Marketing

Ads That Pushed Our Usual (Well-Worn) Buttons

Few of the commercials during Super Bowl XLIII offered anything special. (Subscription required)

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Marketing When Consumers Aren't Buying

With the economy deteriorating and consumers hunkering down, companies face the task of peddling products to people who don't want to spend money. Timothy Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, discusses how companies market during recessions. (Audio)

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Anatomy of a campaign

The way to win is to make things that tiny (or large!) groups want to talk about, or care about, or engage in. That's the story that spreads.

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Few CMOs Think They're Effectively Tracking Social Media, Word-of-Mouth

26 JAN 2009 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

Who in corporate America owns the consumer relationship, the customer experience, word-of-mouth or social media? The answer appears to be nobody. (Subscription required)

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Selling Americans On The Virtuous Recession

A large credit union in Seattle has started an ad campaign that stresses its nonprofit bona fides. Sprint advertises calling plans that are right "for these times." Does austerity sell? Or is that a ridiculous contradiction?

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Are Companies Targeting the Wrong 'Influencers' With Social Media?

In the last couple of years, as companies have become more interested in social media, they have tried to find ways to use these tools to reach "influencers." Sometimes these initiatives are referred to as 'blogger outreach' programs. But there is a much more influential and important group that most companies could be reaching via social media, and they are often totally ignored.

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Marketing: Social media's hidden bubble

Dozens of opportunistic consultants have spent the past few years shopping their skills in "social media consulting." Now, with a recession tightening up the industry, it's reached a saturation point.

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Innovation

To promote the book "I Can Make You Thin" by Paul McKenna, Sterling chose cities with the highest obesity rates, and then paid the tolls last Monday morning during the rush hour commute on the first day back from the holiday. Drivers were surprised with a postcard for the book instead having to pay the toll.

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The New Focus Group: The Collective

Forget about return on investment. Companies need to think about getting return on insight.

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Ad Agencies Fashion Their Own Horn, and Toot It

30 DEC 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»

A blog about Michelle Obama's clothes shows how agencies are moving from promoting to creating brands. (Subscription required)

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On Marketing in Social Media, and Meals

Social media marketing is about brands acting, well, social. Which means they need to show up to the party with a nice bottle of wine, if that's what the party calls for. They need to come ready to have a dialog, and add value to the event.

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The 10 Natural Marketing Advantages of Small Business

As companies large and small wrestle with the realities of a challenging economy, I think it’s the perfect time to be a small business.

Small businesses possess certain natural advantages in economic downturns that make them much more flexible and able to survive and thrive in slow markets. In addition, I think 2009 will be the year of the small business. The market is hungry to connect with companies and products that are more personal and real.

In recognition of this coming trend I’ve listed what I believe are natural competitive advantages that will give small businesses the opportunity to thrive in the coming year.

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Stores put on push to save the season

Retailers are paying the price for the worst holiday sales in decades. In spite of door busters that busted their budgets, they're stuck with massive amounts of unsold inventory. Nancy Marshall Genzer reports. (Audio)

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In Japan, Billboards Watch You Watching Them

NTT Communications has tackled the age-old problem of working out who's paying attention to which sign-based advertising by making the sign watch back. The Japanese company will run an experiment where webcam-equipped digital signs record what's going on then process the data to see how much attention each ad draws from passers by.

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Sympvertising and secrets for business travellers: Airport Havens

3M even sponsored a real, offline airport haven of its own at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport during the two days prior to Thanksgiving. On Tuesday, Nov. 25 and Wednesday, Nov. 26—infamous as two of the busiest travel days of the year—the 3M Privacy Filters Airport Haven offered Atlanta travellers VIP service with free wifi, snacks, beverages and massages. Have we mentioned that traditional one-way advertising is dead? By serving up a blend of sympvertising, free love and community-generated content instead, 3M is likely to reach its target consumers in a way no mass-media ad could hope to do.

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How Marketing Tricks You, and How to Beat It

07 DEC 2008 from the Washington Post | Read the full story»

With the help of digital imaging like MRIs, scientists have made big strides toward understanding how our brains deal with financial decisions. Martin Lindstrom's fascinating new book, "Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy," gets to the bottom of our buying habits, particularly our obsession with certain brands.

Hat tip: Stephen Garner

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Abusing Social Media

How companies abuse tech's latest tools and embarrass themselves.

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Meet America’s Top Guerilla Marketer

He's sent cavemen into the subway, posted lifeguards on Manhattan's sidewalks, and strung laundry across Times Square. Now Sam Ewen says the next big thing in advertising is honesty. Honestly.

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We Need To Talk: 6 Keys to Bringing Up Social Media

As a marketing or communications professional, you already understand the inherent value in giving your customers a clearer voice and connecting with the people who want to know your brand better. And that also means going into your boss's office and initiating The Talk.

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What Marketers Can Learn From Obama's Campaign

05 NOV 2008 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

Nov. 4, 2008, will go down in history as the biggest day ever in the history of marketing. With its reliance on consistency and simplicity in messaging, the Obama campaign has a lot to teach the advertising community. (Subscription required)

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GPS-Based Mobile Ads: Where Does Privacy Fit?

Most consumers see location-based wireless advertising as "creepy" -- so how do advertisers plan to cope?

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Now Is Not the Time to Hide

As others hunker down, we have an opportunity to stand out, to get noticed. As they hide, the marketing clatter lessens, making space for our messages to get through. Look, doing business is always a risk. Unless you are in Securities or Financial Services, this is no time to become extra conservative. Our clients and customers continue to want and need what we have. See this as an opportunity to reach out to them and offer them greater value than normal, immediately exceeding their expectations.

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Seth Godin: Profile of a Marketing Guru

How the author of Permission Marketing used online savvy and smart self-promotion to become a speaker, writer, and blogger in demand.

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Social Capital Value Add: Value Based Management for the Networked Age by Michael Cayley

The marketing/communications mix is completely different than it was before 2004.  Broadcast's monopoly on attention is dead.  The symbolic brand, which has been the fastest growing source of corporate value for the last quarter century has reached its pinnacle.  It is being absorbed and replaced by memetic brand.  Technologies have evolved and mapped so tightly against the way humans transact, form relationships and create self-identity that it is time for business management to link the pioneering academic studies of social capital and social network analysis (SNA) to value based management and the priorities of marketers.

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Laundry List Marketing

Branding by bullet point. Really bad idea... The effect? The company that claims to do everything is doomed to be remembered for nothing. Plus, credibility is instantly lost, as savvy potential clients know that no-one does everything well.

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How to Sell a Book (or Any New Idea)(step 1 is the hard part)by Seth Godin

Tribes grow when people recruit other people. That's how ideas spread as well. They don't do it for you, of course. They do it for each other. Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work. If Fred's book spreads, then he's off to a great start. If it doesn't, he needs a new book.

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Consumers Become Kindle Ambassadors

08 SEP 2008 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

Mr. Beck doesn't work for Amazon, nor does he receive anything -- not so much as a free e-book or Amazon credit -- for his effort. He's part of an army of Kindle enthusiasts who volunteer to demonstrate the device to prospective owners as part of Amazon's See a Kindle in Your City marketing program. Think of it as real-world social networking. Or taking online consumer product reviews -- a concept Amazon championed early -- to the in-person level. (Subscription required)

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Marketing, sneezers, Breezers, and the Big Sort

I snapped this photo of three Breezer bikes outside a Palo Alto cafe.  Three women rode up separately and then sat together for a chat and some coffee.  This photo says everything about the state of marketing and product design today.  That is, marketing = design = marketing.  You can design a bike to market itself, and you can design your marketing to make your product design more meaningful... Severe segregation is a societal ill, but is in some ways a boon to marketers. Make a bike that appeals to wealthy, liberal, educated, gregarious, retired boomers? Super! Now you can target them by zip code.

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Targeting ads by tracking Web surfing habits hits a wall

One by one, cable and telephone companies that had conducted trials using NebuAd's ad-serving system have indefinitely suspended ...

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Product Development IS Marketing, And Vice Versa

Where does marketing really begin? As management guru Peter Drucker stated it, "Marketing is the whole business seen from the customer’s point of view." Put another way, every single interaction the customer has with your business can and should be seen as marketing.

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The Ad Changes with the Shopper in Front of It

21 AUG 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Ad targeting is coming to a store near you. In the latest effort to tailor ads to specific consumers, marketers are starting to personalize in-store promotions based on products the consumer recently picked off a shelf or purchased -- and in the near future, based on what the shopper looks like. (Subscription required)

Hat tip: PSFK

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Facebook's new ads: Advertisers, approach with caution

The new "Engagement Ads" strategy unveiled by the social network will work extremely well for some brands. The bad news? It could be a PR fiasco for others.

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How to Win by Studying Culture: An Interview with Grant McCracken

Anthropologists specialize in the study of culture, and culture matters in marketing because it supplies the infrastructure for thought and feeling in America. How consumers see the product, the service, or the pitch, these are largely shaped by the culture in their heads. The marketer who understands this culture has an advantage. The marketer who understands culture very well has an extraordinary advantage.

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Olympics Draw High Percentage of Women Viewers, and Ads Intended for Them

The large female viewership for the Olympics and the spate of spots intended for women are anomalies in TV sports. (Subscription required)

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Web Privacy on the Radar in Congress

As advertisers grow more sophisticated about behavioral targeting, and as online privacy standards vary, regulators and privacy advocates are becoming concerned.(Subscription required)

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Why Silicon Valley Should Be Worried

17 JUL 2008 from GigaOm | Read the full story»

We have short memories in Silicon Valley, which is both a blessing and a curse. We forget the bad times as quickly as we forget the good times. At the turn of the century, everything went to hell with the dot-com bust. Then the pendulum started to swing the other way; the pessimism that once reigned supreme was being replaced by wild-eyed optimism. Now Silicon Valley is in for a long-overdue reality check, one that should worry one and all. Why? Because the news coming out of advertising-focused companies is not good.

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Google’s New Tool Is Meant for Marketers

The company is introducing a free service, intended for marketers, but which will allow anyone to track the popularity of various terms in Google’s search engine.(Subscription required)

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Promoting the promotion

An insurance company is sponsoring a baseball stunt to push its brand name out there. And then, with nothing whatsoever to say about itself, or about us, or about how it can help us achieve our goals, the company spends more money to promote the promotion.

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Town Puts Surveillance Cameras Up For Adoption

Flint, Mich., has a new take on the old "adopt-a-highway" program. Money is tight, so the city is asking residents to help cover costs — by adopting a police camera. The city wants to add 14 surveillance cameras around town. For $30,000, residents can have their name or a corporate logo put on the surveillance box. (Audio)

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Are you a barker or an attractor?

11 JUL 2008 from Church of the Customer | Read the full story»

Along the streets of downtown Playa del Carmen, Mexico, "barkers" for restaurants beg passersby "try our steak!" "Drink specials!" "Happy hour!"

Person after person ignores the barkers; their in-your-face advertising oozes desperation.

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Tech Giants Scramble For Bigger Piece of Growing Online Ad Market

Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have been talking about -- and making -- deals that each believes will help secure their future in the fast-growing market for online advertising. No matter how their maneuvering concludes, advertising and marketing firms must get ready to adapt to new technology that promises to speed the migration of ads from traditional media to the web.

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Scarcity

Smart marketers understand that scarcity (intentional or not) is a tool, one that can be used to enhance the story, not detract from it.

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The Power of FREE!

10 JUL 2008 from Neuroscience Marketing | Read the full story»

A few days ago, I wrote about the power of the word "New" to get our attention - if there’s a more potent attractor out there, it’s almost certainly "FREE!" For years, advertising gurus have listed "free" on every compilation of powerful headline words. Now, research conducted by Dan Ariely (a Duke behavioral economist, previously at MIT) shows us that "free" is far more effective than "almost free." Indeed, a preference for "free" seems to be another feature hardwired into our brains.

Hat tip: Guy Kawasaki

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Warning: Habits May Be Good for You

13 JUL 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»

Val Curtis knew soap could save lives, if only people would use it. So she turned to marketers, the masters of creating habits. (Subscription required)

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For Marketers, Viruses Just Won't Cooperate

06 JUL 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»

According to a report by JupiterResearch, "24 percent of marketers have run a viral marketing campaign, but many struggle to get the expected buzz." (Subscription required)

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FCC to Weigh Requiring Disclosures for Product Placement

27 JUN 2008 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

The Federal Communications Commission is moving forward with a plan to examine the requirements for identifying product placements on TV, and whether today's rules do a good enough job of telling consumers what sponsored product appearances may surface in their favorite programs. (Subscription required)

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Five easy pieces

Never mind the "P"s. Marketing has five elements: Data, Stories, Products (services), Interaction, Connection

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Google to Offer Tool to Measure Web Hits

Google plans to unveil a new service for advertisers that measures Internet use. The approach could pose a threat to current services.

