Miles Galliford, co-founder of SubHub, a company that makes it easy to build a membership site and charge for access to premium content, says, the number one reason that people pay for content is because they can't get the information they need elsewhere for free. Writing on Marketing Profs, Galliford argues: "Successful membership websites tend to be run by people deeply immersed in their subject, and they have …
Why Is Advertising So Crappy?
The following essay was first published on The Ad Contrarian and is reproduced here in its entirety by permission of the author, Bob Hoffman. Why Is Advertising So Crappy? Like most sensible people, here at The Ad Contrarian world headquarters we do our best to avoid advertising. This keeps getting harder and harder. Despite all the witless proclamations of new age marketing gurus about the death of advertising, …
Rocket Scientists Like The VAIO
The first rocket to reach the moon had less computing power than today's Sony VAIO notebook. Which raised the question: can a Sony VAIO laptop with Intel processors launch a rocket into space? To test the premise, 180LA paired eight brilliant high school students with Tom Atchison, founder of Rocket Mavericks, using Sony VAIO laptops with Intel Core Processors, to design, build and launch a 29-foot tall, 1,100-pound …
EC = MC (Every Company Is A Media Company)
The New York Times is looking at the relationship between "hipster media company," Vice, and non-hipster brands like Intel and Dell. The partnership between Intel and Vice includes the creation of a Web site, The Creators Project, which began in May. Earlier this year, the partnership also began producing events in five cities around the world -- New York, London, São Paulo, Seoul and Beijing -- that are one part …
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This Is Strange
Packaged goods advertising needs a kick in the pants. No one's going to argue otherwise. However, I'm not sure what Unilever and WPP's Mindshare Entertainment have wrought with this painfully derivative spot for Dove? According to Ad Age, this Mad Men mirror for Dove is just the beginning. Unilever is planning to work six of its iconic brands--Dove, Breyers, Hellman's, Klondike, Suave and Vaseline--into this newly …
Digital Publishers Don’t Have Old Media’s Margins, But The Best Operators Are Making It Work
Daniel Lyons of Newsweek wrote an interesting piece about the business side of Huffington Post, a new media company with $30 million in revenue. HuffPo has a big audience--24.3 million unique visitors last month, nearly as many as The New York Times--but like most Web sites, it can't monetize it very well. Right now, HuffPo generates just over $1 per reader per year. That's nothing compared with the mainstream-media …
American Family Is Pioneering Trackable Advertainment, Proving That It Helps Sell insurance
American Family Insurance has no gecko, but they the company's marketing pros do have a clue. According to Ad Age, the brand's content play, "In Gayle We Trust," is now entering its second season with an even stronger focus on targeting and tracking new customers. American Family is also bring gaming to the forefront with a new social-simulation game, "I-Am-Fam," from game developer WildTangent. "I-Am-Fam," a new …
Sounds Good, But What’s On Their Heads And Feet?
"All Summer" is a new branded music video from Converse via Anomaly, New York. The song was produced by Rostam of Vampire Weekend and also features Kid Cudi and Best Coast. …
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