colleague who got to sniff the ad.

Fragrance vendors, whose typical struggles include searching for scents that whisper "Britney Spears," were not exactly set up to deliver. There were no vials, for example, marked "Chronic," "Amnesia" or "Maui Wowie."

Hmmm...I'm sure the scent vendors could have perfectly replicated the smell of skunk weed, although that particular smell might offend some readers.

August 10, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 8 Comments

"Quiznos Marketing Exec Arrested in Chat Room Sex Sting" the Ad Age headline rings out, having made its way from the New York Post's newroom.

Quiznos' senior VP of marketing, Scott Lippitt, 47, faces at least five felony charges, including criminal attempt at sexual assault on a child; enticement of a child; contributing to the delinquency of a minor; internet luring; and internet sexual exploitation of a child, according to documents from the Fremont County Court clerk's office in Colorado.

Lippitt allegedly wanted to teach a 13-year old girl "how to be a woman."

August 11, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

After AOL's fumbling of privacy-rich search data, an act for which they're taking a pounding, customer-centric Google is looking good in this USA Today article on the topic:

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has a message for Google users: Your searches are safe.

"Our No. 1 priority with our users is trust," Schmidt told some 2,000 attendees at the Search Engine Strategies conference.

Safa Rashtchy, an analyst at equity firm Piper Jaffray, takes Schmidt at his word. "Google is one of the most protective companies on the planet," he says. "They have a culture of secrecy.

August 11, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

According to the New York Times, Sumner Redstone's media conglomerate is making savvy moves and cashing in on them.

Viacom said yesterday that growth in advertising sales at its MTV Networks helped the company post a 27 percent increase in second-quarter profit.

Viacom also announced that it had agreed to buy the online video and games company Atom Entertainment for $200 million as Viacom seeks to build its Internet business by focusing on video and games.

Viacom’s MTV Networks hopes to expand its main audience of young viewers, using Atom’s portfolio of online videos created by Internet users, short independent films and casual online games, the chief executive of MTV, Judy McGrath, said.

August 11, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Writing in Editor & Publisher, Kevin J. Mireles advises the newspaper business to "make a conscious transition from being strictly content creators to become local communication facilitators."

He argues that newspapers could benefit greatly by providing user-generated content that's been screened by professional editors. By "benefit" he means increased revenue via advertising. The notion being that most marketers are frightened to invest in YouTube and MySpace because of the free-for-all nature of the sites. Hence, the continued need for the controlled environments of a newspaper.com.

Mireles also thinks users can benefit from this best of both worlds arrangement. He contends, perhaps correctly, that newspaper.com's are easier to navigate due to repeated, if not daily, use.

August 11, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

I don't know what legendary media critic, A.J. Liebling thought of advertising. Whatever he thought of it, he knew how to use advertising to his advantage.

Here's a small piece of his Wikipedia entry:

He returned to Providence in autumn 1927 to write for the Journal. He then moved to New York, where he proceeded to campaign for a job on Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, which carried the work of James M. Cain and Walter Lippmann and was known at the time as 'the writer's paper.' In order to attract the attention of the city editor, James W. Barrett, Liebling hired an out-of-work Norwegian seaman to walk for three days outside the Pulitzer Building, on Park Row, wearing sandwich boards that read Hire Joe Liebling.

That's some old school direct marketing. I like it.

August 12, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Erin at Out of Character is living proof that the millions of dollars being spent by marketers on scent and sound is worth every penny.

I went to Costco today to pick up laundry detergent and...approximately $90 worth of other crap I totally don't need, and much to my orgasmic delight and/or horror I stumbled upon an advertised demo stereo that was blasting "Boston". I quickly discovered that I was only physically able to move my cart in a thirty-foot radius around said stereo, and thus I was only able to purchase batteries and replacement ink jet cartridges.

This is learning Eveready and HP can't readily get from focus groupies. Thanks to the humorously rendered confessional blog, we know beyond any doubt that 70s rock can turn ugly necessities into desirable packaged goods.

Powerful stuff, this. Handle with care.

August 12, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Shawn Corey Carter, a.k.a. Jay-Z, 36, is president and CEO of Def Jam Records. For most mortals that would be an all-engrossing position and a magnificent accomplishment. But Jay-Z is on another level. He's also one of the owners and founders of the Roc-A-Fella empire, which includes Roc-A-Fella Records, Roc-La-Familia, Roc-A-Fella Films and Rocawear. And he owns part of the New Jersey Nets and the 40/40 Club, an upscale sports bar with locations in Manhattan and Atlantic City. It may not be trains and steel, but it's an empire all the same. Oh, Jay-Z is also a five-time Grammy-winning recording artist, boyfriend to Beyonce and an advocate for water conservation and for the one billion people around the world who lack access to safe drinking water. Bottom line, you've got to have unreal powers of concentration to have that many balls in the air at one time.

