Media Kills. So Why Not Light Up Instead?

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Tell Reynolds they don't need to pull their print ads after all. A team at the University of Michigan waded through 50 years of research and concluded media violence is as hazardous as smoking.

Violent video games and television shows were targeted, with children more heavily influenced by what they see than adults, although women and men are equally likely to engage in violence they've seen in the media.

Well, hey. After our WoW sessions we've just got to grab a scimitar and kick some burly guy's ass. And don't even get us started on Heroes.

by Angela Natividad    Nov-29-07    
Topic: Bad, Research, Strange, Trends and Culture



Consumers Still Bombarded With Advertising, Ad Model Still Broken

Please, We've Seen It All

The average consumer can't go through a day without seeing 3,500 commercial messages. That's a hell of a lot of clutter for one individual to sift through but that's the reality of today's advertising marketplace. From guerrilla marketing to all forms of "street furniture" advertising to human sandwich boards, advertising is inescapable unless one were to move to the Moon. Even there, one could probably see the screaming lights of Times Square when Jenna Jameson yelled, "Visit my website! Buy my videos!"

With media fragmentation comes advertiser's use of that fragmentation in the increasingly difficult war waged to win the valuable consumer eyeball. This fragmentation has given way to more unique forms of advertising that fall into the guerrilla marketing space but even these efforts are getting tired. Once novel, tactics such as forehead advertising, invertising, advergaming, dogvertising, adverblogging, blogvertising, bloodvertising and bravertising are now old hat. Other methods such as school bus, in-school and police car advertising are considered only out of financial desperation. Layer on top of that more recent whacked social media efforts like PayPerPost and clearly, the model is hurting.

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by Steve Hall    Nov-27-07    
Topic: Opinion, Trends and Culture



Facebook, Facebook, Facebook!

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We can't wait until Facebook, web two-dot-oh's Marsha Brady, gets dropped by fawning advertisers like a bad habit. In the meantime, here's the story on a new Digg-style feature they added to the Stalker Feed while we were all gorging ourselves for a tryptophan high.

Freezing Hot also posted statistics on Facebook's users. Age, edu level, gender and political affiliation are also thoughtfully graphed. Big users are mostly liberal, mostly college-educated and mostly women. The majority is also single and between ages 18 and 24.

We can almost hear the chops-licking in the 'netosphere. Guess Marsha won't be going out of style anytime soon.

by Angela Natividad    Nov-26-07    
Topic: Online, Research, Trends and Culture



Chinese Advertising Culture A World Apart

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Frederick Olsson from Miami's Gothenburg recently returned from a trip to Shanghai where he observed advertising trends in a culture very different from our own. Dabitch from Adland spoke with Olsson upon his return an found the rules of advertising to be quite a bit different.

Firstly, the Chinese government doesn't like marketers to know too much about citizens and therefore any type of participatory public event held by a marketer that involves interactivity is labeled "market research" which is forbidden by law. Secondly, while no law against guerrilla or alternative style advertising is one the books, it's frowned upon but if caught doing it, Ollsson says punishment is very likely.

In terms of creativity, Olsson says "Chinese advertising is rather infantile if you're looking only at creative." He says this is due to the simple lack of experience the culture in general has had with capitalism and the marketing arm that goes with it. Conversely, Olsson says the work that is produced is meticulously executed , "extraordinarily good looking and technically advanced."

Also alive and well in Chinese advertising is what we would deem sexist. "A lot of macho gruff for the men and pink fluffy stars for the women," says Olsson.

by Steve Hall    Nov-19-07    
Topic: Trends and Culture



Piers Fawkes Says Change World or Go Home!

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In a less threatening take on the "--or die!" manifesto marketers have become so fond of, Piers Fawkes suggests that if you're not going to go out there and change the world, you ought to just go home.

At the IIR Future Triends '07 conference on Monday, Fawkes gave this presentation -- pointing to Kashi, and that Omnivore's Dilemma guy, as well as other examples -- to illustrate what trendy forms our social assumptions about "going green" take.

"Green is not a trend, it's an issue," he stressed, adding that ours is the best job in the world because we can inspire companies to do good.

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by Angela Natividad    Nov-16-07    
Topic: Cause, Events, Opinion, Trends and Culture



Get Down with the Homies with the ad:tech NY Ad-Jive Dictionary

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You can't call yourself a new media advertiser if you're not hip to the jive, and ad:tech is a great place to brush up on this crucial skill-set.

But it can be tough to keep up. With that, I give you the 2007 edition of the Official ad:tech New York Ad-Jive Dictionary. Use this knowledge well, and you're sure to be the life of the break room.

Better still, you'll confirm your CEO's conviction that burning $5K to send you to an ad conference was a very intelligent idea.

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ad:tech: Why Take Sides When You Can Roll with the Punches?

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Overheard on the press room floor:

"The whole point is to remain agnostic."

Digital advertising and spirituality: two sides of the same coin?

by Angela Natividad    Nov- 7-07    
Topic: Industry Events, Opinion, Trends and Culture



Home Depot Shopping Carts Spout Text-Based Marketing Messages

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This unnecessarily long article by Forbes, chock-full of handy-dandy survey data, tells us one -- well, two -- important things:

- A new concept is born: "shopper marketing." (Known to you traditionalists -- har har -- as in-store advertising.)
- Concept shopping carts are getting outfitted with a text messaging device, courtesy of Modstream. It's appearing at Home Depots in 8 states.

The idea is that shoppers, which haven't warmed much to video-outfitted shopping carts, will take advantage of coupons, or marketing messages, or whatever-else, at their fingertips.

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'Don't Be Evil' -- It's a Statement, Not a Lifestyle!

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With the reported launch of OpenSocial, which enables developers to build apps for a multiplicity of social networks and not just one -- including a Google social network that spreads its net over its other properties -- Google has enlisted MySpace as a partner.

And that's just the headliner. Others include Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING as founding partners in OpenSocial.

According to Fortune, Facebook was pointedly not invited to the knitting circle. "Despite reports, Facebook has still not been briefed on OpenSocial," said (obviously butthurt) spokesperson Brandee Barker.

There may be just cause. John Battelle says Facebook's coming out with an AdWords killer next week.

The plot thickens.

If you don't know your place, the Queen Bee will find you. And kill you. < / maniacal laughter >

by Angela Natividad    Nov- 2-07    
Topic: Brands, Online, Trends and Culture



New NYSE Spots Are Well-Produced, but Not Disarming

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"One market. Infinite possibilities." That's the going slogan for the NYSE, a brand so big and so embedded in the American financial subconscious that seeing an ad for it almost confuses us.

This pair of spots -- dubbed Market Conditions and One Destination -- are chock-full of NYSE listed companies and glorify the speed and interconnectedness so necessary to business today. The agency responsible is Fallon Worldwide, but the smooth production comes from Stardust.

We were really fond of the last spot, which moved slowly and did a better job of illustrating a blooming world of "infinite possibilities."

All in all, these do a serviceable job of keeping the NYSE salient in ad land, but they're not especially resonant. It could just be the new narrator. He has a smack of fresh 90s dot-com-ness to him.

by Angela Natividad    Nov- 1-07    
Topic: Commercials, Trends and Culture