MySpace Finds God!

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Following a decrease in CPM costs some months ago, MySpace's prototypical True.com ads and Crush Calculators have been largely replaced with what looks like a pretty big ad buy by Biola University's school of international studies, which is colonizing the social network for Christ.

Is the Lord in your Top 8? Maybe he should be.

by Angela Natividad    Mar-10-08    
Topic: Brands, Online, Trends and Culture



Divinity Metrics Measures Brands' Online Video Presence

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Divinity Metrics has put together a chart measuring the top 20 brands in online video. It will be updated every week. At first we were gonna compare it to the AdAge Power 150, a measuring stick for the top media and marketing blogs, but it's not really like that. It's more like the Dow Jones.

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by Angela Natividad    Mar- 5-08    
Topic: Good, Online, Research, Trends and Culture, Video



Funny How Different Things Look When It's that Time of Month

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Always is running this campaign where it's printing feel-good phrases like "Have a happy period" over the wax paper on maxi pads. We didn't think much about it until we saw this letter, allegedly written to P&G by a woman gone totally apeshit over it. Her first thought upon tearing open a new pad and seeing "Have a happy period" was "Are you fucking kidding me?"

A really sunny excerpt:

FYI, unless you're some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything "happy" about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don't march down to the local Walgreen's armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory.

We giggled about it.

And then it happened.

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by Angela Natividad    Mar- 3-08    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Opinion, Strange, Trends and Culture



Icons Transcend Time in Converse Sneaks

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To celebrate 100 years in footwear, Converse is welding new icons to old ones in a campaign called "Connectivity."

According to Complex, "cultural heroes" like James Dean, Hunter S. Thompson and Sid Viscious will fuse feet (neat touch!) with Common, Dwyane Wade and Billie Joe Armstrong. Sort of like paper dolls.

See more here.

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In the Mood for New Media? Yeah, Baby ... Yeah.

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MarketingSherpa does this annual ad:tech survey of internet marketers: what works, what doesn't, how does social media make you feeeel (besides sticky)?

Here's a breakdown of the results, complete with charts. We'll give you a quick play-by-play.

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by Angela Natividad    Feb-27-08    
Topic: Industry Events, Research, Trends and Culture



You Mean People Don't Get Off on Sarcasm and Malice?

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Advertising Age says snide advertising is bad for business and society. (They also define "snide" in case you're teetering on uncertainty. Isn't that sweet?)

Having been victimized to emotional tatters by the online efforts of Jawbone, we believe it.



Guitar Hero Helps Marketers Understand Product Relevancy

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Swivel Media's Erik Hauser explores the interest in previously unknown music Guitar Hero can spawn as an analogy for marketers and agencies working together to create product relevancy for audiences who no longer know a particular product or to create interest in a new product.

It seems to be the mother of all challenges. It's the one that prospective clients call ad agency offices with daily - sometimes hourly when things are brisk. "How do we increase relevancy within a particular market segment, and more importantly convert that new found relevancy into sales," they often say. "How can we drive purchase and purchase consideration by our intended audience - an audience that currently doesn't even know that we exist?" Both, by the way, are very good questions that brand managers are faced with on an hourly basis.

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by Erik Hauser    Feb-21-08    
Topic: Agencies, Opinion, Trends and Culture



Shocker! Tylenol Ad Campaign Admits Old People Exist

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Can you believe it? It's a shocker. An actual ad with actual old people in it! Complete with wrinkled skin and less than perfect abs. Seriously. We can't get over it. We're still in shock. And here we thought every one in the world was as hot as Obama Girl in a BarelyPolitical video. We are crushed at the thought of this new reality.

Where do we go from here? Is a wrinkled 75 year old the new twenty-something hottie? Is a flabby ass the new hot? Oh the horror of it all. It's just too much to bear! People actually get old? Everyone isn't hot forever? Who knew?

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SRG Employs Chewbacca Defense to 'WTF?' Us into Submission

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In early February MarketingVOX published this study about online TV show viewing by Solutions Research Group.

As can be typical of studies, the research cited some ostentatious figure -- namely, that 80 million Americans (43 percent of the online populace) have watched a favourite show online.

The study didn't specify whether 80 million Americans watched a complete episode; just that they watched one (which could mean anything, really).

Enter Kevin Horne of Lairig Marketing.

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by Angela Natividad    Feb-19-08    
Topic: Bad, Online, Opinion, Research, Trends and Culture



Microsoft, Yahoo and the Glacial Pace of Traditional Marketers

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We welcome guest columnist Sean X Cummings who, in response to the ongoing Yahoo/Microsoft acquisition dance along with Google's response, has several things to say about the deal and how the pace of technology growth is out pacing the ability of some marketers to keep ups with and master the influx of new media.

The Microsoft/Yahoo deal is often analyzed on the differences between technology companies, and media companies, offline, and online, threats to companies within that world, and outside, and those who interfere. Much of this misses more fundamental issues.

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by Sean X Cummings    Feb-19-08    
Topic: Online, Opinion, Trends and Culture