August 13, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 5 Comments

Viral videos distributed through YouTube are all the rage, but until the recent emergence of You Tube user, Geriatric1927, the idea that senior citizens would successfully run with this ball was not well, nor widely, understood.

August 13, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to Marion Chronicle Tribune, close to a dozen masked men entered a Taco Bell in Jonesboro, Indiana toting six 40-gallon trash bags filled with individual packets of taco sauce - about 25,000 in all, police guess.

"I've heard a lot of people accumulate sauce packets in their glove compartments. We know people keep things, and it's a pretty common phenomenon, but to have that many, I've never heard of that," said Rob Poetsch, a Taco Bell spokesman.

The corporation goes through about 6 billion packets a year, so the return only gets Taco Bell a return on about .0004 percent of its yearly consumption.

Since, Taco Bell will likely trash the stash for food safety reasons, the collectors might have thought to donate their holdings to this fine group.

August 14, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 6 Comments

New York Times ran an article last week titled, "Green Logo, but BP Is Old Oil," the theme of which is rather obvious, given BP's recent problems in Alaska. The question is can one incident, or one well placed article, undue millions in annual advertising expenditures?

No, I don't believe one article will do the trick, but several might. Guardian Unlimited ran a piece by George Monbiot last June on BP and Shell, debunking their green advertising messages as nothing more than well funded false advertising.

For a company that claims to have moved "beyond petroleum", BP has managed to spill an awful lot of it on to the tundra in Alaska. Last week, after the news was leaked to journalists, it admitted to investors that it is facing criminal charges for allowing 270,000 gallons of crude oil to seep across one of the world's most sensitive habitats. The incident was so serious that some of its staff could be sent to prison.

Had this been Exxon, the epitome of sneering corporate brutality, the news would have surprised no one. But BP's rebranding, like Shell's, has been so effective that you could be forgiven for believing that it had become an environmental pressure group. These companies have used the vast profits from their petroleum business to create the impression that they are abandoning it.

Monbiot goes on to say BP's adverts give the impression that the company dispenses "pure carrot juice," not petrol.

August 15, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

USA Today reports on Google's attempt to reach small businesses with no web presence.

Internet search giant Google on Monday night began offering small businesses a free way to offer coupons online.

The initiative is aimed primarily at the millions of businesses that don't currently advertise online, and offers them the ability to attract local customers with discounts or special deals.

"For small businesses, coupons help them build awareness of their products and services, and take advantage of the online medium in a way they haven't," says Shailesh Rao, Google's director of local search.

Google dominates traditional Web searches, but it is in a tight race with Yahoo for local business searches.

Charlene Li, an analyst at market tracker Forrester Research, says local search is seen as the "holy grail" for Google and Yahoo because so much business is conducted near the home.

August 16, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 5 Comments

According to Ad Age, a popular media industry site could fetch upwards of 20 million dollars in a sale.

Mediabistro, the networking, jobs and news website for journalists, PR people and other communications pros, is on the block, according to several people familiar with the discussions. Several suitors, including media companies and employment web sites, are said to be in the bidding for the company.

Media-focused investment bank DeSilva & Phillips is handling the sale process, which is expected to wrap up by September.

The company's revenue comes from job ads that cost $229 pop, classes that can run upward of $600, and membership fees of $49 a year.

I recently placed a classified "want" ad for a Content Manager on MediaBistro and it worked. In fact, all the top candidates for the job came through MediaBistro.

August 16, 2006 by Matt Bergantino | Permalink | 1 Comments

Google lawyers crack down on the lexicography website Word Spy for defining "google" as a verb.

Here's Word Spy's definition:

google (GOO.gul) v. To search for information on the Web, particularly by using the Google search engine; to search the Web for information related to a new or potential girlfriend or boyfriend. —Googling pp.

Here's the story, as reported by the BBC.

Paul McFedries, who runs the lexicography site Word Spy, received a stiffly worded letter from the firm after he added "google" to his online lexicon.

The company asked him to delete the definition or revise it to take account of the "trade mark status of Google". He opted for the latter.

Google's problem is one of the paradoxes of having a runaway successful brand. The bigger it gets, the more it becomes part of everyday English language and less a brand in its own right.

Just as we talk about "hoovering" instead of vacuuming, people have started to say "google" to mean search. The word has become an eponym.

Talk about a good problem to have. Don't even get me started.

August 16, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Google's business model is totally dependent on widely available interweb access; therefore, it's not surprising that the search giant would undertake efforts to create free municipal Wi-Fi networks.

USA Today has more:

Google on Wednesday plans to offer free, high-speed Internet access to everyone in its Silicon Valley home town — a hospitable gesture that the online search leader hopes to see spread to other parts of the country.

