Wal-Mart, cultural hero

In this morning's New York Times, the Arkansas Ark of Culture is making waves yet again by striking deals directly with music artists/bands, cutting out the middle man.

That grinding sound you hear is the RIAA, the voice of those middle men, self-resurfacing it's metaphorical teeth - usually used to bite the metaphorical butts of online file sharing miscreants.

Sidebar: I'm in Atlanta (Hotlanta - 79 degrees at 6 am) for the American Advertising Federation annual meeting. NYT advertising columnist Stuart Elliott speaks to us at lunch today. If anything interesting emerges, you'll hear it here tomorrow.

Popcorn: Sex/City Challenges Capra, Sturges

"Applied Futurist" Faith Popcorn has decided that the film, "Sex and the City," is a classic Depression Era movie that "comes at just the right time for a nation exhausted politically, emotionally and financially - and signals a growing desire to escape that idea-strapped marketers can use to their advantage."

Preston Sturges and Frank Capra were the Past Masters of the genre, but neither one were fortunate enough to have a previous TV audience as a launch pad. Nor are we in a depression like that of the 1930s.

(Isn't Barack Obama planning to be the vaccination against a "GD?")

What do you think?

GP

The man who lies to Nielsen - and laughs.

The Nielsen company produces ratings data for television programs. Buckets of money are won and lost based on the numbers of households (HH) and people (women, 25-34, men 50+, etc.).

This morning, on "Media Post's TV Board," Frank S. Foster reports on a fairly troubling story - and the economics of the thing is the least troubling - of a man (and his family) who "games Nielson."

"My Neighbor Is A Nielsen Stooge"

GP

Welcome!

This blog is about advertising.

I made my living from advertising for many years. Since I now teach advertising at the University of San Francisco, I guess I still do. Except that the dollars no longer flow from my clients, they now stream from the parents of my clients. And bless their hearts for that.

I read a whole lot of advertising blogs and will pass the best of them on to you, dear reader. So hang with me. I hope to keep it interesting for both of us.