Toronto Star looks at Cathy's Book, a great example of an interactive book. In the tradition of Griffin & Sabine — the series of books that contained packages of letters that became best-sellers in the 1990s — Cathy's Book includes a sleeve of letters, invitations, pictures and other ephemera that are actually clues to help readers solve the mystery of what happened to Cathy's boyfriend. But Cathy's Book takes that …
Smells Like Egg Sandwich: Starbucks Stinks
French novelist Marcel Proust wrote a famous series of autobiographical novels called In Search of Lost Time (or Rememberance of Things Past) in which the sense of smell, among others, triggers vivid, emotional memories and unconscious associations. What Proust understood as a writer, Long Horn Steak House and bagel shops understand as marketers: aroma is primal advertising; it can evoke emotions--feelings of comfort …
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Old Folks and Chicks Dig Video Games
This latest comScore Media Metrix report on video game demographics (courtesy MediaPost) surprised me: On average, gamers are 41 years of age with an average annual income of $55,000. Further, females account for 52 percent of the gaming audience. The average gamer has been online for nine years and 84 percent have broadband access at home. …
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Have Webisodes Will Travel
The New York Times is curious about Nissan's latest effort to move Sentras. Can an affable 30-year-old conceptual artist turned comedian sell cars to his generation by using nontraditional media like blogs and Webisodes? That is the multimillion-dollar question Nissan North America is asking as an unconventional campaign gets under way to stimulate interest in the 2007 Nissan Sentra among a target audience of …
Step Away From The Machine
Scotsman.com looks at how our favorite machines are changing our behavior, not always for the better. In a major report produced in the US on what the internet might be like in 2020, Glenn Ricart of the Internet Society warns that many people could have lost touch with reality because of the amount of time they spend socialising or working online. …
Online Ad Buys Continue To Baloon Balloon
The Internet is poised to overtake outdoor as the fifth largest ad medium this year, and is quickly closing in on radio's fourth place ad market ranking, reports ZenithOptimedia in the latest quarterly revision of its ongoing global ad tracking study. The report suggests that Internet ad spending will break the double-digit market share in at least two countries - the U.K. (12.9 percent) and Sweden (10.5 percent) - …
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The Smaller The Screen The Shorter The Video
While there's a ton of hype about online video and video for portable devices, a new study (picked up by Adweek) points out that consumers like their video best when it appears on screens built for that purpose. According to research from the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, watching online video ranks just seventh among users' primary PC activities. The study also indicated that ads are not interchangeable from …
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General Interest Mags Don’t Sell Cars
Newspaper and magazine ad buys by auto companies are down 24% this year through July, from $1.8 billion to $1.4 billion at magazines, and from $1.1 billion to $754 million at newspapers. Conversely, total auto spend for online ads is up 51.6%, from $110 million to $159 million. According to Brandweek, Steve Parr, president of Primedia's enthusiast media division, which publishes Automobile and Motor Trend, said the …
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