The new wireless, or "Wi-Fi," network, is believed to establish Mountain View, Calif., as the largest U.S. city with totally free Internet access available throughout the entire community, according to both Google and city officials.

About 72,000 people reside in Mountain View, an 11.5-square-mile city located about 35 miles south of San Francisco. As the home to major companies like Google and VeriSign, Mountain View's daytime population can swell above 100,000.

Google's community-wide network has had Mountain View buzzing in anticipation, said City Manager Kevin Duggan.

"There's a lot of excitement," he said. "It's something we could have never anticipated a few years ago when we were just excited to be able to pay for dial-up access to the Internet. Now our entire town is a hot spot."

Google invested about $1 million to build the Mountain View Network and expects to have to spend far less than that each year to keep it running. The financial commitment represents a pittance for Google, which has nearly $10 billion in cash.

While Google may hope to ignite a movement with this act, I see this as corporate philanthropy at its best. What the community needs, Google provides.

August 16, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Bear at Orange Yeti (the blog of Orange Coat, a Greenville design shop) admits that networking is not easy. Not in the offline world.

I just got back from the Greenville Chamber's Friday Focus meeting. It's been a couple of months since I've attended an event that used to go to every month. I was struck by how much easier it has gotten to go to these events. I know people at the events now and people know me.

When I first started attending networking events no one knew who I was and visa versa. I was just the weird kid in the flip flops. Nonetheless, I just kept showing up and showing up. I’m not the most outgoing person in a crowd so I would just meet a couple of people a meeting. And keep showing up and showing up. Doing this for a long enough time people start knowing and remembering who you are. I was practicing, without knowing it, the George Costanza Networking Method (GCNM).

I like how Bear works through his own awkwardness without taking himself too seriously. It seems everyday I'm confronted with awkwardness, mostly my own. Business is full of these sandpaper moments, I guess. What say you?

August 16, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 9 Comments

August 17, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

Lewis Lazare has been watching videos on YouTube. However, it's premature to say the old man is down with youth culture, for he didn't much like what he found there.

A publicist, all lathered up, contacted us about what he believed to be a truly mind-boggling event happening online: a new video called "Tea Partay" from BBH/New York that debuted at www.youtube.com earlier this month. The video, directed by Julien Christian Lutz, who has done music videos for artists such as Usher and Foxy Brown, is intended to promote -- in a very roundabout way -- a hard ice tea product called Smirnoff Raw Tea.

According to the tracking numbers at the youtube.com site, more than 600,000 visitors already have viewed the raw tea video, a number the publicist considered incontrovertible evidence that said "Tea Partay" has become -- in just a matter of days! -- an instant viral smash hit, even though that number of hits is still small potatoes compared to the millions of television viewers who might be inclined to watch a really great commercial that would air once during a really popular prime time network program.

While I like to kid Lazare, I share some of his scepticism about so-called viral videos. For one, there's an assumption that such things can be consciously created. No. Viral, by definition, refers to means of transport. A viral is something people pass around. Hence, it can not be created. The audience, not the content creators, determines what's viral and what is not.

August 17, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

The girls of 3iYing - a market and design strategy firm that specializes in marketing to girls ages 15 to 25, have some news for marketers who blindly follow the sex sells rule. In their "The Girl Improved" column in Business Week, they specifically take on American Apparel and Abercrombie & Fitch.

Although the maxim "sex sells" may have ruled for years, from a girl's perspective the erotica in marketing is excessive, dirty, uninformative, and most importantly, a huge turnoff.

If the marketing community thinks this is what girls find hip and edgy, then they grossly underestimate how mature and cultured we are. Girls' aesthetic tastes and relationship requirements are sophisticated. So if you want your messages to be relevant, give us more than animal urges.

Erotic marketing isn't sexy, it's raunchy. Modern girls know the difference. Raunchy is when the message is strictly graphic and physical, when there is no mystery, romance, sincerity or deeper meaning. Raunchy campaigns communicate only one idea—"girl wants some"—using the same visual messaging typical of pornography. Raunchy is a cheap play for attention. It shows lack of imagination and depth in the people and brands that use it.

Lack of imagination? Who? Us?

Ouch.

August 17, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 9 Comments

Today's Ad Age points to the latest media outlet: the checkout counter.

"Conveyor belts have never been on anybody's radar screen for marketing," said Frank Cox, president-CEO of EnVision Marketing Group, a Little Rock, Ark., firm with a patented system to print digital, photo-quality ads directly on conveyor belts. "But a store with eight to 10 checkout lanes, well, you're talking about 100 square feet of wasted ad real estate."

What's interesting to me about this, as Ad Age uses the dubious term "ad creep" to describe it, is that the ad industry simply can't lay the blame on guys like Cox for this increasing phenomenon. Yes, he smells an opportunity to make some cash and put ads in our faces where they haven't previously been.

