Received my daily AdRants news and low and behold the KFC promo we worked on in conjunction with our client Creative Alliance showed up as the first blurb.
Pretty nice - thanks AdRants!
Check it out HERE - third story down.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Some Exposure for The Basement
Received my daily AdRants news and low and behold the KFC promo we worked on in conjunction with our client Creative Alliance showed up as the first blurb.
Pretty nice - thanks AdRants!
Check it out HERE - third story down.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Madison Avenue Biggies See Digital Media As Stable Source Amid Uncertain Outlook
Pulled from MediaPost's Online Media Daily
Three of the world's biggest advertising and media services organizations - Aegis, Interpublic and Publicis - reported relatively strong third quarter results this morning, but signaled unanimous concern over the weakening global economy. While their long-term outlooks remain uncertain, two of the three - Aegis and Publicis - indicated that media would remain their sweet spot, especially digital media, within an erratic economic world.
"Our digital businesses and our investments in high growth economies are continuing to sustain our growth in an economic environment that has become harsher as the worsening financial crisis impacts the real economy," Publicis Chairman-CEO Maurice Levy said in the agency's quarterly statement, adding, "In this context where growth will essentially come from digital and emerging markets, Publicis Groupe should improve its position against its main competitors."
"Digital is a new world and we should not compare digital to what digital was in 2000," he said. "In 2000 digital was mainly Web sites and some funny things and obviously when the market collapsed, everything collapsed. Today there is the Google of the world, there is the Yahoo of the world, and the MSN and we are all looking for addressing the communication to the end users through search and through different ways of communication. And this communication is highly measured - we know if it is working or not, we know the return on investment immediately, we know what works and what doesn't work. So I don't see digital collapsing, I don't see digital going down, I see digital still growing in 2009 and the years to come."
Three of the world's biggest advertising and media services organizations - Aegis, Interpublic and Publicis - reported relatively strong third quarter results this morning, but signaled unanimous concern over the weakening global economy. While their long-term outlooks remain uncertain, two of the three - Aegis and Publicis - indicated that media would remain their sweet spot, especially digital media, within an erratic economic world.
"Our digital businesses and our investments in high growth economies are continuing to sustain our growth in an economic environment that has become harsher as the worsening financial crisis impacts the real economy," Publicis Chairman-CEO Maurice Levy said in the agency's quarterly statement, adding, "In this context where growth will essentially come from digital and emerging markets, Publicis Groupe should improve its position against its main competitors."
"Digital is a new world and we should not compare digital to what digital was in 2000," he said. "In 2000 digital was mainly Web sites and some funny things and obviously when the market collapsed, everything collapsed. Today there is the Google of the world, there is the Yahoo of the world, and the MSN and we are all looking for addressing the communication to the end users through search and through different ways of communication. And this communication is highly measured - we know if it is working or not, we know the return on investment immediately, we know what works and what doesn't work. So I don't see digital collapsing, I don't see digital going down, I see digital still growing in 2009 and the years to come."
Monday, October 27, 2008
New Sites Launched
Some new sites launched!!!
This is fun stuff - Go Here to Play the Crowd Surfing Game
Complete promotional micro site - Go Here to visit KFC Rocks!!
This is fun stuff - Go Here to Play the Crowd Surfing Game
Complete promotional micro site - Go Here to visit KFC Rocks!!
Friday, October 24, 2008
Great Forbes Piece - The Coming Creativity Boom
This piece was published on my birthday no less!! George Gilder nailed it with this piece - could not have said it any better myself. Previous posts on the Short Attention Span Theatre, and some of my most popular, have been about smart and green home building materials, digital media and its effectiveness, entrepreneurship and the efficiency of various digital media processes. All touched on either directly or indirectly in this article.
An excerpt...
The real source of all growth is human ingenuity and entrepreneurship, which often thrive in the worst of times--and are always surprising.
The crucial conflict in every economy, however, goes on. It is not between rich and poor, Main Street and Wall Street, or even government and the private sector. It is between the established system and the new forms of wealth rising up to displace it--all the entrenched knowledge of the past and the insurrections of futuristic enterprise and invention.
