BlueLithium, TribalFusion, Casale, Tacoda, Claria. To those outside the ad industry, and to some within, these names would lead one to believe we're talking about some new form of drug therapy intervention. In actuality, they are the names of ad serving companies, those wonderful, if difficult to define, operations that help deliver marketers online ads to websites that make sense for the advertiser. With all the buzz words these companies insist upon using, it's a wonder any of us in the industry have a clue as to the real modus operandi of these companies.
With the help of iMediaCommection's Jim Meskauskus, you need not feel like a clueless buffoon any longer. Jim has queried 14 of these companies with a series of questions geared towards helping us all understand just what these companies do, how big they are, who they target, why they're different from their competitors and what kind of ads they serve. So dig in and become an expert on ad serving. Or, at least become an expert at knowing what these companies want you to know versus what you might really want to know.
A tipster has brought to our attention an odd association between the McKinney Silver-created Pherotones campaign and the release of Stephen King's new novel, Cell. While the Pherotones promotion may have something to do with McKinney Silver telecommunications client Qwuest, Stephen King's new novel most certainly has to do with telecommunication - tones sent through cell phones that turn people into flesh-eating zombies. In fact, King's book is being juiced with a cell phone-related promotion of its own.
Hmm, you say? Perhaps it's just a coincidence. Perhaps McKinney doesn't keep up on all things Stephen King. Or, though an unrealistic but intriguing stretch, the Pherotones campaign is a promotion for King's new novel. Nah.
It takes a lot to amuse us but this game promoting job site dice.com did the trick. It's the classic "your boss sucks" game where you get to take out your aggression following a bosses cocky, buzz-word laden tirade. Don't miss the pizza launcher in the Project manager's office.
While we assume SolidWorks meant the learning curve for its 3D CAD software is a quick up and down, visually, this ad implies the curve is, as an astute Adrants reader noted, a brick wall.
In the new It's Jerry Time video, sad sack Jerry tells the tale of his trials and tribulations as a print production employee at an ad agency who gets laid off because work dries up and he ends up driving a mobile billboard around which doesn't seem to go so well.
As the publisher for the online presence of the South Beach Diet, the Zone Diet and the expectant parent What to Expect among others, Waterfront Media helps self-help experts and their publishers publish their content online and aggregates self-help content for advertisers interested in reaching self-help seekers, a $10 billion market according to Marketdata Enterprises. While some doubt the whole notion of self-help, for marketers and and publishers in this space, Waterfront Media has created a self-help marketplace that appears to make it a whole lot easier for marketer and publisher to connect with the self-help seeker.
Waterfront launched in early 2003 and has 700,000 subscribers to its various sites along with site management/distribution deals with publishers Rodale, Harper Collins, Meredith and Hyperion among others. Waterfront Media's revenue model is shifting from 25/75 ad/paid subscription to 50/50 ad/paid subscription and advertisers from P&G, Kraft, Diet Coke and Equal have jumped on board.
Making sure to ward off criticism by calling it an experiment, CBS will launch an advertising-sponsored week-long "micro-series" titled The Courier on Tuesday, January, 24 in the first act break of CSI: MIAMI after 9:00 PM EST/PST. The serialized short film, sponsored by Pontiac and broadcast about the same time each night in seven short episodes, will premiere as a 60-second installment with subsequent editions running for 40-seconds.
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Boing Boing digs into digg and finds MIT Advertising Lab talking about advertisers discovering the value of Google Maps and placing large ads of rooftops for those using Google Maps to see. Target's done it. Realtors are using Google Maps to their benefit as well by letting home buyers examine maps, zoom in on house and view selling details. Yes, Google does rule the world.
Cnet reports Google will acquire radio digital services provider dMarc for $1.13 billion. dMarc helps radio stations manage ad inventory, deliver song/artist/station text information over broadcast and help advertisers manage their radio campaigns. Pressumably, Google will us dMarc to deliver its AdWords text ads over the system dramatically extending the search giant's reach into another medium and to many more ear/eyeballs. Maybe the day will come when a media planner can "buy the world" at the touch of a button.
Hoping to cash in on a bit of Numa Numa and William Hung viral fame, Sprint has launched a knowingly goofy video clip in which a bunch of guys get all jiggy with themselves in an attempt somehow...that's it...sell phones! That's right. Sprint has seeded the goofy video which points to gothookedup.com, a site that promotes Sprint's mobile entertainment services it feels are far more entertaining than lame online video clips. It's a nice sort of nudge-wink effort that does it's thing without being clandestine about it. Whether it goes anywhere, only Sprint will know.
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