Every month, Steve McKee of McKee Wallwork Cleveland writes a column in Businessweek that puts in simple terms what real CEOs and marketing folks ought to know about advertising. This month, he takes on testing: Think about how a focus group works—people are invited in, fed a meal, and paid an incentive to offer insights and opinions that the sponsoring marketer can use. The pressure is on to contribute something of …
Santa Chat Goes South In A Hurry
According to Network World, technology is only as perfect as those who build it. Case in point: Microsoft recently added a Santa bot to Windows Live Messenger, so users could insert Santa into their IM buddy list. But sadly, Santa began to waver off topic telling children: “It’s fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else....” Microsoft says, "...as soon as we were alerted, we took steps to …
Drinking The Virtual Kool-Aid/Coca-Cola
Second Life? What's that? Coca-Cola is going another way with their new virtual world called "Metro CC." According to The New York Times, Coke is introducing its online island within a larger virtual world site called there.com that tries to filter out unsavory content. The company that operates there.com, Makena Technologies, uses software to censor user postings for foul language and employs a team of people to …
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Media Makers Needed
According to Adweek, Hill Holliday is stepping up to the advertainment plate by creating a new position for John Dukakis. The former governor's son will be svp, director of branded entertainment for the Boston-based shop. Baba Shetty, evp, chief media officer at Hill, Holliday, said: "These days we're not just buying media—we're often creating media, and branded entertainment is an increasingly important part of the …
A-Ten-Shun
Ed Cotton of Butler Shine & Stern is asking some pertinent questions. Can people stand watching a campaign evolve over time or do you have to have a quick hit? Surely, the ever- shrinking window of personal communication must be having an impact of broad scale communication? Can we even be bothered to see phases of a campaign build and roll out over a two-month period from tease to reveal and on? I think there's …
Can Interactive Shops Step Up?
It's been my experience when talking to interactive shops and looking at their work that they're more focused on executing ideas rather than brand-building strategies and initiatives that can be used across all media. They're good at what they do, but it's a niche, and they're not scrambling to hire the right people to change that. A new survey reported in Adweek seems to support that: Digital agencies are improving …
Sucking The Blood From “Product As Hero”
Kenneth Hein, writing for Brandweek offers us a new term for the advertising lexicon: Visual Vampire. Wendy’s red wig-clad ads are hard to miss. However, new research shows that the characters in pony-tailed toupees greatly overshadow the products featured in the same ads. “It is a visual vampire. There is high engagement, but when they show the food it drops like a rock,” said Lee Weinblatt, CEO of PreTesting, …
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Welcome to the Viral Superbowl
Someone on the brand team at Dr. Pepper is spending a lot of time on YouTube. And why not? There are learnings to be gleaned and talent to be mined there. Take singer-songwriter and distinctive vocalist, Tay Zonday. He's already an internet hitmaker, so Dr. Pepper wisely hitched a ride on his wagon, asking him to remake his "Chocolate Rain" vid (which has been viewed more than 11 million times on YouTube) into …