FWA People's Choice
"The Peoples Choice awards 2007 have just opened over at FWA. The best of multimedia talent this year."
via NTMY
« November 2007 | Main | January 2008 »
The Demise of Network Prime
"...'The network model is starting to break,' said Gary Carr, the
director of national broadcast with TargetCast, a firm that buys and
places ads for clients.
'What's going to happen is lower quality programming, lower ratings and more competition,' said Barry Lowenthal, president of Media Kitchen the media planning arm of ad agency Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners.
The comments come days after ratings-challenged NBC was forced to do the unthinkable - give cash back to advertisers because it couldn't deliver the ratings points it promised during the "upfront" sales season in May.
The move rattled Madison Avenue, which for years has depended on the major networks to bring the big audiences they couldn't get in cable or online.
'How do you go to your board and say you didn't deliver the advertising, but the good news is you didn't spend the money,' said Gene DeWitt, the chairman of DeWitt Media Strategies.
'The industry is in a quandary,' he said."
via Influx
Top 5 Viral-Video Ads of 2007 Ranked
"Cadbury’s gorilla drummer ad, with more than 5 million views for the original video on YouTube, was the top viral-video ad, followed by Smirnoff’s Green Tea Partay, with 3.4mm views, according to agency GoViral, reports the Financial Times.
- Cadbury - Gorilla Drummer, launched online in August; agency: Fallon.
- Smirnoff - Green Tea Partay, launched online in August; agency: JWT, New York.
- Ray-Ban - Catch Sunglasses, launched online in May; agency, Cutwater.
- Blendtec - Will it Blend? launched online in July.
- Lynx/Axe – Bom chicka wah wah, launched online in May; agency BBH, Copenhagen."
via Micro Persuasion
Toastvertising
"Toastvertising is an interesting new promotion for “The Book of SPAM”, a new book about SPAM (the canned meat, not unsolicited email), that uses 220 pieces of bread and an overworked toaster to create an animated history of SPAM."
"Here’s the “making of” video along with more info on “The Book of SPAM”."
via Laughing Squid
Diesel Cult
"Combining product placement, music, art and trends, Diesel has created Diesel Cult – a blog with posts from an illustrious list of "preachers" including an array of international design, trend and culture bloggers like Poppy Talk, Swiss Miss and Art Skills. Designed in Flash, its pretty to look at it, but its a little buggy at times. I'm not sure that it offers much more than a Diesel-themed portal for design and trend blog. Maybe I'm too jaded."
Labels Seek Apology From Rolling Stone for Camel Ad
"Pour bad journalism, shady advertising, and the music you love into the media cauldron, let simmer for a few weeks, and you get that ugly mess we reported about last week. Camelstonegate, let's call it. In summary: In a recent issue, Rolling Stone tucked an editorial section name-checking heaps of indie bands into a big ol' advertorial promoting a Camel cigarettes campaign targeting indie rockers. A huge no-no for a number of reasons.
Nine states have already sued Camel over the fact that the "Indie Rock Universe" section was basically one big cartoon. (Using cartoons to sell cigarettes violates the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement of 1997.) Now, not surprisingly, a bunch of labels representing bands unwittingly lumped into this whole scheme have stepped forward to demand an apology from Rolling Stone..."
via Underwire
Dancing Elves Tops the Charts
"OfficeMax got it right last year when they launched
the Elf Yourself campaign during the holiday season. The site that lets
you turn yourself into a dancing elf was a big hit, and OfficeMax has
brought it back for an encore this year. Hitwise
reports that Elf Yourself has become the top-ranked site in the Humor
category, and has held its ranking for the last three weeks. An 89%
increase in traffic took place for the week ending December 8, 2007,
from the prior week."
via Mashable
Going Way Beyond Batman Begins
"A while back I started to notice quite a bit of cool viral marketing going on for the next Batman movie, The Dark Knight. We're talking microsites galore and massive user participation. On one microsite, users were asked to answer location-specific questions from across america to reveal a phrase. Then, after that, there was a chance to send in a photo of yourself dressed up as the Joker.
Today, over on FirstShowing.net, all of the previous viral marketing attempts have been chumped, big time. It appears that now the people behind this marketing campaign has taken their execution to a new level -- physical items.
On December 3rd a new page appeared at whysoserious.com/steprightup with a hammer game and some teddy bear toys. Each toy had an address on it located in a number of cities around the US. The note on the game told people to go to that address and say their name was "Robin Banks" (get it, "Robbing Banks") and they'd get something there. It was first come, first serve, and each location was a bakery. What they were given was a cake with a phone number written on it. Now here's the best part: inside the cake was an evidence bag (complete with Gotham City Police printing) that contained a cell phone, a charger, a Joker playing card and a note with instructions.
If you're not following along, the lucky few to receive the cakes now have a cell phone that someone will call at a later time. In essence, Warner Bros. is creating their own Joker army.
Damn geniuses."
Ad Age: Five Reasons 'Mobile Marketing Will Explode' In 2008
"...Bryon Morrison, the president of San Francisco-based Omnicom mobile shop ipsh, on his prognostications for the top trends in mobile marketing in 2008. They include:
1. The cellphone will become more personal: Consumers will do more - download widgets, movies, music and videos - than ever before as Yahoo, Google, MobiTV, Warner Bros and others make major investments in mobile.
2. The cellphone will become a remote control for reality: Think mobile scheduling, coordinating and managing events, concerts, vacations and trips.
3. Mobile brand leaders will emerge in 2008: That's why 89% of major U.S. brands plan to engage in mobile marketing over the next year. The ones that do it right will own the channel.
4. Next year, the consumer is in charge: Forget CRM. It's CMR - customer managed relationships - managed via devices like the mobile phone.
5. Brands are "in the know": We've moved past "what is mobile marketing?" to "We have a little extra budget, can we do it so we can say we did," to "How do we do this right?"
Read all about it here. And for in-depth insights from Nihal Mehta, the founder of ipsh, pick up a copy for BRANDING UNBOUND the book today."
When Banners Become Alive...
"From Norway, a campaign that takes online advertising a step further, introducing the concept (a)live banners. Media couldn't be richer than this, since the message in the banner is updated live by a copywriter that adapts it to the news on the page where the ad is appearing."
"Created by Mediafront the campaign had the goal of building interest and awareness in a news/entertainment site called Sol. Three copywriters have taken turns in the commentary chair, producing 150 hours of content for the front pages Norway's largest websites. So far, around 1000 unique ads have been created, using a Pen Tablet and a custom publishing tool via Flash Media Server."
via Adverblog