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Adapting Websites to Users

09 JUN 2008 from Technology Review | Read the full story»

Websites that change to fit the cognitive style of the user could be more effective at selling products online.

Hat tip: MIT Advertising Lab

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Who's in Charge of Green?

09 JUN 2008 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

Sustainability Officers must work with marketing side to communicate their companies' commitments to the environment. (Subscription required)

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Brad and Willy's evangelism adventure

I eventually met Brad and Willie, the owners of Lift. It's their first retail business. What they lack in experience they make up for in their zeal to please customers. They made it a point to read "Creating Customer Evangelists" and a week later presented me (unsolicited) with their plan, based on the six tenets of customer evangelism.

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How much do you hate that ad? Facebook wants to know

Members of the social-networking site can now give thumbs-up and thumbs-down to advertisements, potentially getting them to actually start paying attention.

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Can Social Media Advertising Work?

A new medium demands a new approach to advertising, one ad executive argues.

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Camera system to track eye movements of shoppers

Philips applied for a patent of a camera system that makes note of what shoppers look at in window displays.

Using a set of video cameras and eye tracking software the system will be able to tell what someone looking at a window display has been staring at the longest, and will then provide more detailed information about the product via a passive or even interactive video display in hopes it will push them towards making a purchase decision.

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Putting products before plot?

It's hard to find a TV show or movie these days that doesn't have name-brand products in the scenes. Amy Scott takes a look at where product placement is headed.

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Advertising: For Coors Light, a Night Out That Begins on MySpace

Coors Light is extending its presence in the new media with efforts on the social networking Web sites Facebook and MySpace. (Subscription required)

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PR Secrets for Startups

At a time when anyone can broadcast their opinions about your startup to the world, public relations requires a new level of engagement on the part of companies and entrepreneurs. But what are the new rules of PR? Guest author Brian Solis, who earlier this month wrote a post for us on the evolution of the press release, explains how public relations has changed and offers up 12 secrets of PR for startups.

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7 questions with Josh Bernoff

Now available, Groundswell is a great primer for those ready to use social media for their business. It's packed with research, advice and case studies. We asked Josh a few questions about creating a groundswell for your business:

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What Accountants Can Teach You About Using Social Media

14 MAY 2008 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

Tax software isn't the first thing that comes to mind when you think of marketing in social networks or on YouTube, spaces dominated by movie trailers and goofy viral videos. But H&R Block proved that it, too, can be successful in the space, but it's about matching content to the social community and then making that content valuable to consumers, said Amy Worley, director of digital marketing for H&R Block. (Subscription required)

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Charter to Share Broadband Customers' Web Histories With Ad Networks

Charter Communications, one of the nation's largest ISPs, is going to provide the URLs its customers visit to third-party ad networks to help them micro-target ads and make money. The ISP is sending letters out to customers over the course of the month, but will netizens see it as spying or a useful service.

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Drilling Down: Subtly but Visibly Swayed by Context

A study published recently in The Journal of Marketing Research looks at how subtle cues in our environments affect our product choices. (Subscription required)

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Marti Barletta: How to Market to Moms

07 MAY 2008 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

If you are going after moms, make the most of the many ways to connect with them. But don't make the mistake of using stereotypical "mommy marketing."

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The Real Threat to Google

As more consumers browse the Web on their cell phones, the No. 1 search engine must cope with less space to place ads.

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Sending in the Marines (to Recruit Women)

21 APR 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»

Mr. Cronin said the current effort was much different because everyone involved took the time to "understand the psychographics," that is, figuring out which women might actually want to join the military, and why. That is why the campaign aims at athletic women, not just all women graduating from high school, and the messages conveyed are much more egalitarian. (Subscription required)

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The Internet Runs on Ad Billions

Consumers enjoy a vast range of Web services, from e-mail to e-commerce, all funded by advertisers. Regulators tinker with this at their peril.

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The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How Word-of-Mouse Spreads Your Ideas for Free

09 APR 2008 from ChangeThis | Read the full story»

You and I are incredibly lucky. For decades, the only way to spread our ideas was to buy expensive advertising or beg the media to write (or broadcast) about our products and services. But now our organizations have a tremendous opportunity to publish great content online—content that people want to consume and that they are eager to share with their friends, family, and colleagues. Word-of-mouse is the single most empowering tool available to marketers today.

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Now YouTube is watching you

YouTube, the online video pioneer, has rolled out a way to make tracking your Web-surfing interests and tendencies even easier. And advertisers are going to love it. Lisa Napoli reports.

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Pumas, Planets and Pens: How Cues in the Environment Influence Consumer Choice

In a new research paper titled, "Dogs on the Street, Pumas on Your Feet: How Cues in the Environment Influence Product Evaluation and Choice," Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger suggests that what you see in your everyday world can influence what you buy. For example, participants in one study who were shown more images of dogs liked sneakers from the Puma brand more than those who had not seen the images -- because dogs are associated with cats, and cats with Puma. "Marketers ... think they have to come up with a catchy slogan or slick advertisement to create a buzz," Berger says. Instead, companies can get a payoff by creating a link between their product and a cue in the environment.

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College admission is a marketing game

Commentator and high school junior Morrisa Brenner is taking tests and filling out applications to get into college. In the process, she's learned that colleges are selling themselves just as much as prospective students.

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Media Cos. Battle Web Portals on Ads

Traditional media companies trying to stem the flow of advertising dollars to Google and other large Internet companies are increasingly building ad networks of their own, anchored by their brands....

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Crystal Ball 2.0

17 MAR 2008 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

We asked the bloggers on the Power 150 blog-ranking index to tell us what technology marketers should be paying most attention to in 2008. Here's what they said. (Subscription required)

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New: Society for Word of Mouth

With spending on word-of-mouth marketing expected to reach $3.7 billion by 2011 (Ad Age), it’s time for you to start dipping your toes into the WOM waters, if not diving in. A great place for you to start will be to join the Society for Word of Mouth, a new venture started by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba of Citizen Marketers fame.

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Advertising: A Meet-Up, Brought to You by Huggies

The Kimberly-Clark Corporation is joining forces with Meetup, a social networking site that fosters offline meetings of users who share interests — like parenthood.

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Is User-Generated Content Out?

The individual user has been king on the Internet, but the pendulum seems to be swinging back toward edited information vetted by professionals.

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Bearer of Bad News Decides to Advertise It

After more than 70 years, Consumer Reports has decided that a review isn’t enough for a bad product — it deserves a provocative ad campaign, too. (Subscription required)

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If You Want Your Marketing to Succeed, You Need to Master the Six M's

[I]f you want to significantly improve the probability of your marketing campaign succeeding, then you won't want to leave the six M's up to chance. Instead, you'll want to make intentional choices about each one of these components. And the clearer you are about each one, the higher the probability that your campaign will succeed.

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When Your Ad Tactics Don't Fit Your Brand

It's a common mistake advertisers make—falling in love with a novel idea and force-fitting it (or not) to the overall strategy for their brand.

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To Aim Ads, Web Is Keeping Closer Eye on You

A new analysis of online consumer data shows that large Web companies are learning more about people than ever from what they search for and do on the Internet. (Subscription required)

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One Ad Campaign: Two Gender Stereotypes

I just came across a blog post that brings up a fairly common ad campaign phenomenon: two gender stereotypes for the price of one.  Though the "chocolate man" television ad being discussed was clearly an attempt at humor, it actually comes off as either "off" or just plain creepy.  The post's writer does a good job dissecting it.  Here's an excerpt ...

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Study: Who Clicks on Banners?

It's time to update the famous saying to "I know half of my clicks are wasted, I just don't know which half."

ComScore's press release: "The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks.

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If Online Marketing Is the Future, Why Are Some CMOs Stuck in the Past?

Americans spend an average of 14 hours a week online and 14 hours watching TV. But marketers spend 22% of their advertising dollars on TV and only 6% online, according to data compiled and analyzed by Google. Why are some chief marketing officers and major advertisers reluctant to add digital technology to the marketing mix, despite the Internet's ability to help target huge audiences and build brand awareness? Wharton faculty and marketing experts offer a number of answers, but they also note that CMOs and others will soon have no choice but to start taking advantage of an increasing number of online advertising options.

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In CBS Test, Mobile Ads Find Users

CBS plans to announce on Wednesday that it is trying one of the first serious experiments with cellphone advertising that is customized for a person’s location. (Subscription required)

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Microsharing, Social-Bookmarking and the Middle 50% You Can't Ignore

"You mean there's only 1% of people taking part in this? How do we know who our 1% are? If there's only 1%, or even 10%, why should we care about who's creating content?" As Rohit points out, and as the data lead us to believe, there's a "juice middle" of the market where people are sharing, passing along and all out 'moving your message along' in ways that aren't often tracked. So, what do we do about everyone in the middle? It's simple. Virally-enable ALL of your content!

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Advertisers move to the silver screen

If you've been to the movies lately, you may have noticed the show before the show just keeps getting longer. Big advertisers are moving from the small screen to the big one. Stacey Vanek-Smith reports.

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Taxi Drivers in London Take a Turn as Pitchmen

A promotional campaign for an online gambling Web site will enlist the help of London taxi drivers to engage passengers in conversation and promote the site. (Subscription required)

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Is the Tipping Point Toast?

FEB 2008 from Fast Company | Read the full story»

Marketers spend a billion dollars a year targeting influentials. Duncan Watts says they're wasting their money.

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Marketing Mismatch: When New Won’t Work with Old (Riffs on Meatball Sundae)

"People treat the New Marketing like a kid with a twenty-dollar bill at an ice cream parlor. They keep wanting to add more stuff—more candy bits and sprinkles and cream and cherries. The dream is simple: 'If we can just add enough of [today's hot topping], everything will take care of itself.' Most of the time, despite all the hype, organizations fail when they try to use this scattershot approach."

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Advertising: Think Before You Speak

11 JAN 2008 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

Just as your funny bumper sticker might offend the guy behind you, your ad may not be saying what you want the target audience to hear.

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What's Black & White And Spread All Over?

10 DEC 2007 from MediaPost Publications | Read the full story»

One of the best ways of generating word-of-mouth may be via the press. That's the conclusion of a new Millward Brown study being released... by the National Newspaper Network and the Newspaper Association of America.

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Food Commercials Reach the Supermarket

Microsoft Corp. is bringing digital advertising to the grocery cart.

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'What Are You Giving Away?' The Challenges of Marketing in Asia

Western companies looking to do business in Asia, especially in China, don't always confront a homogenous market, and the ways that consumers make decisions about what to buy aren't always predictable, according to a group of marketing experts who spoke at the 2007 Wharton Asia Business Forum. Like developed-world consumers, many urban Chinese people are technologically savvy and comfortable seeking product information on the web. But unlike them, they don't typically show brand loyalty and are often more motivated by price than perceptions of product quality or prestige.

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An Experiment with PDF Ads Via Yahoo

Kevin Kelly is trying out a new ad insertion program with his book "True Films". His write up is interesting and Kevin's always thoughtful about these things.

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Practicing the Subtle Sell of Placing Products on Webisodes

American Eagle Outfitters is at the forefront of a trend toward advertainment, making videos to engross viewers while glamorizing a brand. (Subscription required)

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The "Top," "Best," Most Trendy" Business Trend for 2008? The Holistic Approach

21 DEC 2007 from the Huffington Post | Read the full story»

Interestingly, "The Emergence of the 'Renaissance Marketer'" was one of ten 2008 trends spotted by Association of National Advertisers President Bob Liodice and published in Advertising Age. According to the description, this sort of marketer has a holistic view of the world and extraordinary observational skills, and, is furthermore, a powerful combination of humanist, psychologist, anthropologist and technologist.

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Facebook Ads Make You the Star -- And You May Not Know It

Facebook last week started quietly rolling out "Social Ads" -- advertisements featuring the names and profile photos of your friends. Critics say that users aren't adequately notified that their photos may appear in these ads.

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In 2008: Be Wise, Overcome the Curse of Knowledge

While history or years of experience certainly serve a purpose in the future of marketing, the most powerful results often occur when history and experience are combined with a little humility and acknowledgment of limitations - whether individually or within a marketing team. With such an understanding, you can then get out of your own way to gather the great insights that come from consumers and outside-industry thought leaders.

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A Mad Man Gets His Head Together

Maurice Lévy, CEO of Publicis Groupe, has bet more than $1 Billion that he can define the future of digital advertising. Getting there has been enough to make anyone a little schizophrenic.

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Widgets are the new ad kid on the block

Brand advertisers are turning to mini-applications with dynamic content that people can embed in their own Web pages and share with others.

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10 ways to "get ink"

Neil Wilson asks:" 'Get Ink' is the fundamental marketing mantra. You guys are natural self-promoters. What do you find is the best way of getting your name in the frame?" 10 ideas that come to mind when I think about ways to get people to notice you/your product...

