• Media Metrics: The Next-Next Generation of Extensions
    The Internet is a viable revenue-generating platform for programmers, marketers, brands, and agencies alike. The question that strategists and researchers are asking themselves these days is: What now? And if they aren't, they ought to be.
  • Media Metrics: One Medium at a Time
    American consumers have a dizzying amount of things to do, both at and away from home. But contrary to what marketers might assume, people aren’t always multitasking their way through each day as they make their individual media choices, according to preliminary data from Mediamark Research Inc. (MRI). The data are derived from MRI’s first-ever survey to reveal when consumers use media, where they are when they use it, what else they are doing at the time, and how focused they are on a particular medium. Dubbed MediaDay, the complete survey results won’t be available until later …
  • The New Next: Are All Ads Spam?
    Definition of "spam," via Google: to indiscriminately send unsolicited, unwanted, irrelevant, or inappropriate messages, especially commercial advertising in mass quantities. In the digital mediascape that is rapidly emerging, all interruption advertising will come to be regarded as spam. Unsolicited communication will increasingly be screened out as channels blur into one another, allowing the control that users wield over their online experience to spread across other media.
  • Taking Measure: Follow the Buzz to Market
    Buzz marketing is getting a lot of buzz these days. Marketers in search of alternatives to a TV-centric marketing plan are experimenting with a wide range of tactics that broadly fall into this category, including viral, stealth, word-of-mouth, blogging, and guerrilla marketing. These are just a few of the approaches that are being deployed to get consumers to "pass along" information and endorsement.
  • Column: Targeting -- Taking Aim at Vacations
    Tired? need a vacation? Italians take 42 days off every year, according to the World Tourism Organization. The French take 37; Germans take 35. The British and our Canadian friends take 28 and 26 days, respectively. The hard-working Koreans and Japanese take 25 days each. You and I here in the United States take just 13 days! No wonder we want to get away from it all. Where do we go? Roper Starch reported that 11 percent of Americans like to stay home and relax on their vacations. Another 27 percent like relaxing, but prefer doing it …
  • Column: Aperture -- Some Are Summering
    Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, the days of soda and pretzels and beer… Hey, wait a minute — where are you reading this article? We know where we are as we write it: in our office, looking at the sunny day outside our window. Chances are you’re in your office too, or perhaps on your daily commute. Indeed, that’s where we’re likely to find most of the U.S. adult population during the dog days of August. The days of extended summer vacations are largely enjoyed by the young. And while vacations are often …
  • Gestalt: Advertisers as Publishers
    Take heed, young single men, before you go out on the town. No, this is not a lecture on safe sex. It's a reminder to shave! Don't be a "Stubble Boy"! Or so advises noscruf.org. A video shows a lovely young woman who, after scratching herself on the stubble of a lazy date once too often, declares him "Stubble Boy" and asks him to picture a world where all women refuse to shave. You can imagine where the date goes from there.
  • Column: Integrated -- Patience Is (Still) a Virtue
    In New York, August means one thing: hot. And not just hot, but sticky, stinky, humidity-you-can-swim-through hot. It changes the city. Some people skip town. Many stay and try to live their everyday New York lives. But we can’t: When it’s 99 degrees in the shade and just walking outside means sweating through clothes, something happens to New Yorkers. We begin to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n. No need to run for the subway when another one is coming. Nobody is sprinting to meetings; some days we can barely walk. And something happens when we can take our time: We …
  • Consumer: One Hand Clapping
    One of my partners walked into the office the other morning carrying his usual cup of coffee (the best in town, allegedly) in its usual paper bag. On this particular morning, though, the bag was blue, with prominent Continental Airlines branding, which had the unfortunate effect of making it look like an airplane sick bag. Not the nicest imagery to attach to your morning repast.
  • Column: Deconstruction -- Switch On Summer
    Earlier this summer, I had a conversation with my sister and her friends, who are teachers. They were sharing their enthusiasm for summer — their annual season of freedom from work. Somewhere between the cackles of laughter and anticipation of their upcoming Jamaican vacation, I drifted off. Where is my freedom from insights and strategies, ideas and innovation? Each year planning season gets more intense, as more clients embrace contextual planning. Good for business, but bad for what used to be called my personal life during planning season, which happens to fall in the summer. …
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