According to The New York Times, brands are moving boldly into the media business, and are even willing to accept advertising on their content rich sites from competitive products. NBC Universal and Procter & Gamble have set up a pet-focussed Web portal that looks something like a Yahoo or AOL for pet owners, with a bit of Facebook and MySpace thrown in. The companies plan to share the advertising revenue. Procter & …
Soul Searching Gets No Respect At Ad Age
Ad Age is treating GSD&M CEO, Roy Spence, unkindly. Exhibit A, this headline: The trade mag feels that Spence's walkabout at a time of massive layoffs at the agency is "a publicity stunt whose timing couldn't be worse and whose true purpose was never really clear." What's the deal? A man can't walk? …
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Brand Narratives Will Benefit from Transmedia Storytelling
CAMBRIDGE—The final session at Futures of Entertainment 2 is called “Cult Media” and it features four entertainment makers, including Jesse Alexander, co-executive producer and writer on NBC epic saga, Heroes. Henry Jenkins, co-founder of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program is moderating the panel, members of which are batting the term “transmedia storytelling” around like a badminton birdie in the warm and cozy …
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Dan Wieden Talks Howard Schultz Into Running National TV
"By its very nature, national advertising fuels fears about ubiquity," Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO said over a decade ago. With Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds competing for his customers, Mr. Schultz is singing a new tune. One he learned from Dan Wieden. "We need to recognize that the category is evolving," Mr. Schultz told analysts on a conference call Thursday. "And as the leader, we have an opportunity to make sure …
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Really Smart People at MIT Actually Study Advertising. Weird, Huh?
CAMBRIDGE—Saturday morning’s opening panel at Futures of Entertainment 2 is wholly academic. Sam Ford, the moderator of this panel and one of the organizers of the conference says he found it interesting how one half of the participants here today come from the academy and the other half from industry. He also says many of the academics had trouble getting the necessary funding to attend, and that MIT has been …
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Futures of Entertainment 2: Content for and from Portable Multi-Platform Network Devices
CAMBRIDGE—It’s 10:00 am and already the man in suspenders has captivated his audience. But another star is now shining bright. Marc Davis, Social Media Guru at Yahoo and a graduate of the Media Studies program at MIT, is talking about mobile media in a panel on the topic at this, the second annual Futures of Entertainment conference. Davis says Nokia figured it out. In fact, their N95 phone isn’t a phone at all, it’s …
Writing Their Way Out of the Problem
You'd think the WGA--with a membership of thousands of entertainment writers--would muster a creative approach to garner support for their cause. And they have. No word from the producers and studios yet. My guess is they're puzzling over the script. …
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Reporting Live from MIT’s Media Lab
CAMBRIDGE—Sally Hogshead, author of Radical Careering, says we have much to gain by aspiring to be the dumbest person in the room. I think I may have achieved her lofty goal today, as I’ve surrounded myself with brainiacs at MIT—students, teachers and people from industry engaged in delivering and absorbing the densest information available on convergent media culture. The Bartos Theater lobby in the Wiesner …
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