Garret Ohm's Blog-o-Marketing

Another Quick Update

2009-09-01T20:02:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Things are still going really well over at The Sutter Group, the marketing firm based in Lanham, Maryland that I've been with for nearly a year. I'm really enjoying working there as marketing director, and am still blogging at sutter-group.com (or http://www.sutter-group.com/blog for a direct link).

I wanted to also let you know that I'm writing over at Examiner.com as a National correspondent for automotive marketing. There I cover all aspects of automotive marketing such as advertising campaigns, social media efforts, events, unveilings, e-learning and web-based training, interactive and more.

Please feel free to follow me there and join in on the conversation! Here's the LINK.

You can also find me at these links:

Twitter
Twitter (Sutter Group)
Facebook

My New Home

2009-04-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

Hi folks - It has been a while since I've updated, but I've been way busy with my new gig. Rather than keep two blogs, I've been focusing on keeping the main one over at my work going strong.

For those of you that don't know, I started in January with a Maryland-based communications design firm called The Sutter Group. I'm really happy to be with the company both because they do quite a lot of work in the automotive industry, but also because they are on the cutting edge of interactive technologies. We still do traditional advertising and a great deal of brand development and identity design, but much of our clients' budgets have been focused on the digital medium.

You can feel free to check them out at http://www.sutter-group.com and follow them on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/suttergroup. Or you can stop by - we're only minutes outside of Washington, DC.

AND OF COURSE, please check out the blog I keep over at http://www.sutter-group.com/blog.

Thanks,

Garret Ohm

Blogging Education...

2008-04-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been getting a great education on different blogging tools. I started with a blog for my previous agency, then established my own personal account both here on blogger. Then, when I joined Orange Element, I started a blog on Squarespace.

Well, Squarespace hasn't been working out because it doesn't seem to perform well in search--and search is crucial for us as a design and visual communications firm that needs to be able to be found by qualified prospects.

So, now I'm working on a version of Wordpress.org for Orange Element, which you can find here: www.orange-blog.com. It's still in development and we're working on getting the bugs out, but I invite you to go check it out if you're reading this....

More later!

Garret

Catching Up

2008-04-09T18:30:00.001-07:00

Hi all - Just checkin' in.

Have you been following me on Orange Element's blog lately? If not, you should be - I think it's shaping up to be a pretty good one. We cover all types of things - fun shop stuff, design and communications news, insights, from Maryland and beyond.

I'm just sitting here watching American Idol Gives Back - a pretty amazing show. Although my wife and I give to a bunch of charities (and the homeless in Baltimore City), we were definitely compelled to give. I hope you'll do the same. All you have to do is click: http://www.americanidol.com/idolgivesback/howtodonate/.

I'm really excited because tomorrow is the Advertising Association of Baltimore's Addy Awards show. It's where the best and brightest of the Maryland advertising / design / communications / marketing come together to celebrate great work. Orange Element is slated to receive 5 awards tomorrow. I'll post an update on Friday on Orange Element's blog. Check it out then.

Oh, and have you been following me on Twitter? It's a great new social media tool that is a microblog of sorts. It's really quick (less than 140 characters) updates that let everyone know "what's up." You can find my Twitter site here: http://twitter.com/GarretOhm

Oh, and here's a great picture of my dog:

More later.

-Garret Ohm

Orange Element is Growing.

2008-03-03T06:57:00.001-08:00

Hi all - Check out Baltimore design + communications firm Orange Element's blog over at www.orange-element.com/blog (a.k.a http://orange-element.squarespace.com) for details about the positions that have just opened up.

Thanks!

Garret

Update to Orange Element Blog

2008-02-23T11:28:00.000-08:00

Hi All -

Just an update to my last post about the Orange Element Design + Communications Blog called Orange Element Insights. We recently finished the design of the site and have added tons more posts containing marketing, design, advertising, interactive and random thoughts from the world of communications--both from Baltimore, Maryland and beyond.

And, there's a new link! Visit us here at www.orange-element.com/blog.

More later!

Garret Ohm

Orange Element Blog

2008-02-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

Hi all - My apologies for the noted lack of posts on this blog. I have recently joined the team at Orange Element and have been keeping a similar blog over there. It focuses on all the great things going on in the marketing, advertising and design world both locally in Maryland and around the world. We also touch on a lot of the great things going on at Orange Element.

Please come visit me over there: http://orange-element.squarespace.com/

For those wondering, Orange Element is a design + communications firm based in Baltimore. We focus on forging strong connections between company and consumer through well executed brands.

Our services include branding and identity, brand strategy and development, Web design and interactive, advertising, environmental graphics and more. Our clients include major corporations like Comcast, T. Rowe Price, Citifinancial, Amnesty International, but at eight people, we also work with quite a few smaller companies as well.

Hope to see you over at Orange Element's blog!

Garret Ohm

Great Marketing Strategy By Nissan

2007-08-20T07:30:00.001-07:00

Nissan North America, I think, has hit one out of the park with this one. The article I will link to below from MediaPost, describes Nissan North America's efforts to 'sponsor' a whole city. It's akin to how Coke & Pepsi have long worked to establish relationships with higher education institutions so that only their products are carried there. It's actually a part of Clear Channel Outdoors' "Branded Cities" arm. Read more about Branded Cities by clicking HERE.

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=65964&Nid=33422&p=320064

I like this strategy because it really gives them an opportunity to focus on innovative ways to integrate the Nissan brand into the culture and daily life of the city. It might be tough for, say, a Subaru brand loyalist that comes into town, but I think if they did it right, it could really create a soft spot for the Nissan brand for many people.

Kudos, Nissan.

Garret

Branding is Everywhere

2007-07-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

Branding is everywhere. Check it out:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2007-07-26-burger-chips_N.htm?csp=34

Yum - I wonder if they'll be available for sale at Burger Kings near me? I might be heading to the BK here in Annapolis, Maryland to check it out. It has to be the lesser of two evils, right? Right???

Cool package design, too!

Garret

MORE Viral Marketing for The Simpsons Movie

2007-07-27T12:35:00.001-07:00

Hi all -

By now, most of you have heard that The Simpsons are coming out with a new movie very soon. I say that because it's one of the best marketed movies that I've seen in recent memory. Everywhere you look, there's The Simpsons. You all read my post recently about how a number of 7-11 stores, including one in Maryland had turned into The Simpsons Kwik-e-Marts. If you haven't go HERE. Then, shortly after that, I saw huge banner ads taking over Myspace.com promoting the movie. Then, I went to see a flic at Muvico, and saw a ginormous Simpsons donut in the theater.

Now, I received an email from one of my friends that directed me to the www.simpsonizeme.com Micro site. This thing is awesome. It lets you upload a picture of yourself and in a few minutes it spits back an image of your likeness, animated to look like a Simpsons character.

Now that's brandertainment! Here's how my picture turned out:

Pretty sweet, huh? ; )

SWEET!

2007-07-27T07:18:00.000-07:00

I thought it might be a good idea to pass along Ad Age's latest poll to try and get more consumers to respond. You know how we love market research.... Here you go: BACKGROUND: Eleven major food marketers have now pledged to curb or eliminate marketing aimed at children. Among the promises: Coca-Cola and Hershey won't aim advertising at kids younger than 12. Mars/Masterfoods won't advertise any of its candies to kids but might at some point advertise its better-for-you snacks. PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Kellogg, General Mills, McDonald's, Unilever and Campbell Soup will limit all their marketing of food to children younger than 12 to more healthy foods. Yet past attempts at better-for-you offerings haven't flown off the shelves.

THIS WEEK'S POLL QUESTION: If food marketers follow through on their promise to shift ad dollars to support more-healthful options, will there be a corresponding uptick in sales? VOTE & COMMENT for possible publication in next week's 'Advertising Age' at http://adage.com/poll?poll_id=79

Boomers Unload Their Stuff Online

2007-07-27T06:42:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

Read this from the Center for Media Research earlier today and thought I'd post it. Good consumer research on baby boomers....

Previous White Collar Boomers Dominate Used Bookselling Online

According to an extensive poll of used booksellers in the U.S. by AbeBooks.com, it is the ‘Baby Boomer' generation who are committed to extending used bookselling businesses deeper into cyberspace, the world's largest online marketplace for new, used, rare and out-of-print books.

Online bookselling has only existed since the mid-1990s, says the report, and the research shows how the profession appeals to entrepreneurial "Silver Surfers." The poll also says that long working hours and knowledge of technology are key aspects of the job.

Key findings include:

79% of Online booksellers are aged over 45 - more than half have a degree or a higher qualification

Most sellers had left white-collar careers to become booksellers. The most common previous professions were jobs in teaching, libraries, sales, and m anagement

11% work between 51 and 60 hours per week, and 9% are working more than 60 hours a week with the online cataloging of books being the most time-consuming task

25% will increase their online book inventory by between 10% and 25% in 2007

21% plan to launch their own e-commerce website

Sellers acquire books through a large number of sources, many of which require time on the road, including library sales, estate sales, private sales, and auctions. 26% had traveled up to 100 miles to buy a book and 9% had gone abroad to buy books

Many sellers also sell through other online marketplaces and 74% had set up their Internet selling operation without outside IT assistance

60% of sellers polled operate purely online. The others had bookstores or showrooms

64% of the sellers offer mostly out-of-print books and most specialize in a number of genres. History, fiction and children's books are the most common

68% list falling book prices as their biggest fear for the future but 38% are also concerned that fewer young people are reading books now

Despite their long working hours, 33% read between five and 10 books per month

Hannes Blum, CEO of AbeBooks.com, says "...this profession... requires dedication to build up an online inventory of books and considerable effort to find books ideal for the Internet. ... (More than 8,000 booksellers from the US currently)... offer over 100 million books through AbeBooks that could expand to 120 million by the end of 2008..."

Find more about this study here.

Are You Listening, Electronics Retailers?

2007-07-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

From The Center for Media Research....very good article, and interesting information. We don't currently have any electronics retailer customers, but I'm working on that!

Consumers Spend More on Electronics if Studied First on Web

According to new research from Yahoo! and ChannelForce, consumers who search online for televisions and digital cameras spend ten percent more when making their purchase in-store than those who did not use a search engine. The survey also found that a vast majority research products online prior to making in-store purchases, and that online research is helping consumers make key purchasing decisions before they enter a store.

Key findings include:

Seventy five percent who researched their purchases before visiting a retail location used the Internet as their primary source of information. The leading online resources were retail Web sites (73 percent), manufacturer websites (68 percent) and search engines (49 percent).

Those who search spend an average of $31 more on digital cameras and $46 more on digital camera packages; and an average of $139 more on TVs and $190 on TV packages.

More than 80 percent of consumers who research before making a purchase end up buying a brand from their original consideration set. The remaining 20 percent said the in-store sales person was highly influential in their decision.

About 75 percent of people did not know the model they wanted when they walked into a retail store.

David Rubinstein, senior director, Yahoo! Search Marketing, says "This study confirms and quantifies that a more informed consumer is a more valuable consumer... "

Kurt Higgins, president, ChannelForce, noted "... the brand experience begins well before the shopper walks into the store, and this study confirms how critical the in-store experience is to the consumer's decision..."

Carbon Neutral Printing

2007-07-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to give a quick "shout out" to one of the printers that we call on regularly, Mosaic.

I just got a note from them in the mail that they are now CARBON NEUTRAL. This is a huge step forward in printing, and they deserve some recognition for their efforts. What does Carbon Neutral mean, you ask? It means that they do their part to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to the point where they are eliminating as much as they are producing.