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Word of Mouth Versus Key Influencers

"We find that trying to track down key influencers, people who have extremely large social networks, is typically unnecessary and, more importantly, can actually limit a campaign or advertisement’s viral potential. Instead, marketers need to realize that the majority of their audience, not just the well-connected few, is eager and willing to pass along well-designed and relevant messages."

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Bravo to Bravo: Don't "Target" Women, Attract Them!

"...So we attract women viewers, but it's just by being who we are. We don't need to find them. We have a voice, we have a tone, we also think certain things are better and worse and there is such a thing as good and bad taste and high and low quality."

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The Elongating Tail of Brand Communication by Mohammad Iqbal

Using Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, as a jumping off point, Iqbal, a Senior Planning Director with Ogilivy & Mather Advertising, presents why the single-minded brand proposition is an anachronism and will fall out of favor in the future. His paper also details 8 ways marketers and advertising agencies can harness the power of the Long Tail of brand communication.

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Who Owns You? Finding a Balance between Online Privacy and Targeted Advertising

On November 6, Facebook outlined a strategy to integrate more targeted advertising into its popular social networking website. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw the new initiative as an opportunity for users to refer products to each other and allow friends to share information as they shopped online and visited other websites. The system, called Beacon, was also intended to lead to more relevant -- and profitable -- advertising through precise targeting based on a user's buying habits, social circle and geography. But on December 5, after receiving numerous complaints, Zuckerberg issued an apology and changed the way Beacon operates. The whole incident, according to Wharton experts, raises questions about privacy, marketing tactics and what consumers can expect in the future.

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From Hip-Hop to Geek Wisdom

"I believe advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable."

-Robert Stephens , founder, Geek Squad

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Study: Store Ads Influence Shoppers' Goals

"Researchers from MIT have shown that people are most susceptible to be influenced by advertisers and promotions at the entrance of the store. According to the scientists, people usually don't have their shopping goals very clearly pre-determined; they decide not only what specific product to buy but also what kind of product they want to buy during their wondering through the supermarket's aisles."

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Marketers Focus More on Global 'Tribes' Than on Nationalities

10 DEC 2007 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Executives seeking to expand their companies' global reach must now cater to particular subcultures of customers who share very similar outlooks, styles and aspirations despite their different nationalities and languages. (Subscription required)

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The 4 types of community

You're thinking about creating or extending your customer or member community because it's central to increased word of mouth and evangelism, but community is a broad term. What type of community, exactly, do you want to create? Here's four ways to think about it.

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Patented Mind Control

Here's a compilation of patents for devices and methods of various types of mind control.

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PR's Role in New Media: A MarketingProfs-cast with Cece Salomon-Lee

PR professionals have been on the front end of all media relationships for a very long time. But the advent of new media poses some challenges for even the best PR professional.

To get some advice on how PR pros should handle new media, I conducted an interview with Cece Salomon-Lee. She runs her own blog called PR Meets Marketing, where she discusses how marketing is changing the way she practices PR.

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Visual Vampires

Visual vampires are images shown in advertising that divert attention away from the advertised product. Think ... Wendy’s Red Wig ... Robert Goulet/Emerald Nuts ... Paris Hilton/Carl's Jr.. (Think 100% Creationist WOM where companies engage in outrageously gimmicky attention-grabbing antics to capture our attention.)

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Work/Life: Banksy and Hilton: Getting it right by being very wrong

I've just been to the Banksy exhibition in NY. For those who are unfamiliar with this wildly popular subversive artist (where have you been for the past hour?) , Banksy is the anti-war, anti-capitalistic graffitist who pulled off the...

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Dell takes a hard drive at advertising

Dell started out the day as a computer company. But by the time the markets closed it had become an advertising powerhouse. The company says it's going to spend $4.5 billion to create its own ad agency. Lisa Napoli reports. (Audio)

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Facebook Revamps New Advertising System

Seeking to keep the peace in its popular online hangout, Facebook Inc. has overhauled a new advertising system that sparked privacy complaints by turning its users into marketing tools for other companies....

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Yahoo, Adobe team on PDF ads

Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo lets PDF publishers monetize ads.

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Imitation Hits the Marketing Business. Again.

A skein of look-alike, sound-alike, seem-alike advertising campaigns is raising eyebrows along Madison Avenue. (Subscription required)

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Reinventing Bank Marketing

14 NOV 2007 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

In the last year since it physically revamped its 120 offices in a revolutionary manner, Denmark's Jyske Bank has generated a blizzard of press coverage and doubled its customer base. Its various financial products are now bundled in slickly designed packages, like software boxes, and arranged on shelves like consumer package goods. The architecture and atmosphere are those of an upscale coffee shop that not only offers free coffee but comfortable nooks for newspaper and magazine reading as well. It's all part of a plan to reinvent the bank office as a "third place" like Starbucks is in the U.S. (Video )

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Crisco: A marketing revolution

Crisco is a staple in many American kitchens and a must-have for homemade pies. But it's also an invented food made by chemists, and the story of how the white stuff became a must-have has become a marketing legend. Sarah Gardner reports.

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Advertising Clutter in 1759

"Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic." -- Samuel Johnson, "The art of advertising exemplified", The Idler (a series of essays published in Universal Chronicle) # 4o, 1759

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Ad Networks, the New Dot-Coms?

Web sites of all sorts are starting their own advertising networks. Even Martha Stewart has decided that ad networks are a good thing. (Subscription required)

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How Marketing Hype Hurt Boeing and Apple

CEOs, often dismissive of marketing, are discovering a dangerous reality: aggressive marketing and brand-building can boost stock prices by raising customer and investor expectations. But the penalties for not delivering on marketing promises are fast becoming as significant as not meeting quarterly earnings targets.

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Crazy for Costco

Marketing chief Paul Latham doesn’t just create loyalty to Costco. He personifies it. An exclusive Q&A interview by Tim Manners.

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Facebook's Big Ad Plan: If Users Like You, They'll Be Your Campaign

06 NOV 2007 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg declare[d] that the days of waste in media targeting were over and tout a new "pull marketing" era in which consumers voluntarily endorse the brands and products they like. (Subscription required)

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Opportunities Widen for Ads On Social Sites

Facebook and MySpace are rolling out more services for advertisers, hoping to turn their popularity into more revenue. (Subscription required)

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Support for ad-tracking opt out

Privacy advocates seek the creation of an opt-out list for net users who do not want to be tracked by advertisers.

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Online Marketers Joining Internet Privacy Efforts

People will soon be able to sign up for do-not-track lists, which will help shield their Web surfing habits from marketers eager to deliver specific ad pitches to them. (Subscription required)

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Marketing Maria: Managing the Athlete Endorsement

Superstars throughout the entertainment world are of particular interest to Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse, be they a movie legend or a third baseman. She wrote the Sharapova case with Margarita Golod (HBS MBA '07) to study and frame classroom discussions on a favorite field of research: the value created and captured by superstars.

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The Real Digital Revolution

The real digital revolution has nothing to do with advertising or marketing. In fact, it's the mortal enemy of advertising and marketing. Because the real digital revolution is about consumer empowerment, the ability to research and learn about products and services and make decisions independently from, and in spite of, any sort of marketing and advertising messages.

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Student’s Ad Gets a Remake, and Makes the Big Time

In a trend known as consumer-generated content, an 18-year-old student and Apple devotee was hired to make a television commercial for Apple’s new iPod Touch. (Subscription required)

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Marketers Explore New Virtual Worlds

23 OCT 2007 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Marketers who had rushed to establish a presence in online virtual world Second Life are beginning to look elsewhere, a sign of how hard it is for marketers to keep pace with fast-changing consumer habits on the Internet. (Subscription required)

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Is viral marketing the same as word of mouth?

Word of mouth is a decaying function. A marketer does something and a consumer tells five or ten friends. And that's it. It amplifies the marketing action and then fades, usually quickly. A lousy flight on United Airlines is word of mouth... Viral marketing is a compounding function. A marketer does something and then a consumer tells five or ten people. Then then they tell five or ten people. And it repeats. And grows and grows. Like a virus spreading through a population.

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Spin Me Softly

18 OCT 2007 from Forbes | Read the full story»

Online marketers, however, haven't given up on tapping Wikipedia's massive traffic flow. Along with two of Wikipedia's top volunteer editors, Spencer and two colleagues explained how marketing agencies can strike a balance, using the site to increase their brand's visibility and grab its wealth of free advertising, without getting their changes deleted--or worse, causing a backlash that spills into the mainstream press.

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RSS Ad Response Tops E-mail

Marketers are finding RSS feeds offer higher conversion rates than other online ads.

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1,200 Marketers Can’t Be Wrong: The Future Is in Consumer Behavior

The ability of new media to monitor what consumers are doing — like keeping track of which Web sites they visit — is fueling interest in behavioral targeting. (Subscription required)

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The New Advertising Outlet: Your Life

Huge amounts of advertising money are flowing out of the traditional media and into alternatives — even as ad budgets in general are growing. (Subscription required)

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Vanity Zip Codes

The U.S. Postal Service has allowed Saks Fifth Avenue to have its own vanity zip code - for the shoe department at its flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York. It was just rechristened "10022-SHOE." Saks is the first entity to receive such a customized code.

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Google to Put YouTube Videos on Its Ad Network

The new service represents Google’s first steps toward turning its powerful ad network, which places ads on Internet sites, into a system for distributing content. (Subscription required)

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Magazines rack up a new problem

Magazine publishers are having the same problems as newspapers as readers and advertisers desert them for the Internet. Now some big names like Vogue and Time might not even make it to newstands next week. Jill Barshay reports.

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Friends, Lies and Network Marketing

An expert in Multi-Level Marketing, Kim Klaver delivers a manifesto defying the bad advice most of these companies offer to their sales force. This rote advice, Klaver warns, results in alienated friends, limited potential, and insures failure even for inexperienced salespeople. Here are 12 tips to avoid losing friends (and your personal savings) by searching out referrals, not sales, and learning to tell your story.

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Today's Billboards Shine Bold and Bright Despite a Long Battle

01 OCT 2007 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

"I think that I shall never see/A billboard lovely as a tree./Indeed, unless the billboards fall/I'll never see a tree at all."
Ogden Nash's quatrain summed up an attitude toward billboards that began with their invention in the late 19th century and continues to this day. (Subscription required)

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Marketers Get Creative to Stave Off Ad Fatigue

01 OCT 2007 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

When the same ad runs too often, consumers grow bored, annoyed or hostile. But some marketing executives are finding new ways around the problem by varying their messages and media. (Subscription required)

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Ad Agencies Stink At Their Jobs--Here Is What They Must Do.

The fact is that the entire ad agency model has to be remade and ad agency people need to really learn about social media--and print for that matter. Blindly moving everyone into the most popular social networking sites may be safe today but it hurts clients whose brands are not connecting with the corporation's true customers.

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New Service Eavesdrops on Internet Calls

A startup has come up with a new way to make money from phone calls connected via the Internet: having software listen to the calls, then displaying ads on the callers' computer screens based on what's being talked about....

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How to be a Customer

Ninety-nine percent of marketing focuses on how to sell to customers. Very little attention is paid to why and how customers should sell themselves to marketers. As a customer, do you ever think about how you can get a leg up on your competition—the other customers competing for the attention and goodwill of the seller?

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Text-Message Ads Get Results in U.S.

Europeans are far more likely than Americans to have text-message ads sent to their cellphones, but Americans are far more receptive to them. (Subscription required)

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Getting Free Cellphone Calls for Ads

A new British mobile service called Blyk will offer subscribers some free calls and text messages in return for their agreeing to accept advertising on their phones. (Subscription required)

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Google's AdSense, Now With Widgets

19 SEP 2007 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

While not the first to introduce interactive ads whose marketing messages can change in real time, Google is touting the value of this kind of rich-media experience coupled with the contextual targeting capabilities of its AdSense network.

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Making MySpace into ad space

MySpace.com owner News Corp says it will unveil technology this week that allows it to mine all the information its members reveal about themselves and target ads to their interests. Lisa Napoli reports.

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At MTV, a New Show That Pushes Deodorant

13 SEP 2007 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

A new MTV series, created by Unilever to promote Axe deodorant, is an example of the way that marketers are attempting to subtly promote their products by creating and backing entertainment programs. (Subscription required)

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Entrepreneurship: Direct Mail Isn't Dead Yet

A new service called Leadstash is boasting that it can make professional-quality direct mail campaigns that are financially feasible for even the smallest of small businesses.

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Cellfire.com

A new service that lets you sign up to receive coupons by cellphone is generating "good" results for Virgin Megastores, reports Stephanie Kang in The Wall Street Journal (9/11/07). The service, called Cellfire, is strictly opt-in.

