Tuesday, February 15, 2005

The Other Side of Behavioral Targeting

iMediaConnection
"Poindexter Systems' Rich Person describes the differences between publisher side and ad side behavioral targeting"

Absolut Seeks Growth Through 'Fu'

WSJ.com
"Absolut vodka is celebrating the Chinese New Year, which began last week, with its most aggressive integrated advertising and marketing campaign in China to date. The 'Absolut New Year' effort centers on the Chinese character 'fu,' which means 'blessing' or 'fortune.' The character, often printed upside down during the new year holiday to mean 'fortune arriving,' will be prominent in print ads, on billboards and in a new Chinese-language Web site. Absolut, a unit of V&S Vin & Sprit, also will run promotions in bars, restaurants and liquor stores."

Nokia taps Microsoft audio, will use more in open standards

Reuters
"HELSINKI - The world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, and software giant Microsoft struck a deal Monday to make it easier for consumers to buy digital music online and play it back on their handsets.
In a comprehensive agreement, involving a separate deal with digital media company Loudeye, Nokia agreed to put Microsoft's music player software into its handsets."

RSS drives change in Big Media

MediaPost
"AS INTERNET USERS DISCOVER CONTENT aggregation's merit, advertisers and publishers fear a loss of control over their content and how users experience it. Now, several newspapers have launched their own customized RSS readers, in an effort to solidify their relationships with online readers.
In the last several weeks, the Los Angeles Times, Britain's Guardian, and CNET each have acknowledged plans to offer free, branded RSS readers. The Los Angeles Times, part of Tribune Co., and the Guardian, owned by the non-profit Scott Trust, said they were putting their own brands on a reader called NewsPoint."

2010 Predictions (1 of 3)

iMediaConnection
"As a new year starts, it’s usually a time to look back and reflect, as I did here in the iMedia Connection newsletter last year, but it’s also a time for predictions for the year to come. Taking a different spin on this theme, I thought I’d project where the ad industry is headed and what January of 2010 (or sooner) might look like. iMedia Summits are a time I often speculate with some of the smartest people in the industry regarding the impact internet-based advertising tools will have on the broader advertising industry. This three-part series will take those discussions a few steps further."

And now, a word from our sponsor

ThisisLondon
"One of the last taboos in theatre could soon be broken with the introduction of live advertisements on stage.
Scripted 'commercials' will be piloted at the Apollo in Victoria next month. It successful they could change the face of theatre forever."

Mobile Phone Industry Eyes Music Downloads

Yahoo! News
"CANNES, France - With a covetous eye on the success of portable music players, mobile phone makers are going after would-be iPod buyers by building high-quality players into their handsets.
Sony Ericsson (news - web sites) announced Monday it would soon market music-player mobiles under its parent's Walkman brand, drawing on the music catalogue of a sister company, Sony BMG, the world's No. 2 record company.
And Nokia (news - web sites) Corp., the world's leading phone maker, announced an alliance with Microsoft Corp. to allow mobile subscribers to load music from a PC onto their phones — much the way that a digital music player works."

Sunday, February 13, 2005

I want my video iPod

MediaPost
"THE NOTION OF BRINGING IPOD-LIKE portability--along with the kind of sensational public embrace of that particular downloaded music player--has created an equal amount of hunger and frustration among media executives.
In terms of why there hasn't been an iPod equivalent to emerge on the television side, executives who appeared on a panel entitled 'Everything on Demand: From the Server to the Set-Top Box--Movies, TV Programs, Games and More' said the main issue has been finding a popular standard to connect the PC to the TV that you don't need a degree to understand."

Blending old and new for better targeting

MediaPost
"Traditional research is less intrusive than online questioning, and reality checks are infinitely easier. To take an extreme example, while the Internet cannot tell you that males of a certain age and income, living in a particular ZIP code, are exponentially more likely to own a basset hound and eat smoked tofu, while also being measurably more inclined to buy small red two-seater sports cars, traditional research, if such people exist, has long since found them, and it knows where they live.
What, then, if you were to jump the fence, grab some of the data amassed by traditional researchers, and add it to your pot? Suddenly you'd be operating in a different league."

Macromedia and Nokia to bring Flash to phones

InfoWorld
"Macromedia and Nokia announced an agreement to integrate Macromedia Flash technology into Nokia's Series 60 Platform for mobile devices, including smart phones.
The companies said that the Series 60 will become a reference platform for Macromedia's mobile Flash technology, and Macromedia will implement new versions of its mobile Flash technology on Series 60."

Saturday, February 12, 2005

McDonald's to pay $8.5 million in trans fat lawsuit

CNN.com
"SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- McDonald's has agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit over artery-clogging trans fats in its cooking oils, the company said Friday.
McDonald's said it will donate $7 million to the American Heart Association and spend another $1.5 million to inform the public of its trans fat plans."

Thursday, February 10, 2005

WSJ.com - McDonald's Tries for 'Viral' Buzz

MacBuzz:
"A Super Bowl ad featuring obsessive interest in a McDonald's french fry shaped like the 16th president drew a lot of puzzled looks from the tens of millions of people watching the big game, and a relative trickle of thousands went online to find out more about the spot. And that is just the way McDonald's likes it."

The Invisible Brand finally gets recognition!

