Husband and Wife Battle Over Wayne Gretzky

Sometimes commercial are so engaging you aren't really sure what's being advertised. We might be blind but we watched this entire :60 featuring a man attempting to move a cut out Wayne Gretzky while his wife tries to throw it away without realizing it was an ad for Mobile Mini. I guess the spot hit home. But in a very different way. Good job, Venables Bell & Partners. We think.

more »

Keyboard Licker, Hairy Mommy Hugger Shill For AAMCO

This AAMCO commercial is disturbing. Very, very disturbing. Somehow it connotes the fact that AAMCO can and does fix everything. Celebrating it 50th anniversary, the brand is out with a new campaign.

The spot in question and called Trust and it's all about, yes, trust. Trusting who you allow to sit in your cubicle, trusting who you allow to hug your mother and who you allow to be your massage therapist.

Strange.

more »

No, Seriously! This Really is the Year of Mobile!

This Internet Week coverage is brought to you by ShareThis. The best content is hand picked.

During Internet Week, OMMA held its OMMA Mobile one day conference. In a panel entitled How Not to Waste Money on Mobile, moderator Shaun Quigly, VP Digital Practice Leader at Grunner was joined by Alexandre Mars, CEO of Phone Vally, Allison Owen, Digital Media Specialist at The Integer Group and Craig Weinberg, Mindshare Mobile Practice Lead.

For all the hoopla we've heard about mobile over the last ten years, we are still talking about how "this is the year of mobile!" Well after listening to this panel, it is clear, mobile has a long way to go before it becomes an "established" medium.

more »

Mobile Isn't Just Mobile Any More

This Internet Week coverage is brought to you by ShareThis. The best content is hand picked.

An interesting vendor presentation took place during the lunch break at OMMA Mobile. Tremor Video's Doron Wesley did a quick presentation entitle Mobile Isn't Just Mobile Any More. The gist of the presentation was the notion a significant percentage (52%) of "mobile" video viewing occurs at home and between the hours of 5PM and 11PM (40%). In other words, people are using their mobile devices to consume content over WiFi during prime time television hours.

As we've seen with the rise in usage of Netflix online, Hulu and a host of other online video services, consuming video content is increasingly a mobile device experience yet it's occurring mostly at home at night. In fact, Wesley stated 8 percent of home mobile users will cancel their pay cable subscriptions in the next month.

more »

Oakland A's Billy Bean Talks Big Data at Internet Week

This Internet Week coverage is brought to you by ShareThis. The best content is hand picked.

Big Data, the new, all-encompassing term for the plethora of data that needs to be wrangled to effectively manage an online campaign took center stage at Internet Week this morning. Billy Beane, manager of the Oakland A's and made famous in the Brad Pitt movie, Moneyball, spoke to a full house about his discovery of the importance of data in managing a baseball team.

Before the use of statistics as a guiding force in the management of a baseball team, many decisions were based on emotion and other less-that-scientific modes of decisions. Much like the early days of advertising when everything was based on a gut feel and a big idea, baseball management didn't believe in the power of data. That has changed in the past 12 years and is now an institutionalized form of management in baseball.

Beane's advise to the advertising industry is that mathematics will always work if you trust it. Now, we can hear a great many of you groaning right now and asking, "How the hell does data help me develop cool creative?" It doesn't directly but it sure does indirectly and has been doing so for decades.

more »

'I Am the King of the World' Says Internet Week

This Internet Week coverage is brought to you by ShareThis. The best content is hand picked.

Internet Week kicked off in New York this morning with a lot of chest beating about the city's tech start up scene. But the chest beating is warranted given that the city is now neck and neck with both Boston and Silicon Valley when it comes to the number of start ups launching and the amount of investment capital (nearly $500 million in 2011) behind those launches.

Both Internet Week Founder David-Michel Davies and New York's Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne lauded the cities growth in the tech space and noted that over 45,000 people will attend over 200 events this week during Internet Week. That's in contrast to less than 10,000 people and 80 events when it launched five years ago.

more »