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Thinking about this war

Hamas leverages and extends its power in Palestine by providing health care in neighborhoods. That's the message that gets through to the people on the ground. Every action a group (any group) takes tells a story. What's that story? Does it spread? When it spreads, how does that story affect the conversations that people have with each other? If the NYPD is right (and I think their analysis of how this meme spreads is right) then the most important thing our government can do is discuss what sort of ideavirus they are working to spread. And then take action. And spread the right story in the right way.

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Advertising: A Brand Tries to Invite Thought

Hyundai Motor America is introducing a $150 million advertising campaign meant to improve the image of the Hyundai brand.

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The New Complete Marketer

Autumn 2007 from strategy+business | Read the full story»

No corporate function has evolved more dramatically than marketing. Once a fairly discrete department within the organization, marketing is more and more often being asked to fulfill a far more significant, strategic role with implications for the entire enterprise. Indeed, a number of chief marketing officers (CMOs) have flourished in their new capacity as “Growth Champions,” a term we use to describe marketing’s engagement in leading companies to expand their reach in the consumer or business-to-business marketplace.

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Whiting Out the Ads, but at What Cost?

A software program that blocks ads is a two-edged sword: It stops annoyances for consumers, but it threatens to break down the business model that helps pay for Web content. (Subscription required)

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Could Livecasting Become A New Advertising Model?

For months now I've had friends tweet on Twitter about watching Justin.tv, a live video streaming network founded by Justin Kan, who started the service by wearing a webcam attached to his cap 24 hours a day, every day.

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Google's Plans for Peer-to-Peer Ads

Google has filed a patent for what it calls user-distributed advertisements (UDA). A UDA system "facilitates insertion of manually selected ads into a document that is to be distributed (e.g., transmitted, published, and/or posted) such that the document is to be made available to other users."

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At 30,000 Feet, Finding a Captive Audience for Advertising

As airlines look for new sources of revenue to offset rising fuel costs, more carriers are turning planes into marketing vehicles. (Subscription required)

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The online numbers game

22 AUG 2007 from Fortune | Read the full story»

Measuring web traffic is far from an exact science, and that's a big problem for online advertisers.

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Facebook Gets Personal With Ad Targeting Plan

Facebook is working on a new ad system to let marketers target users based on information people reveal about themselves on the site. (Subscription required)

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YouTube Videos to Have 'Overlay' Ads

Video advertising is coming to YouTube, but it won't be the type common at sites elsewhere. Starting Wednesday, the popular video-sharing site plans to feature semitransparent "overlay" ads at the bottom of selected video clips....

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Jennifer Jones: The Top 3 'New' Rules of Marketing and PR

For this podcast, I asked David Scott to give listeners his top three "new" rules... (Audio)

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Package Pop

Shorter attention spans — especially among younger people — is leading to more frequent changes in package design, reports Louise Story in The New York Times (8/10/07). "They say, 'What else do you have for me? That was nice last year, but I want the packaging to be refreshing,'" says Kimberly Drosos,...

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Product Packages Now Shout to Get Your Attention

Consumer goods companies are using their products’ packages as 3-D ads to grab shoppers’ fickle attention. (Subscription required)

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Integrity in Marketing Is Not Optional

30 JUL 2007 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

In a world where buyers are continuously in touch with other buyers and claims are publicly deconstructed by anyone and everyone, marketers' toughest job may be to simply convince buyers that they speak the truth. In such a world, marketing integrity is not just a virtue; it is a driver of choice. (Subscription required)

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Ad dollars flow from papers to Web

It's now estimated that more than half of the $200-billion-plus U.S. advertising market will flow to online sites and away from newspapers. More folks are simply getting their news online. Jeremy Hobson reports.

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It's an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World

Hoping to deliver personalized messages to consumers, advertising giant Publicis is pursuing an ambitious global digital ad strategy. (Subscription required)

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Phone call for marketing

Seems that companies could take a lesson from the political landscape when it comes to effectively using social media and social marketing: Engage first, get money later. Curt Nickisch explains.

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Readers of The Journal May Be Wary of Murdoch, but Advertising Executives Are Not

In the advertising community, executives expressed optimism that Mr. Murdoch would invest resources in The Journal, making it more attractive to advertisers. (Subscription required)

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Why everyone wants a viral video

Telling your company's ongoing story on a daily or weekly basis via online video is looking a lot like the future of marketing and advertising.

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AOL Joins the Ad Acquisition Party

24 JUL 2007 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

AOL, once a leader on the World Wide Web, is lately playing catch-up—most recently in the acquisition arena. On July 24, the company announced plans to acquire Tacoda, an advertising company that tracks what people do on the Web and uses that information to determine where to place online ads.

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Text-for-charity takes off at Virgin Mobile

Blog: Don't tell mainstream marketers this, but text-messaging promotions can work.

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Small Business Marketing Seminar

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What's Plaguing Viral Marketing

16 JUL 2007 from AdAge | Read the full story»

Since the term "viral marketing" snuck into vogue in the mid-1990s, the ad business has been sold on sickness as the way to describe how information, ideas and influence spread through populations of consumers. Once a sideshow to traditional marketing, it has developed its own canon of research and books -- most famously, Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" -- and has become the order of the day in a world where people wear their social networks on their sleeves. (Subscription required)

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Smart Marketing Tactics to Boost Sales

Regardless of your budget, you can call attention to your business with these effective marketing strategies.

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Marketing to Employees

Apple is doing a lot of things right in marketing the iPhone. But amidst all the iPhone hubbub, one vital marketing nugget is getting lost: Apple is giving all its full-time U.S.-based employees an iPhone.

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The Nine Best Story Lines for Marketing

Lois Kelly is the author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. This is her explanation of the top nine types of stories that people like to talk about. If you’re pitching your company to investors, customers, partners, journalists, vendors, or employees and you don’t use at least one of these story lines, you probably have a problem.

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Yahoo launches customizable ad tool

Yahoo's SmartAds offer ads based on geography, demographics and Web surfing behavior.

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Sandwiches, an Evangelist and Social Media

This is a great example of how any company of any size can utilize social media effectively. This all started because Chris' local Which Wich noticed that he was coming in almost every day, so they started talking to him about it, and when he told them about the blogging series he was doing about their sandwiches, that's when they decided to promote the series on their bags.

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E-mail senders pay to bypass filters

Four more Internet service providers will start charging banks, e-commerce sites and other large e-mail senders for guaranteed delivery.

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FeedBurner Confirms It's Been Googled

FeedBurner CEO Dick Costolo confirms the rumors that Google bought his startup, FeedBurner. (See earlier post). The price was not disclosed. The rumored amount was $100 million... FeedBurner tracks everyone who reads your feeds, and can place ads in those feeds. Google tracks everyone who visits your Website, and can place ads on your site. Now Google will be able to track and place ads on feeds as well.

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One, a few, most or all

You're a needle, the market is a haystack. Make your needle as sharp as you can, put it in as many haystacks as you can afford.

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Twenty Questions Even a Caveman Can Ask

It is time again to ask 20 questions about advertising, marketing, the media and popular culture. (Subscription required)

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the coming war on ingredients

While the results of our research show that among everyday consumers the term "sustainability" is not widely used, not widely understood, and not very useful in terms of consumer product marketing, our findings clearly show that a cultural shift is taking place in terms of consumer awareness, acceptance and practices that relate to this term.

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Chicken Little pecks again

Citizen-created content is "stressful, costly and time-consuming"... for the brand.

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Marketing Lust

Let’s forget for the moment about the Masters of the Universe who buy Falcon Jets the way you or I consider buying snow tires. Let’s focus on those times when you or I buy the kind of thing that “the rich” buy -- for whatever reason, at that particular moment of complete abandon and irresponsibility.

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Advertising: Madison Avenue Says Hello to ‘Hello,’ Again

At least half a dozen advertising campaigns are using the greeting “Hello” as a way to attract consumer attention. (Subscription required)

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U.S. online ad market up 35 percent in 2006

Ensuring publisher transparency, increasing advertising quality, and embracing video are key to maintaining a strong U.S. online advertising market, where revenue grew 35 percent in 2006 over 2005, according to an Interactive Advertising Bureau official.

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Click-to-win marketing

Big sweepstakes prizes aren't just for the big kids anymore.

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Publisher to Let the Public Have a Vote on Book Projects

Can crowds predict whether a book will succeed? That is the hope of the founders of Media Predict, a virtual market beginning Monday. (Subscription required)

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Marketing So Good It's To Die For

Do you ever get the feeling that, in our effort to master the tactics of marketing in this ever-changing environment, we lose sight of what we are supposed to be doing in the first place?

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MySpace, My Corporation, My Friend?

Large companies are using social networking sites such as MySpace to market to young people. But they're not just buying ads; the companies create their own profiles in the hope that they will prove popularity. (Audio)

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Word-of-Mouth in B2B

C-level execs want to hear it in person.

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Internet Marketing: Your Ad Goes Here

The Internet search engine is an indispensable tool of modern life and an advertising gold mine for Web portals. (Subscription required)

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(Cafe)Press your politics and profit

If you can think it up, you can sell it on a bumper sticker. Coffee mug. T-shirt. Thong (yes, the underwear). CafePress.com makes it easy to market your political views or random thoughts. A lot of people are doing it — and making money, Sean Cole reports.

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what's wrong with viral marketing?

For a virus to become an epidemic, it requires each infected person infects at least one other person. Infect less than one and a viral epidemic doesn’t occur.

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The Benefits of Plugging A Big Company's Wares

Appearing in ads gives small firms marketing without any costs.

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Shelley Ryan: You CAN Teach an Old Dog New Marketing Tricks

Well, Zazzle.com isn't exactly OLD (even in Internet years). But they seem to be doing things a lot differently than when I first met them in 2002. As a result, they are getting ancient customers like me totally re-engaged with their Web site.

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NewsBreaker Goes Live in Theaters

NewsBreaker, the msnbc.com's Breakout-style game that is played by the audience interacting with the movie theater screens went live in LA this weekend.

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Calling All Customers Marketing on Cellphones

Businesses must proceed with caution when advertising on a device this personal and also be wary about how many messages they send, and make sure they are reaching the right demographic.

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When Guerrilla Marketing Backfires on a Small Firm

An increasing number of independent owners are using oddball tactics to get out their message, but these campaigns can carry a risk.

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Marketing to the Mainstream

"Risk and you shall receive." These words are from an advertisement on the train on my way to work this morning. Other famous lines were similarly altered -- "I risk therefore I am," was another.

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Marketing's Brave New World at Mix07

Microsoft's Robert Bach tells marketers they need to get 'personal, interactive and social.'

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Legion of Influencers Use E-Mail

Is the current definition of "influencer" too narrow?

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The Names Are Vintage, the Touches Modern

The lonely Maytag repairman is getting a personality makeover in a change meant to appeal to a new generation of shoppers. (Subscription required)

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Small-Business Owners Expecting $16 Billion Mother's Day Present

With Mother's Day spending at an all-time high, retailers are expanding their online offerings.

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Eight Telltale Signs That Your Press Release Is Bullshit

Most working journalists have to deal with hundreds, if not thousands, of press releases that cross the transom every year. That's more than they're going to read, of course. And of the ones they "read," all but a few are destined to receive a half-hearted skimming, followed by a click of the delete button.

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Auto Rivalries Make Madison Avenue a Frantic Street

The frenetic competition in the automotive industry is taking its toll on the advertising industry. (Subscription required)

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CPG Smacking Its Lips over Internet Advertising

After getting a taste of online advertising, many consumer packaged goods marketers seem to like it.

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Trust Matters

23 APR 2007 from Trusted Advisor Associates | Read the full story»

There is something rotten in the state of Loyalty Programs. Notions like "customer-centric" and "loyalty" have gotten so far from their original intent that they have perverted the way we use language.

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Renaming “jumboSHRIMP Marketing”

The Problem: Google "jumboshrimp" and something funny happens.

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Not Your Granddaddy's Cadillac

Let’s face it: American car manufacturers are in a major funk, and have been for some time. Cadillac, though, has been a bright spot.

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marketing's panacea- creative risk and accountability

“Our objective is to reduce uncertainty so we can take more creative risks."

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Word of Mouth for Boring Products

16 APR 2007 from Brand Autopsy | Read the full story»

Can’t get more “boring” than gauze pads, can ya!!??!!

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Beyond Plastic

"When there's no sense of possessiveness or ownership in the artistic process, great things happen."

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New Form of Impulse: Shopping via Text Message

A company called ShopText has introduced a system that lets people buy products instantly using text messages. (Subscription required)

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Procter and Gillette Learn From Each Other’s Marketing Ways

For years, Gillette knew how to talk to men and Procter & Gamble knew women. Now both sides say they have learned from each other’s methods. (Subscription required)

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Monsoon Marketing

How an Indian umbrella maker survived low-cost competition.