Through use of wind power, participation with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), reforestation programs, waterless printing and solvent and materials recycling, they have become one of the most environmentally friendly printers in the country. That's a big accomplishment. Oh, and for those that don't think an environmentally conscious printer is important, consider this - in printing the note they sent me and their other customers in the mail, their environmentally friendly methods saved the following resources:

6 trees
18 lbs of water-born waste not created
2,589 gallons wastewater flow saved
287 lbs solid waste not generated
564 lbs net greenhouse gases prevented
4,318,000 BTUs of energy not consumed
293 lbs air emissions not generated
697 cubic feet natural gas unused

All this is the equivalent to planting 20 trees or not driving 318 miles....

We're proud to work with Mosaic to print our clients' marketing materials, and we look forward to doing so for a long time to come. If you're interested in doing business with Mosaic, please call Tim Keagy at 301-927-3800 or email him TKEAGY at mosaicprint.com.

Here's their Web site: www.mosaicprint.com

Garret

Seniors Get Wired

2007-07-03T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a good article from today's Baltimore Sun - Christina found it online at www.baltimoresun.com. This article discusses technology use among people above 65 years old. For quite some time, many companies have been reluctant to pursue this group of people with new technologies such as the Internet and mobile devices. This article suggests that increasingly, seniors are jumping on board and consuming technology like their younger counterparts.

Check it out: http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-te.ha.seniors02jul02,0,5143046.story?coll=bal-technology-headlines

I wonder how many of the people lined up to buy the iPhone were over 65?

Garret

Reverse Product Placement

2007-07-03T06:11:00.000-07:00

Hi all - It's been a while - sorry about that. I know you all missed my musings, so here's one for you, and no it's not an iPhone blog. This story is very near and dear to my heart, because it involves one of my favorite televisions shows...ever. Now we're all familiar with product placement - and if you're not, and want to read more, read the blogs I wrote about it here.

But you've probably never heard of reverse product placement, which is something that has been brought to the forefront lately because of this story: http://wjz.com/topstories/topstories_story_183095840.html The Simpsons' new movie will be coming out in theaters around the country soon, and in preparation and to build the buzz, the movie company has struck a deal with 7-11 stores around the country to turn select stores into Kwik-e-marts (even one here in Maryland). Not only is it a great, fun idea, but it turns out it was funded entirely by the 7-11 chain, and didn't really even cost them anything, because they made profit on the Simpsons branded items in-store. Here's a picture of one of the stores:

Great move! Reverse product placement - it's here, and you'll be seeing more of it.

Garret

Funny Commercial

2007-06-13T18:00:00.001-07:00

I was watching the television the other day and I saw a funny commercial that I immediately had to "YouTube" to watch again. Here it is, with my commentary below:

I started to think about what the brief must have looked like when it was handed to the creative team. That's the 'ad dork' in me coming out. It probably said something pretty simple: Wendy's burgers are fresh, not frozen, like the "other guys." It's a pretty simple message - not very compelling in that form. The job of the agency was to make it dramatic.

Rather than focusing the concept on the actual chunk of frozen meat, the agency decided to dramatize instead the fact that Wendy's was bucking convention and doing things differently. The creatives used their right brain to come up with the silly idea that just because everyone else sits around kicking trees, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Once they conveyed that idea, they drove home their message, that Wendy's burgers are fresh. Makes me want one, what about you?

The bottom line is, this is one of those commercials that is both wildly entertaining, but also really does a great job of sending the right message. The customer gets what makes a Wendy's burger better than those "other guys" right away.

Kudos Wendy's.

Garret

My Thought For The Day...

2007-06-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

My thought for the day comes from one of the most prolific advertising professionals that has ever lived. Nobody in history has grasped the fundamentals of advertising like David Ogilvy.

"Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as military generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals."

Garret

One:One Marketing

2007-05-31T10:24:00.000-07:00

Hi all - My colleague Christina recently passed along a story she ran across on NPR about the up and coming marketing vehicle called Word of Mouth Marketing. It's actually been around since the dawn of time, but I call it up and coming because it is actually making its way into actual marketing plans now. Heck, there's even an association: The Word of Mouth Marketing Association! Here's the link to their Web site: www.womma.org.

Here's the article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10355723

And here's some Georgetown U students that were just "wordofmouthed!"

I think this is going to be a vital form of viral marketing, especially in an age where consumers are increasingly resistant to many forms of traditional advertising. What do you think?

Garret Ohm

Now That's Guts

2007-05-25T11:29:00.001-07:00

I always say that to create great marketing, you must have guts. You must be able to throw caution to the wind and forgo safety. Here's a great example.

Starting soon, Saturn will be stocking their showrooms with brand new Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys, two of America's best selling cars in history. Dealers there will offer free test drives of each of these cars, and allow consumers to compare them with the Saturn Aura to pick which one they like best.

THAT'S guts on the part of both their agency and their marketing department. For me the consumer, it sounds like Saturn is pretty darn sure their car can compete head-to-head and win. I'm SURE this move will sell lots of cars.

Full article HERE.

I Coined a New Word Today

2007-05-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Brand Defender O.k, it's two words.

Definition: Someone who is so fiercely brand loyal that they feel the need to constantly boast about how one brand is better than the other. This person is likely to get heated when they run into someone that doesn't share their brand preference.

Here's an example: Today I was going by the mail room at my office and saw that someone was sending their Netflix movie back in the outgoing mail. Me personally, I love Blockbuster Total Access. It's essentially the same as Netflix, but you have the option of returning and renting in store as well. It's Netflix, improved. I love it. I love it so much, I have become a brand evangelist, telling all about my love for the brand. But when I saw the Netflix envelope, my first reaction was to look in and see who it was so I could go ask them why the hell they weren't Blockbuster customers!!! I'm the same way with Subaru and Porsche...I am a brand defender (TM)!!!!!

I like to think that we have turned many a regular consumer into brand defenders over the last 19 years. We look forward to creating many more for years to come.

Garret

New Media Research on Online Video Ads

2007-05-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Just a quick recap of some consumer research that I just read from The Kelsey Group about the media consumption habits of consumers - pretty compelling stuff:

Nearly six in 10 Web users (59%) have watched online video ads

Of 296 respondents who had viewed a video ad:

43% said they then clicked on a Web site
22% requested more information
18% went to a store
15% made a purchase
11% forwarded the video to a friend
9% signed up for a product or trial
3% ordered a subscription
45% took no action

Good stuff - it just goes to show you that online video works. Why? Kelsey hypothesizes (and I agree wholeheartedly) it's because consumers who consciously click to view are motivated, and they are one click away from making contact or responding to the ad. Televisions viewers, on the other hand, are usually sitting on the couch and unlikely to make a move before they forget about the ads.

Here's one of the favorite online ads I've ever seen:

Garret

How Do YOU Feel About This? (Another gas gripe..)

2007-05-18T09:02:00.001-07:00

This is a huge issue for me. I own a car that makes a lot of its power by a turbo charger, which means that I have to put premium fuel in my car (for anyone curious, my pride and joy is pictured below). Right now, in Anne Arundel County Maryland, premium fuel is going for right around $3.50 a gallon. I was bitter. And then I read THIS article. Even more bitter.

Why then, did I also just read THIS? Now I'm not a genius, but it sounds to me like the oil companies are hitting it filthy rich while the rest of us Americans are pinching pennies to pay for our trip to work every day. It just doesn't seem like good PR. Now that some car companies are making high-powered hybrids, or at least have them in development, I'm seriously thinking about it.... Garret

Hey Kids, Stock Up On Cocaine Before It's All Gone....

2007-05-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

Did you guys see this? I knew it was coming, but I didn't know it would be front page news on most of the major networks.

I have to applaud their courage in coming up with a striking, somewhat polarizing name - I think it probably is a name that received a lot of attention and did (for better or for worse) resonate with the target audience. And it certainly makes a statement in a sea of energy drinks with hardcore names, although none are as hard as COCAINE: Monster, Amp, Vault, Jolt, Red Bull, Rockstar, etc...

But in the end, you had to know that the FDA was going to take issue with a product, marketed to the Nation's youth, with the same name of an illicit drug.

Here's the full story on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/diet.fitness/05/07/energy.drink.ap/

This just in - the new name: Angel Dust! Just kidding....

Garret

Flash Animation Intros....UGH

2007-05-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

Flash animation intros used to be the cool thing to do - back in the early 1990s when the Internet was invented. You'd see them everywhere, on sites from a law practice to a musical group. And, even though you'd see them everywhere, you still watched them until the very end because they were new and cool.

Times are different now. It's over a decade later, and the Internet has changed a bit. Everyone's using it, and they're not as patient as they used to be. Hungry for information, today's Internet user doesn't have time to sit and wait for Flash animation to load - especially a lame slide show that drags on for 30+ seconds and tells you nothing important. It's even worse if it's not programmed with a cookie and you have to be subjected to it EVERY time you come to a site.

I'm seeing too many of these lately, and as an Internet user (not a marketer) I'm sick of it. I started to wonder how many people in the year 2007 are watching Flash intro animations, and how many are hastily hitting the "skip intro" button. I did a little bit of secondary consumer research and found that Flash intro animations are among the top things that consumers hate most about Web sites. Another source says that the "skip intro" button may just be the most clicked button on the entire Internet.

So why are they still being used? WHY? My guess is that they're done by Internet chop shops that love to do these intricate designs to make some money. They're certainly not doing what's in their clients' best interest by making a site that will actually work. What they've created is one annoying Web site. Yuck.

I think as consumers, we should take a stand. I encourage you to send an email to the Webmaster or the management of the next Web site you see with an animated intro telling them just how annoyed you are by their flagrant use of Flash. Better yet, copy and past the URL of this blog into the email, and let this blog do the talking for you. It'll save you some time. And I KNOW how important your time is.

Thanks for reading,

Garret Ohm

Another Presidential Candidate Web 2.0 Whoopsie

2007-05-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

In scouring today's news I read Wendy Davis from Media Post's blog regarding presidential hopeful Barack Obama and the recent snafu surrounding his Myspace page.

Here's the article - thanks Wendy: http://blogs.mediapost.com/online_minute/?p=1494

In case you don't want to read it, or don't have time, here's the cliffs notes: Guy supports Obama. Guy makes a Myspace page devoted to Obama. Obama loves it. Obama page gets lots of hits and friends and has great support. Guy spends too much of his time on the site, keeping up with supporters. Guy wants a bit of compensation for his effort. Obama takes over the site. Guy is ticked. Guy gets no money. It's a great read, and yet another great example of why it pays to be in touch, even if you're America's next president. Shouldn't one of his staffers have started this page the minute he started on the campaign trail instead of a friend of Obama's?

Garret Ohm

Non-Traditional Retail Outlets

2007-04-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

Similar to my blog about the need for marketers to find new, non-traditional mediums (which, you can read HERE or maybe even HERE), I recently saw an article in the Maryland Daily Record written by Kathleen Jarboe that discusses the need for retailers to think of alternate sales channels to get it done these days. I wanted to pass it along, because it really illustrates a retailer thinking out of the box to connect on an even deeper level with its clients. Here's the article:

You’d need determination to find a copy of “A Gentleman Gets Dressed Up” at the Borders book store in Columbia. There are no aisles dedicated to Grooming. And the book is not on the tables of best sellers and new releases that greet shoppers at the entrance.

