HULU May Have An Auto-immune Problem

Hulu.com, my source for the best of Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock and more, has an apparently unwelcome partner in software developer Boxee - who recently figured out how to feed Hulu content to hi-def TVs.

But the folks at Hulu HQ (NBC, Universal Studios and FOX) didn't like it one bit.

Here's the latest story on MacUser by Dan Moren.

(Thanks for the heads-up to Phil Kann!)

Will We All Pay to Watch Commercials?

No, that headline's no fish-hook, it's a real question.

There's a lot of ways we get content to our various screens. See the New York Times Magazine issue on "Screens." (Come back for the link tomorrow.)

It probably started with YouTube - whose videos grow longer and more professional as time goes by. And last September, Amazon joined Hulu, iTunes and Netflix in streaming significant media.

But today's MediaPost OnlineVideoInsider takes on the topic of your ISP charging you for watching content online if you go over a monthly "limit" of bandwidth. And what if that content carries ads? Will consumers revolt? After all, we watch commercials before movies. And cable TV has ads, even though we pay for the extra channels on our TV service. And, accually, we already pay a fee to our ISP to have Hulu deliver an episode of 30 Rock. Should they charge you more for delivering more, or should you be rewarded for being a loyal customer?

AdRants Scoops Up a Mound of Super Bowl Ad Critiques

With tweets from AdFreak, AgencySpy and Adland, AdRants separated the wheat from the chaff.

Doritos still finishes strong.

Best Super Bowl Spot: "Doritos" Says USA Today

Super Bowl Sunday has become the ad business' 4th of July - "let's kick back, eat, drink and salute the the culture that is advertising!"

And USA Today's "Ad Meter" announced this morning that Doritos won the sack race. Watch the top 11 and vote your favorite.

Chris Rock Provides Inspiration to Business Guru

And in the pages of Harvard Business, yet. This morning Peter Sims described as "an author and strategic adviser specializing in leadership and innovation" wrote that "In an eerie way, Chris Rock innovates like Amazon does."

Here's the whole story.

What Medium Delivered You The Inauguration?

This morning Eric Franchi, senior vp of business development at Undertone Networks, takes a glance backwards and notes that much of the technology used by people attending or watching the Obama Inauguration either didn't exist at the time of the last inauguration - or was in it's infancy.

Here's the story on MediaPost's Online Video Insider.

If You Were Going To Feature Real Products in a TV Show...

... what would that TV show be about and what products could it spotlight?

Let's see, The Sopranos could feature big, black SUVs and, oh, maybe bullets. NCIS... maybe products used in autopsies like sponges and scalpels and rubber aprons. Law & Order? How about some of those lawyers (already on late night TV) who promise to get you money if you've "been in an accident?" Actually, that'd work for Sopranos, too.

Wait, there's one scenario that opens the door to almost any product - a show about an ad agency!

TNT's new Trust Me (premiering next Monday night at 10 pm) is that show. If you're a fan of Mad Men (as am I) we'll be watching just to see if it measures up. Remember, this is the show that springs from the experiences and imaginations of a couple of ad vets from Chicago.

I can't wait.

In the meantime, TNT, Unilever and - we assume - media planners everywhere are watching to see if "branded entertainment" - which will be practiced freely and unashamedly on Trust Me - breaks through in a way that 30-second commercials don't. Here's the story in this morning's New York Times (free access with registration).

Dunkin' Donuts Coffee Jumps on the "Optimism" Bandwagon

But Dunkin' does it better than most campaigns - like Pepsi (whose controversial new logo has been seen as possibly an egregious "borrow" of the Obama '88 graphic) or especially the heavy handed Coke "Open Happiness" campaign.

The DD Coffee campaign is themed "You 'kin do it."

A New York Times column (free registration) by Stuart Elliott quotes Boston agency Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos - senior vice president and group creative director, Tom Cawley:

“If you need a treat because you’re so hard-working, you can do it,” Mr. Cawley says, summarizing what the theme is supposed to convey. “It’s a message of positivity without pandering.”

In developing the theme, everyone sought to avoid making it “come across as rah-rah or in a frivolous way,” he adds, because “that would have felt off.”

Similarly, the agency and Dunkin’ Donuts realize the economy is “a bad situation,” Mr. Cawley says, and do not want to appear as if they are trying “to capitalize on it.”

He poked fun at that kind of ad by offering a make-believe example: “‘Times are tough. That’s why we’re your cooking spray.’”

The article also has a link to the initial "anthem" TV spot.

I like the strategy and the execution except that any caffeine beverage might be substituted DDC if it didn't brand "'kin."

Aside: Dunkin' Donuts have claimed over and over that their coffee beats Starbucks for both taste and value:

Dunkin' Donuts Beat Starbucks National Taste Test - video powered by Metacafe

How Media Is Embracing Something Medium-rare: Cooperation With Its Competition

In this morning's MediaPost TV Board, Mitch Oscar writes about "co-opetition," in which several unlikely media bedmates - including the RIAA, the bad cop in music-sharing who are now working with with the Internet Service Providers who have been the "enablers" of free downloading, but may now become the good cops.

Lots more examples are also cited.

Creativity Top 5

See this week's five best ads as chosen by Creativity Magazine.