But I teach an advertising concepting class at a highly regarded ad school, and trust me, this kind of thinking is encouraged. Today's ad students are constantly concepting new guerrilla and environmental ideas, and proposing to put ads and messages in nearly every space you can think of. Which, when they graduate and get jobs at agencies, will be all the more normal. Ad creep won't go away, believe me.

August 17, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Pop culture gets absorbed by advertising everyday. Hardly a news flash. At any rate, I'm confident that Pop Cling's brand of adhesive art will be reworked by a brand for its own purposes in the near future. If I were Pop Cling I would want to work with that brand, but I'm not Pop Cling. This is Pop Cling:

Pop Cling makes art. Kick-ass, adhesive-backed art. You peel it off the backer and stick the image on any smooth surface. Try putting images on your concrete floors, or the sliding glass door leading to your balcony, or on your shower door, or on your kitchen cabinets. You don’t need a frame, you just need a blank space. Voila, you have fresh pop art on your wall from new, favorite, and cutting edge artists. They really are limited edition. They really come with a Certificate of Authenticity signed by the artist. Pop Cling really is new and completely different.

[via Cool Hunting]

August 18, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Don't you hate it when people mispronounce your name? Steve Rubel does.

A funny thing happened since I started this blog. I realized that no one knows how to pronounce my last name. Must of you probably think it's roo bull (e.g. rhymes with Red Bull). Actually, it's Roo-bell, which rhymes with "you smell." The more you know.

In his comments area, Rubel further clarifies that the empahsis is on the second syllable. So, Roo BELL it is. Now you know, in case you ever approach him at a conference or something of that nature.

August 18, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Renault has found a different twist on driving to support sales of their Clio (the car, not the award). Of course, it's a category sell since any car moves you forward, but the imagery might just be quirky enough to get people to take note.

[via Advergirl]

August 18, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Tired of your ad world occupation? Here are some other ventures to consider.

1. Build cheap Wi-Fi networks for Brazilian resorts.

2. Become a biodiesel producer in Argentina.

3. Create an ad network for India's mobile content developers.

4. Launch an exclusive social network for Russian millionaires.

5. Open an American-style restaurant in one of China's fast-growing cities.

If you're looking for a punchline, there isn't one. The list above is from Business 2.0. The magazine has several other overseas ventures outlined, as well.

According to the piece, Business 2.0 editors hope "to coax more of you armchair entrepreneurs out of your Aerons."

August 20, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

New York Times today looks at magazines run by non-profit organizations. One segment of the story really stood out.

AARP the Magazine bills itself as the “world’s largest circulation magazine,” and it is true by a wide margin because of the expanding base of boomer readers. Six times a year, the magazine is shipped to 22 million homes representing 37 million AARP members. They receive the magazine as part of their $12.50 annual membership, which also gets them a regular bulletin.

AARP, according to the financial statements of its parent organization, increased advertising revenue by 37 percent, to $106 million, in 2005, from $77.6 million in 2003. Just as important, the magazine plays a central role in promoting AARP and affiliated products like insurance, from which the organization makes $300 million a year in royalties. Then there is $84 million in federal and other grants, as well as $55 million in contributions.

That $545 million in "non-profit."

August 21, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Content is king. According to Ad Age, The King of Beers is preparing to prove it.

The country's largest brewer is launching its own in-house film and TV production company that will make humorous shorts and sitcom-type programs to be broadcast over the internet and to cellphones.

While A-B has dabbled in content before-particularly in sports TV, where its Bud Productions division recently produced National Football League preseason games for the St. Louis Rams-this initiative is believed to be the brewer's most ambitious by far. Funding will likely be drawn from its $1.56 billion marketing budget.

Earlier this summer, A-B pulled VP-Creative Development Jim Schumacher -- its top in-house creative -- out of the advertising department and into the new production group. "The fact that Schu is leading this means they're serious about it," said one person familiar with his new assignment. "They wouldn't be wasting his time otherwise."

The articles points out that A-B distributors have been pushing for more entertainment properties, including use of its theme parks—Sea World and Busch Gardens—to host and produce concert events that could be powerful marketing tools.

To repurpose Steven Heyer's Hollywood and Vine speech from three plus years ago, "Bud is not selling beer, they're selling brand impressions."

August 21, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Data crunching Steve Roo-BELL at Micropersuasion writes:

Advertising Age takes a hard look at blogs, podcasting, RSS and other forms of social media and finds that most folks still get their content the old-fashioned way. This extends across all demographics.

They cite the following data points:

* 7% of American adults write blogs and 22% read them (Jupiter)
* About 8% listen to podcasts and 5% use RSS feeds (Jupiter)
* 88% of the at-work audience doesn't know what RSS is (WorkPlace Print Media)
* 92% of brand conversations were taking place offline (Keller Fay)

Which makes me wonder about the rock star aspect of the Technorati 100. Are you really a rock star if a very small percentage of people know the first thing about you? Maybe you are? I'm asking.