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Celebrex Commercial, Long and Unconventional, Draws Criticism

A consumer advocacy group has asked the F.D.A. to ban the television ad, saying it gives a false impression about its safety. (Subscription required)

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Re: Negative Word-of-Mouth

Next week at the Word-of-Mouth BASIC TRAINING Conference in New Orleans, I’m hosting a lunch networking session addressing pertinent and prevalent word-of-mouth marketing issues.

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The Biggest Threat to Email Marketing...

...is not delivery. Or spam. Or open rates. Or click-throughs. Instead, the biggest threat to email marketing is the failure of marketers to "market" email as a communications vehicle to senior management.

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Want to grow your business? Give customers more sprinkles

If a product or service comes with an introductory consultation, an additional battery, free samples, donut holes for the people waiting in line, the consumer takes in these extras and feels good about their choice.

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People have no idea why they're doing what they're doing

Clotaire Rapaille believes all purchasing decisions lie beyond conscious thinking and emotion and reside at a primal core. He helps Fortune 500 companies discover “the code” (i.e. unconscious associations for their products) that will help them increase sales.

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Act Now And Get Work/Life Balance At Introductory Rates

Working with some of the greatest marketing geniuses in the business, I’m designing prototypes for a whole new line of Work-Life Balance Products.

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What Are the Top Issues for Marketers?

The top concerns on the minds of senior marketing executives are “integrated marketing communications” and “marketing accountability,” according to a recent study by the Association of National Advertisers.

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Paul Barsch: The Forgotten 'P' Makes a Comeback

As marketers we’ve been raised on the 4 Ps, and in fact some authors have suggested new Ps.

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5 Things you should NEVER Tell a Customer

The way your customer service team handles inquiries can either make or break a relationship with your customers. It can also either reinforce or void your marketing efforts.

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The Anti-Spam Militia

People are taking the War on Spam seriously.

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Online Shopper: It’s an April Fools’ Paradise

Think joy buzzers are a prank of the past? Well, the joke’s on you. (Subscription required)

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How to Fight Big Rivals: Play Up Style and Service

A family-owned business has succeeded by becoming a testing ground for manufacturers and outclassing lower-cost competitors.

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Arun Sinha on sweet-spot organisations

Arun Sinha, author of "Sweet Spot: How to Maximize Marketing for Business Growth", and Chief Marketing Officer of Pitney Bowes, shares his thinking on 21st Century marketing with Des Dearlove.

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Inventory and Risk

If you've got a ton of unsold inventory, you're willing to take more risk with your ads.

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E-Commerce Report: Fuzzy Critters With High Prices Offer Lesson in New Concepts

The cuddly stuffed animals called Webkinz have gained notice among Internet executives for their ability to bridge the online and offline worlds. (Subscription required)

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Email Marketing Tools That Are Easier to Use

New packages are taking the headache out of customizing sales pitches and tracking Web-site responses.

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Boomers Big on Word-of-Mouth

When baby boomers get talking, there's no stopping them.

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Flag Down Customers While They're Asking for Directions

A weekly look at the latest products and services designed to help you run a better business.

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A Star Wars Mailbox

According to Advertising Age, the USPS will distribute 400 mailboxes shaped like R2D2.

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Advertising: Cue the 4:53 Silver Bullet to Happy Hour

Coors is planning an interactive initiative that promotes 4:53 p.m. as the new 5 o’clock. (Subscription required)

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PR 101: Timing really is everything

Timing is a precious commodity in the public relations industry — and also a strategic tool. Smart companies, not to mention politicians, use a few time-tested formulas in an attempt to maximize the good news and hide the bad.

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Harry Joiner: Does Cold Calling Work?

As my regular blog readers know, before becoming a marketing recruiter I owned a B2B inside sales consultancy called "Reliable Growth."  Essentially, I taught companies like NCR and Aflac how to research, identify, and develop new business with a phone, an internet connection and a fax machine.

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Face-to-Face Trumps Twitter, Blogs, Podcasts, Video...

SXSW Interactive had more attendees than ever before. A lot more. But here's the confusing part: the people attending are the same people who create and evangelize the tools that make attending totally unnecessary.

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Can you REALLY Fire Customers?

You’re familiar with the 80/20 rule: 20% of your customers account for 80% of your business. It’s actually more like 90/10, but that’s another conversation.

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How Do You Value a "Free" Customer?

Businesspeople understand that not all customers are created equal—the 80-20 rule suggests that over time a small percentage of a company's customer base can generate a high percentage of its sales and profit. Models for calculating customer lifetime value are built on just such a premise.

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Mack Collier: How Threadless Creates 'Online Awesomeness'

I'm hearing from more and more companies/individuals that want to know how to create online communities. Most imply, and some come outright and say, that they want to create an online community so they can monetize it.

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Panel Urges Steps to Boost U.S. Allure

A business panel suggested steps in response to complaints that the U.S. is losing its edge in competition with other markets. Among the recommendations are structural changes at the SEC and ending quarterly earnings guidance. (Subscription required)

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Advertising: In a Global Marketplace, Claiming a Name Becomes an Art in Itself

It has become increasingly difficult to find a name for a company, a product, even a new shade of lipstick that has not been taken. (Subscription required)

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The Data Dump

Feel overwhelmed yet?

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We won't be undersold

If you have a won't be undersold motto, the very best thing that you can do is find customers who find a better price somewhere else... and then give them the discount.

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How to Breathe New Life Into Your Online Advertising

A weekly look at the latest products and services designed to help you run a better business.

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'Power by the Hour': Can Paying Only for Performance Redefine How Products Are Sold and Serviced?

Imagine paying for your car only when it works. Or your television. Or even your high-end toaster. That might sound far-fetched, but it could be the future model for purchases requiring service over time.

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Advertising: For Some Aging Actors, Self-Mockery Sells

More ad agencies are hiring venerable actors to display self-mocking sides of their personalities in campaigns aimed at younger as well as older consumers. (Subscription required)

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Measuring the Invisible

Q: What is the ROI of advertising? A: Stop advertising and find out.

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Music Labels Offer Teasers to Download

The expansion of the online marketplace is now all but forcing the music companies to tread on ground they once viewed as off limits.

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8 ways to go beyond the consumer generated ad

How does a brand go about embracing the consumer as a true participant in the marketing process?

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When the copy doesn't match the story

When the copy doesn't match the story The Bissell vacuum cleaner people are jumping on the Dyson bandwagon. Their vacuum looks like and works like a Dyson, but it's cheaper. And more important, it's a vacuum for people who didn't buy a Dyson when it was new and cool three years ago. In other words, it's a mass market version of the Dyson. So why does the copy lead off with, "The Bissell Healthy Home Vacuum is built like no other vacuum."

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rethinking gladwell's model of influence

Marketers need to look closely at the landscape to check if there are influencers and determine who they are and ensure the right tools are available to encourage everyone to help spread the idea.

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Living in the Age of Attraction

29 JAN 2007 from AdAge | Read the full story»

Today there are more than 1 billion people online creating the biggest bazaar the world has ever seen. Add to them a couple billion real-world shoppers, and a new era for communication is taking shape. And what does it remind me of more than anything else? The souk in Casablanca. In this new version, two things matter: what happens on-screen and what happens in-store. In both we can see the shaping of what I refer to as the Attraction Economy. (Subscription required)

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Billboards 'Talk' to Mini Drivers

Life gets a little wackier for some Mini Cooper owners, thanks to personalized messages triggered by chips in their key fobs. In Autopia.

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Say Hello to the Robo Ad Creation Model

15 JAN 2007 from AdAge | Read the full story»

Omnicom's Zimmerman agency is about to unveil Pick-N-Click-Ads.com, an automated service that enables users, no matter how stupid or inexperienced, to build a professional-standard TV, print, radio or interactive ad via a series of simple drop-down menus, all in 15 minutes. (Subscription required)

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Network-based Marketing: Using Existing Customers to Help Sell to New Ones

Marketers have long used all sorts of demographic and geographic data to target potential customers -- age, sex, education level, income, zip code. But there's another variable that companies may want to consider: Who is connected to whom? A study, co-authored by Wharton professor of operations and information management Shawndra Hill, found that consumers are far more apt to buy a company's product if they are "network neighbors" with existing customers.

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Marketing to Bloggers - What to do if Bloggers Hate Your Brand

Abram Sauer from BrandChannel.com has written a pretty decent article on how marketers should address the blogging community. He also wrote a good list on what to do if your brand is being slammed.

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Happy New Year

We wish you a new year filled with prosperity and growth, both personal and professional.

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consumer engagement or exploitation?- greeting cards and cellphones

Most of the interesting marketing discussion this year has revolved around the need for companies to get closer to the people who buy their products; by engaging them in the marketing process more directly. However, at the same time there is a war for attention that often runs counter to that trend.

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Verizon to Allow Ads on Its Mobile Phones

The move is a symbolic advance toward the widespread appearance of marketing messages on the smallest of screens. (Subscription required)

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Happy Holidays!

We're observing the Christmas holiday today and will return to posting tomorrow, Boxing day. We wish you a day filled with joy and peace.

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Grok Me, Baby! (or, Marketing to Introverts)

Here are some tips for marketing to introverts (or just dealing with my people effectively)...

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Brooklyn Industries

Lexy Funk and Vahap Avsar plan to grow their eight-store fashion boutique, Brooklyn Industries, by cutting their advertising budget in half, reports Beth Kwon in Inc. magazine (January ‘07). Actually, their overall marketing budget will continue to represent "roughly the same portion of revenue (two percent)" as before. It’s just that instead of spending their dollars on ads, Lexy and Vahap will invest in better window displays and fancier catalogs.

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CMO Memo

CMOs can offer management convincing, quantitative evidence of the impact brand marketing has on the bottom line. By James Gregory, CEO, Corebrand.

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FTC Moves to Unmask Word-of-Mouth Marketing

12 DEC 2006 from the Washington Post | Read the full story»

The Federal Trade Commission yesterday said that companies engaging in word-of-mouth marketing, in which people are compensated to promote products to their peers, must disclose those relationships... As the practice has taken hold over the past several years, however, some advocacy groups have questioned whether marketers are using such tactics to dupe consumers into believing they are getting unbiased information.

Hat tip: Seth Godin

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Ted Mininni: Cultural Anthropology In Marketing

Cultural Anthropology as a marketing tool is an idea whose time has come. In the past, only a few major consumer product companies (read: Procter & Gamble, Whirlpool, Volvo, among others) tinkered with anthropological research into consumer behavior. Now, more and more companies are adopting this to drive the design and development of new consumer products...

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Mack Collier: Blurring the Lines

I was watching an interview with Willie Davidson, grandson of the co-founder of Harley-Davidson, earlier this year. The interviewer asked Davidson if the motorcycle maker did any market research to determine more about the wants and needs of their customers....

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2 Hired to Overhaul Marketing Leave Their Posts at Wal-Mart

The departures coincide with slowing sales growth and several marketing stumbles at Wal-Mart, like designer-inspired fashions that have failed to sell. (Subscription required!)

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The race to create a 'smart' Google

20 NOV 2006 from Fortune | Read the full story»

Everything you buy online says a little bit about you. And if all those bits get put into one big trove of data about you and your tastes? Marketer's heaven.

Hat tip: The Next Net

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Happy Thanksgiving

We hope that you all have a day rich with community and contentment. The wire service will resume tomorrow.

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Two Long-Established Marketers Loosen Up

The General Electric Company and the Pepsi-Cola North America unit of PepsiCo are expanding their efforts to become a little less conventional. (Subscription required!)

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Starbucks' Holiday Viral Effort Doubles as Social Experiment

09 NOV 2006 from AdAge | Read the full story»

Don't be surprised if sometime between now and Christmas a stranger gives you lift tickets in Denver, skating passes in Toronto or even free parking at a Michigan hospital. (Free subscription required!)

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Advertisements Revisited

"Ready. Fire! Aim." is one of Tom’s favorite mantras. In that spirit, we've been experimenting with advertising here at the TP Wire Service. We've also considered and researched it for our parent site, tompeters.com. The results have underwhelmed us. We're removing the ads from the TP Wire Service RSS feeds today and will be removing the ads from the TP Wire Service home page in the near future. Tompeters.com will remain ad-free. We welcome your thoughts on the subject. Here's to "Relentless Experimentation!"

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Newspapers to Test Plan to Sell Ads on Google

The three-month test may open up new revenue to hurting papers, but would risk making Google even stronger. (Subscription required!)

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Relax and breathe in the fresh . . . marketing

More and more American businesses are using something called "scent marketing" — blowing fragrant aromas into the air to get consumers to spend more and keep coming back. Sean Cole takes a whiff.

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Start-Ups Hope Web Ad Boom Spreads Wealth

17 OCT 2006 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Hundreds of Internet start-ups targeting a wide range of markets -- such as women, music fans and dog-lovers -- are now relying on Web advertising to fund their new business concepts.

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9 Minds on Marketing by Andrea Learned

To create 9 Minds on Marketing, Andrea Learned, co-author of Don't Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy—and How to Increase Your Share of the Market, read nine new marketing books, interviewed the author(s), and wrote an essay on each to elucidate the ideas that she found most provocative.