NY Agency Has a Big Idea. Detroit Big 3 Hasn't a Clue.

Ad execs from Madison Avenue agency Kelmenson, Davis & Associates have been trying for a year to put together a nonprofit domestic auto-industry forum that would make Americans aware of Detroit's importance to our nation's economy and culture.

KD&A think $50 million would do the trick in turning US auto buyers around (full disclosure, my wife and I bought a Ford Escape Hybrid last September - we love it!).

But the corporate jet boys from Motor City don't seem to get it and would rather claw each other to death. Have you seen the Chevy truck spots with Howie Long making fun of the dopey features of competitive vehicles? Yow! These guys may be doomed.

Move Over "Mad Men," TNT's Got A Big Idea

The critical acclaim for the ad-industry soap Mad Men on TMC has not been overlooked elsewhere in CableTVland.

TNT is about to debut an advertising drama called Trust Me on January 26th. This one - unlike Mad Men - is written and produced by a pair of actual ad veterans.

Here's today's story on AdAge's Madison+Vine.

Expect a critical appraisal here on January 27th, shortly after my 8:30 am class. And let me know what you think.

A Product Demo That Changed The World

But almost no one heard of these devices for 15 years and it took another 5 for people to notice. Now 40 years later these things are taken for granted.

Here's the story - and a video of parts of that presentation - as told by Scott Berkun, author of The Myths of Innovation. On todays' Harvard Business Weekly.

Don't Read This!

MediaPost's MediaDailyNews reports this morning that Fact Or Fiction, Americans Blame Media For Economic Friction in a study by Opinion Research Corporation.

It's the MEDIA, don't read it. It'll scare you shitless. I mean it! It'll make you think things that you don't want to think. And stuff like that...

The Vagaries of Research - and the Language It Uses

If you're a current or recent student, and if you're interested in advertising or marketing as a career, demographers have a name for you. Actually more than one.

You're probably post-Generation X (those born, it's pretty much agreed, between 1974 and 1980) so you'd be GenY or Ygen or Millennials or iGen or more. Here's a good overview about this confusion - from Wikipedia.

But that's not today's topic. Here are three studies published yesterday or today that deal with your attitudes about the economy that seem to disagree.

First, a Research Brief of a study done under the aegis of Pepsico, in concert with Lipton Tea and Starbucks, is headlined by the Center for Media Research Millennials Anxious Now, Optimistic About Future - and which uses the "born 1980 to 1990" to define "Millennials."
Note well that this research was conducted for the Pepsi Optimism Project by Strategy One, a subsidiary of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide.

Contrast it with these two studies, Fiscal Crises Shape Gen Y's Views Of Marketing and Economy Sours Gen Y On Marketing, both conducted by Media Logic.

I suspect that there is a difference in methodology between Strategy One and Media Logic. Or is it simply how they present the data?

What do you think it would be? How would you confirm this suspicion?

Coca-Cola Red Turns Green

Many marketers who've jumped on the "Green" Wagon have regarded it as a fad - something to be followed until the public drifted elsewhere (see "greenwashing").

Coka-Cola Enterprises chairman and CEO John Brock seems to be saying that Big Red has a Green Soul, and means every word of it. Read on (free registration) in this interview of Brock by Knowlege@Wharton (School of Business, University of Pennsylvania). There's also an audio link at the top of the article.

And when you get done there, see this about Coke's commitment to green advertising.

From this morning's American Advertising Federation SmartBrief.

What's The Future of Video?

Well, it's probably all about:
1) quality content
2) availability on demand.

While that may or may not spell "The End" of TV as we know it, here's the Big Kahuna of Hulu.com to explain it to us.

Is it just me, or does this guy seem to be a little too earnest? I keep waiting for him to talk about the fun of connecting with the Hulu brand, but instead we get a combination of a business plan backed by his impressive resumé. Almost sounds like a bad press release.

What do you think?

(From this morning's MediaPostNews Online Media Daily.)

Is It a TV Spot Or a Video Game?

It's a spot for Veuve Amiot, and Ad Grabber says it's an "Ad So Weird It Comes With A Quiz."

I agree.

First, the quiz:
(My orientation question)
From who's point of view is the spot shot?
(The rest from Steve Hall/AdGabber)
What's for dinner?
What's the woman in the mirror doing?
What's that liquid in the metal tub?
What creature is on the body builder's shoulder?

Then, the TV spot produced by Amsterdam ad agency THEY:



Answers?

Why is it always the same hands?

Look here for more video from THEY...

Purina, Marley and Media!

My household is between dogs right now. While all of our canines "belonged" to my wife, the late, great, Grace chose... me.

Which was way cool.

Me, I had my own dog! For the first time, ever. Drop by my office to see a picture.

She died last spring and I'm still not ready to replace her. My wife asks me monthly if "it's time yet." Not yet.

Marley and Me is a book that's becoming a movie about a man and a bad dog that became a good dog - his dog.

I don't think I'm ready to either read or watch it, but Purina is all over it!

Here's the story on today's adage.com

Opinion: Back to Basics

Pete Blackshaw, EVP of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services writes in this morning's adage.com that 2009 is a good time for the ad industry to review our options.