August 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

An iconic coffee brand is messing with their formula, according to the New York Times.

Traditional coffee, the kind that is usually scooped out of bulky metal containers with black plastic tablespoons, is not known for pleasing coffee snobs.

Folgers is hoping to get its own customers to try a premium blend of coffee. But one of those traditional coffee brands is tiptoeing into the upscale shelf space this week, aiming to attract a more mainstream consumer. Folgers is introducing a line of premium coffee with flavors like espresso roast and caramel drizzle, dressed up in shiny bags with swirly typefaces.

Something about this seems off to me. It's as if Pabst Blue Ribbon all of a sudden offered a line extension in a green bottle.

August 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 7 Comments

At Cannes last spring, Scott Donaton of Ad Age spoke with Maurice Levy, "the urbane and shrewd Frenchman" who helms Publicis Groupe, the world's fourth-largest marketing-communications holding company. Sipping espresso and smoking a cigar on the terrace of the Majestic Hotel, Levy, waxed poetic.

"I have never stabilized an organization," he boasted. "Crystallizing an organization is freezing the energy. In chemistry, instability is very good because it creates some combinations you don't expect."

"Without change, there is fossilization," Levy warns, "and that's the worst thing that can happen."

"Ideas," he says, "are so fragile, so tenuous" that managers must "destroy layers" that can obscure or damage them. "If you have an organization that is too administrative, you are just killing the ideas. As we say in France, when you ask a committee to draw a horse, you get a camel."

August 22, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

"In today's America, getting a college degree is as vital as having air to breathe." -Senator Charles Schumer

If this were an education blog, I'd be tempted to explore all the reasons I disagree with the above hyperbole. Thankfully, this is an ad blog.

Washington Post reports that ads have found yet another venue, this time a rather heady one.

Textbook prices are soaring into the hundreds of dollars, but in some courses this fall, students won't pay a dime. The catch: Their textbooks will have ads for companies including FedEx Kinko's and Pura Vida coffee.

Selling ad space keeps newspapers, magazines, Web sites and television either cheap or free. But so far, the model hasn't spread to college textbooks _ partly for fear that faculty would consider ads undignified. The upshot is that textbooks now cost students, according to various studies, about $900 per year.

Now, a small Minnesota startup is trying to shake up the status quo in the $6 billion college textbook industry. Freeload Press will offer more than 100 titles this fall _ mostly for business courses _ completely free. Students, or anyone else who fills out a five-minute survey, can download a PDF file of the book, which they can store on their hard drive and print.

August 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

August 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

“We’ve hit a milestone here at Hub,” says DJ O’Neil, Founder/Creative Director of Hub Strategy. “We used the word “poop” in two different ads in the same month, for two different clients in two different mediums. On top of that, we used the word “poop” cleverly in a new business pitch. We are all extremely proud.”

August 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

Joker at Why Advertising Sucks warns newly minted college grads about the dues they must pay before entering, or "making it" in the wonderful world of ad agencies.

Lots of people want success handed to them on a silver platter because they made the grade or graduated some cum laude whatever and were president of their college ping-pong team. Fuck you for being an ingrate half ass and look around, people not only stare at you because your attitude stinks, but your breath reeks of the shit your shoveling.

Unfortunately, no college or university is going to tell its students they're ill prepared for the real world. So that task gets left to people working in the guilds.

August 23, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

McDonald's has over 31,000 restaurants in 118 countries. The Oak Brook-based chain employs over 1.5 million people worldwide. If you like to see these type of figures represented cartographically, Princeton provides.

[via Beatnik Pad]

August 24, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Marina del Rey's Ignited Minds have introduced a new public service announcement for Fox and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

click to view

The spot contends that the chaos of modern life, wherein teens have to make tough decisions, might be better managed by the mere act of pausing to consider.

“It only takes a minute to change your life” is the line that anchors the campaign. There's also a web site for the campaign with information and links relating to everyday issues teens and young adults face.

August 24, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

There are a multitude of social, environmental and economic problems facing the human species today. One can take their pick. Famine, war, heating of the polar ice caps...

BBDO/Singapore is rightly concerned about the six million landmines in Cambodia, hidden devils that take down elephant and man at an alarming rate.

August 24, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 101 Comments

Business 2.0 is running an interesting article on the handful of men and women currently milking the bloatosphere for all its worth.

Boing Boing, a four-person operation that bills itself as a directory of wonderful things, is on track to gross an estimated $1 million in ad revenue this year. The digital-media news site PaidContent.org, headquartered in the second bedroom of a Santa Monica apartment, is set to post even more than that. And Fark.com, a site packed with sophomoric humor run by a lone guy in Lexington, Ky., is on pace to become a multimillion-dollar property. In short, some of the most popular blogs, long the bane of the mainstream media, are themselves becoming mainstream.