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Joining the Party, Eager to Make Friends

Advertisers hope to use social networking sites to get the attention of tens of millions of young people who increasingly avoid television commercials. (Subscription required!)

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Advertising: Letting Consumers Control Marketing: Priceless

Marketers are experimenting with ways to engage a new breed of consumers who want more control over the ways products are peddled to them. (Subscription required!)

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The Future of Consumer Research

OCT 2006 from Inc. | Read the full story»

Are you still using traditional focus groups? New techniques could help you discover what your customers are really thinking.

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Innovation bling-bling from the Metropolitan Opera

In an effort to attract a wider audience to its opera performances, the opening of the Metropolitan Opera's fall season in New York City included a live simulcast of "Madama Butterfly" in Times Square. Amidst a sea of neon, high-brow art competed with low-brow advertising...

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WOM Is Not SOB

"Word-of-mouth" does not mean "sitting-on-behind" (SOB). Real WOM demands careful planning, hard work and persistence... It’s a major investment, but one that can be well worth doing. It’s a very active program.

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Selling Sympathy

11 SEP 2006 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

And a little self-interest, too. Here's how a business major helped homeless panhandlers increase their hourly take.

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A Way to Start Up Book Sales

The first Nascar ad to publicize a book, “The Book of Fate,” a thriller by Brad Meltzer, ran on the hood of a car in a Nascar Busch Series race on Friday.

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Students to Create Chevy's Next Super Bowl Ad

And you thought Chevy would give up on the whole consumer-generated-ads idea after what happened to their Tahoe initiative. No, and this time they are doing something very cool...

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The Internet: Is Your Business on It?

In 1987, a Web presence probably meant that your home had a spider problem and that it was time to call the exterminator. In 2006 and beyond, a Web presence is something no business should be without.

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Wienermobile turns 70

Oscar Mayer's iconic Wienermobile is 70 this year. Brian Bull looks at why the giant hot dog on wheels has endured as a marketing vehicle. (Audio)

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Labor Day

"Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country." [U.S. Dept. of Labor]

There will be no postings today at TP Wire Service in observance of the holiday. Have a wonderful day.

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Google Launches Online Coupons

A look at the latest products and services that will help you build a better business.

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YouTube advertising here

Online video sharing site YouTube is introducing video ads for its homepage and sponsor-created pages. It's the company's latest move to boost revenue, but will it work? Janet Babin reports. (Audio)

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Marketing to Millions: China's Changing Tastes

China's economic boom is creating new opportunities for multinational corporations. How do they tailor their products and their strategies to attract millions of newly minted consumers? Think ancient beauty potions and tea-flavored toothpaste. (Audio)

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Ads to Be Printed on Grocery Store Conveyor Belts

16 AUG 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

That plain-black conveyor belt at the grocery checkout line is the next stop for ad creep. (Free subscription required!)

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Coming Soon to Cellphones -- More Ads

Some big wireless companies, including Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, are starting to allow ads on their cellphone networks. (Subscription required!)

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Google displays coupons on maps

Google enhanced its Google Maps application to include coupons that businesses can create and display free of charge.

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Advertisers Trace Paths Users Leave on Internet

Internet companies are analyzing records of what their users search for to target advertising directly to them. (Subscription required!)

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Mack Collier: Let's Go Viral, Baby!

But while 'viral marketing' is the sexy blonde that every company is courting, are they ignoring the equally hot brunette alone in the corner? What if they took the term 'viral marketing' literally, and made their marketing viral?

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Advertising: Leave It to the Professionals? Hey, Let Consumers Make Their Own Ads

The Web has created a new breed of amateur creators of advertising, and the ad industry is starting to embrace them. (Subscription required!)

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Bravia: One Commercial People Look Forward To

The most amazing thing about the next Bravia ad is the amount of attention it is receiving even before it's done. I mean, how often do you see all these finger-on-fast-forward-button people actually looking forward to a commercial? Anyway, the Fallon team has just splashed some 70,000 liters (18,480 gallons) of paint over an abandoned building in Glasgow and you can already find videos on YouTube and pics on Flickr.

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TiVo Is Watching When You Don’t Watch, and It Tattles

26 JUL 2006 from the New York Times | Read the full story»

AS the advertising and television industries debate how to measure viewers of shows watched on digital video recorders, the pioneering maker of the recorders, TiVo, is getting into the argument. It is starting a research division to sell data about how its 4.4 million users watch commercials — or, more often, skip them. (Subscription required!)

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Amazon's Foray into Online Groceries

Would you like a book with your beef jerky? By Ben Macklin - Senior Analyst

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Advertising Gets Into Videogames

Advanced technology is finally allowing advertisers to get inside videogames like never before. Welcome to the new frontier.

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Mark Cuban and idea shopping

Maybe it's because we're in the middle of summer movie season, but our mini-flurry of movie-industry posts continues: If you have a new and unique way to help market the movies Mark Cuban is involved with, he wants to know.

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Alain Thys: Is There a Formula for Word-of-Mouth ?

According to the Marketing Science Institute, there may be. They just published a working paper on how companies can encourage the diffusion and adoption of new products by creating positive buzz and avoiding negative buzz....

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Food groups increase use of internet to target children

19 July 2006 from the Financial Times | Read the full story»

Food companies are increasingly using the internet to deepen children’s exposure to marketing messages through online games and commercials, blurring the lines between advertising and entertainment, a new study has found. (Subscription required!)

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the grups and thinking beyond demographics

The Scotsman has an interesting article about how advertisers are trying to come to terms with the "grups". The "grups" are the latest line in media created segments following in the wake of "yuppies", "generation x" and "generation-y", etc.

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Promoting Your Business Through Search Engines

Marketing on these Web traffic boosters has become crucial, but it takes special know-how.

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Beyond Brand Management

SUMMER 2006 from strategy+business | Read the full story»

The marketing profession is currently undergoing its most significant transformation in more than 50 years. Driving it are massive shifts in technology and society... which are converging to make the old marketing model obsolete. As the world changes, so must the capabilities of marketing professionals.

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Logitech to be YouTube official webcam

Great move: Logitech has announced a partnership with YouTube.com.

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How to evangelize word of mouth marketing internally

From the WOMMA blog, Kira Wampler, senior marketing manager for Intuit, shares her tips on how she garnered support for word of mouth marketing programs internally

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Retail sales are driven by love, not real estate

There's been speculation that the cooling of the housing market could result in lower retail sales. Commentator and retail consultant Michael Silverstein isn't buying it. (Audio)

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Storytelling: Escaping the Price War

06 JUL 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

How Perrier and other marketers have elevated product value with authentic narrative. (Free subscription required!)

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Sunny, With Good Chance of Viewers

14 July 2006 from The Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Weather Channel Promises A Set Commercial Audience In Deal With Media Buyer By BRIAN STEINBERG (Subscription required!)

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How to Market A Green Company

Running an environmentally friendly business can be a good way to distinguish yourself from competition. But don't assume just because you're "green," consumers will naturally be willing to throw more greenbacks your direction, cautions Kelly Spors.

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Happy 4th of July!

We're taking the day off in celebration of Independence Day here in the U.S. We hope everyone has an opportunity to relish freedom today. Enjoy!

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Love is grand . . . for the economy

Commentator Michelle Philippe says marketers should rethink their ad campaign and stop targeting singles. It's couples who are spending money.

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Car Talk Online

The audience may be sitting behind a computer, but they will soon be in the driver's seat.

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Nine things marketers ought to know about salespeople (and two bonuses)

Selling is personal. When I make a promise, I have to keep it. If you force me to break that promise (by changing processes, features or a rollout schedule) I will never forgive you.

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City Wipeout

Cities are filled up with our commercial culture. The city-dweller’s field of vision is dominated by advertisements. Architect and researcher Pasi Kolhonen wants to reveal with City Wipeout just how many images, texts and signs are invading our everyday environment.

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Web-Design Expert Says Clarity Is Key

Web-design guru Jakob Nielsen offers his ideas on how to create attractive and easy-to-use Web sites, and how companies can use blogs and RSS news feeds to reach out to customers.

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Why Small Marketers Need to Reach for the Stars

11 JUN 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

One of the most frequently asked questions at our seminars and speeches is: "What special rules do you have for small businesses?" The answer is: There aren't any. (Free subscription required!)

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Marketers aim for 'engaged' consumers

The spread of broadband Internet access and resulting growth in Web advertising in the past year have made the pursuit of interactive consumer "engagement," rather than the number of viewers seeing a TV ad, the new hot button for agencies and clients.

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Go Ape Over Guerrilla Marketing

Generate income by using your brain and tapping guerrilla marketers' creative magic. Forbes lists the 10 most effective tactics for hooking new customers.

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Advertising: Hey, Kid, You Want to Buy a Toyota Scion?

Toyota is counting on children to influence their parents' car purchases and maybe grow up with some Toyota brand loyalty. (Subscription required!)

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Blogging for Dollars

Web 2.0 startups that deliver the goods don't need ad agencies' brand-building hype machines. Instead, they harness the power of the new buzz builders. By Bruce Sterling from Wired magazine.

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Five Words to Never Use in an Ad

07 JUN 2006 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

Forget the meaningless cliches and empty promises. What really matters is what customers take away about a business.

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If You Were in Charge, How Would You Market These Products?

With more and more advertising vehicles crowding today's marketing environment -- including traditional print, television and radio ads, product placements, Internet buzz, viral campaigns and cell phone messaging -- marketers have new opportunities to reach vast pools of potential customers. But the tangle of options also requires any successful marketing plan to take into account the nature of the product, its durability in the public's mind and the advertising budget needed to make it all work...

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USPS Cancels Law Against Branded Stamp Art

23 MAY 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Forget the ads stuffed inside your mailbox: Now the pitch is in the postage. (Free subscription required!)

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On becoming a company evangelist

Betsy Weber, the chief evangelist for software toolmaker TechSmith, has five solid tips for being an official company evangelist and helping create other evangelists just like yourself.

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Earn Cellphone Minutes by Watching Ads

With the cost of mobile phone calls already dropping sharply, Virgin Mobile USA plans to announce a way that people can talk for no money at all. (Subscription required!)

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The Happiness Factor

The relationship between marketing and the all-American "pursuit of Happiness" is a potent one — and that can be both good and bad for brands and consumers alike...

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Beware! ABC's hit Lost is leading us down a strange and new high-tech path

02 MAY 2006 from Sun-Sentinel.com | Read the full story»

The Lost Experience is a story that is related to but separate from the television series, includes the same characters, expands familiar plots and will have run its course by the beginning of next season... TiVo and DVR users be warned: There are clues in the commercials as well.

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Advertising: Whole Foods Talks Dollars and Cents

Whole Foods, all but synonymous with gastronomic indulgence, now wants to be known for something else: low prices. (Subscription required!)

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Thanks to Microsoft, This Ad's For You

The company rolls out its answer to Google's AdSense.

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Referral matching

With more and more businesses using referral rewards to attract new customers, a new business has jumped in to help consumers cash in on the system.

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Not Just for Kids: An Educational Approach Markets to Women

People don't lose their interest in learning after childhood. It's just that very few organizations see value in taking the time to develop an educational approach. Perhaps high learning curve industry marketers, in particular, should take a cue from the museums of the world, and come up with creative ways to educate consumers about the what/why/how of their businesses.

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Blog, Podcast and RSS Advertising Surge Ahead

Not long ago online advertising was the "alternative" choice but now there are alternatives to it.

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The coming health crisis

Armed with a blog and a following..., or with a frequent purchaser card or even just a credit card, millions of customers are now your most powerful customers. And as powerful customers, they want you to know, to recognize and to reward them for their power. If you don't know 'who they are', they're going to hit the road. Angrily.

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Apple Chomps Into Forbidden Fruit: Ads

23 APR 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Coming soon to iTunes: ads. Apple -- a brand that prides itself on the purity of the user experience -- will soon put up billboards on its popular iTunes service, according to content partners who have been briefed on the plan. The introduction of visual ads could be the first step to allowing ads in other content areas or on iPods. (Subscription required!)

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Advertising: Inviting Soap Opera Fans (and Sponsor) to the Emmys

This year's Daytime Emmy Awards will include a new "Fan Zone" with bleachers of devotees of daytime programming that is part of a new trend known as experiential marketing. (Subscription required!)

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Questioning the rules of corporate PR

Commentator Robert Reich describes a recent encounter with the public relations firm representing General Motors. (Audio)

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More marketing money for blogs, RSS

Devoting marketing resources to blogs, RSS and social networks is most popular among consumer products and media/communications companies, and the least attractive to financial services firms

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Word-of-Mouth Marketing Creates a Buzz

Word-of-mouth marketing has become a new trend in efforts to reach young consumers. Thousands of unpaid volunteers create a "buzz" about certain products, which they get for free. Corporations trying to use word-of-mouth pay six figures to companies who provide find these "buzz agents."(Audio)

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Resist Corrupting Blogs With Messages

03 APR 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Blogs are a temptation marketers desperately need to resist. It will be hard. After all, the blogosphere (as bloggers like to call their world) seems tailor-made for what marketers have been dreaming about for over 10 years: personalization. (Free subscription required!)