Instead, Borders sells the tome back in the Health and Diet section.

But down the road at Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, the book is showcased with colorful silk ties next to the cash register — just where men thinking about dressing well are likely to see it.

Sometimes a bookstore isn’t the best place to sell a book. And publishers are increasingly taking note.

“You’re going to start finding books where you wouldn’t have expected to before,” said Damon Goude, a publicist with publisher Thomas Nelson Inc. in Nashville.

Retailer Jos. A. Bank has purchased more than 8,000 copies of “A Gentleman Gets Dressed Up,” according to publishing house Thomas Nelson, and Brooks Brothers has bought at least 15,000 copies of a leather-bound edition of the book.

In comparison, traditional bookstores nationwide have only sold 4,000 of the same title since it was published in 2003, according to Nielsen BookScan.

An assistant manager at Jos. A. Bank says the book and others from the Gentleman series sell well during the holidays and as gifts. One customer bought each groomsman in his wedding party a copy of “How to Be a Gentleman.”
“If we relied on [traditional book] stores to carry it, it wouldn’t be alive anymore,” said David Leach, a national account manager for special sales at Thomas Nelson.

Jos. A. Bank also sells a book on grilling, a collection of Sudoku puzzles, a tome of quotes from sports legend Yogi Berra and several books of advice for fathers.

Men’s clothing chains aren’t alone in selling books to their customers.
Starbucks began selling novels last year. At home design shop Calico Corners in Fulton, you can pick up a book on decorating tips.

The Vitamin Shoppe hosts a lending library in stores and sells books, too. The health supplement chain has bought at least 125,000 copies of “Prescription for Natural Cures” for its stores, according to the book’s publisher, John Wiley & Sons Inc.

And, of course, there are even more stores selling books these days, from craft stores to home improvement centers. Williams-Sonoma has been selling books for years. But now they also sell their own books, featuring kitchenware in the store.

The “Williams-Sonoma Food Made Fast, Slow Cooker” title retails for $17.95. They also sell the All-Clad Deluxe Slow Cooker for $249.95.

“There truly is a customer for everything. You just have to make the match,” said Kim Hendrickson, associate director of special sales at Wiley.

Most major publishers have long had personnel dedicated to placing books outside of the traditional market of colleges, libraries, bookstores and online booksellers such as Amazon.com.

Beyond retail deals, the departments focus on selling books at traveling book fairs, gift stores, trade associations and even online via e-books.

Not all sales to retailers involve thousands of copies of books like the ones at The Vitamin Shoppe and Jos. A. Bank. Still, the potential for growth has caught the eye of upper management, especially as book sales have lagged.

Consumers bought 1 percent fewer books at bookstores in January 2007 than the previous January, according to the American Booksellers Association. January marked the seventh consecutive month that bookstore sales had lagged sales from the previous year.

“The bookstore market is flat,” Leach said. “We have to find another way to get the books out.”

The sales are still small compared to traditional bookstores. Leach of Thomas Nelson said traditional booksellers bring in three times more revenue than non-traditional shops.

But non-traditional booksellers have given life to titles that would once be collecting dust. Most of the special sales at publishing houses involve books that are more than a year old that might not be getting big marketing pushes anymore. While bookstores snap up new titles, non-traditional booksellers often want a title they can already see, touch and feel that might ring in good sales for the season.

Leach said Thomas Nelson would likely have stopped selling the Gentleman books by now if Brooks Brothers hadn’t kept buying them and requesting the publisher to put out new titles in the series.

At publishing house John Wiley & Sons, one of the best selling special sales books now is a title on making margaritas.

“[Non-traditional booksellers] are marketing to their demographic, who might not necessarily know about the book but are looking for the book,” said Francesca Minerva, director of special sales at New York-based publisher Rodale Inc.

Shoppin' For Mom's Day

2007-04-26T08:22:00.000-07:00

Good info from the Center for Media Research:

According to the National Retail Federation's 2007 Mother's Day Consumer Actions and Intentions survey, consumers plan to spend $15.73 billion This Mother's Day, spending an average of $139.14 on the holiday compared to last year's $122.16.

The study found 84.5% of consumers plan to celebrate this year by spending:

$1.6 billion on clothes and accessories (37.0%)

$2.1 billion on jewelry (32.8%)

$2.3 billion on flowers (72.4%)

$3.1 billion on a special dinner or brunch at their favorite restaurant (61.0%)

$1.3 billion on a trip to the spa or beauty salon (19.7%)

NRF President and CEO, Tracy Mullin, said "For mom, it's the thought that counts..."

Other popular gifts for the holiday are:

Greeting cards (86.8%)

Gift certificates (39.3%)

Books or CDs (29.3%)

Housewares or gardening tools (18.5%)

Consumer electronics or computer related accessories (11.3%)

Consumers intentions to purchase at various locations include:

37.5% will purchase at a specialty store, such as a florist, jeweler or electronics store

24.0% of consumers will shop at a discount store

29.0% will head to a department store

2.9% will buy from a catalog

20.0% of consumers will shop for mom online

Phil Rist, Vice President of Strategy at BIGresearch, who conducted the study, said "... consumers continue to spend on special, one-of-a-kind gifts for (mom)."

According to the findings, men plan to spend the most this Mother's Day, with the average male shopper planning to spend $172.91, compared to women's estimated $107.18.

Shoppers ages 25-34 will spend $151.42

35-44 year olds will spend $147.30

55-64 year olds: $138.14

18-24 year olds: $137.73

For more information, please visit the National Retail Federation here.

Health Providers Doing Things Differently

2007-04-19T07:48:00.000-07:00

Hi there -

As an agency that does a lot of healthcare marketing, we like to stay up on the trends in the industry. I've been hearing a lot about changes in the healthcare field, brought on by frustrations with the current system, but until last night, I hadn't been affected, nor had I seen real evidence of change. Then I received this letter from my primary care physician:

Dear Patients:

As many of you already know, I have been considering changing the way I practice medicine. Over the past decade, pressure from insurance companies and HMO's has grown intensely, resulting in less time for direct patient care, added referral-preauthorization requirements, and more restrictive medication formularies. The Doctor-Patient relationship has been trivialized. Health care delivery is laden with unnecessary delays and obstacles. We are all frustrated.

I have decided to break free of this system and cease participation in the present insurance environment. I invite you to join me in a new practic limited to a maximum of 600 patients, as opposed to the current 3,000+. This will enable me to provide personalized and comprehensive outpatient preventive healthcare. Appointments will be a half hour long, with same or next day access. The rush and interference of a larger practice will be eliminated, and it its place will be ample time to answer all your questions and meet all your needs. I will be on call twenty-four hours a day. Appropriate coverage would be arranged if I am on vacation or ill. My staff and I will deliver timely, caring, and comprehensive care. The Doctor-Patient relationship will return to what it used to be, a collaborative effort where the doctor is an advocate and a partner in achieving the greater good as opposed to a bureaucratic intermediary forced to make decisions based on formularies, regulations, and cost containment.

To achieve this goal of substantially fewer patients and more personalized service, there will be an annual professional fee of $1,300 paid annually, $1,400 paid semiannually, or $1,500 paid quarterly. Dependents and children younger than twenty-five years old will be half the adult fee. The annual will cover one comprehensive physical examination and associated routine lab work, outpatient sick visits for a year, routine immunizations (i.e. tetanus, flu and pneumonia), EKG's, and pulmonary function testing. Patients with all types of insurance can join, but this arrangement will not be a substitute for health insurance. I will not be able to write referrals for HMO's directly, but would facilitate obtaining them from a designated primary care provider.

If you are interested in investigating this exciting opportunity, please contact me as soon as possible by completing and returning the enclosed, nonbinding survey............

I was floored when I read this. Part of me was excited and intrigued that a doctor would care so much for patient care that he would be willing to take a chance like this. Another part of me was ticked that I probably wouldn't be able to pay that right now to stay with him. I think this kind of service should be marketed to the affluent - those that expect the best and can also pay for it. I'm sure he'll be able to keep a good amount of his patients.

As more health professionals go in this direction, I predict healthcare marketing and advertising will change. We're excited about the change, and hope many new client relationships ensue as a result. I invite any that are exploring a similar change to call us to discuss.

As for my doctor - I am going to give him a call and encourage him to talk with us about marketing this concept. It gives his brand incredible leverage and a USP that most don't have. It will also require an entirely different marketing strategy.

Best,

Garret Ohm

Scion Launching Branded TV Show

2007-04-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

Product placement is gaining even more momentum in the marketplace, it seems. I read an article today, written by Karl Greenberg of Media Post's Marketing Daily, about Scion, a division of Toyota Motor Company. It seems they are in talks with networks about launching a show branded by Scion that centers around hip-hop celebrities that travel to their old neighborhoods in Scions. Appropriately called "Stomping Grounds," the show is the brand's new appeal to the lucrative young urban market.

As you can see by this picture of a Scion, this car is perfect for this market:

I think it's going to be wildly successful.

By the way, if you're not receiving MediaPost's stuff, you should definitely go online and sign up: https://www.mediapost.com/?fa=r2c.check.

Garret

Easter is About More Than Candy?

2007-04-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

Ever since I can remember, Easter has been synonymous with candy. Baskets and baskets full. Based on this USA Today article that I recently read, it sounds like moms are wising up and realizing that chocolate bunnies and Marshmallow Peeps aren't all you can put in an Easter basket.

Here's the article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2007-04-05-easter-marketing-usat_N.htm?csp=34

I particularly like Hasbro's use of market research in the form of interviews with moms to realize that if promoted properly, board games could be a good alternative to candy. I really enjoyed their "Think outside the basket" campaign - I've seen it a few times on TV. Their research told them that Easter, the world's 3rd largest retail holiday, would be a great way to promote their products. While sitting around playing games isn't exactly a great workout, it is a step in the right direction to conquering childhood obesity.......But that's another story entirely. I'll leave that to the health bloggers.

Later!

Garret

GM Polling the Audience

2007-03-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

I've never been a huge General Motors fan (owned one, probably never again), but I really have to give them credit for their latest marketing move. In their first true foray into the minicar arena, GM has done something very interesting. Rather than relying on designers and engineers to pick the next GM micro-car, they've decided to poll the audience on a few of their design concepts.

The choices that will be voted on (3) will be presented to the public amid much fan fare at the New York International Auto Show. Then, they'll be prompted to visit the Web site at www.vote4chevrolet.com to cast their vote for their favorite. The car with the most votes at the end of the contest will be produced by GM.

I think it's a very cool idea - one that should produce a car that will sell. If they're smart, they'll poll people also on what they like and what they don't like about each design and use that feedback to take design cues from the 2nd place car and implement them as well. As long as they can keep it from making the car look like a hodge-podge, I think it might help increase sales of the new vehicle. They should also use this site to collect potential customer information (for upsell), but I'm sure they have already thought of that!

Here's a picture of one of the designs that GM released. It's called the Trax:

Garret

Not EVERYONE is Online at Home

2007-03-28T06:15:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

Here's an interesting bit of consumer research that I wanted to pass along that we pulled from Ad-Ology, one of the research services we subscribe to. These numbers are interesting, and they pose a lot of both challenges and opportunities to internet service providers and other companies associated with consumer internet use.