The real source of all growth is human creativity and entrepreneurship, which always comes as a surprise to us, especially in the worst of times, as Rich Karlgaard notes. No amount of knowledge about the present can predict the specific profile and provenance of innovation. From the pits of the crash of 2000, when the Internet and the dot.com siege were famously dismissed as a barren "bubble," came Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) and MySpace to rise up and take all the chips and establish a new Internet economy. If creativity was not unexpected, governments could plan it and socialism would work. But creativity is intrinsically surprising and the source of all real profit and growth.
Access the ENTIRE Forbes piece HERE
An excerpt...
The real source of all growth is human ingenuity and entrepreneurship, which often thrive in the worst of times--and are always surprising.
The crucial conflict in every economy, however, goes on. It is not between rich and poor, Main Street and Wall Street, or even government and the private sector. It is between the established system and the new forms of wealth rising up to displace it--all the entrenched knowledge of the past and the insurrections of futuristic enterprise and invention.
The real source of all growth is human creativity and entrepreneurship, which always comes as a surprise to us, especially in the worst of times, as Rich Karlgaard notes. No amount of knowledge about the present can predict the specific profile and provenance of innovation. From the pits of the crash of 2000, when the Internet and the dot.com siege were famously dismissed as a barren "bubble," came Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) and MySpace to rise up and take all the chips and establish a new Internet economy. If creativity was not unexpected, governments could plan it and socialism would work. But creativity is intrinsically surprising and the source of all real profit and growth.
Access the ENTIRE Forbes piece HERE
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Old Media Execs and Their Habits Die Hard
More bleak news for the radio, newspaper and magazine industries. It is too bad these guys have not uncovered new ways to leverage their content and their audience. It is a golden opportunity. I guess when you rely on the same executives, the same consultants and the same tired digital partners new ideas that are actually effective become very hard to come by and consequently execute. Here is the full article from Mediapost
Despite how it appears on this blog, I have always enjoyed good radio and it has a special place in my heart. It is an art form that is slowly dying a painful death and it has so much to gain from the web - stations just can't seem to leverage it. I would absolutely love the opportunity to work with a traditional radio organization to help them bridge the gap. There is lot that can be done to leverage the local perspective online.
Where there is pain there is opportunity.
Despite how it appears on this blog, I have always enjoyed good radio and it has a special place in my heart. It is an art form that is slowly dying a painful death and it has so much to gain from the web - stations just can't seem to leverage it. I would absolutely love the opportunity to work with a traditional radio organization to help them bridge the gap. There is lot that can be done to leverage the local perspective online.
Where there is pain there is opportunity.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Warren Buffett Must Be Reading My Blog
I received an industry trade email newsletter today and I read this headline...
Wisdom of Warren Buffett: On Innovators, Imitators, and Idiots Check it out then read my blog post linked below.
I think Warren is reading my blog - Check out this piece I wrote the other day
Warren is on point.
Wisdom of Warren Buffett: On Innovators, Imitators, and Idiots Check it out then read my blog post linked below.
I think Warren is reading my blog - Check out this piece I wrote the other day
Warren is on point.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Little Dude in Top Hat Puts the Squeeze on Big Jim
Poor Monopolized Chaos - they are getting squeezed by the lovely legal toads at Hasbro. I couldn't resist commenting - check out Jim's unenviable position and my commentary
HERE
HERE
Sunday, October 12, 2008
When Does it Get Old?
Recently I traveled to New York to a Web 2.0 conference. This event trumpeted the best and brightest of the Web 2.0 industry and showcased a lot of individuals and organizations that have either pioneered or are continuing to innovate this iteration of the web.
I am just a guy from little old Indiana, how can I think critically about something that is traditionally thought of as progressive? I used traditionally and progressive in the same sentence - did you catch that? Nice. After all, we mid-westerners continuously play catch up, right? Anyway, it was pretty surprising to me to see a fairly stagnant show. By that I mean I did not see that unique model, that one idea or that one innovation that made me stop and say, "Wow that is going to be HUGE. That is a amazing! Or that will shake up the online world." Not a single damn thing.
I have read a lot of blogs, regurly consume industry publications, read editorials in this industry and generally spend waaaayyy too much time getting after new information regarding communication trends and innovations - which typically revolve around the web - or how the web is advancing traditional communication channels.