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Making Money From Online Maps (Rachel Rosmarin/Forbes)

Making Money From Online Maps — Even the most dedicated Internet surfers have to get away from their PCs at some point. But before they log off, they need to know how to get where they're going next. — Perhaps that's why the audience heading to online map sites has increased by nearly 20%...

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Study: Ad Spending On User-Generated Media To Reach $50M in 2006

"Advertising spending on user-generated online media - blogs, podcasts and RSS - did not begin until 2002, but this combined spending has grown to $20.4 million by the end or 2005, a 198.4% increase over the 2004 level. Spending on blog, podcast and RSS advertising is projected to climb another 144.9% in 2006 to $49.8 million."-- Center for Media Research

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The Googlization of Cable Ads

Time Warner Cable is thinking about selling TV ads via an online auction much like Google does with keyword search ads. That would allow it to automate the whole ad-buying process, and let advertisers slice and dice the demographics they want to reach. After all, your cable company knows a lot about you that even Google doesn't know—like your name and address, billing history, and perhaps even what shows you watch.

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BEYOND GUT FEELING: THE STARK REALITIES OF ONLINE MARKETING

05 APR 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

The world has changed dramatically for marketers. A CMO and his or her team can no longer hide behind just a "gut feeling" about the success of a campaign. They’ve got to prove clear results. (Free subscription required!)

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Special Report: Viral Marketing 2006 -- Benchmark Data, Practical Tips, & Biggest Change

28 MAR 2006 from MarketingSherpa.com | Read the full story»

Viral marketing online is a decade old this year and it's getting hideously same-old, same-old boring. Which spells trouble, because viral's all about not being boring.

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Chimps, Chickens and Others Blend Entertainment And Advertising

Burger King's ad campaign offers a "subservient chicken" site where viewers can type in commands to a person in a chicken suit with red garters. JibJab is developing a new site called JokeBox, where consumers and corporations can post and share funny videos or jokes online. These are among the latest viral marketing campaigns that blend advertisement and interactive entertainment across informal consumer networks...

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MBA'S MAY BE A MARKETING LIABILITY

21 MAR 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

A Master of Business Administration degree is not only worthless, it can work against a marketer, according to a survey of marketing executives from 32 consumer-products companies by consulting firm Ken Coogan & Partners. (Free subscription required!)

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A New Tool for Measuring Ad ROI: eBay

David Ogilvy's old saw, "I know that half my advertising works, I just don't know which half," has become less of a joke these days, with CMOs desperate to show CEOs that their multimillion-dollar ad budgets actually produce results.

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Is your new "commercial" on YouTube?

McDonald's marketing managers: look no further.

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P&G PROVIDES PRODUCT LAUNCHPAD, A BUZZ NETWORK OF MOMS

20 MAR 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

As WD-40 launches what may be its biggest line extension ever, the venerable old brand isn’t turning first to advertising. Instead it’s turning to the world’s biggest advertiser: Procter & Gamble Co. (Free subscription required!)

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Q: What do you think of my brochure

A: The thing you must remember about just about every corporate or organizational brochure is this:
People won't read it. I didn't say it wasn't important. I just said it wasn't going to get read. People will consider its heft. They might glance at the photos. They will certainly notice the layout. And, if you're lucky, they'll read a few captions or testimonials.

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New website to sell items from TV shows

A new website could carry America's fascination with celebrities and the art of product placement on TV to dizzying levels.

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Advertising: New Rules of Engagement

With awareness of most brands a given and advertising money moving to new media, Madison Avenue is turning its focus to a different way of connecting with consumers. (Subscription required!)

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The nanny state

The British government spends more than $350 million annually on advertising. That makes it the third-largest advertiser in the United Kingdom. Why does a government have to spend so much on ads? Stephen Beard reports. (Audio)

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American Express and the "clear card"

American Express is advertising its new credit card, called "clear card," in Boston and Dallas. AMEX says customers want more clarity about finances. To find out what kind of clarity, it conducted a phone survey. Sean Cole reports on the practice of research as marketing. (Audio)

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GM ASKS CONSUMERS TO MAKE VEHICLE ADS

15 MAR 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

General Motors Corp.’s Chevrolet is following up last night’s appearance on NBC’s "The Apprentice" with a Web contest inviting consumers to create their own spots for Chevy Tahoe. (Free subscription required!)

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Colleges going cyber: Tech transforms recruiting

Many colleges are changing long-held marketing traditions to respond to the high-tech preferences of today's students...

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Current TV Pays for Viewer-Made Ads

"Current TV said it will give filmmakers and video producers the chance to produce a commercial spot for one of its major-brand sponsors and have it air on national television..."

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Selling A Cause? Better Make It Pop

13 FEB 2006 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

With competition fierce, charities are finding that savvy marketing is a must.

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J.C. Penney To Open Virtual Store

J.C. Penney will construct a 15,000-square-foot physical manifestation of the virtual store at One Times Square on the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway, New York, in which shoppers can purchase the company's full range of merchandise at interactive kiosks. The store opens on March 3, 2006 and closes on March 26. Shoppers will be able to buy everything in the store at interactive kiosks, which will feature all of the 250,000 items available at the company's web site.

[But can it be virtual and physical at the same time?—tpws]

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the power of the pop-up

Much has been written about pop-up stores and they are usually placed in the context of being something of a fad or fashion in retail. However, even if it is hidden, there is a powerful idea behind most of these initiatives and that's to provide "brand refreshment" and "brand excitement".

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Magazine in a Bottle

Australia's iLove magazine will distribute copies hidden behind the the labels on water bottles. The 32 page A7 magazine will include 10 pages of advertising per issue with the circulation of each edition reaching 2,000,000 by March, 2005 and will be distributed though grocery chains.

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PRWeb Pioneers TrackBacks Availability in Press Release Distribution

21 Feb 2006 from prweb.com | Read the full story»

Ferndale, WA (PRWEB) February 21, 2006 -- PRWeb, the experts in Direct-to-Consumer press release distribution and the leading press release visibility company, announces the availability of TrackBacks (Define: TrackBacks) within press releases featured on the PRWeb newswire. By allowing inbound TrackBack "pings," PRWeb is the first press release newswire to enable and encourage press release interaction and commentary from the blogosphere. This latest feature enables bloggers to directly link press release content commentary to the press releases on the PRWeb site.

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MSN AdCenter besting Google and Yahoo in search ad returns, expert says

20 Feb 2006 from internetretailer.com | Read the full story»

Although it can’t compete yet on volume of searches, Microsoft Corp.’s new demographics-data-driven MSN AdCenter search engine marketing service is producing better results for advertisers than Google or Yahoo, a search expert says.

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Chrysler Sponsors Machinima Contest

Following Volvo's lead, Chrysler is sponsoring competition for fan-made clips made with The Movies game. "Shorts created as a CITM entry must include one of the Chrysler vehicles that already are part of the more than 7,000 scenes, 45 sets, hundreds of props and thousands of costume combinations available in The Movies."

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CAN WORD OF MOUTH BE TURNED INTO A SALEABLE MEDIUM?

13 FEB 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Could ordinary people’s buzz about products be bought and sold by agencies like so much time on TV or radio? BzzAgent, a Boston-based firm, is betting it can, as it launches a word-of-mouth media channel through its network of 130,000 average consumers eager to chatter about a brand. (Free subscription required!)

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Marketing to Marketers

First, the number one rule: Don't call!

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Office Pirates

Arrghh … Time Inc. and DaimlerChrysler are busy building buzz for a new website that appears to be a portal for viral marketing … if such a thing is possible. As reported by Brian Steinberg in The Wall Street Journal, secrecy envelopes the launch of OfficePirates.com “because in the online world, building buzz through traditional [...]

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Understanding the funnel

19 JAN 2006 from Seth's Blog | Read the full story»

Once you see the funnel, it's easy to understand how valuable your existing customers are, and easy to think about how you want to spend time and money in promoting and building your site. Most marketers are running a flat campaign. Embracing the funnel changes the way you treat people. And treating different people differently is what consumers demand.

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Flipping the Funnel--new ebook

29 JAN 2006 from Seth's Blog | Read the full story»

This new ebook (3 versions, 18 pages each, PDF format) explains how I believe some of the new Web 2.0 tools (flickr, del.icio.us, squidoo and others) combine with ideaviruses and the Purple Cow.

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Read the Book, See the Commercial

HarperCollins said yesterday that it had made the entire text of one of its recently published books available online accompanied by advertisements. (Subscription required!)

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from command and control, to open and engaging

Today's San Francisco Chronicle has a great quote from writer Dave Barry. "We can no longer compel people to pay attention. We used to be able to say, there's this really important story in Poland. You should read this. Now people say, I just look up what I'm interested in on the Internet."...To be relevant, please make sure you answer these questions.

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WIRELESS STORE SHELF VIDEO ADS TESTED BY BIG MARKETERS

26 JAN 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Top marketers including Coca-Cola Co., Colgate-Palmolive Co., Kraft Food’s Maxwell House, Bush Bros. and Tyson Foods have signed on to test a new in-store marketing device that automatically turns on a 10-second video ad on shelf as a consumer walks by. (Free subscription required!)

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Sephora: Liberating Beauty Products

25 JAN 2006 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

The French perfumes and cosmetics company is breaking every marketing rule in the industry -- and the response has been wildly enthusiastic.

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In-game ads link to the real world

Product placement meant to foster brand affinity has been commonplace in video games for several years. But new techniques immerse ...

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TV CAN'T BE YOUR TEMPLATE FOR THIRD-SCREEN CONTENT

24 JAN 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Early radio programmers looked to vaudeville for their inspiration. The first TV shows were little more than radio programs with pictures. So there’s little surprise that the early take on “third-screen” programming is that it will consist of repurposed TV dramas and sitcoms. It won’t. (Free subscription required!)

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new media:street musicians

SonyBMG has turned to an unlikely source to promote its artists, the street musician

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Practical Marketing Tips For New Entrepreneurs

Need to get the word out about your venture? The head of a small-business advisory group offers these strategies and tactics.

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A Generation Serves Notice: It's a Moving Target

Many people in their 20's are abandoning traditional media channels, posing a challenge to marketers trying to reach them. (Subscription required!)

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Advertising: Advertising Is Obsolete. Everyone Says So.

A conference sought to teach participants how to tap into the power of word of mouth as a marketing tool. (Subscription required!)

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Heat Activated Urinal Billboards

H.A.U.B. sounds menacing enough to be added to our arsenal of heavy weaponry of bathroom advertising. "This innovative medium combines high definition color graphics, hidden by "disappearing ink" delivering an interactive message to a captive audience... A perfect strategy to get your message across." This sheer magic is brought to you by your friend and mine Innovative Solutions Oceania, the creators of the interactive urinal communicator.

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Cheaper Keywords?

Are you paying too much for keywords? Maybe. According to one source prices are easing somewhat.

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DISCLOSURE DOESN'T HAMPER WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING

19 JAN 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

A new study to be delivered at today's [Jan 19] opening of the World of Mouth Marketing Association conference in Orlando indicates that disclosure doesn't hamper WOM promotional efforts. (Free subscription required!)

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What Customers Want from Your Products

Marketers should think less about market segments and more about the jobs customers want to do. A Harvard Business Review excerpt by HBS professor Clayton M. Christensen, Intuit's Scott Cook, and Advertising Research Foundation's Taddy Hall.

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Stores paint ads on roofs for satellite map services

Some commercial outfits are painting giant ads on their roofs for the benefit of the aerial/satellite photos used by services like Google Earth/Google Maps.

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Marketers Interested in Small Screen

Television-style advertising is coming to the mobile phone, part of a broader push to create a new generation of "up close and personal" ads. (Subscription required!)

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The Art of Evangelism

Love the cause. "Evangelist" isn't simply a job title. It's a way of life. It means that the evangelist totally loves the product and sees it as a way to bring the "good news." A love of the cause is the second most important determinant of the success of an evangelist--second only to the quality of the cause itself. No matter how great the person, if he doesn't love the cause, he cannot be a good evangelist for it.

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FORTUNE 500 MARKETING CHIEFS TO INCREASE ONLINE SPENDING

05 JAN 2006 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Nearly half of the chief marketing officers at Fortune 500 companies said they plan to increase their online advertising budgets by 30% this year. (Free subscription required!)

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How Much Is That Faucet

27 DEC 2005 from The Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Kohler, Cuisinart, Viking step up marketing efforts via company-owned resorts. (Subscription required!)

