Media agencies, public relations firms, and data outfits all track media hits on behalf of clients. But as more advertisers need to track product placement and sponsorship as well, Multivision Inc., a broadcast monitoring service, is hoping to help  and to snag business from Video Monitoring Services, its chief competitor, along the way. The California-based Multivision analyzes near-real-time broadcast intelligence, as well as public opinion. How? Brent Bamberger, vice president of marketing, says Multi-vision's Digital Showroom 3.0 not only monitors hits, but also measures and automatically provides reports on "tonality," whether positive, negative, or neutral. While this factor is …

As a member of the elusive early-20s college target, I know that marketers have been trying to crack my code for years. Here's one clue: I once bought an overpriced lip gloss based on a friend's suggestion. After querying my friends about effective marketing to Gen Yers, I have some tips to pass on to advertisers.>>Reality check: In an age of hyperbole, we want something that's real -- ads that speak to us on a personal level, like the Keds "Cool" campaign and Dove's "Real Beauty" ads. And although sexual content can be appealing, try to keep it …

When Jen Lang goes shopping, she likes to "just go all out," a phrase that pops up fairly often in her 18-year-old lexicon. On a late summer afternoon, Jen, a tall, thin, strawberry blonde, radiates an appealing energy as she navigates her way through the Cherry Hill Mall in Cherry Hill, N.J. She shops here or The King of Prussia Mall, both near her home in southern New Jersey, at least once a week to check out stores like Pac Sun and Forever 21. Jen admits to being nervous about leaving for college (Chestnut Hill, in suburban Philadelphia) in …

Digital meets print as The New York Times Co. grapples with the integration of its newspaper and online operations. Mark Glaser reports. When The New York Times executive editor Bill Keller and senior vice president of digital operations Martin Nisenholtz issued a staff memo on Aug. 2 about integrating the print and online newsrooms, there was no mistaking the rationale for the internal merger: "Our readers are moving, and so are we." As nytimes.com's audience has surpassed print circulation, reaching more than 11 million people per month, the New York Times Company is trying to inject digital …

Have we reached the limits to time and space? When people spend 96 percent of their waking day with media, is there any room for growth? The answer: maybe. Joe Mandese reports. A couple of years ago, when satellite TV company DirecTV broke into the broadband Internet marketplace, it ran a clever, eye-catching TV commercial. The ad, called "The End" and created by Deutsch LA, showed an average Joe sitting in front of his PC surfing the Web, when the screen suddenly prompts him with a startling message: "Congratulations, you've reached the end of the Internet. You have seen …

Some years ago, when big media shops began dabbling with optimizers, I asked media guru Erwin Ephron why agencies needed high-powered computers to do what media buyers and planners had always done. His reply: "There are too many options for a human being to process." When I asked him how many options there were, he said, "Let me think about that. I'll get back to you." Several days later, and after consulting with a mathematician friend of his, Ephron came back with a number that astounded me: "The number of options is 1.125, followed by 12 zeros." For those …

Until recently, paid media operated in splendid isolation from the outside world. It was a fair-weather form of communication designed to shine a positive light on advertisers, under conditions that were business as usual. But in recent years, crises that left consumers feeling vulnerable and uncertain have repeatedly intruded on marketing relationships. With reality banging on the door, it's time to consider what to do when business is not as usual. To get a handle on this issue, we need to distinguish between endogenous and exogenous crises. Endogenous crises arise from within a specific company or industry and have …

Are purveyors of branded entertainment the new "hidden persuaders"? On the cover of the 1971 paperback edition (42nd printing) of Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders, a juicy red apple dangles from a giant fish-hook. The image says it all, but just in case, the back cover copy drives Packard's thesis home: "This book tells why your children like cereals that crackle and crunch...why men think of a mistress when they see a convertible in a show window...why men wouldn't give up shaving even if they could." Packard was a pop sociologist, the '60s version of today's Malcolm …

Ah, our beautiful state parks: Birds a-warblin', brooks a-babblin', suns a-settin'. Oh, and hard drives a-whirrin'. Beg your pardon? California, Michigan, and Texas, among other states, have tapped wireless behemoths like SBC to equip many of their parks with Wi-Fi hookups. Whereas nature aficionados used to have to make do with a compass and waterproof matches, they can now use their laptops to access weather forecasts, emergency alerts, and online poker sites. Though some might squawk that technology has invaded one of the modern world's few remaining sanctuaries, a California State Parks spokesperson says reaction …

Soon there will come a day when we will sit back on our collective couches and reminisce about the time when our trusty television remote controls were used simply to change the channel. Because in the very near future, the remote control will take on a whole new role in the lives of the American consumer, thanks to the ever-expanding world of television commerce. Advances in technology will soon allow lazy consumers to use their remote controls to purchase items featured on television without picking up the phone or surfing the Net. Abbreviated as t-commerce, this new frontier in …