• ONLINE SPIN
    Is Your Company The Marketing?
    In my experience as a marketer at a few leading interactive-marketing and measurement companies, in-house PR and marketing is almost always the best way to go. But the dichotomy of in-house versus out-house prevents an even higher calling, a greater evolution of marketing within the enterprise. What higher calling? On a pragmatic level, why not strategically view your entire company as your marketing team? Why limit imagination and opportunity through silos and top-down departmental power structures?
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Numbers Don't Lie: TV Program Loyalty Has Changed
    For the past three months we have had a team of data analysts, behavioral biologists, and statisticians using TNS Media Research's InfoSys TV system to analyze anonymous, aggregated set-top-box data records representing recent viewing histories of approximately 350,000 households in the Los Angeles market to better understand how people watch television. The insights we've been able to glean already have been pretty extraordinary, but one really stands out: Television viewers watch significantly fewer episodes of each program that we had anticipated. Program loyalty is the exception, not the rule.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Real Emotional Connection In 60 Seconds: Liberty Mutual
    Television is typically referred to as the strongest medium for brand development because video offers the triple threat of sight, sound and motion, but what's truly most important is how a brand uses these three components to create an emotional connection. That's never an easy task; but the most recent Liberty Mutual insurance ads might be the best example of an effective emotional connection in a campaign that I've seen in a long time.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Report Claims Social Media Fails As Marketing Medium -- I Claim Bullshit
    Last week MediaPost's own Joe Mandese (I know, he has a great name, but we are not the same person) wrote an article on new research released by Knowledge Networks. According to the study, social media, like Twitter and Facebook, are poor marketing mediums. I beg to differ...
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Things Suck
    You can't deny it: The word "suck" has gone mainstream. Its growth has been especially obvious in online media, but also in personal interactions, in business and with friends. The slang has been used for decades in conversation, but its usage in formal and written contexts seems to have exploded in recent years, especially in news publications. I'm sure the conversational nature of social and online media, coupled with a desire among people to appear young and hip, have fueled this trend. To be sure, the word is pithy, assertive and irreplaceable.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Problem with Planning Social Media (No Problem)
    If you were engaged with digital media planning early in the continuum, say from 1995-2000, you regularly heard the phrase, "building the plane while flying it." That cliché was used commonly to describe the exhilaration and similarly the frustration of media planning in an environment that was un-tested, un-standardized and extremely fluid when compared to its traditional brethren. The same thing can be said for social media planning right now, because social media is somewhat tested, infinitely un-standardized and extremely fluid.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Twitter Search Will Be Powerful
    I landed in Los Angeles Sunday night after more than six hours of travel. When I got off the plane, I heard people at the airport talking about an earthquake that had happened earlier in the evening, but no one knew any details. When I got in my taxi, I immediately went to Google on my BlackBerry and searched "earthquake LA" -- to which Google gave me instant access to all the world's information on earthquakes having to do with L.A. Then I ran another search, this time on http://search.twitter.com. Same query, "earthquake LA," but with much different results. Now …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Buyer and Seller As Caricature
    As I write, I am on one of my favorite journeys -- traveling to a twice-yearly gathering of digital media executives, a massive assembly of agency and publisher folk. This time, we will in fact dig directly into the theme of driving greater understanding between buyers and sellers. However, because this conversation is recurring and fueled by the natural tension around inherent stereotypes, I cannot help but wonder: What is required beyond provocative, thoughtful conversation in order to move us all up to a higher plane once and for all?
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Golden Age Of Journalism Never Was
    News institutions face radical headwinds and collapsing business models. Not surprisingly, many are quick to cry foul over change while reminiscing about the good times past. "Kiss goodbye the golden age of journalism," the cliché goes. People and their livelihoods are in question, so that's a natural, if protectionist, reaction. But was there ever a golden age of journalism? No.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Nationalizing Ad Budgets
    Yes, I think that we are going to see a number of substantial ad budgets "nationalized" over the next two years. No. I'm not referring to a new TARP program, but to another story reported this week: that a number of Burger King store owners are suing Burger King and Coca-Cola to prevent them from reallocating their syrup rebate funds from local promotion efforts, and instead use them to support a national advertising push for the Burger King brand.
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