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Measuring Marketing: Beyond ROI

30 DEC 2005 from FastCompany | Read the full story»

Too many marketers are adopting too narrow a definition of accountability.

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Small Firms Turn To Buzz Agents

How some businesses try to jump-start sales with word-of-mouth marketing.

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Feeds: New Food for Marketers

Syndication technology is creating a personalized Internet -- and advertisers are taking notice.

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Advertising Strategies Challenged in High-Tech Age

2006 is expected to be a challenging year for the advertising industry. Dollars continue to flow out of television budgets and into Internet ads. And viewers have more ways to skip commercials. With TiVos and iPods giving consumers more power, what's an ad guy to do? (Audio)

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Cos. use online magazines to woo customers

Procter & Gamble is focusing on newer ways to connect with its customers amid sweeping changes in how people get their information, ...

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Happy New Year

Wishing you a prosperous and fulfilling New Year, the TP Wire Service will resume its postings tomorrow.

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Marketing Malpractice?

"People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill," wrote Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt, apprising us of our "myopia" and unleashing a whole new school of new paradigm thinking. "They want a quarter-inch hole!" Citing the old master, Clayton Christensen...

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Small Firms Turn to Marketing Buzz Agents

27 DEC 2005 from The Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Advertising campaigns based on word of mouth try to jump-start sales. (Subscription required!)

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Fine-tuned ad technologies expected to advance in 2006

Technologies will emerge in multiple realms in 2006 and beyond from video games to cable TV to podcasts that will give advertisers ...

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Happy Holidays

Wishing you a joyous holiday season, the TP Wire Service will resume its postings tomorrow.

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Advertising: It's Getting Crowded on the Environmental Bandwagon

A growing list of big-name companies appear to be spending ever-bigger chunks of their advertising budgets to promote environmental do-goodism. (Subscription required!)

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CMO Insights

Five questions on the role of the CMO and the future of marketing, as answered by Howard Handler, chief marketing officer for Virgin Mobile USA. (more)

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From Teen Fashion to Hershey Kisses: New Ways to Sell the Brand

How do you market to an audience that is skeptical of traditional advertising, very media savvy, and possessed of short attention spans? And how do you turn a product that is highly dependent on seasonal sales into a product of choice year-round? Both topics were addressed at this year's Wharton Marketing Conference...

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You Don't Know Jack(ie).

Wildly profitable businesses don’t just count on the unique product or service they offer – they understand their customer up, down and sideways. So how do you really get to know her? Look to the wisdom of the great anthropologists – study her behavior in her own environment.

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What is Most Relevant to Consumers Today

Marketing is moving inexorably away from the 20^th century hucksterism paradigm to a new paradigm of healing that is better suited to the 21^st century marketplace.

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Portals: Hot Again

What goes around comes around, but portals came back faster than anyone expected.

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Sony Draws Ire With PSP Graffiti

The electronics maker tags urban buildings with black spray-painted images of child consumers absorbed in the handheld. Advertising firms call it genius, but the word on the street is less flattering. By Ryan Singel.

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The Brief Life of 'Pop-Up' Stores

In a marketplace cluttered with new products, companies will do just about anything to grab the public's attention. Now, some companies are using short-lived "pop-up" stores to generate a little buzz.

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Email Design Guidelines

If you advertise your goodies by email and use fancy (or any) graphics, you won't be thrilled to know that more than half of your readers will see nothing but a bunch of empty placeholders due to many popular clients' default settings. Campaign Monitor comes out with a handy list of email design guidelines:...

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The Cost of Keywords

With the rise of search engine marketing, millions of marketers around the world have one question: How much should they pay for a keyword?

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Target Offers Ads Via Dedicated RSS Feed

In addition to an email newsletter, Target is now offering its Target Weekly Ad circular via an RSS feed adjusted to subscribers' locations.

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The Love Ride

“They wanted to change the P.R.,” says Oliver Shokouh, explaining why Harley-Davidson encouraged “him and other dealers to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, reports Lisa Napoli in The New York Times (11/27/05). What Harley was suggesting — a motorcycle marathon for a charity, intended “to show that wearing leather and riding a [...]

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Carnival of Marketing #4

For this week's installment of the Carnival of Marketing, I have divided it up into two parts. The first part includes smart marketing-related posts culled from reader submissions. The second part contains a few links to worthwhile marketing reads as selected by me.

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It's the Purpose Brand, Stupid

29 NOV 2005 from The Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

When people find themselves with a job to be done, they essentially hire products to do that for them. Following this model, then, the marketer's fundamental task is not so much to understand the customer as it is to understand what jobs customers need to do -- and build products that serve those specific purposes. Marketers who do this well can build what we call "purpose brands" -- ones that become so tightly associated with the job they perform that they become inextricably linked to it. (Subscription required!)

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Spreading the Word

05 DEC 2005 from USNews.com | Read the full story»

With corporate evangelism, the goal is to find and identify those customers who are already crazy about your product or service--who are actively talking it up in blogs or Web forums, for instance--and turning them with loads of personal attention into "customer evangelists" who then spread the word to others, who then--well, you get the idea.

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Advertising: Placing Ads in Some Surprising Spaces

Once-conservative mainstay marketers are looking to nontraditional media as they seek to reach bombarded consumers. (Subscription required!)

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Google Testing Click-to-Call

Latest stealth move connects AdWords to the telephone.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Have a wonderful holiday. The wire service will resume tomorrow.

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Pity the poor ad man?

Ad-land is struggling to get its message across.

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Texas Town Adopts Corporate Name

Texas Town Adopts Corporate Name [ABC News] The city of Clark, Texas, renamed itself DISH, Texas, for a decade. Across the nation, small...

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Web Sites Build Up Ad Backlog

Yahoo, AOL, MSN and other leading Web sites are selling out ad space far in advance, allowing for big rate increases. (Subscription required!)

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Interview with Anne Saunders, Starbucks marketing svp

The latest issue of THE HUB has just been posted online and it includes a Q&A with Anne Saunders, Starbucks senior vice-president of marketing. Given my insider knowledge of Starbucks, I found the article interesting and I think you will as well. Below are a few snippets and quick Brand Autopsy take on one of Anne Saunders’ comments.

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IBM SEES BLOGGING AS MARKETING'S NEXT BIG THING

10 NOV 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Eyeing blogging's potential as a way to influence potential employees and business partners, IBM began formally offering blogging tools to its workers six months ago. (Free subscription required!)

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THE SISOMO OF KEVIN ROBERTS AT AD:TECH

09 NOV 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

According to Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts, the advertising business has become a place where "there are no rules, there are no formulae, there is no best practice" and nobody has a clue about how to effectively market products to the masses. (Free subscription required!)

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consumer emotions are more powerfull than marketers

Pete Blackshaw over at CGM makes a great point about the power of storytelling. He was reacting to a speech Saatchi's Kevin Roberts just gave at Ad:Tech, which focused on the power of emotional stories and how these are often overlooked in the interactive world, where clicks are often the most important thing. Advertising agencies pride themselves in being master storytellers, but Blackshaw's point is that consumer's stories are often far richer and obviously more real.

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Are Internet Ad Prices Slipping?

Two new reports indicate that certain Internet advertising prices have declined. Is it a blip, or the start of a trend?

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COMPUTER SCREEN FLOOR MAT IS LATEST MARKETING TOOL

04 NOV 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Technology firm Intellimat has patented a computer mat less than an inch thick that will turn retailers’ floors into yet another space for brands to advertise. (Free subscription required!)

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Word-of-Mouth Marketing Picks Up Speed

There are dozens of metrics defining online advertising, but no one has locked down the defining numbers for word-of-mouth marketing. A new eMarketer report uncovers the "hidden statistics" of word of mouth.

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Slam dunk, or off the rim?

Southwest Airlines has unveiled Slam Dunk One: A Boeing 737 adorned with graphics promoting the National Basketball Association. Business of Sports Analyst Diana Nyad reports on what both parties gain from these deals.(Audio)

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Contextual Advertising in Word Documents

Microsoft took my idea of putting contextual advertising on CVs one giant leap further. Now ALL your documents will have ads on them. W00t!

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VW LAUNCHES LARGEST FLOCK OF ONLINE SHORT FILMS EVER

31 Oct 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

DETROIT (AdAge.com) -- In what is believed to be the largest use of online short films ever in a single branded entertainment effort, Volkswagen has produced 120 for its new Passat campaign. (Free subscription required!)

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SHARP JUMP FOR SEARCH ENGINE AD PRICING

25 OCT 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

As online advertising spending surged 27% during the first six months of 2005, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the demand for keywords has increased, and publishers have not been able to keep up with the demand, said Gregg Stewart, senior VP-channel management and marketing, Fathom Online, which puts out a monthly keyword price index. (Free subscription required!)

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Measuring Word-of-Mouth

I'm surprised there has been virtually no chatter about Adweek's feature story on Measuring Buzz... She [Catherine Taylor] gives a quick run-down on the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) from its purpose/vision to the Association's terminology framework...

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The onslaught

25 OCT 2005 from Guardian Unlimited | Read the full story»

Half of all children aged four don't know their own name - but two thirds of three-year-olds can recognise the McDonald's golden arches. Jonathan Freedland investigates the multi-million-pound industry intent on turning teenagers and toddlers alike into avaricious consumers.

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Follow Your Customers Home & Learn To Speak Their Language

In Linda Tischler's latest Fast Company article, "The Beauty of Simplicity" (from the November 2005 issue which is not yet on their site), she writes that "making it simple is the Next Big Thing." I'd venture to say that making it simple is also a great way to humanize.

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Vodafone to sell phones like Coke

Company plans to set up its first phone-vending machines, targeted in part to tourists, in Manchester, United Kingdom.

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MCDONALD'S PACKAGING TO CARRY NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION

25 OCT 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

McDonald’s Corp.... unveiled a global packaging format listing nutritional information with easy-to-read icons and bar charts that one of the fast-food giant's biggest critics is calling a "useful step forward." (Free subscription required!)

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What You Do vs. What You Did

In a worthy read ClickZ article, Mark Kingdon, Organic CEO, shares thoughts about what to do when a client requests a Subservient Chicken-like viral campaign.

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Tryvertising

25 OCT 2005 from Trendwatching.com | Read the full story»

Mass advertising is dying. Experienced consumers couldn't care less about commercials, ads, banners and other fancy wording and imagery that is forced upon them, so let's move on to more interesting ways of igniting conversations between corporations and consumers... Sure, much has already been said about search-based advertising and initiating word of mouth as new (and certainly more relevant) ways to replace mass advertising, but TRENDWATCHING.COM wants to add a third alternative: TRYVERTISING, which is all about consumers becoming familiar with new products by actually trying them out.

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Hey Lady! Women and the Art of Product Development

It's one thing to say a product is for women, and quite another thing to mean it.

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McDonald's looks to sell quality

Every day inside an unassuming building on the outskirts of Oklahoma City, thousands of hamburgers are run through metal detectors on their way to becoming Big Macs and Quarter Pounders.

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Emotional Advertising: The Experience, The Expression and The Gender Differences

I came across mention of some fascinating research recently on the way men and women respond to emotional advertising. "Gender Differences in Responses to Emotional Advertising: A Social Desirability Perspective," was written by Robert J. Fisher and Laurette Dube and published in the March 2005 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research(subscription required to even see the first paragraph, unfortunately).

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Going Naked

Is Madison Avenue ready to go Naked? These brash Brits say they have the cure for what ails the ad business these days. Is Naked Communications a real revolution, or just Brand X in a new box?

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'Is Buzz Marketing Illegal' Story Rebutted

10 OCT 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Letter to the Editor From Word of Mouth Marketing Association. The Advertising Age Web site last week ran an article with the headline "Is Buzz Marketing Illegal" that touches on a valid issue -- the need for disclosure in word of mouth marketing and stealth marketing practices that the word of mouth community aggressively opposes. (Free subscription required!)

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TARGETING A POWERHOUSE FEMALE DEMOGRAPHIC: OLDER WOMEN

10 OCT 2005 from AdAge.com | Read the full story»

Why are marketers obsessed with youth when women between 50 and 70 are the golden bulls-eye of target marketing? This group is more educated, active and affluent than any preceding generation of women. Yet many marketers choose to ignore this economic powerhouse. (Free subscription required!)

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The Power of One

OCT 2005 from CMO Magazine | Read the full story»

Through newsletters, bike clubs and a referral rewards program, it has built a community of customer evangelists whose word-of-mouth testimony has proven more effective for the company than mounting an expensive advertising campaign.

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Lab Tests Every Web Advertising Method

This is a must-have bookmark for everyone in interactive marketing: "MarketingExperiments.com is a division of Digital Trust. It's an online laboratory with a simple (but not easy) five-word mission statement: To discover what really works. The Lab tests every conceivable marketing method on the Internet."

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The myth that disclosure is damaging