MediaPost
"BRANDS AND MEDIA THAT DELIVER on the promise to save consumers' time are best-positioned for the current marketplace, a study by trendsetter strategist Marian Salzman found."
Am not a big fan of Ms Salzman's work - finding it less than revelatory and too ad-squewed for my taste. But this makes me happy.

NY Times goes further into video

MediaPost:
"THE WEB SITE FOR THE New York Times Web, NYT.com, will begin pre-rolling video ads for Absolut Vodka in front of streaming video content from its technology section, Heather Keltz, director of ad operations at The NYT.com, said Monday."

Real Time Spent

MediaPost piece discusses key metrics for Rich Media ads. Interesting.

CONSUMER-CREATED VIDEO ADS BOOST CONVERSE SALES

Ad Age piece that points at video blogs as being a next stop for the established consumer-owned brand, which Converse, in its 96th year, clearly is.

BURSTING THE BUBBLE OF DIGITAL CONVERGENCE

BURSTING THE BUBBLE OF DIGITAL CONVERGENCE
Useful piece of mental floss from Ad Age on convergence vs divergence.

Branding and response to converge online

MediaPost Publications:
"THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CAMPAIGNS AIMED at building brand awareness and those with the goal of direct consumer response will increasingly evaporate online, predicts The Kelsey Group in its latest report, scheduled to be released today.

'By 2009, it may be more difficult to distinguish awareness advertising from directional advertising, as digital advertising platforms expand and lines between these forms of advertising blur,' states the report, titled 'Global Directional Media Forecast.'"

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Less is more at Clear Channel

MediaPost piece
"CLEAR CHANNEL RADIO MAY NOT yet be getting any more from advertisers, but its decision to run few commercials in its radio broadcasts is winning more fans among listeners. According to results of two separate studies released by Clear Channel on Tuesday, the company's so-called 'Less is More' initiative indicates that the reduction in programming interruptions and shorter commercial breaks is improving the involvement of radio listeners."

Sunday, February 06, 2005

RIAA sues dead woman

Another barb from p2pnet.net

"In its biggest cock-up yet, the Big Music cartel’s RIAA has sued a dead woman who didn’t even own a computer.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), 'sued Gertrude Walton, accusing her of illegally trading music over the Internet as 'smittenedkitten,' says the Associated Press, going on:

But the lawsuit was filed more than a month after the 83-year-old woman died in December, and her daughter says Walton hated computers, anyway.'

Walton was the sole defendant in a federal lawsuit that claimed she’d shared more than 700 songs through p2p networks.

But Robin Chianumba said her mother objected to having a computer in the house and, 'wouldn't know how to turn on a computer,' says AP.

The dead woman’s daughter faxed a copy of her mother's death certificate to record company officials several days before the lawsuit was filed, in response to a letter from the company regarding the upcoming legal filing."

RIAA cases update, not pretty reading ...

p2pnet.net report

"Here's a Daily Texan story that'll interest students of the cartel's desperate attempts to sue people into buying their product.

As we've pointed out repeatedly, none of the almost 8,500 cases lodged by the RIAA against people who share music with each other has reached a court, meaning no one has ever been found guilty of file sharing and that it's never been proven that file sharing is against any kind of law.

And that's because Big Music always make its victims an offer they can't refuse.

Settle. Or else."

Pew Internet & American Life Project: Internet adoption

Get report here

"A decade after browsers came into popular use, the Internet has reached into–and, in some cases, reshaped–just about every important realm of modern life. It has changed the way we inform ourselves, amuse ourselves, care for ourselves, educate ourselves, work, shop, bank, pray and stay in touch."

Ooqa-OoqaTM Branded Browser Achieves Up to 7 Mins 58 Secs

PRESS RELEASE: "Today, results released from United Virtualities’ three UK online campaigns using the Ooqa-OoqaTM branded browser reveal that the innovative ad unit achieves up to 7 mins 58 secs average exposure time per user. This figure was recorded for United International Pictures’ (UIP) ‘Riddick UK’ campaign on www.channel4.com. UIP’s ‘Thunderbirds’ and ‘Shark Tale’ campaigns on www.citv.com both achieved an average exposure time per user of just over 4 minutes and over 5.5 minutes, respectively. "

All the ads that's fit to show ...

MediaPost account of the Superbowl ad schedule: "Welcome to the Super Bowl edition of Out to Launch. It's bigger, longer, and uncut. Hike!"

38 YEARS OF SUPER BOWL AD STATS

Go ahead ... dive into the numbers with this summary from Ad Age.

Napster To Go ready for portable players

The Industry Standard tells of important next development in the Napster saga.

This All You Can Eat approach, which will be available UK for £14.95 (only £5 more than one pays for PC-only service) will merit close watching.

I've been blown away by my own Napster service - it overtook iTunes in the home for me as soon as it launched.

My only beef has been that I needed to download from iTunes to the iPod (in my own case) to take tunes out of the house. Looks like that problem's being dealt with too. Get 3G into the picture, and the service - which would then allow purchase on impulse, on the fly too, would be complete. Problem ... iPod won't play it. Oh well.

Friday, February 04, 2005

Killer Flu lays ad-blogger low

Back on the blog after the weekend folks. Am still recovering from the Weasels Ripped My Lungs virus that's causing such jollity in southern parts. Bon weekend.