It seems to have become pretty stagnant as of late. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of new models, plenty of new ideas, plenty of new web sites,plenty of new ways of applying existing technologies in slightly different ways or for new business or even non-profit models. When you scrape away all of the fluff, you basically have a few solid principals left, a few standard web technologies left and a few companies left waiting to buy it all up.
In my mind that is stagnation. I have not seen a real game changer in quite some time. How many different ways can you twist "connecting people" into a new platform - which BTW runs on the same technology backbone as the previous 100 "platforms."
How many black holes for investment dollars can you create before someone decides that it is indeed a black hole and decides to shift venture money into something that actually has a path to a viable, profitable business model? How many audience over revenue web sites can you sell to larger media companies before they all realize they each bought different sites, but the same audience? There are only 24 hours in a day, and the average member of that audience will only spend about an hour a day on any one media channel (on average). That same audience member, if they are web savvy enough to consume larger quantities of online media, has their favorites today, but will most likely find a new favorite tomorrow - and that favorite will be purchased by a larger media company, and that media company would have spent millions to acquire the same set of eyes for the second, third or even fourth time. Think of it this way - if Rupert Murdoch purchased Facebook - do you think that would grow viewership somehow to MySpace? Seeing as many in the Facebook crowd migrated from MySpace it wouldn't it be a largely redundant audience?
Ultimately I think this is okay though. It will be figured out by some research report, sold online through a distributor like eMarketer, Forrester, or some other analyst and that will spurn some young up and comer to think about these things differently. To think in a way that makes sense from the perspective of the coveted audience, the entrepreneur, the bank, the investor and ultimately Google. Why Google? Oh, I forgot to tell you - that is who will buy this new, unique and profitable model.
The moral of the story here is that very few innovate and deliver on that innovation in a way that makes sense, makes money and ultimately does some good. Many come after that innovator mimic, churn, burn and fade away. All of that churning and burning drives the world. It is done to be second, third or even fourth. To be 1,000th however is a stretch. That being said it is necessary in the cycle of an industry - it creates boredom, milk toast experience and ultimately frustration - which eventually spawns progress.
Someone, somewhere has the idea and eventual access to capital that will incubate and launch web 4.0 into this process. It is just a matter of time. What happened to web 3.0 you ask? We are already knee deep in it. You didn't hear?? You better rub the web 2.0 out of your eyes, catch up and start mimicking some more - and while you are at it publicize the heck out of it - it will motivate that genius lurking in the shadows so we can move on to web 4.0.
I am just a guy from little old Indiana, how can I think critically about something that is traditionally thought of as progressive? I used traditionally and progressive in the same sentence - did you catch that? Nice. After all, we mid-westerners continuously play catch up, right? Anyway, it was pretty surprising to me to see a fairly stagnant show. By that I mean I did not see that unique model, that one idea or that one innovation that made me stop and say, "Wow that is going to be HUGE. That is a amazing! Or that will shake up the online world." Not a single damn thing.
I have read a lot of blogs, regurly consume industry publications, read editorials in this industry and generally spend waaaayyy too much time getting after new information regarding communication trends and innovations - which typically revolve around the web - or how the web is advancing traditional communication channels.
It seems to have become pretty stagnant as of late. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of new models, plenty of new ideas, plenty of new web sites,plenty of new ways of applying existing technologies in slightly different ways or for new business or even non-profit models. When you scrape away all of the fluff, you basically have a few solid principals left, a few standard web technologies left and a few companies left waiting to buy it all up.
In my mind that is stagnation. I have not seen a real game changer in quite some time. How many different ways can you twist "connecting people" into a new platform - which BTW runs on the same technology backbone as the previous 100 "platforms."
How many black holes for investment dollars can you create before someone decides that it is indeed a black hole and decides to shift venture money into something that actually has a path to a viable, profitable business model? How many audience over revenue web sites can you sell to larger media companies before they all realize they each bought different sites, but the same audience? There are only 24 hours in a day, and the average member of that audience will only spend about an hour a day on any one media channel (on average). That same audience member, if they are web savvy enough to consume larger quantities of online media, has their favorites today, but will most likely find a new favorite tomorrow - and that favorite will be purchased by a larger media company, and that media company would have spent millions to acquire the same set of eyes for the second, third or even fourth time. Think of it this way - if Rupert Murdoch purchased Facebook - do you think that would grow viewership somehow to MySpace? Seeing as many in the Facebook crowd migrated from MySpace it wouldn't it be a largely redundant audience?