Web ad agency Organic puts ad spending on blogs at $40 million this year, double what is was last year.

[UPDATE] This post used to be titled, "Typing for Dollars." Hence, the reactions below.

August 25, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

According to USA Today, Vera Wang is tired of selling $10,000 wedding dresses to rich people.

Kohl's announced Thursday a union with high-end fashion designer, Vera Wang. The exclusive brand called Very Vera by Vera Wang will be available in all 749 Kohl's stores and on Kohls.com starting in the fall of 2007.

For Wang, the licensing pact with Kohl's serves as a big opportunity to expand her customer base to middle-income shoppers. The New York-based designer has branched out beyond gowns to include home furnishings, jewelry, stationery and eyewear, but they carry designer price tags.

Wang said that "it has troubled" her for quite a while not to be able to offer her designs to all women. "We have been quite elitist in terms of price points," she said.

August 25, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

According to Management-Issues, addiction to one's Crackberry can be as serious as addition to booze. Although, I scoff at such nonsense. Does one lose their job, friends and family over a Crackberry? No. Does one wake up in strange apartments or alleyways because of Crackberry addiction? Maybe.

At any rate, the article does shine some light on this very real depenency.

Some Blackberry addicts can only manage a few minutes without checking email, she said. Another tell-tale sign of addiction is a user who concentrates on the device and ignores everything and everyone else around them.

The study of more than 250 BlackBerry usres found that more than a third had been "rescued" by their BlackBerry on more than five occasions. And unsurprisingly, many also feel far more stressed when they do not have their precious device with them.

The T-Mobile poll found that one in 10 would be "devastated" if their BlackBerry was taken away, while more than a third said they would feel more stressed when out of the office. A further one in five also felt they would be unable to cope with their current workload.

August 25, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 7 Comments

Fashion advertising is not known for good taste, but this new ad from Jimmy Choo, takes "in poor taste" to another level.

Agenda Inc. calls it "kidnap chic." I call it sick and wrong.

Why stars like Quincy Jones and Molly Sims would care to appear in a degrading, cheap stunt like this is beyond me. Sure, they got paid for it, and were told the photog and/or art director had some big ideas, blah, blah, blah...

People, sometimes you do have to speak up and say, "I don't think so, asshole."

August 26, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

New York Times explores the world of free audiobooks, from services like LibriVox, Telltale Weekly and LiteralSystems.

At its worst a free audiobook can sound like a teenager reading aloud in high school English class. At its best it can offer excellent sound quality and skilled narration infused with a passion for the text. In between is a world of competent readings, sometimes spiced with affected accents, mumbled words and distant car horns and reflecting all manner of literary interpretations.

All three services rely on Project Gutenberg, the online repository of works in the public domain, for texts. Listeners often can choose from several recordings of the same work; LibriVox, for example, offers three readings of the Gettysburg Address. Among the most recorded authors are Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Jack London, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, William Shakespeare and Lucy Maud Montgomery.

August 26, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Click Here, a Dallas-based interactive agency, has launched Fruit Guy Fans, a Fruit of the Loom microsite that busts on the brand's iconic spokesfruit and the indie music scene all in one fell swoop.

Like a good indie fan site, this one makes MP3 downloads available. One song hangs on the line, "You can't overlove your underwear." Camp is such a perfect approach to marketing undergarments.

[via Random Culture]

August 26, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

[via Kottke]

August 26, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Darryl Ohrt of Brand Flakes for Breakfast wants to know if you've brought the punk rock ethos into your workplace.

Here's how he thinks about his own punk youth and its impact on his business life:

Within the punk rock credo of my youth were the seeds of a larger business philosophy. Ten years in a boutique design and branding firm has shown me how valuable the punk rock attitude is to a successful brand plan. The brands that consistently rise to the top have questioned everything that's been done before. Adding "X" to a razor's name? Just a lame attempt at buying an audience with weak, non-genuine branding. Inventing a razor for shaving heads? Totally punk rock.

August 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

New York Times takes a look at the back-to-college market, one retailers, online and off, have begun to covet.

According to the National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, the fastest-growing back-to-college categories include ones that play to the strengths of online retailers, like consumer electronics, computers and even furniture, which is starting to gain momentum with online consumers.

Sears Holdings, which owns Sears, Lands’ End and Kmart, has gone further than most other online retailers in appealing to college students this year by creating a Web site, SimplySearsCollege.com.

Like the big brewers, retailers race to get 'em in the franchise early. For clearly, if Sears wins one over at the age of 19, there's the potential for 40, 50 maybe 60 years of future sales to that loyal customer.