It seems that everyone is online these days - make that almost everyone. Parks Associates' recent study indicates that almost 1/3 of US homes, 29% aren't online. Contrary to popular belief, cost is not the issue. Here's why these US consumers say they don't want an Internet connection:

Not interested in what's online 44%
Not sure how to use the Internet 17%
Have Internet access at work 14%
Can't afford computer 14%
Can't afford service 8%
Not available for my home 3%

Whether you're working with computer software firms or training companies, the 17% of offline users who don't know how to access the Internet comprise market potential. And the consumers who say they're not interested in being online might be convinced otherwise by the right marketing campaign. The study indicates that 34% of consumers at the end of 2005 noted they had no interest in being online. Clearly, 5% were persuaded to change their minds as that number now stands at 29%.

Parks Associates research also indicates that broadband Internet users became the majority (52% of total user base) for the first time in 2006 and 4% of consumers plan to migrate from dial-up access to broadband access in the near future and an additional 2% of consumers intend to sign up for online service.

More juicy research coming at you later!

Garret

The Most Expensive PR Stunt - EVER

2007-03-27T07:46:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

Now I love a good PR stunt as much as anyone, but it hurt to watch this one unfold. As you know from reading my blog daily (right), I am a bit of a gear head/car lover. If you don't believe me, all you have to do is to look at all the cuts and cracks in my hands - or reference THIS blog post. So when I saw this video, I cringed.

What you're seeing is Eddie Griffin, actor and comedian, crashing a car that retails for over $1,500,000 as he promotes his upcoming movie Redline. And with a car like this, a little front end damage is unrepairable. The skin is made of carbon fiber, and much of the car's structure is composite. Did I mention they only made 400 of them? Ever.

Granted, this PR stunt drew news coverage all over the world, and will probably sell a few more DVDs and movie ticket stubs, but I doubt it will make up for the cost of the automobile. I'm willing to bet they didn't figure it into the budget!

Note to self: If we ever orchestrate a PR stunt for a client that involves a supercar, make sure there are NO WALLS ANYWHERE NEAR THE CAR. EVER.

Garret

Article on Media & Advertising Law

2007-03-19T13:46:00.001-07:00

Hi all -

This was written by a colleague of mine, Jim Astrachan, one of the partners at Astrachan Gunst Thomas, P.C. here in Baltimore. I thought it was very well written and relevant enough to pass along.

Enjoy:

http://www.agtlawyers.com/resources/articles/2007%20articles/create07.pdf

If you're an agency or an advertiser and are looking to hire a law firm, by all means, AGT is that firm. They are renowned for their knowledge in this area.

Garret

New Transit Advertising Technology

2007-03-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

Here's an article we found on NPR's Web site about a new technology being used to generate more transit advertising dollars. Here's the article:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8989580

It's a cool idea, and I think it will work. It will greatly increase the amount of impressions for each ad placement, and for right now, will have a pretty hardcore "cool" factor. Here's what it looks like:

My favorite part, though, is that it's a technology that was developed for military applications that's now filtering into everyday life.

More later,

Garret

Cool Mini-site...Droooooooooool

2007-03-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

I'm a huge fan of microsites. As a matter of fact, I'd like us to do more of them, so if anyone is interested in having us develop a microsite to promote something specific on the Web, give me a call - 410.280.4551.

Here's one that I found particularly interesting: 911 GT3 RS Microsite

Garret

Chiquita Whoopsie!

2007-03-15T06:44:00.000-07:00

Talk about harmful to the brand! I can't imagine something that could be any more harmful to a brand than the news on the front page of CNN this morning about everyone's favorite banana brand, Chiquita.

In case you missed it, here's a link: http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/14/news/companies/chiquita/index.htm?cnn=yes

If you read the story, it's clear that Chiquita doesn't deny wrongdoing. They are pleading guilty to funding Columbian terrorist organizations, and are being fined $25,000,000. To me, that's not enough.

I foresee boycotts, and I for one, will start. No more Chiquitas for me!

Garret

p.s. No Chiquita bananas were used in the making of the Resilient Corporation Ad!!!!

Disruption Marketing Case Study: Starbucks

2007-03-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

I'm sure everyone by now has heard of the leaked memo from Starbucks Founder and Chairman that was written to other executives of the company that was "inadvertantly" leaked to the press, and has caused quite a stir.

Just in case, here's a link to the memo:http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com/_/2007/02/starbucks_chair_2.html

The big debate with the leaking of this memo, was the "inadvertant" leak, actually on purpose. Why, you ask, would they do such a thing? Let's wax philisophically for a minute on the potential benefit of such action.

While the content of the memo was less than flattering, the leak really got people talking about the Starbucks brand. By just Googling Starbucks memo, one could browse well over ONE MILLION Web pages with relevant content. That's pretty insane when you think about it, and it has brought Starbucks, a company that became famous for its lack of marketing, very much back into the spotlight.

So how about the downfalls of doing this? For me, when I first read the memo, the first thing I could think was "EUREKA." I knew that what Mr. Shultz had written as his concerns for the brand was 100% on target. The brand had become a commodity - the things that made the brand experience so amazing for its loyal customers, seemed to have been lost. I was never really conscious of this, but check it out - here are some pics of Starbucks - it LOOKS like a chain now, not a hardcore coffee shop for coffee lovers:

My take on this? I think the memo was leaked on purpose. And I think the executives at Starbucks carefully planned this, after weighing the pros and cons. The pros (taking into account the old adage that no publicity is bad publicity) probably way outweighed the cons.

What do you think? I'm interested in hearing your take on it!

Best,

Garret Ohm

Maryland Creative Tax - HB448

2007-03-13T06:38:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

I just wanted to do my part to spread the word about a local issue that is causing quite a stir in the advertising and creative community. Recently, House Bill 448 was introduced in the Maryland General Assembly. If passed, HB 448 would alter the definition of “taxable service” under the sales and use tax to impose the 5% tax on thirty-one (31) new services (many are already taxed) bringing the total forty-three (43) services, including:

Public Relations
Business Consulting
Art Services
Photographic Services
Direct Mail Services

So I'm sure you're asking yourself at this point, "what does it all mean?" Basically, it has several undesirable effects on the creative community, including:

Increase the cost of creative services in Maryland.
Reduce supplier sales as a result of increased cost.
Decrease employment as a result of reduced supplier sales.
Cost thousands of creative professionals their jobs.

For me, the worst part is that this makes hiring an in-house agency or design team even more attractive for clients. Yikes. So, please visit the Web site below to learn more, and by all means, GET INVOLVED. We have to stop this now, before the General Assembly unleashes it.

http://www.fightthecreativetax.com/

Garret

Kids' Favorite Colas

2007-02-27T10:41:00.000-08:00

According to a study done by Simmons Research (An Experian Company), a brand research company, here are the top 10 brand preferences of kids ages 6-11 who drink soda.

1. Coca Cola Classic (65%)

2. Other Brands (47%)

3. Pepsi-Cola (46%)

4. Cherry Coke (40%)

5. Wild Cherry Pepsi(29%)

6. Coca-Cola With Lime (21%)

7. Pepsi Vanilla (19%)

8. Caffeine Free Coca-Cola Classic (18%)

9. Pepsi Lime (15%)

10. Caffeine Free Pepsi (15%)

In honor of Coca-Cola taking the top honors, here's a vintage Coca-Cola ad I found online. Pretty crazy, huh? Something so full of caffeine and calories is touted as something to drink while you're "chillin'."

Radio & Internet Advertising, Together In Perfect Harmony

2007-02-23T06:18:00.000-08:00

Hi all -

I just wanted to pass along another Center for Media Research study that just came out concerning radio and internet advertising. It's pretty cool and backs up the notion that integrated media really works the best. Consumers just recall the information better when they're getting attacked from a number of different angles.

Garret

Unaided Advertising Recall Significantly Higher With Mix of Radio and Internet

According to research from the Radio Ad Effectiveness Lab (RAEL) released at the Radio Advertising Bureau's (RAB) Management & Leadership Conference, recall of advertising is dramatically enhanced when a mix of Radio and Internet ads is used together compared to website ads alone.

The report demonstrated that unaided recall was four-and-a-half times higher, and aided recall was more than twice as high with consumer exposure to one radio and one Internet ad compared to two Internet ads alone. Furthermore, the report states that a mix of radio and Internet exposures revealed a clear potential to elevate other kinds of consumer impact, ranging from website visitation to emotional bonds.

The study first examined existing data about radio and Internet advertising to determine how the two media are likely to intersect. Several key points on how Radio and the Internet might work well together in a media mix emerged:

Both radio and the Internet reach light users of other media

Radio and the Internet connect with consumers differently and in potentially complementary ways

Radio can drive traffic to websites

Radio and the Internet have unique reach patterns, and that can make them work powerfully in combination. On a daily basis, Radio and the Internet together reach 83 percent of the 18-54-year-old population

Consumers often use Radio and the Internet simultaneously, with up to a third of Internet usage being accompanied by Radio listening during some times of the day

Michael Orgera, Vice President, Director of Research, Universal McCann, said "... With so many media choices and so many ad messages... understanding how radio and the Internet together can significantly boost advertising attention levels is a tremendous advantage when creating a multi-platform campaign."

And Rex Conklin, Media Director, Wal-Mart, and member of the RAEL Research Committee, noted, it's been gratifying to see advertisers and agency representatives work closely and candidly with broadcasters to establish clear direction for research studies..."

The full study, plus previously released research from RAEL, are available here.

Good Web Site. Honest.

2007-02-16T07:10:00.000-08:00

I found a pretty cool Web site for a local company (Bethesda) that makes organic iced tea. It's great stuff - I've had it and I love it. Actually, my favorite is Honest Ade and isn't even an iced tea. It's a lemonade with much less sugar than normal lemonades (excess sugar is the enemy!).

They're a small company, but they've got a great concept and I think they're going to go far. I've read a few recent articles about them in the trade rags, but this is definitely a buzzworthy brand in my opinion, so I'm sure I'll start to hear some consumer chatter in the next couple of years. Especially by using grassroots tactics like this (oh yeah, you bet it's a hybrid):

Check out the Honest Tea Web site HERE. I like the design of the site a lot - it's a bit different than the normal static Web sites that you usually see these days. I think the structure and navigation could allow you to do even more fun stuff, too.

::Shameless Plug Alert::
I'm hoping to get on these folks' radar screen in the next few months. I'm not sure what their agency situation is, but I think it would be super-fun to work with them. Much more fun than a stale, stodgy bank client I'm sure. And judging by what I've read, they have a great corporate and marketing philosophy that I think would fit in well with our target-audience focused marketing approach.

Later people,

Garret O.

Superbowl Ad Review

2007-02-13T06:36:00.000-08:00

A few people have asked me what I thought about this year's Super Bowl ads, so I wanted to take a few minutes to give my professional (at least I think so) opinion on what I saw, what I loved, what I hated, and what I would have forgotten, had I not been a huge ad dork and wrote everything down.

My top pick for the Superbowl ad that was the most entertaining had to be a toss up between the Snickers "accidental kiss" spot, and the Sierra Mist Free ad that featured a man that didn't fit into the workplace due to his cutoff shorts and BEARD COMBOVER. Both ads had me in stitches, but if I had to pick, I'd pick Snickers because it made me remember the product, whereas the Sierra Mist spot was a little harder to remember what was actually being advertised.

Here's the Snickers ad for your satisfaction:

I should mention that this ad and the corresponding Web site www.afterthekiss.com were discontinued because it offended many gay rights activists. I'm not sure - it didn't seem derogatory to me, but who am I to judge?

