Who Likes Advertising?

If you're in the 18 to 34 Demographic, research says you do!

Here's the results of a Harris Poll as seen this morning on AdAge online.

Any ideas why?

Creepy King Tough Competitor, But Not Fast Enough

Burger King's advertising - from the almost-always-brilliant Crispin, Porter + Bogusky - gets a lot of attention, but isn't closing in on the category leaders.

Here's the story on this morning's AdAge online.

Why doesn't good advertising always equate to more business?

Alert: Twitter Users

It was bound to happen, Twitter carries a fake invitation that carries a worm.

Details here.

'Interactive TV' Raises Its Head. Again.

I got my first advertising job in 1973, when cable TV was only in rural areas where an on-air signal couldn't reach. "CATV," now recognized as "Cable TV," was actually an acronym for "Community Antenna Television," and wasn't taken too seriously as a main-stream advertising medium.

Nonetheless, there was much speculation that, when cable came to the cities, it would would be a whole new game. The game was a little late in starting, however.

By the 80s, cable channels - especially MTV and CNN - made ad agencies take notice. When broadcasting met the computer age in the 90s, more of the promise of the medium came to life and broadcasters and ad people started to talk about the distant dream of "interactive television."

Now with all TV digitized in the US, interactive TV is, at least technically, a reality. See the story on this morning's MediaPost TV Board.

Student Campaign Identifies "Stupid Drink:" Wins National Competition

I was at the American Advertising Annual Conference two weeks ago - acting as an "official" at the National Student Advertising Competition - and saw the winning campaign.

A good concept, a great presention and a solid execution from the Syracuse University team put them on top.

This morning's MediaDailyNews has the wrap-up story.

MySpace Sheds 30% of Workers

Last week, I had lunch with a former student of mine who has worked with a subsidiary of MySpace for a couple of years. She told me that rumors were flying that big cutbacks were on the way.

She was right, the News Corp. owned division will - as Gavin O'Malley of Online Media Daily wrote today - drop the axe on 30% of its workers.

When I know, I'll let you know if my student is one of them.

Ad People Pull Together in Tough Times

When I was in New York in late March, I attended two advertising events that strained in different directions as if they were Dr. Doolittles pushmepullyous.

The first was held at a beautiful glassed-in meeting room at the New York Times that honored the 2009 inductees to American Advertising Association's Hall of Fame. This first event was a reception in a beautiful setting (the sun was setting slowly over Manhattan in winter and the renzo Piano glass box that is the NYT headquarters never looked better). I got nice wine and canapes plus a chance to meet and talk with some of 2009's - as well as past HoF - honorees.

These are all people who've been good for advertising and who advertising has been extremely good to (read $).

After 90 minutes among the elite I hailed a cab and went further downtown for an event in an Irish-themed bar on 3rd Avenue sponsored by AdAge "honoring" ad people who had been laid off in the current economic downturn. It was called "This Sucks... Let's Play." The bar was not quite as photogenic as NYT, nor was the event as festive.

These are all people who've been good to Advertising but who advertising has NOT been extremely good to, but had provided a good living, until recently.

I talked to several people who'd been let go before for economic reasons and many of them expressed a desire to finally leave the business and get into something "more stable." A bottom-line loss to the business of advertising.

I knew I'd blog about this sooner or later but didn't really know how to resolve my own conflicts with the two events.

Then, this morning I saw - or rather heard - a resolution. NPR's Morning Edition featured a segment titled "Ad Agency Finds 2 for 1 Deal in Downturn."

As the story states, "Ariel Horn, who runs The Horn Corp., a Manhattan ad agency, has found both a way to help the numerous unemployed ad workers in New York, and a new business model."

Yes, I believe this is what I was looking for.

This may be the business model advertising needs now!

Comments appreciated!

Raising Temperatures With Viral Marketing

Here's a pretty good example of the much-talked-about but misunderstood genre of "viral marketing."

One time Oakland A's batboy Stanley Burrell, known professionally as MC Hammer, was red hot from the late 80s to mid-90s. Since then, his career has gone cold enough to run a Popsicle plant for a week.

Recently Hammer has bathed in the warmth of both a blog and, the hottest thing online, Twitter, the combination of which was just enough to raise some heat at A&E.

Last night the cable network launched a "docu-drama" series called Hammertime, "which," says Online Media Daily, "chronicles the present-day life of '90s mega celebrity and current celebritwit,* MC Hammer."

Here's the story, gold parachute pants and all.

Don't miss the video.



*This is a new word for me. At first reading it seemed pejorative, reminiscent of the classic Monty Python sketch, "Upper Class Twit of the Year."

Twitter: on the other hand (Tevya said)

I just opened my latest edition of TIME Magazine (June 15, 2008) and found an article starting on page 32 titled How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live (in 140 characters or less).