August 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Matthew Creamer writing in Ad Age says:

Product reviews written by real people are perhaps the most underappreciated slice of the consumer-generated-media universe, the explosion of which has captivated the advertising and media worlds. But as marketers fixate on getting their virals on YouTube and making friends on MySpace, these relatively unsexy product write-ups have quietly become the most common form of consumer content -- Forrester puts it as the most-used form of peer-generated content -- not to mention the one with the most direct impact on purchase decisions.

August 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Would you rather build something or help sell something? If you work at Google, apparently you want to be in the former category.

According to Valley Wag:

Engineers are the real winners. No one's sure just how much richer the geeks are than the ad-sales wonks and other early Googlers, but there's definitely a class divide -- not that anyone acts like it at the office.

Let's pretend the above scenario is true. It's a bit incongruous, given that Google is now the world's largest advertising firm, based on income.

August 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

BBDO, New York and Atlanta, created a new commercial for Cingular wireless that's funny and spot on. Even The Bullshit Observer loves it. "Good casting. Good writing. Sells the product. Makes me laugh."

August 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Netanel Jacobsson, 38, a former reggae singer and AOL business development executive who now owns a strategic media consulting and business developement agency, is done with A-list bloggers (with two notable exceptions).

Most of the so called A–list bloggers have very little to say besides reporting their latest parties, or their other fellow A-list bloggers latest links and posts. Very, very seldom you find any quality in their post – just an endless so called naked conversation. The word naked is really the perfect description here. Just like in the story of the Naked Emperor.

Don’t get me wrong, they have definitely led the “blog” revolution. But now they are becoming institutions, creating their own networks and actually becoming the NEW main stream media. I would even go so far as to say that they have become the blog counterpart to the old Communist Politburo– they are becoming the Blogburo.

I think I'd call it the "Blogitburo." But it's the thought that counts.

August 28, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

To support the launch of M&M's Dark Chocolate Candies, the brand introduced its new ad campaign at New York City's famous Guggenheim Museum, with a print ad that interjects the "fun" of M&M's into an admittedly dark masterpiece, Edvard Munch's 'The Scream.'

The ad features "Red," the iconic M&M's character, unexpectedly playing hopscotch in the background of the celebrated work of art -- bringing a bit of levity and sense of humor to the famous dark existential painting.

The famous painting was stolen from a musuem in Oslo, Norway on August 22, 2004. M&M's is offering 2 million Dark Chocolate Candies to the person who returns the painting.

August 29, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 3 Comments

According to the New York Times, Bentonville, Arkansas-based retail behemoth, Wal-Mart, is taking its "we're good for America" spin to the airwaves.

Wal-Mart, under attack now from unions and prominent Democrats, yesterday introduced a marketing campaign that closely resembles the television advertisements used by political candidates.

In a local experiment (spots are running in Omaha and Tucson) that is eventually to be seen across the country, the giant discount retailer began broadcasting two television spots that, in unusually detailed terms, trumpet its health care plans, charitable contributions and positive impact on the American economy.

The ads do not attack Wal-Mart critics but introduce its merits, much as a candidate would. “Our low prices save the average working family $2,300 a year,” says the narrator of one ad. “Which buys a lot of things — and a whole lot of freedom.”

The article argues the ads reflect the influence of Edelman, the public relations firm Wal-Mart has hired to rehabilitate its image.

August 29, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

Over at BusinessWeek, Jon Fine examines the impact of FlavorPill.

Flavorpill was once a list of cultural events that co-founders Sascha Lewis and Mark Mangan sent out to a few pals in New York. It's now an e-mail that goes out to a few hundred thousand subscribers in four U.S. cities and London. It owns five other Web properties, including music site Earplug and art site Artkrush. What DailyCandy is to fashion, Flavorpill is to the subset of urban culture -- DJ appearances, gallery openings, film revivals -- often tagged as "downtown." It's a cultural signifier that the recorded voice greeting callers to Flavorpill's Manhattan offices is breathy, British, female, and young, as it is at another New York-based hipster media play, Vice.

Flavorpill employs just 10 full-time. Revenues this year, insiders say, will be around $3.5 million. Like other smallish players in this space, it's becoming adept out of necessity at building bridges between its sensibilities and those of big mainstream advertisers. For Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser Select brand, Flavorpill chose 10 artists to design ads for its own Web sites. But the beer baron ended up liking these ads so much that it ran them in music magazine The Fader. And once Web visitors vote on their favorites later this year, one artist's ads will appear in an multi-city outdoor campaign next year. Thus a small media company started out selling its audience and cool quotient, which is old news, but ended up designing ads that will run more widely, which is new. Flavorpill's moves describe a fresh reality of marketing: The line between which entity creates media and which creates advertising is suddenly and strangely malleable.

August 29, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

According to Information Week , a highly influential money man says don't put your money in marketing.

Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson doesn't see any reason for startups to budget funds for marketing anymore.