Ultimately I think this is okay though. It will be figured out by some research report, sold online through a distributor like eMarketer, Forrester, or some other analyst and that will spurn some young up and comer to think about these things differently. To think in a way that makes sense from the perspective of the coveted audience, the entrepreneur, the bank, the investor and ultimately Google. Why Google? Oh, I forgot to tell you - that is who will buy this new, unique and profitable model.
The moral of the story here is that very few innovate and deliver on that innovation in a way that makes sense, makes money and ultimately does some good. Many come after that innovator mimic, churn, burn and fade away. All of that churning and burning drives the world. It is done to be second, third or even fourth. To be 1,000th however is a stretch. That being said it is necessary in the cycle of an industry - it creates boredom, milk toast experience and ultimately frustration - which eventually spawns progress.
Someone, somewhere has the idea and eventual access to capital that will incubate and launch web 4.0 into this process. It is just a matter of time. What happened to web 3.0 you ask? We are already knee deep in it. You didn't hear?? You better rub the web 2.0 out of your eyes, catch up and start mimicking some more - and while you are at it publicize the heck out of it - it will motivate that genius lurking in the shadows so we can move on to web 4.0.
Friday, October 10, 2008
At Least Someone in This Country Still Learns from History
Web 2.0: Rest in peace
Interesting things going on in VC land out on the west coast. Seems as though our banking industry could take some lessons from these guys. Nice to see our friends in the valley learn from the past.
Full article here
Interesting things going on in VC land out on the west coast. Seems as though our banking industry could take some lessons from these guys. Nice to see our friends in the valley learn from the past.
Full article here
Thursday, October 9, 2008
I Really Like This Web Site
I have been watching Muppet Show re-runs with the kids. I thought I would check out their web presence. Pretty cool.
Go Here to visit The Muppets
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
AdSense in Games
AdSense for Games, Now Live in Beta!
Google's long-anticipated AdSense for Games has finally gone into beta.
Casual games publishers can display video, image and text ads in their online offerings. They can also define placements "such as interstitial frames before a game, after a level change, or when a game is over," according to the AdSense blog.
FULL ARTICLE
Google's long-anticipated AdSense for Games has finally gone into beta.
Casual games publishers can display video, image and text ads in their online offerings. They can also define placements "such as interstitial frames before a game, after a level change, or when a game is over," according to the AdSense blog.
FULL ARTICLE
Friday, October 3, 2008
CMO Budgets Shrink, Shift Even More to Digital
This article distributed by Marketing Vox proclaims surveyed CMOs have less to spend but continue to shift more to digital.
A Quote...
"To offset budget cuts, CMOs are shifting to more targeted and measurable marketing strategies. When asked how their firm determines target market for each channel, 50 percent said they use data-driven marketing techniques: 31 percent stated they use sophisticated modeling tools to analyze existing customer data (behavioral, preference and demographic) and 19 percent said that they analyze past purchase behavior. In contrast, 28 percent said they made rough estimates based on past experience."
In summary - segmented, targeted audience(s), objective oriented creative driving conversion and lastly engaging online experience retaining the segmented audiences).
Advertising agencies examine the market data and conclude growth will come from expanding digital capabilities not only in analytical opportunities, but also through the online experience (creative executed through cutting edge flash, animated environments, etc.) that lead the audience through to the conversion, however it is defined.
FULL ARTICLE HERE
A Quote...
"To offset budget cuts, CMOs are shifting to more targeted and measurable marketing strategies. When asked how their firm determines target market for each channel, 50 percent said they use data-driven marketing techniques: 31 percent stated they use sophisticated modeling tools to analyze existing customer data (behavioral, preference and demographic) and 19 percent said that they analyze past purchase behavior. In contrast, 28 percent said they made rough estimates based on past experience."
In summary - segmented, targeted audience(s), objective oriented creative driving conversion and lastly engaging online experience retaining the segmented audiences).
Advertising agencies examine the market data and conclude growth will come from expanding digital capabilities not only in analytical opportunities, but also through the online experience (creative executed through cutting edge flash, animated environments, etc.) that lead the audience through to the conversion, however it is defined.
FULL ARTICLE HERE
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