• ONLINE SPIN
    The Natural: The Misunderstood Timing of the Internet
    Just last week Joe Klein, one of Washington’s most notorious journalists, published his second book about Bill Clinton, titled "The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton." So what does that have to do with The Misunderstood Timing of the Internet? Well, perhaps both the Clinton presidency and the Internet have been similarly misunderstood in a parallel universe kind of way.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    No Clean Sweep
    No one, and I mean NO ONE who works in advertising, and particularly media, thinks sweeps is a good idea. Sweeps in broadcast is the most lame-brained scam still in practice in advertising. Sweeps in online is an even DUMBER idea.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Email Guiding Principles – Comply or Perish
    Last week, we discussed two ways we might go about cleaning up the email marketing industry. The first way was through industry-wide adoption of “Rules of Engagement” for marketers. The second way, which is the subject of this week’s column, is a certification program for email marketers.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Difference Between Discretion and Dishonesty
    It’s a perfectly natural and acceptable practice to have media people keep client secrets. Businesses wouldn’t work without it. But there comes a point when the web of non-disclosures gets so deep and entangled that the industry has a difficult time cleaning house.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Broadband Wants, Narrow Needs
    There once was a time when you couldn’t read any trade publication without coming across it. You couldn’t attend any conference or go to an industry shindig without hearing about it. What folks were reading about, writing about, and talking about was Broadband. Broadband was the panacea for all of what was wrong with the way online was going. Banners and tiles and other forms of flat-format creative were no longer capable of delivering on the early promises of response-driven advertising on the Web and something had to be done if the Web was going to become, and remain, a …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Getting Email Back on Track
    A few weeks back, I wrote a column about some of the things I would do if I were president of the IAB. I recommended creating a certification program for email marketers and defining rules of engagement for marketers who want to reach consumers via the Internet. Both of these recommendations caused a bit of a stir among online advertising professionals, and I wanted to discuss exploring these two initiatives a bit further in this week’s Online Spin.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Are We Too Skeptical?
    According to the one and only Yogi Berra, if you come to a fork in the road, take it. Wise words, especially when placed against a new piece of research, released a few weeks ago. Commissioned by MSN, endorsed by the IAB and ARF and held together by a client and brand that you might have heard of: Unilever and Dove.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Illegal Practices
    I think it’s probably a good thing that the average marketer doesn’t have a law degree, but it would definitely come in handy sometimes. There are a lot of things that an advertising company can’t do legally that it will sometimes try to get its ad agency to do for it. Media buyers can unwittingly become dupes for sleazy business practices.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Getting in the Stream
    What does the streaming media segment of the industry need to do to get advertisers to seriously consider streaming media when putting together media and marketing plans?
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Is There A Real Ad Opportunity In Video Games?
    The experimentation with alternative media during the dot-com explosion reinforced a fundamental tenet of advertising that we should always keep in mind: Ad dollars follow eyeballs. Why then are we slow to capitalize on ad opportunities within a medium that reaches more than half of all Americans? I’m talking about video games.
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