So much for shark jumping.

Here's my checkered record on prognostication, so far:

- I said nobody will ever drink light beer.

After completely blowing that one, and several more like it, I hid behind a Dichotomy Strategy,

- I said I didn't know which way the internet would go (ca. 1997), it might be CB Radio or it might be TV. (Looks more like a form of TV every day)

Twitter, seems to me, will be either baseball cards on cigarette packages or a new form of the telegraph. I've written myself a note to find this post in the Internet Archive "Wayback Machine" in 2019. I hope I don't embarrass myself, too much.

Colorful, but Messy.

Today's AdRants has a pretty good review of a video for Ray Ban sunglasses.

Watch the Ray Ban video, read the review, then come back here to see the Sony Bravia spot that Steve Hall is talking about.

What do YOU think?

More Evidence of Shark Jumping

Yesterday I pondered the question: has Twitter jumped the shark?

This morning ReadWriteWeb asks: Are Trolls Ruining Social Media? Pretty much the same question.

Evidence is that celebrities are bailing out of the Big T because it's no longer fun to "hang out with people online," due to celeb-haters, says Twilight author Stephanie Meyer.

Get the story here.

While Commercial Radio Shrinks...

... more American ears tune in NPR.

Here's the story on this morning's Mashable.

Fun facts:
- NPR's daily audience is 11 times the size of USA Today's circulation.
- Almost all news NPR broadcasts is available via an "open scource" policy.

One More Twitter Thing...

Pepsi UK is about to print its Twitter URL on millions of cans of cola.

"Twitter has officially reached mainstream" writes Stan Schroeder on Mashable - though he also speculates that it may turn out that Twitter has jumped the shark.

What do you think?

Gone with the windy...

Here's a brand new viral spot for Breyers Ice Cream. Trite, but you can't help but have a love/hate thing for Jane Krakowsky.


Find more videos like this on AdGabber

I'm biased in that I hated the movie - tried to watch it several times and never went the distance.

Twitter is here...

... but I don't care what you're doing now.

"Creating cold fusion in a mayonnaise jar?" Nope.

"Casting a curse on my Ex while making a sandwich?" Not interested.

"Reading Homer in the original Greek?" Not even close.

But the potential of the technology is pretty impressive. Here's a couple of people who are making the tweeters sing:

- Nestle is inviting Moms to play along with the home vrsion of the game. They can post tweets within JuicyJuice ad units that can appear anywhere on the net.

- And this one is all about how and why Twitter works. Carri Bugbee is a PR practitioner in Portland, Oregon and she's founding a Twitter Advertising Agency. She believes that the medium works because it quickly connects people with similar interests. (AdAge video)

As Spock* says, "Fascinating!"

(*I saw the new movie. It's great.)

Ads, ads everywhere

If you watched "Lost" last week you may have seen the Starship Enterprise come zooming out of the "O" in the opening sequence - a plug for the new Star Movie about to hit a screen near you.

This article in AdAge online reports on a whole lot of new places ads have appeared recently and it looks to be a broadening trend.

Another "How to" today

How Chris Hughes Helped Launch Facebook and the Barack Obama Campaign.

Here's how it starts:
"The untold story of how Chris Hughes, today only 25 years old, helped create two of the most successful startups in modern history, Facebook and the Barack Obama campaign."

Read it in Fast Company (thanks for the link to SmartBrief for Social Media).

Guerilla Gorilla

This morning's post is a "how to" on launching a successful viral video. The case studied is the much seen Gorilla Drummer for Cadbury.

Here's the link to the critique.

And if you haven't seen it - or would like to see it again, I know I did - here's the video:

Skin? Is It In? Beach Volleyball Says 'Yes'

As many often overlooked sports stuggle for attention, Beach Volleyball - which made its mark on the recent Olympics - seems to have taken the "ball by the horns."

This from Stuart Elliott's column today in the New York Times (free registration) on an advertising campaign for the Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP).

What do you think? Does this degrade the sport? Or raise it to a higher level of awareness? Or somewhere in between?

Let me know!

Now You Can Bathe in Disney Culture 24/7

It's probably a sign that the much awaited apocalypse is finally near. (No, I'm not a fan of The Mouse, et al. Could you tell?)

But if you are, count $74.99 out your penny jar and you can join the club and live and breathe Disney to the ultimate.

Your membership gets you, among other goodies, a quarterly ad-free magazine, Disney twenty-three, which is described as "a hybrid entertainment and lifestyle magazine." Yikes! The plague is spreading.

My advice: see if one of Amazon's used book partners has a copy of Carl Hiaasen's screed-as-book, Team Rat. 'Nuf said.

Here's the story in this morning's MediaDailyNews.