I also really liked Sprint Mobile Broadband's "connectile dysfunction spots." I thought the message was strong and very well executed. The use of humor was slightly low-brow, which I enjoy, but it wasn't over the top. It did a great job of communicating the product's unique point of difference. I have to say that I was not impressed by USA Today's best pick, Budweiser's "Crabs." I forgot about it before the game was over, and even when reminded, I didn't know which beer maker produced the spot.

So who were the big losers in my mind? I thought Coke's spots were boring (sorry, Joe - my brother-in-law who works for Coke) and uninspired. I thought GoDaddy's spots were lame and predictable. I didn't get Chevy's HHR commercial. Schick gets two thumbs down for using spots that I had already seen for the last 8 months, and the same goes for Acura. Toyota's Tundra spots were bland, especially for a brand new product launch!

On the local front, several big advertisers ponied up for spots during the Super Bowl, but I have to admit, none were any good. Most of them LOOKED like local spots, and didn't really do a great job of communicating their message. Particularly bad were the Maryland Lottery spot and the 1st Mariner spot. Both very forgettable. Mr. Hale - if you're looking to run some solid ads for the Superbowl next year, call me!

I really hope next year is better. I want to see some innovation...I want to see someone truly use a multiple media approach to advertising (for example, use a billboard campaign as a teaser, TV spots, and the payoff on a Web site). I want my mind blown like I expect it to be come Superbowl time.

The order is tall. I'll revisit this post after Super Bowl XLII to see if any of these advertisers redeemed themselves.

I'll leave you with this spot that was also pretty solid from E*trade:

Garret Ohm
Ad Dork

Good Article From MediaPost's Marketing Daily on Anti-Valentine's Day

2007-02-13T06:31:00.000-08:00

Marketers Tap Cupid-Bashing Sentiment

by Sarah Mahoney

ADMIT IT. ALL THOSE DIAMOND-EARRING ads on TV make some people you know cry, and others choke on venomous tales about their ex. And this year, a few companies are showing some extra love to Valentine-averse.

American Greetings, the Cleveland-based card marketer, is selling 10 different "Anti-Valentine's Day" cards, aimed straight at everyone who will spend this Wednesday at odds with Cupid. "Don't worry, you won't be alone forever," says one, with a picture of a woman on the front of the card. Inside, the same woman is surrounded by dozens of cats.

Another shows a vintage photo of a young boy holding a handmade Valentine, which says, "The next day, little Timmy has his heart broken." Inside is a sentiment that sums up the holiday for plenty of people: "Valentine's Day Sucks."

The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. is jumping on the bandwagon with its new Dark Chocolate Dipped Mints, "embracing the bruised, blackened and broken hearted with a message that communicates what many people think yet are too polite to say," the company said.

Until Feb. 14, consumers in New York, Chicago and Miami can browse at the "Altoids Curious & Original Chocolate Shoppe," sample the new mints, get a free coffee, and browse through postcards that say things like "Here's a little something to say, 'Let's stay together for the kids'" and "Another day closer 'til death does us apart."

Online, consumers can go to www.sayitwithaltoids.com, and personalize e-cards with messages like, "I slept with your girlfriend," "I don't think I can be with someone who doesn't floss" or "It's you. Not me."

And even among its traditional Valentine's cards, American Greetings is working hard to shake off the doily dust. Images include tattoo-inspired cards, kissing armadillos, and happy rhinos.

Hallmark is also expecting humor and causal cards to sell well this year, but believes its top trend will be musical cards. ("Ring of Fire" and "Wild Thing" are expected to be top sellers, the company predicts.)

True, most people will celebrate, and in a big way.

In all, 190 million Valentines will be purchased, says an American Greetings spokeswoman--not including the class Valentines kids give out at school. And they'll do some serious spending. This year, the National Retail Federation predicts Valentine's Day spending will top $16.9 billion, or about $120 per person.

But that doesn't mean they like it.

In fact, a new study from NPD shows that only one in four think of the day as a strictly romantic holiday. About 30% believe it's a great day to show appreciation for your sweetie, but 26% say it's too commercial, and another 19% write it off as "just a Hallmark holiday." Meanwhile, 14% say it's "silly."

Then, of course, there are the cowards: 8% of the respondents in the NPD poll said they celebrate because "If I don't, I'll get in trouble."

___________________

More great marketing articles later!

Garret Ohm

Guerilla Marketing Gone Awry In Boston

2007-01-31T16:55:00.000-08:00

I don't have all the facts yet, but I was just reading THIS story about the supposed "bomb scare" in Boston that crippled the city today. It's actually currently the top story on CNN.com.

As an agency that frequently employs non-traditional or guerilla marketing tactics to solve challenges for our clients, we always strive to do something that is going to cut through the clutter of traditional media. As we tell our clients, interruptive marketing (such as print ads) isn't working like it used to. We're in an over-communicated society and we've become numb to ads.

Just in case you need Cliff's Notes for the story that I linked to above, Adult Swim, a cartooon network for adults, in an effort to plug one of its shows put little LED light boards in the shape of a character in a number of discreet locations in a number of major cities. They were hoping to create a buzz - they got a little more buzz than they bargained for when people started calling in reporting these objects as bombs. Boston, hit particularly hard, was crippled for hours by these:

Although the guerilla stunt achieved its goal of creating a buzz (and then some!), there will likely be negative effects to this also. I'm thinking Time Warner may be liable for all of the tax dollars that were spent responding to this faux emergency. This is probably a drop in the bucket to them, though...

What are your thoughts on whether or not this will end up as a positive situation for Adult Swim or not? I'm curious as to what everyone thinks on the issue.

Best,

Garret Ohm

Mini Motorby - RFID Enabled Marketing

2007-01-31T08:11:00.000-08:00

Here's an article from Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog that I found really interesting. I've discussed digital billboards in THIS post, but this is a whole new twist! It's a very creative use of outdoor advertising, but as you can tell it has some inherent problems that Mini will have to figure out how to get around. Privacy, practicality (not something Mini is known for), and yes, even safety!

Here's the article:

Mini Cooper Taps Into Uber-Customization: Auto Brand Designs Billboards that Greets Drivers—By Name—When They Drive By

Each day, it seems, marketers go further in their quest to deliver messages so engaging and personalized that one cannot help feeling special. The latest step will be seen this week in four cities when Mini USA begins delivering custom messages to Mini Cooper owners on digital signs the company calls "talking" billboards, The New York Times reports.

The boards, which usually carry typical advertising, are programmed to identify approaching Mini drivers through a coded signal from a radio chip embedded in their key fob. The messages are personal, based on questionnaires that owners filled out: "Mary, moving at the speed of justice," if Mary is a lawyer, or "Mike, the special of the day is speed," if Mike is a chef.

The enthusiastic guinea pigs for the Mini experiment will be more than a thousand Mini owners in New York, Miami, Chicago and San Francisco who have signed up for what the company calls "an ever-changing array of unique, personal, playful and unexpected messages," Times writer Barnaby Feder reports.

"People buy Minis because they really want to have more fun in their days," said James L. McDowell, head of North American operations for the company, which is a subsidiary of BMW of Germany. "We want everything about our marketing to fit that."

McDowell said that Mini would monitor reaction to the test signs for about three months before deciding whether to expand to other billboards in the first four cities, to more cities or to other applications, like using the tags to display personal welcomes when drivers approach their local Mini dealership.

The experiment adds a new wrinkle to the wrangling among marketers and safety experts over whether drivers might be dangerously distracted by messages flashed on the growing number of digital billboards around the nation. Some communities have forced billboard owners to modify or turn off such signs, and the federal government has said it will soon publish a review of the research on the subject.

But Mini executives say they are confident that even RFID skeptics will take Motorby, as the trial is called, in stride.

"There's no piece of this that's invasive," said Trudy Hardy, manager of Mini's marketing department. "It's a completely voluntary program, and there is zero confidential information in the fob."

"Building evangelists is the holy grail of marketing for a number of industries," said Michael Megalli, a partner in Group 1066, a marketing strategy firm in New York. "This is interesting because the marketing is integrated into the product."

YouTube Woes?

2007-01-30T08:47:00.000-08:00

I saw this on MarketingVOX and wanted to pass it along. I've been following YouTube's plight - from the early days when it was cool but known mainly by industry people, until it finally reached the tipping point with consumers - right on to the recent purchase of YouTube by Google for an insane $1.65 BILLION dollars.

The criticism of that purchase has always been simple: Why did Google purchase a company that at this point has very little revenue generation? Sure, loads of people visit YouTube every day, and there are a bazillion links to the site - but how can Google generate revenue to offset the astronomical cost of purchasing the business?

Well, they recently announced that their business model includes a profit sharing aspect. That is, they will likely sell 3 second ads that run before every video. Advertisers will pay for this opportunity, and YouTube will split the profit with the person who uploads the video. It's an interesting idea and I don't think it has been tried before, but it certainly has its drawbacks...

Here's the MarketingVOX article. Good stuff. Later!

-Garret

Harris Poll: Pre-Roll Ads Perturb YouTube Users

YouTube is thinking about adding pre-roll ads to existing video clips, and the site's users say they'll think about spending less time there if the site does ad them, according to a Harris poll released Monday.

Harris's research revealed that nearly 75 percent of YouTube's frequent users say they would likely visit the video-sharing site less if pre-roll ads were inserted into video clips; and among those respondents, 42 percent said they would visit a little less often, and 31 percent said they would greatly reduce their visits, MediaPost reports.

YouTube has not said exactly what type of ads it would add to its video clips, but YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley told the BBC that the site is considering adding 3-second ads before the video clips are played.

The Harris Poll also had good news for YouTube: Almost 33 percent of the site's frequent visitors claim that they watch less TV now because of the time they spend on YouTube; 42 percent of online users say they have visited YouTube, and 14 percent say they are regular visitors to the site; 76 percent of males 18-24 say they have watched a video on YouTube, and 41 percent classify themselves as frequent visitors.

Letters To The Editor

2007-01-26T08:15:00.000-08:00

Here's some new information from the Center for Media Research as it relates to interactive forums and blogs. Many media outlets are now adapting, and even CNN now has some of its correspondents post in a blog type format. Anderson Cooper is perhaps the most popular one. And the best part is that he actually responds to the posts and comments his story gets.

Garret

Newspaper Blogs Are Instant "Letters To The Editor"

Nielsen//NetRatings finds that traditional publishers are adopting interactive forums like blogs, where web traffic to the blog pages of the top 10 online newspapers grew 210 percent year over year in December. The overall unique audience growth to these online newspapers was 9 percent year over year. Unique visitors to blog pages accounted for 13 percent of their December 2006 Web traffic, up 9 percentage points from 4 percent in December 2005.

Carolyn Creekmore, senior director of media analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings, said "...It makes perfect sense for online newspapers, where responding to a blog posting is like writing an instant letter to the editor."

Unique Audience For Top 10 Online Newspapers and their Blog Pages (U.S., Home and Work; UA x000)
	Audience Dec 2005	Audience Dec 2006	YOY Growth
Top 10 Online Newspapers	27,371	29,940	9%
Blog Pages within Online Newspapers	1,217	3,776	210%
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, January 2007

The overall unique audience to the top 10 online newspapers skewed male, with 60 percent men and 40 percent women. Among newspaper blog pages, this skew intensified, with 66 percent men and 34 percent women. But both men and women are contributing to unique audience growth in this arena, with men increasing 226 percent and women increasing 183 percent year over year.

