Spike Jones at Greenville, SC identity firm Brains of Fire has some choice words helpful criticism for GMC, in relation to the automaker's new website Let's Talk Trucks, an obvious nod to social media. After rightly identifying the consumer testimonals as ads, Jones then hops aboard the Cluetrain: The funny thing is, “Let’s Talk” is big and bold on every page. But this isn’t a conversation, it’s GMC talking and you …
Don’t Ask A VC For Something Your Credit Card Can Provide
Guy Kawaskai is not the VC you want to ask for a million bucks to build your Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Citizen Journalism, Long-Tail, Social Media Site...not when he built one for $12,107.09. …
Continue Reading about Don’t Ask A VC For Something Your Credit Card Can Provide →
96% of Teens Are Active on Social Networks
Ad Age, hoping for a New York Post-worthy story, but not getting it, addresses the sexual predator factor on MySpace again. How many advertisers backed out of MySpace last week after it revealed it had deleted the profiles of 29,000 known sex offenders -- more than four times the number originally suspected -- from its site? Not a single one. Julie Henderson, senior VP-corporate communications at MySpace parent Fox …
Continue Reading about 96% of Teens Are Active on Social Networks →
There Are No New Ideas, Vol. 37 No. 14
The Kansas City Star is reporting that an ad from JWT Sydney for a pet store called Pets Pantry, which won a Silver Lion at Cannes was actually created by an art student in San Francisco who is now an art director at Cole & Weber in Seattle. “At first I felt like, ‘This is so wrong.’ But I’m slammed with my own work,” said Lance Wei. “I mean, what can I do? Not much.” …
Continue Reading about There Are No New Ideas, Vol. 37 No. 14 →
Dial NDE-ROCK
According to The New York Times, eMusic is working with AT&T to deliver music from indie bands on the network's mobile platform. Tracks will cost more than they do over the Internet — $7.49 for five songs, as opposed to $9.99 for 30 at the online site — because of the expense of sending them over a mobile network to a user’s phone. For that price, however, users can also get another copy of the song, which they can …
Facebook Fatigue Bogs Digerati Down
Scoble, Calacanis and Om Malik are all writing about "Facebook Fatigue." So there must be something to it. The again, maybe not. Colin Pape in a comment on GigaOm puts it this way: I think you media pundits are forgetting that most of us don’t have 4,000 people wanting to become our friends, and we don’t seem to have invitations to trendy events flooding our inboxes. For us, Facebook seems to work just fine. I have a …
Continue Reading about Facebook Fatigue Bogs Digerati Down →
Have Account Planners Been Reduced To ‘Mere Mortals’?
More obnoxious hyperbole from Ad Age as it examines the future of account planning: Not long ago, planners were the undisputed rock stars of the agency business. But they're now mere mortals in "the middle of the maelstrom of everything going on -- what communication, what media, how to compete and how to become versed in multimedia," said Edward Cotton, director-strategy, for Influx Insights, a unit of Butler, …
Continue Reading about Have Account Planners Been Reduced To ‘Mere Mortals’? →
1% Alcohol, Tons of B.S.
Since when did beer become like deordorant and marketed to one sex or the other? I know Coors Light is all about it, and others, but the trend is getting weirder and that's rarely good for the beer, or those drinking it. The August 2007 Trend Briefing from trendwatching.com looks at various attempts by brewers to market beer specifically to women. Here's but one: German brewer Karlsberg is also convinced that it can …
