Survival Advice Offered to Old Media

Accumulating opinion and commentary from across the media and advertising spectrum, The Wall Wall Street Journal has compiled an outlook of the media landscape from network news, advertising, newspapers, book publishing, movies and music. While there are a few insightful suggestions surrounding network news and movies, much, such as turning advertisements into programming and microtargeting has been heard before. All the same, it's nice to see it wrapped up all in one place others who don't analyze this stuff on a minute by minute basis.

by Steve Hall    May-23-05    
Topic: Opinion, Trends and Culture



HP Introduces Harajuku Style Camera

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HP has capitalized on the popularity of Gwen Stefani's fixation with Japanese Harajuku culture (fad?) and the Harajuku-styled girls that follow her around everywhere she goes by offering the special edition Photosmart R607 Harajuku Lovers Digital Camera by Gwen Stefani. It's the usual Americanization of a micro-culture that some say isn't even a culture at all. Tian has more on the whole Harajuku thing here.

by Steve Hall    May-17-05    
Topic: Trends and Culture



Media Planner Says Embrace Ad Skipping

Using far more words than necessary but still making a good point, Chicago-based media planner Cece Forrester suggest the ad industry embrace PVR ad skipping rather than fighting against it. Citing the shift towards absolute control of content from media companies to consumers and that as skipping has been around forever (i.e. trips to the fridge or bathroom), Forrester writes TiVo should enable viewers to skip, not fast forward through, to the end of any commercial and the beginning of the next.

TiVo's competitor, Replay, had a feature, that has since been disabled, which would skip thirty seconds at a time. Forrester's suggestion builds on this claiming ads, like content, should earn the attention of viewers rather than being served using the current force feed method. Attempting to prevent people from bypassing things they don't like is a losing battle. TiVo would be wise to act early and come to terms with this.

by Steve Hall    May-13-05    
Topic: Television, Trends and Culture



Inanimate Spokeobjects the New Ad Trend

Brenner Thomas has identified a seemingly new trend in advertising - the inanimate spokesobject. Quaker Oats has its Quaker gentleman, Travelocity has its Roaming Gnome and Burger King has its smiling, plastic King. Any more of this and we'll start hearing from the unions.

by Steve Hall    May-11-05    
Topic: Trends and Culture



Google Kills 'The New York Times' in 2014

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Receiving increased attention, yet created six months ago by The Pointer Institute Fellows Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson, a film, called EPIC, looks forward to the world of 2014 in which Google controls most everything and the New York Times is relegated to a "print only newsletter for the elite and the elderly." While certainly a plausible future, it's not as rosy as it might seem with the film concluding most content will be useless, trivial, unsubstantiated conjecture. Here is a transcript of the film.

by Steve Hall    May- 9-05    
Topic: Newspaper, Trends and Culture



Interactive Broadcast Grows, Metrics Still Lag

Focusing on how marketers can capitalize on the increased adoption of broadband, LearningCraft Founder and Author Rob Graham led a panel which included Kraft's Carol Walker, Broadband Enterprise CEO Matt Wasserlauf and Klipmart CEO Chris Young. Much of the discussion focused on the repurposing of video for the web. Kraft's Walker cited several case studies, one of which was a campaign to promote recipes via online instructional videos which, successfully, garnered 400,000 views.

As with an earlier session dealing with marketers functioning as web broadcasters, this session was not able to answer the question of metrics. Currently, there appear to be no reliable and accurate sources to gauge the success of these broadband online efforts as effectively as marketers would like. All panelists promise it is a top priority.

by Steve Hall    Apr-26-05    
Topic: Trends and Culture



Marketers Will Broadcast, Metrics Will Follow

Kicking off the sparcely attended Marketer As Broadcaster session, Carat Interactive's John Durham referred to the teacher who created the mac commercial and how marketers and consumers are now creating their own content and advertising. The panel consisted of JibJab's Greg Spiridellis, WorldNow's Omar Karim and Target's Scott Heimes who each spoke to the growing trend of marketer and consumer created content.

more »

by Steve Hall    Apr-26-05    
Topic: Trends and Culture



WDFM Marks Tenth Anniversary With Ten Internet Marketing Trends

Marking the 10th anniversary of publishing Web Digest For Marketers email newsletter, Founder Larry Chase releases his Top 10 Trends for the Next 10 Years in Internet Marketing.

"We've had a good hit rate when identifying the real shifts in Internet Marketing from those that are just hype, and there's been a lot of that as we all know" noted Chase. "Over these past 10 years, my editors and I use the 'gut check' method. Generally, the hot trends are simple to explain and understand. Furthermore, if we ourselves already use or plan on using the shifting technologies and methods as consumers and as Internet Marketing practitioners, it's a good bet our calls are on the money." Click more to see 6 of the Top 10 Trends Chase sees in Internet Marketing for the next 10 years

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by Steve Hall    Apr-26-05    
Topic: Trends and Culture



Survey: People Want More Clothed, Hetero People on TV

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At least they're not gay

Three quarters of people surveyed by the Pew Research Center said that they wanted to see tougher enforcement of curbs on indecency in the media, particularly broadcast TV when children might be present. 60 percent said they wanted to see broadcast decency standards ported over to cable, and more than two thirds wanted to goose fines up further. Just about a third of all respondents said that they were concerned about content that showed homosexuals or dealt with gay issues. That same third of respondents later indicated they meant that concern in a very manly, decisive manner, not in an empathetic, whiny way.

by     Apr-22-05    
Topic: Trends and Culture



Bob Garfield Lays Out Advertising's Future

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.

by Steve Hall    Apr-13-05    
Topic: Trends and Culture