"(Though) men tend to be both early adopters of new technologies and avid consumers of news... women make up slightly more than half of the active Internet universe and we can expect them to play an increasingly significant role in blog consumption." said Creekmore

Gender Composition at Top 10 Online Newspapers and their Blog Pages (Dec. 2006; U.S., Home and Work)
Gender	Newspapers	Blog Pages	YOY Growth at Blog Pages
Male	60%	66%	226%
Female	40%	34%	183%
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, January 2007

Top 10 Advertisers in December 2006 are based on data from AdRelevance, Nielsen//NetRatings' advertising research service.

Top 10 Advertisers by Estimated Spending (December 2006)
	Advertiser	Total Estimated Spending	Impressions (000)
1.	Experian Group Limited	$90,284,000	34,649,333
2.	AT&T Corp.	$39,857,400	10,535,951
3.	NexTag, Inc.	$32,120,900	15,221,834
4.	Verizon Communications, Inc.	$31,759,200	8,962,028
5.	Time Warner Inc.	$27,288,500	6,948,177
6.	Vonage Holdings Corp	$24,174,400	7,533,227
7.	Low Rate Source	$17,920,600	6,792,963
8.	Bank of America Corporation	$16,503,600	7,536,428
9.	Blockbuster Inc.	$16,056,700	7,309,783
10.	eBay, Inc.	$15,566,900	2,606,156
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, January 2007

Note: An impression is counted as the number of times an ad is rendered for viewing.

Please visit here to see the complete press release.

8 Types of Bad Creative Critics

2007-01-24T06:35:00.000-08:00

I have to thank Tom Fishburne for a great little comic strip that I got a huge kick out of this morning. A friend of mine passed it along and it really resonated with me. You might remember my blog post "I think you should add a valve there, Mr. Plumber." If not, HERE is a link! That post talked about how advertising and creative services is one area that most everyone fashions themselves somewhat of an expert, regardless of their training and, um, actual talent.

Well Mr. Fishburne captured this idea in pictures. He uses humor to illustrate exactly why it's dangerous when you don't trust creatives to be creative! I personally know someone who fits each of these descriptions.

Check it (Click to enlarge the image):

Apple iPhone Blog

2007-01-10T08:48:00.000-08:00

I'm sure after yesterday's news of Steve Jobs and Apple, Inc's launch of the new Apple iPhone, there were 65,987,347,151 new blogs and message board posts written about it. But here's one more, I just couldn't resist. This thing is AWESOME. In case you've just come out of hibernation, the iPhone is a revolutionary new product that combines and iPod, a phone and a computer capable of email AND (more importantly) the ability to actually browse the Web right from your phone.

Analysts say it's not due to actually be in the hands of a customer for a few months, but it already gets me thinking about a few major impacts this will have:

Cingular Hits A Homerun
The very first thing that I (and probably everyone else) thought when I saw this new product was exactly what Apple wanted. "Cool, I want one." So, like everyone else, went to www.apple.com and started to research it. But, ACK, I can't have it because I'm not with Cingular, the only wireless carrier that will offer the iPhone (so far). I recently just bought and new phone from Verizon Wireless and got roped into another two year contract with them, so all hopes and dreams of owning this machine in the next two years are gone. But I can guarantee you that Cingular has positioned itself as the wireless carrier that most will explore when they are contract-free and ready for a new carrier. Very smart move for Cingular.

Phone Advertising
Ad industry people have been hearing about it coming for a long time now, but it has been met with a lot of skepticism. How can you put an ad on a cell phone? How effective could a little 1.5" ad on a screen be, and how would they be delivered? When would they be delivered? How does an agency buy and target these ads? The questions went on and on.

Phone advertising, while it hasn't permeated the industry yet, could be on the way to an explosion of mythic proportions, with over 180,000,000 cell phone users. It appears that Apple's iPhone, with its outstanding graphic capabilities and cross-platform uses will make it easier than ever before for companies to inject advertising into the palms of thing-hungry consumers.

REAL Web on your Phone
Everyone who has ever held a Blackberry or even a regular cell phone and tried to 'browse' the Web on it, knows just how difficult that is to do. It's tiny, awkward, not intuitive and quite limited in terms of what you're capable of doing and not doing. Well, according to http://www.apple.com/iphone/, cell phone Web browsing will be brought to a whole new level. I can't even begin to explain how it works in mere words, but there's an amazing demo on the Web site that shows you exactly how it works. I suggest you check it out - it has to be seen to be believed. When you get to that Web page, just click on 'Breakthrough Internet Device.'

Cisco!
About the only negative thing that can be taken from Jobs' recent announcement about the iPhone is that now that America and the rest of the world is pining longingly for the technology, we learn that Apple might have to rename this product. I'm actually really surprised that Apple's lawyers felt comfortable with them releasing the technology before the legal proceedings were through, but basically the long and short of it is that Cisco (www.cisco.com) owns the trademark for iPhone. THEIR version of iPhone is actually a phone equipped with VoIP technology that they're just now releasing to the public. So more than likely, the Apple iPhone will need to be renamed something different. And the public that's dying to get one in their hands, will have to erase its name from their memory before long!

I'm curious to see what everyone thinks. And for fun, check out this blog that was set up before the launch. Some of the posts are pretty comical! appleiphone.blogspot.com/.

See ya -

Garret Ohm

A Careful Word From the Wise (Not Me)

2007-01-05T07:57:00.000-08:00

Hi all - I just wanted to pass along a really great article a friend of mine, Jim Astrachan of Astrachan, Gunst, Thomas, wrote. Jim is a partner in a great law firm in Baltimore that does a lot of advertising and IP law. You can see their Web site, HERE.

Here's the article!

It’s been more than six years since Marc Kasky buried the proverbial hatchet in Nike's neck, and one year since they buried the hatchet in the ground. The settlement of their public relations-related, false advertising feud cost Nike $1.5 Million, about one-half a day's media expense from its enormous advertising budget, its own legal fees and likely a healthy contribution to Mr. Kasky's large legal fees. Small change to Nike who likely did not miss the money, but the avalanche of bad press that followed this litigation did more damage than can ever be calculated, fueled in part by Nike's losing appeal to the United States Supreme Court. How would you like to have been the PR professional whose communication caused this lawsuit?

The lesson taught Nike by Mr. Kasky is required reading for all persons who engage in corporate communications and public relations and all persons who bear some responsibility if the message goes awry. The reason for this is that for the first, but by no means the last time, public relations chatter was held to be actionable false advertising. And frankly, it should have been.

Briefly, here's what happened. Nike had been severely criticized in the media for the way its contractors in Southeast Asia treated their female workers. In effort to tell its side of the story, and publicly defend itself in the media, Nike's public relations people denied any wrongdoing on Nike's part. That part was okay, but then these PR folks went one fatal step farther and as a tag line to their message asked Nike's customers to support Nike through the purchase of its products.

And there lies the lesson. Speech generally is a protected activity under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Protected speech is not subject to prior restraint, although the speaker may defame or disparage his subject and be sued. But, his right to speak is generally protected, and he is free to say whatever he wants about his own product, unless, and this is key, the message is considered to be advertising.

Advertising, or commercial speech, is considered by some to be the redheaded stepchild of the First Amendment. So, if a PR person's communication can be construed as advertising, or commercial speech, the federal Lanham Act's prohibition against false advertising comes into play as do the consumer protection statutes and mini-FTC acts on the books in a plethora of states. If the communication is construed as advertising, or commercial speech, prior restraint may be permissible as well as suits for damages caused by the false advertising. To distinguish commercial from non-commercial speech courts will examine the message to determine whether it proposes a commercial transaction. Does it say or strongly hint; "Buy my product?"

If it does, it is likely to be categorized by the courts as commercial speech. And if so, the Lanham Act's prohibitions against unfair competition and false advertising are in play. Under the Lanham Act, any competitor who is likely to be injured by a false commercial communication (Buy Me!) has a cause of action for false advertising. Injury can occur because the speaker spoke falsely about its product or a competitor's. It's a wonder that Reebok or Adidas did not go after Nike!

So, what should be the rules of the road for the communications professional whose job it is to defend his or her client in the media? First, you'll be more careful with what you say or write if you don't assume that the First Amendment will protect your speech. Second, if a third party is mentioned in the communication, or is identifiable if not mentioned directly, verify that all statements about that person are true. Even if the statements are true, be sure their publication does not invade his or her privacy by intruding on seclusion or communicate private facts. Third, stick to the facts, and don't go beyond what is necessary for rebuttal. Fourth, substantiate every assertion you make. Don't take your client's word that the assertion is true and don't let your client goad you into saying something questionable. Verify the facts before you speak or write.

Then verify them again. Get substantiation in writing. Fifth, maintain a record of the substantiation. Sixth, resist the urge to add a commercial message to your defense of the client. In other words, resist the temptation for a call to action by which the audience is asked to support the advertiser through the purchase of its products. The damaging tag line in one of the full page open letters that appeared in the newspapers that Nike claimed was protected as First Amendment speech went something like, "During this holiday season, buy Nike products."

And finally, most sophisticated advertisers make it their business to clear what they understand to be commercial messages, or ads, before they run, often through both in-house counsel and their ad agency's counsel. But they almost always neglect public relations. When the subject is controversial, or mentions a competitor or any third party, clearance is a must. Straight forward but not often followed. Remember, Mr. Kasky may be in your audience.

Nielsen Holiday eShopping Index Up 20%

2006-12-27T08:34:00.000-08:00

According to Nielsen//NetRatings, their eShopping Index, comprised of 120 representative companies that give analysts a better sense of online shopping trends, received 20% more visits in 2006 than in 2005.

You can read the whole press release HERE (will open PDF), but to me, this means that online shopping is really hitting its tipping point. More and more people are visiting retailers' sites online, and many are visiting stores like Ebay and Amazon that don't even have brick & mortar locations.

What does this mean? In plain terms, I believe this means that increasingly Web-savvy customers are tiring of the long lines and inconvenience associated with shopping in crowded arenas. While in some categories, there is no substitute for a consumer holding a product in his or her hand, many consumers just don't feel the need to go to a store before buying a product.

Interesting stuff - heavy implications for retailers ignoring their Web presence. You listening?

Talk with you later.

Garret

Emerging New Medium: Soccer Jerseys

2006-12-27T08:18:00.000-08:00

Hi All -

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I'm just getting back into the office and getting settled in, but I have a lot of things that have come across my desk that I wanted to post. I'll start with this one from the New York Times, written by Jack Bell. Apparently, United States Major League Soccer has just made the decision to allow the sale of advertisements - "mobile" billboards, if you will - on the jerseys of the players. The minimum cost of these ads is $500,000, but the benefits and value could be staggering. Not only are the ads adorning each player on the League's 13 teams, but advertisers are also seeing the benefits of the sale of thousands of replica jerseys, purchased in droves by the League's loyal fans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/sports/soccer/25soccer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

What's next? I think I have an idea that could make millions if done properly - email me if you are curious!

Garret Ohm

More Online Buyers are Spending More. Much More.

2006-12-18T06:25:00.000-08:00

New trends, as reported by the Center for Media Research...not surprising, though. This is what industry analysts have been saying would happen for years now...

Garret

More New Online Buyers, Spending More, Account for Holiday Spending Increase

According to a recent comScore Networks report on consumer online retail spending, online sales reached $12.42 billion during the period November 1st through December 3rd., an increase of 25 percent versus year ago. They conclude, hovever, that this gain is being driven by a 17 percent increase in the number of online buyers, coupled with a 7 percent increase in the average dollars spent per buyer.

