Black Dog’ reader (and former student extraordinaire) Jeffrey Folck sends this item along:
I thought you might enjoy this… especially the first line about how Clinton is leading the way in innovative use of the media…
[sigh]
And still, her utilization of mobile is a joke. Mailing a DVD out is fine, but it’s hardly revolutionary. It’s called direct media marketing (like direct mail, only you send CD-ROMs or DVDs) and it’s been around for several years now. Continue reading
It’s wonderful when the advertising world nails one. This new Harley-Davidson ad does just about as perfect a job as possible of executing a concept – and the concept is equally sublime. Kudos (and I’m not even a Harley guy).
Thanks for Cody for the tip…
In yesterday’s MediaPost Marketing Daily, Douglas Brooks touched on a subject I’ve been yarping about for some time – measurement. He offers some prudent advice, but sidesteps the issue that’s been bothering me: to wit, our rage to quantification is driven by fear, not expertise, and it often leads us to ignore a whole suite of important decision-making tools.
I would never suggest that ROI doesn’t matter – quite the opposite – and I also wouldn’t argue that quantitative methods can’t provide us with useful data – of course they can. The problem is that American culture has this odd relationship with knowledge and evidence – in any kind of professional enterprise, statistics and numerical metrics are increasingly being taken as the only kind of evidence. If we want to say something about our customer base, we feel an obligation to quantify whatever we’re trying to say. Continue reading
I was reviewing the Doubleclick Touchpoints IV report earlier today, and while I still need to dive a little deeper, there are a couple things I wanted to comment on.
1. The study’s top finding – “consumers acknowledge that online video shows great potential for advertising” – points to the exploding importance of social media. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but maybe it does. Sometimes I slip into assuming that everybody tracks “the next” like I do, but the truth is that the pace of advance these days is so rapid that it’s hard to keep up even if keeping up is your main job.
2. The study suggests one potentially dramatic finding that the authors either ignored or failed to recognize. I’m going to ask you to study a couple charts from the report and see if you notice something: Continue reading
Saturn is set to launch an interesting new promotion this Summer.
Saturn to Park Competition On Dealership Lots
by Karl Greenberg
Friday, Jun 1, 2007 5:01 AM ETSATURN MAY BE ROLLING OUT a fresh line-up of vehicles this year, but consumers visiting Saturn dealers this summer will be surprised by the pair of cars parked next to Saturn’s Aura sedan: Toyota’s Camry and Honda’s Accord.
The effort, a retail version of the overtly competitive “Ford Challenge” campaign by its cross-town rival, lets consumers shopping Saturn’s Aura test-drive the Camry and Accord, as well, when they visit Saturn. Continue reading
For years I’ve been talking to anybody who would listen about the basic principles that make online communication efforts work – and the ways in which the Internet has completely altered the rules for successful PR in all arenas. When I talk about openness and transparency, though, the train often jumps the tracks because corp comm pros who have been around since the pre-Net days are obsessed with message control.
What they don’t always grasp is that everybody who encounters a corporate message today – be it advertising, marketing collateral, PR, whatever – instinctively smells the topspin. Continue reading
Check this wonderful bit about the new West Virginia Tourism campaign:
Readers flipping through the newest edition of O, The Oprah Magazine might stumble upon an ad headline that reads, “Whatever you do, don’t come to West Virginia!” Continue reading
Cobain beats Elvis as richest artist (deceased)
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
Published: 25 October 2006
Death is not always the dumbest of career moves, especially if you are a rock star of enduring appeal. Kurt Cobain, the one-time frontman for Nirvana who committed suicide in 1994, earned $50m (£25m) over the past year, according to Forbes magazine’s annual list of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities published yesterday.
That figure catapulted Cobain into first place, beating the most reliable of posthumous money-spinners, Elvis Presley, as well as a predominantly musical dozen of also-rans including John Lennon, Ray Charles and Bob Marley. (Story.)
Fascinating stuff. For my part, I’d like to earn a bit of money before I die. But that’s just me, I guess.
The full top ten looks like this:
Oddly, this list arrives at a time when I’ve been thinking about a related issue – the question of control in the image business. Once you begin cooking for the Kennedys you lose a great deal of your ability to control your own brand, and every time I see another dead celeb being danced around like a grotesque digital marionette hawking product, I have to tell you, I get a little queasy. John Wayne. Humphrey Bogart. Steve McQueen. And now Audrey Hepburn, expressing herself to sell skinny black pants for GAP.
We live in a world where people become brands and identities are routinely co-opted by the demands of celebrity and commerce, and it’s a little disturbing to realize that if I became famous, video of me shot today could be deconstructed and reconstructed after I die and put in service to things I would never support in life. Hell, by that point they won’t even need video – just give them a couple photographs and they’ll create the rest.
Aren’t there some pretty powerful ethical questions in all this? Sure, a lot of the income in that list above issues directly from the continued sale of the work the artists produced while they were alive, and that’s fine. But there ought to be a line somewhere, right? For instance, all recording artists have outtakes laying around. Songs that aren’t released, often for good reason. If an artist chose not to release a song while alive, isn’t it unethical to cash it in after his/her tragic death?
This question is actually part of a much larger issue I’ve been pondering lately – has the “digital revolution” completely annihilated the possibilty of controlling message and image? Well, that’s a rhetorical question. The real conversation needs to address the negotiational strategies and tactics that have to replace old modes of control (primarily a marcom and PR question) and the ethical implications of image and visual communication (on the ad side).
Hmmmm….
So, you look at the situation and realize that you need to make a short-term TV buy (or up the frequency of an existing buy). To quote one of my favorite cartoon dogs, “Ruh-roh.”
As Dr. Denny notes over at 5th Estate, thanks to an election that’s mounting in importance to both parties, there isn’t any air time to be purchased.
According to a report from Broadcasting & Cable:
[The $1.6 billion] exceeds initial forecasts of $1.4 billion and approaches the $1.61 billion spent in 2004, a presidential-election year. “Candidates may have more money to spend than there is time to buy,” says Evan Tracey, COO of CMAG. [emphasis added]
Wow. Good news for broadcasters, bad news for those who didn’t plan ahead.
Of course, this is only likely to effect smaller, local marketers, but there are possible implications to be considered past the 2006 election cycle:
Hmmm.
I attended a great show last night: Jeffrey Dean Foster & the Birds of Prey, with the legendary Mitch Easter opening for them. Free show, three blocks shut down, end of summer celebration, the whole nine yards. (More on the show, which was really wonderful, especially once the rain hit.)
Anyway, events like this always have plenty of sponsors. The local civic development sponsoring body has banners out, and three or four key corporate backers have their logos and messaging displayed prominently, according to the size of their financial investment. Pretty standard stuff. Continue reading
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