Indeed, Jurvetson, a partner with the legendary Silicon Valley venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, has one question for companies that do.

Why?

Instead, Jurvetson tells businesses to go for "zero cost" marketing, where customers themselves spread the word about the products and services for sale. "If they have other plans, we wonder what on earth they are thinking," says Jurvetson, who coined the phrase "viral marketing" back in 1997.

August 29, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Is this the perfect ad for an airline that offers a Myrtle Vegas to Atlantic City nonstop, or what?

[via Make The Logo Bigger]

August 30, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

In today's paper, New York Times takes a look at the lowly coupon and its place in the world.

An estimated 99 percent of the roughly 300 billion coupons distributed annually in the United States — mainly in Sunday newspapers — end up in the trash, unused and unredeemed.

“The paper coupon is the single most inefficient marketing tool you could imagine,” said Peter Sealey, a former chief marketing officer at Coca-Cola who is a marketing consultant in Sausalito, Calif. “The traditional paper coupon is going to die. It can’t survive in the Internet world.”

While that may be, the article points out how ingrained the couponing habit is, for consumers and the brands who publish these price-driven motivators.

Also, while use of online coupons is rising rapidly, they still account for less than 1 percent of the consumer goods coupons distributed, according to the Promotion Marketing Association, a trade group. Ergo, the paper polution will continue.

August 30, 2006 by Dan Goldgeier | Permalink | 2 Comments

Watching the news this past week, I've been struck by a commercial for Louisiana's The Road Home program, which is encouraging displaced citizens to return.

The spot features a fellow who's involved in rebuilding a house; he starts off seated on the home's front steps. Then, as he gets up and walks, one can't help but notice the sweat stains all over his shirt.

It's a distracting sight, but actually, I'm glad the folks who created the spot were OK with that display of realism. Not just because it's a steambath down there, but so often clients want commercials & the actors in them to look a little too perfect.

You can see the entire spot, and the campaign, here.

August 30, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

August 31, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

USA Today's tech guru, Kevin Maney, is soft on Web 2.0.

The tech industry is frothing. It is spewing companies and Web doohickeys and blog amalgamizers and Internet contraptions like video social-networking wiki cooking sites.

Money is flying into ventures that most people east of Palo Alto, Calif., would find incomprehensible.

Web 2.0 is a broad term for a new generation of websites that are more interactive and multilayered than the 1990s batch of websites. And right now, Web 2.0 is like a water balloon being filled by a fire hydrant. Industry jokesters call it Bubble 2.0.

Yeah, but it makes for excellent fodder.

[UPDATE] Test your Web 2.0 "awareness."

August 31, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Financial Times looks at Dogster's move from Google's AdSense to a proprietary ad inventory managed by the brand.

“When I started I was hoping to make $500 a month from the small advertisers who were going to pay $50 a month for an ad,” says Ted Rheingold, Dogster’s founder. Today, he says, the site boasts an inventory of 10m paid ads a month.

When Dogster was getting its start, Mr Rheingold relied on Google’s AdSense programme, which paid for office space and servers during Dogster’s first year.

Text ads from Google were not a permanent solution, however. As Dogster’s audience grew, Mr Rheingold found that the returns from Google advertising were not as high as he liked. He experimented with advertising resellers, which sell banner ads across large numbers of websites, but again found that returns were lacking.

“We’ve found that the best way to get ads that are relevant to our members is to have our own inventory,” he says.

By selling its own inventory of banner ads to companies that specifically wanted to target dog and cat lovers, Dogster is able to charge $5 or more for every thousand impressions on this site.

Although this required an in-house advertising team, it was a far more lucrative proposition than the 12 cent CPMs he was getting with banner ads or the few cents a click he was getting from Google.

August 31, 2006 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

In an effort to make Upstate South Carolina (the site of BMW's only North American manufacturing plant) even more influential in the automotive industry, BMW has joined forces with Clemson University and the State of South Carolina to develop the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research.

This New York Times story sheds light on the cozy relationship between Clemson—a state institution—and BMW.

Japanese and German carmakers have turned the region into a Detroit of the South. According to state figures, the auto industry employs 31,000 people in South Carolina. The BMW SUV that Clemson's president, James F. Barker, is driving is part of a pool that the automaker has provided to state leaders.

Through its new school and unusual partnership with BMW, Clemson becomes the first university in the nation to offer a doctoral degree in automotive engineering.

The Center for Automotive Research is being built on 250 wooded acres along Interstate 85 on the outskirts of Greenville, 40 miles northeast of the Clemson campus. The program will train engineers who can design, build, and market high-tech vehicles and who might work for BMW after graduation.

If you read the Times piece, you'll see the writer looking for impropreity. I don't see it. I see an industry that needs new ideas and a population that needs high paying jobs. A collaborative effort between business and a state university (that needs funding, one way or another) seems a good way to go.