Non-Travel (Retail) Spending (Online Spending Drivers Nov. 1 - Dec. 3, 2006 vs. 2005)
	Percent Change
E-Commerce Spending	25%
Number of Buyers	17%
Dollars Per Buyer	7%
Source: comScore Networks

Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore Networks, said "... comScore's data are confirming that... more consumers are becoming comfortable buying online. But, an accentuating factor is that online spending per buyer is also increasing - as a result of more buying transactions and an increase in higher-ticket purchases."

For the 2006 Holiday season, to-date, the computer hardware category has the highest average order value at $292, followed by consumer electronics, video game consoles & accessories, jewelry & watches, and event tickets.

Top Online Product Categories by Average Order Value (Nov. 1 - Dec. 3, 2006 vs. 2005)
*Retail Category*	*Avg. Order Value*
Computer Hardware	$292
Consumer Electronics	$153
Video Game Consoles & Accessories	$141
Jewelry & Watches	$128
Event Tickets	$123
Source: comScore Networks

That most of the higher-ticket categories also appeared on the list of fastest growing retail categories confirms that they are significant growth drivers for this year's holiday season.

Fastest Growing Online Product Categories, by Dollar Growth (Nov. 1 - Dec. 3, 2006 vs. 2005)
Retail Category	Percent Change
Video Games	85%
Jewelry & Watches	69%
Event Tickets	66%
Video Game Consoles & Accessories	51%
Consumer Electronics	37%
Source: comScore Networks

Mr. Fulgoni commented, "As broadband connectivity in the home continues to rise, we're seeing some online spending shift from work computers to home computers. Nonetheless, online buying at work still accounts for as many e-commerce dollars as buying from home. This could... (reflect) consumers' valuing of the workplace as the location where they're able to confidentially buy gifts online for immediate family members."

Holiday E-Commerce Spending by Location (Billion $,2006 vs. 2005)
*Purchase Location*	*2005*	*2006*	*Percent Change*
Home	$4.18	$5.44	30%
Work	$4.51	$5.36	19%
Source: comScore Networks

For more information, please visit here.

From The Why Didn't They Think of That Sooner File...

2006-12-15T07:13:00.000-08:00

Here's an article from MediaPost (which, by the way, if you haven't subscribed to, you need to - www.mediapost.com) that talks about a new strategy that Whole Foods is testing out.

Massage In Aisle 7:
Whole Foods Opens Spa

by Christine Bittar, Wednesday, Dec 13, 2006 5:00 AM ET

WHOLE FOODS MARKET WANTS GROCERY shopping at its natural supermarket chain to be associated with relaxation. It's testing the waters with an unusual spa-within-a-food store concept.

Refresh--The Everyday Spa at Whole Foods Market opened last week in a store in Dallas, where the company is headquartered. The prototype is serving as a test bed for consumer acceptance of spas within grocery stores, before any rollout.

Looking to create a tranquil environment within the giant-sized suburban Whole Foods Market, the Refresh spa is enclosed with a soundproof lounge complete with fountains, several treatment rooms, and a private balcony where lunch is served.

The 4,500 square foot Dallas trial spa, like other stand-alone spas, offers a mélange of face and body treatments such as massages and facials, and has wellness consultants and nutritionists available by appointment for consultations. Also contained within the spa is a shop that sells treatment products, cosmetics, jewelry, shoes and organic, natural-fiber clothing.

The move comes as other retailers, including Wal-Mart and Trader Joe's, have accelerated the introduction of natural and organic food offerings. This week, Safeway stores announced that it is extending its O Organics line into baby food and foods for children ages 6 to 12. Introduced a year ago, O Organics currently features staples such as milk, produce, meats and cereal.

With the stated goal of luring customers from Whole Foods Market, Safeway--the third-largest U.S. grocer--also said it is introducing a new line for adults who are dieting or just want to eat more healthfully.

It's still too soon to know whether enough consumers will be compelled to stop for a massage after carting baskets of rice cakes and organic granola up and down aisles. However, this isn't Whole Foods' first foray into the market for organics that aren't ingested.

Five years ago, the chain launched its first Whole Body section, a store within a Whole Foods store specializing in health and beauty. It now features 152 of them within its 187-store chain.

This past October, Whole Foods introduced a full-color cosmetic line called Mineral Fusion, picking up on the currently hot mineral makeup trend.

Digital Billboards

2006-12-14T14:25:00.000-08:00

I remember back when I was a young lad. Billboards used to be so simple. Just your average amalgamation of steel and plywood. No muss, no fuss. All you had to do was to contract with a billboard company and they'd print out your graphics and have it up in a hurry. Depending on your budget and marketing objectives, you'd leave it up for one, two, three or more months. If you wanted to get really sophisticated, you rotated boards for maximum exposure.

Then, technology advanced significantly and they actually came out with rotating billboards. It gave advertisers many more low-cost and "tweener" options for outdoor advertising, and allowed the outdoor media companies to sell one location to 3 or 4 different advertisers. This gave them the ability to earn much more from just one billboard - it quickly offset the cost of implementation of these boards.

Well, the next generation of billboards is about to hit the scene: Digital billboards. Digital billboards allow advertisers to change their message often and are being credited with a renewed interest in the outdoor advertising. Computer-controlled LED displays offer many new opportunities, including the ability for companies to sell space in a time-share arrangement.

It's a pretty cool concept, really. Now, outdoor advertising may become even more targeted. For instance, the local Royal Farms store could buy space in the mornings to tout their amazing coffee selections. Then, during the day an advertiser such as Whole Foods could advertise their fully stocked salad bar - perfect for lunch! At night - the local Greystone Grill could do some awareness advertising for their concept in hopes of attracting the dinner crowd. NEAT!

Digital billboards are drawing mostly local advertisers, such as department stores and automobile dealers, but analysts expect more national clients to come around as the technology hits the tipping point. There is only a small number of these digital billboards on US roads so far. As I'm writing this, probably around 500, compared with nearly 5,000,000 regular old billboards.

Pretty neat stuff. I can't wait to see them around here!

Garret

Been A While

2006-12-14T14:03:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone - it's been a while since I wrote last. I'll get my feet wet by posting a little overview of some of the bigger marketing headlines in the past couple of weeks.

Feel free to comment!

Enterprise Rent-a-Car is going to be updating its logo and "look." Not changing - just updating, in an effort to keep the brand "fresh" and up-to-date.

According to the Radio Advertising Bureau, radio advertising revenue was up 6% in October. Pretty good stuff!

The Best and Worst Brand Extension Awards - From Brandweek - The American Red Cross emergency radio--featuring a hand crank, cell phone charger and a siren--was the clear winner as the "Best Brand Extension" in an online survey of 860 branding professionals co-sponsored by Brandweek and TippingSprung, a New York branding firm. Its nearest competitor was Pantone Eurolux house paints.

As usual, 2006 also produced a bumper crop of nutty extensions. A Diesel Jeans wine, "Chicken Soup for the Soul" pet food and a Lamborghini notebook computer rounded out the top five "Most Inappropriate Brand Extensions." Starburst soap, a Cheetos-flavored lip balm and Salvadore Dali deodorant stick were also ill-advised.

Toyota plans a HUGE launch for new Tundra pickup truck - It is planning the largest product launch by far in its HISTORY. This is their strong effort to grab the pickup and light truck marketshare from the Big 3.

The recent Sprint 2006 Sprint Productivity Survey of wireless phone users shows that 93% of wireless phone subscribers bring work-related mobile phones on vacation, 73% have achieved work-life balance (a meaningful daily achievement and enjoyment in one's home and working lives), and 67% are more productive today than two years ago. 84% of the respondents report technology is vital to their productivity, with 35% saying they could not accomplish what they do without technology.

Barbie Reinvented: Barbie is the top toy for girls this holiday season, according to a survey of parents by the National Retail Federation, and Mattel Inc. says sales are up for the first time in several years.

I'll write more later, promise!

Garret Ohm

Advertising Affects The Health of America's Youth

2006-12-05T05:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a story that I read recently in the Health section of CNN.com - I thought you might enjoy, even though if you're an ad lover, you might not love what the study has to say.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/12/04/doctors.inappropriate.ads.ap/index.html

I do have to say, though, that we don't support advertising aimed directly at children. Especially not advertising that could lead to something damaging like drinking, smoking, etc. We agree - public health must trump capitalism when it comes to these types of issues.

What are your thoughts? I'm curious...

Garret Ohm

Is That Cookies I Smell?

2006-12-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hi all -

I found this article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a new guerilla marketing campaign that is being attempted in some parts of San Francisco by the California Milk Processing Board. I thought it was pretty resourceful, and despite being potentially offensive for one or two asthmatics, it should be very effective and will resonate with the target audience (milk and cookie lovers!).

Check it out:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/30/BAGC2MMHUO1.DTL

Garret Ohm

Will This Work?

2006-11-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

Some would look at the article below and think that Dominos Pizza has lost its marbles. Yeah, this promotion PROBABLY won't directly lead to a whole lot of extra Brooklyn-style pizzas being sold, but I do think that it will provide a solid ROI for Dominos. Think about it - what did it cost them to run this promotion. Other than the money they paid some ad agency or creatives to dream up the promotion, the main costs of this promotion are

And look at the press coverage it has already gotten. You're reading this blog, and you're going to probably at least glance at the article I am linking to at the bottom of this post. So the next time you think about having pizza for dinner, chances are it very well could be a Dominos Brooklyn-style pizza.

"Mission accomplished." - Dominos Pizza Marketing Director

http://promomagazine.com/news/dominos_brooklyn_113006/

Garret Ohm

PS3 or Wii ? We shall see!

2006-11-29T07:08:00.000-08:00

I'm not a gamer. I used to be alright at some of the games when I was a young chap, but not really any more. I just don't see the graphics like I used to - I can't figure out when to punch those little buttons to win the game, and I just can't see things like gamers can see them. To me, it's just a bunch of abstract graphics. To them, it's a whole 'nother world.

So when I watched in amazement the news stories about people waiting in lines and getting into fist fights over the new Playstation 3 and the new Wii from Nintendo, I just didn't get it. Either way, there are millions of people out there that do get it. They're usually categorized as brand loyalists - passionate about the system they love, and it's either one or the other (although some prefer Microsoft's XBox). But which one is better? I think (and the article below agrees) that it is the system with the best game offerings. Sure, PS3 has hddvd capabilities and the Wii doesn't, but Nintendo's not even sure that matters - they have cheaper games and they think that will drive system sales.

The reason I wanted to put this article out there is because even though these systems are flying off the shelves, I have not seen ONE ad for either of these sytems. Yet, it's all the news talks about and the buzz is out of control throughout the United States. It's just one more example of how if you build a great product that is in high demand, THAT is what drives sales - not the marketing. As a marketer, it's crucial to just have a better product to market, than to have more marketing dollars to spend. It's always easier to advertise when you stand behind and believe in what you are pushing.

Here's the article from MediaPost:

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=51788&Nid=25450&p=320064

Garret Ohm

Sports ACTIVITY Vehicle

2006-11-22T07:20:00.000-08:00

So you're faced with launching a newly redesigned luxury SUV in a slowly shrinking, but very competitive market. Aside from building a car that just kicks the doors off of the competition, what's the best way to differentiate yourself - to ensure that when someone plunks down $50k+, it's on YOUR truck, rather than the competitor's?

