Ad Age
Lee Clow, global director of media arts at TBWA Worldwide, told the 4As Leadership Conference that the Web has bright future in telling brands' stories, but that as yet, the medium has not lived up to its branding potential. "Online advertising is still semi-nowhere," he said. "It's very intrusive and annoying and kind of the worst of our business in terms of pop-up and flash, and jump up and down." But Clow believes that, "with bandwidth and with some ability, (online branding) is going to become more artful; it's going to become more interesting...but it's going to take creative …
Ad Age
Now that consumer packaged goods marketers have seen the branding potential of search, they've been presented with a new problem: the search model wasn't really set up for them. CPGs want their brands to be everywhere; as such, they're in the business of scale buying. But Google, Yahoo, MSN and the rest don't sell ads buy volume, they do so on a one-to-one basis. That means that if CPG players start buying more search ads, they're competitors most likely will, too, driving the price for related keywords upwards. Ad Age asks, "whether Google, its newfound ally Yahoo and their …
The Hollywood Reporter
Viral marketing for movies on the Web has gone positively bubonic in the run-up to the summer blockbuster season. A bunch of movies, from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" to "The Dark Knight," and "Hancock" have deployed intricate viral marketing campaigns to lure die-hard fans into engaging with these films prior to their summer release. We're not talking about word-of-mouth marketing, but rather, intricate puzzles and quests involving movie characters and locales that you can only find out about by communicating with your friends and work colleagues. For example, one of Warner Bros.' thirty "Dark Knight"-related Web sites provided clues pointing …
Marketwatch
If, as expected, the Microsoft-Yahoo dispute turns into a proxy battle, Yahoo believes it's well positioned to win the war. Yahoo's investor relations team tells analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies Associates that Yahoo can drum up enough support to beat back Microsoft's challenge. The company already has the support of co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo, who own 10% of outstanding shares, as well as the two investment arms of Capital Research and Management Co., which together own 16.5%. Legg Mason, 7%, is the fourth major shareholder that Yahoo believes is in its corner. If so, Yahoo would …
The Wall Street Journal
Microsoft's latest move in the Yahoo saga is "imminent" according to The Wall Street Journal. "Imminent" as in possibly today. One option Microsoft has is nominating a slate of directors to replace Yahoo's board. TechCrunch says it knows 8 of Microsoft's 12 proposed replacements, which includes former Fox Interactive Media chief Ross Levinsohn. The Journal says the software giant has now selected 10 nominees and three alternates, as Yahoo's poison-pill anti-takeover maneuver requires that Microsoft completely remove its board. Nominating a board slate also buys Microsoft time to either scale back or walk away from its $42 billion bid, or …
CNET News.com
Fortune
D: All Things Digital
San Jose Mercury News
The "R" word may be looming over America's economy, but Internet commerce continues to grow apace, and Google's chief economist and several analysts, speaking at a forum on the state of the Web economy, believe it will continue to defy broader economic trends. During the conference, Ed Garrubbo, chairman of the Electronic Retailing Association, reported that while the overall economy tanked, online sales jumped 17% in the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, e-commerce has grown 22% in the past two years. "The lesson here is that the economic slowdown is not an Internet slowdown," said Hal Varian, Google's …
Ars Technica
Skype, still eBay's (although nobody knows why) voice over Internet Protocol service, announced recently that it had begun testing a version of its software for the 50 most popular mobile phones capable of running Java. The beta software runs on phones from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. Does this mean that free VoIP calling from your mobile phone is finally reality? Um, no, says Ars Technica, not quite. The beta software provides basic Skype stuff, like chat, online friends lists and the ability to make and receive Skype calls. However, this does not mean that you download software …