Ad Age Columnist Bob Garfield has, as you have undoubtedly heard, written a lengthy piece, finally online, about the future of advertising and the chaos that future holds as the industry morphs into something very different from what it is today. While no one can truly predict the future, Garfield has concisely and accurately put forth argument after argument pointing to a future that, left unchecked, will crumble beneath us like a meteor devouring the planet.
The 25 year old, 7-foot, 6-inch Houston Rockets NBA player has been signed by GPS equipment maker Garmin to appear in two new television commercials as well as a print ad campaign. The work breaks mid-May with Ming's contract extending through 2007. Ming has already appeared in ads for Apple, Visa, Tag Heuer and Reebok.
Ypulse reports VIZ Media will, in July, launch a new manga magazine for young women entitled Shojo Beat. The magazine will cover art, style, design as well as romance, comedy and adventure.
While strolling down Ludlow street in New York's Lower East Side, Flickr user ichbinjenny snapped this photo of a book promotion in the form of street art and wrote, "Now this is book promotion." The ad is a promotion for the book, Angry Black White Boy, "an incendiary and ruthlessly funny satire about violence, pop culture, and American identity," according to Powells.
Goldenfiddle has provided us with a photoshopped image of the pregnant Britney Spears adorning the cover of Vanity Fair just as Demi Moore did years ago. Just as it was then and certainly is now, it's not an image we really want to see. But, in the name of news coverage, however questionably related to advertising or media, we're sharing it for those who just can't get enough of this stuff.
A quick review of weblogs listed as recently updated on MSN Spaces revealed few, if any, containing more than a post or two. Many simply state, "There are no entries in this blog." Apparently, Volvo, in its decision to sponsor MSN Spaces weblogs, did not see this as an issue. The car maker has entered a sponsorship deal with MSN Spaces whereby it will receive ad placement on the MSN Spaces homepage as well as at the top of each MSN Spaces weblog.
Ad Age reports MSN has indicated Spaces has been "wildly popular" and now has 4.5 million users. That's all the blogosphgere needs - 4.5 million more empty, useless, pointless weblogs. Boing Boing also reported in December, when MSN Spaces launched, the blogs are heavily censored which, as Microsoft should know, really negates the entire point of publishing a weblog.
Volvo, seemingly unable to realize MSN Spaces is filled with newbies with nothing to say when a plethora of intelligent, quality blog content is right around the corner at the BlogAds blog advertising network, BlogAd Founder Henry Copeland informs Adrants the car manufacturer has not yet used the network commenting, "these MSN Spaces bloggers are writing about random stuff rather than specific, publicly useful information niches. Spaces bloggers are newbies on the fringes of the blogosphere. MSN may well have promised Volvo 100 million page impressions a month, but these are impressions seen by nobody -- or more exactly "nobodies" -- people who are viewed as influentials only by their moms and ex-girlfriends."
Further questioning Volvo's absence from the BlogAds network, Copeland made an analogy to Volvo's well known brand position of safety saying, "If you want safety, wouldn't you rather sponsor name-brand bloggers like Markos Moulitsas, Glenn Reynolds, Josh Marshall, Andrew Sullivan and hundreds more in blogospheres ranging from law to music to baseball? Why advertise on blogs of the anonymous once-a-monthers, when you can associate your brand - probably for lower cost - with star bloggers, folks who have national reputations in their respective fields and are the hubs for rabidly loyal communities?" Very good question, indeed, Volvo. Perhaps Volvo should speak to Audi who has fully embraced "real" weblogs with a substantial buy on the BlogAds network.
Writing on iMediaConnection, CooperKatz & Company VP Steve Rubel discusses the growing usage of tags to categorize content using keywords. Tagging sites such as del.ico.us, Flickr and Wists have popped up specifically to store content tagged by those who submit content, be it pictures, news stories or blog entries. Rubel posits the next logical (inevitable?) step as tagging grows: tagvertising. With tag aggregation sites, it will be very easy for companies to monitor what is being said about them as well as to advertise on tag term specific pages thereby achieving interest-based targeting.
To resuscitate itself, Estee Lauder has signed a deal with uber-designer Tom Ford to create a line of Estee Lauder branded fragrances as well as a Tom Ford brand. Estee Lauder Brand President hopes Ford can do for his company what Ford did for ailing Gucci, turning Gucci around from near bankruptcy to a $4.3 billion powerhouse. WPP Group's JWT will be on hand to help.
Latching on to a group toke scheduled for 4:20 PM on April 20, cause group Magic Propaganda Mill is promoting It's Just A Plant, a controversial children's book about marijuana written by Ricardo Cortes, with a "Box of Weed: 5 for $50" offer which consists of a box filled with five copies of the book for $50.
Predictably, the book has experienced an uphill battle since its inception with publishers refusing to publish, press analyzing it and politicians using it as a crutch in their pro and con drug positions. To a kid, it is just a plant. A plant worth learning about sooner than later.