BMW's answer? Create a new and exciting product category. In their case, when they went to launch their newly redesigned X5 and X3 SUV's, they didn't want to just release them as another SUV. A SUV is defined by Wikipedia as a type of passenger vehicle which combines the towing capability of a pickup truck with the passenger-carrying space of a station wagon. Sure, the X5 and X3 do that, but BMW wanted to get to the root of what made their trucks stand out.

It wasn't just the towing capacity and the storage space - every SUV has that, otherwise, not many would buy them. Instead of thinking in terms of features, they sought out the benefits of the trucks (marketing 101, right?). In short, they came up with the idea that SUVs allow you to participate in more activities than other vehicles. You can haul sports equipment in them, go on vacations with them, carry your friends and family in them, go off-roading in them, tow a boat in them. Pretty sweet deal if you live that kind of life. Luckily it just so happens that BMW's main TA are active affluent folks - folks that have the kind of money to do a lot of those activities. Neat how that works, isn't it?

From that idea, Sports Activity Vehicle was born. It doesn't hurt that BMW builds one hell of a good-looking and awesome-performing truck. But I have to imagine this strategy of promoting a different kind of truck will help make affluent men and women 30-60 salivate even harder and reach even deeper into their wallets than they would for any normal SUV.

Oh, and because I couldn't leave you with all these words and no eye-candy - enjoy the new X5 and below it, the X3:

Garret

Nissan To Drive Microsoft Experience

2006-11-21T06:35:00.000-08:00

From MediaPost - by Karl Greenberg, Tuesday, Nov 21, 2006

Nissan has a new deal with Microsoft that will give it a broad presence across all of the company's properties, first dibs on Microsoft's Web-based and emerging digital platforms, and a significant competitive twist--access to the Microsoft brain trust to develop unique marketing programs.

The deal was announced yesterday between Nissan and Microsoft's Digital Advertising Solutions group. It involves programs on PDAs, MSN, Windows Live, Live Search, Xbox and Windows Mobile.

The goal, said Steve Kerho, Nissan director of media and interactive marketing, is to flood target consumers' "communication eco-systems" with the Nissan brand.

Some forthcoming products of the alliance are: inclusion of Nissan and Infiniti dealerships in Windows Live local maps, Nissan's sponsorship of an Xbox 360 console game "Forza Motorsport 2," a global tournament on Xbox Live, and an Infiniti and MSN.com-branded magazine and blog called "Open for Design."

Nissan will participate in pilot advertising programs within Windows Mobile and Office Live. In addition, it will use Microsoft adCenter behavioral targeting tools for search marketing.

According to Microsoft, the MSN network reaches some 465 million consumers worldwide each month, with "millions more" tapping into Windows Live, Xbox Live and Office Online.

"It really started with the realization that big portals are really online networks," said Kerho. He said the new deal differs substantially from what had until now been a project-based relationship with Microsoft and its properties. "The breadth of it is different, and the fact that it is all integrated around one particular strategy," he said.

"Media is very fragmented right now," Kerho added. "Consumers are in control of when, where and how they consume media. We sat together with MSN, and carved up the whole day: how and when and where and what does [the target consumer's] day look like? We actually have the opportunity now to sit down with developers and brainstorm on what content will be engaging, where and when."

Kerho added that the expanded relationship with Microsoft reflects an effort to have more flexibility in choosing "push" and "pull" media based on needs of specific vehicles, and which part of the purchase funnel for a given vehicle model needs bolstering.

"Pull has a high level of engagement, but it doesn't scale that well. Depending on media property, and audiences, they have programs that scale very well for us," Kerho said.

For example, the redesigned Altima sedan, bowing early next year, he said, will benefit from awareness-building elements on the MSN portals, Messenger and Hotmail. Meanwhile, lower purchase-funnel activities will occur on Windows Live, and MSN Live Local, as local-dealer and MSN mapping technology drives the dealer locator within Nissan's own consumer Web site.

While Kerho said Nissan isn't abandoning traditional media, Nissan marketing chief Jan Thompson reportedly said at an Automotive News marketing seminar last summer that TV would get less media dollars because Nissan has become so good at analyzing ROI on digital media. Nissan, which spent over a billion dollars in measured media last year between its two auto brands, has also created similar strategic relationships with Yahoo and Google.

"Internally, we are talking about marketing 2.0. What's unique is the breadth and depth of this," said Kerho, who did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

Microsoft set up its Digital Advertising Solutions group to simplify the buying process for advertisers who want to connect with their target audience across various digital touch points. "It is a response to one of advertisers' key pain points," a spokesperson said.

Christmas Coming (Too) Early?

2006-11-16T14:55:00.000-08:00

It's just about that time of year again. You know, when you can't get within a mile of a shopping center without either being run over or getting in a traffic jam. I, for one, am not at all pumped about the mad rush that ensues as soon as the calendar passes November 23....As a marketer, though, I do get excited because I know that this is a big time for many of our clients in the retail world.

As I study the trends in order to keep up with what's going on in the advertising world, I have been noticing a disturbing trend toward advertisers beginning to advertise holiday gift items even earlier - some even beginning before Halloween has even come and gone. If you're like me, you're probably not even in the ballpark of thinking about buying holiday gifts yet, so I was a little skeptical at why some advertisers would choose this strategy. But after consulting the research, it turns out that around 40 percent of people start their Christmas/Holiday (to be PC) in October. Crazy!

So while I get why they're doing it, I still don't know if it's the right thing to do. In a day when consumers are even more skeptical about being marketed TO, many are offended by the mass commercialization of the holidays. They begin to resent people who are marketing AT them 24/7/365.

So I have an idea to make everyone happy - consumers and marketers. Sure, spend more marketing dollars and get in front of more faces in October, but please, please, please don't run ads promoting HOLIDAY GIFT SALES. It's just perceived as too rude, annoying, and perhaps most importantly, intrusive the the customer.

What do you think?

Garret

Thanksgaddy Time!

2006-11-16T08:54:00.000-08:00

Hi all -

Most of the folks at our shop now know that we're collecting items for this years ThanksGaddy celebration, in parntership with the Advertising Association of Baltimore. This event is put on each year by the Bea Gaddy Family Center in Baltimore. You can visit their Web site at www.bea-gaddy-family-center.org. For those of you that don't know, Bea Gaddy was an amazing woman who devoted her life to trying to help the poor in the streets of Baltimore.

So if you have some non-perishable food items, or even some paper products, toiletries, etc, feel free to swing them on by. We have a bin that we're going to drop off on November 21st at the center - so let's FILL IT UP!

Garret Ohm

Special K as a Megabrand

2006-11-08T09:46:00.000-08:00

From Adage:

In hot pursuit of the next megabrand, Special K is slapping its scarlet letter on everything from water to watches.

Special K, a dieting cereal that has become Kellogg's top brand, is now expanding into meal bars and water products. |ALSO: Comment on this report in the 'Your Opinion' box below.

Diet strategy
In the five years since Kellogg Co. and its agency, Leo Burnett Worldwide, devised the Special K Challenge diet plan, it's blossomed into the company's No. 1 brand, with an estimated $500 million in global sales. Now Kellogg is poised to push its diet credentials even further.

It plans this month to nationally roll out a line of protein waters and protein bars for the diet section already on the shelf at Wal-Mart. It will also launch Special K Chocolatey Delight to help assuage dieters' cravings come diet season this January (see sidebar). Special K Personal Trainer watches which calculate calories burned and are already sold in the U.K., could also find their way across the ocean.

Health and wellness VP
To mastermind this aggressive expansion, Kellogg named Alan Gravely, a former marketing executive in its frozen-foods division, to the new position of VP-marketing of health and wellness. As one executive close to Kellogg noted, Mr. Gravely's position was created "in recognition of the largess of the brand, to put a more coordinated effort against it."

As Special K has expanded in recent years to include new flavors, such as the 2001 hit Special K Red Berries, and new forms, including bars, snack bites and waffles, spending has also increased. Kellogg laid out about $45 million in measured media for the brand in 2005. In January through June of this year, it had already spent $31 million, TNS Media Intelligence/CMR figures show.

"Kellogg has done a great job by not just focusing on overall health and wellness but by segmenting the market within that for different need states, for example touting All-Bran for digestion and Special K for weight management," said Credit Suisse analyst David Nelson. In terms of the expansion of that weight-management area, Mr. Nelson noted that, of course, extensions "have to be consistent with a brand's positioning, but Kellogg has credibility in not taking things too far in the last five years since they've been back on track."

Sales up 16%
In the mostly declining cereal category, Kellogg managed during the year ended Sept. 6 to drive sales of Special K up 16% to $286 million in food, drug and mass merchandisers excluding Wal-Mart and, in the highly competitive bars business, to build its Special K bars up 67%to $96 million in those same outlets, according to Information Resources.

Those numbers have given senior management the confidence to bet in a big way Special K can survive and even thrive in new categories, including the ultracompetitive water arena, with its Special K20 Protein Waters, and in the pharmacy and diet and nutrition aisles, where consumers are not used to seeing the brand.

Retail buyers are bullish on Special K cereal and are confident as well about the protein bars. Water they're not sure about. "You never know with these things. It could be the flavor of the month and only click for a while, or it could be the next big hit," said one. "It's hard to know."

Shelf space commitments
With the Special K name and Kellogg's backing, though, retailers are certainly going to give the new products the shelf space Kellogg is asking for. Advertising for the lines will hit in January, touting their ability to help consumers stay on track with their weight-management goals throughout the day. Observers said that if the initiative is successful, Kellogg will gain a legitimate footprint in the diet arena and stronger credentials to take the brand even further.

Asked during Kellogg's second-quarter earnings call about how far Special K might be expanded, President-Chief Operating Officer David Mackay said: "Wherever we can find ways to bring to consumers things that help against a particular need state and work off our current brands, that's exactly what we're going to do."

(Good) Marketing Really Takes Guts

2006-11-02T06:38:00.000-08:00

True story. The husband of one of our esteemed clients, who shall both go nameless came to us a couple of weeks ago as they were starting a new company. The company is involved in high end home electronics integration. They were just getting their company off of the ground and wanted a brochure to use as a leave behind and to give to architects and builders to show that they were a company capable of delivering a quality product and a seamless install. Sure, we can do that. But a little background - this company just started on 10/10/2006. They have a name and no logo, and a Web site only a mother could love.

So our strategy, rather than to take the graphic design approach, was to work to develop the brand before we went ahead and just designed a pretty brochure. The idea here is that we want to work to properly position this brand before we execute any deliverables. Do they want to be high end, low end, or in the middle? What about them makes them a better choice than the other dudes that are priced similarly? Why should someone NOT go with a cheaper bid? Do they hang their hats on quality, scalable product or seamless installs? So obviously there are a lot of things to consider. It's our job to position them properly and then execute this graphically and in print.

The bottom line is, we knew that they were going to other firms that would probably give them just the cost to design a brochure, without this added process of brand development, which IS a significant expense. It was clearly the best approach, though. The question was, do they see the value in this process and do they have the guts to invest in it, even though they are tight on cash? Or would they take the easy way out?

The pitch went well and all signs point to the former, but we won't know for sure for a couple of days. But it really sounds like these guys have guts and are prepared to throw caution to the wind and do it right. Our fingers are crossed.

More later,

Garret Ohm

I Strongly Dislike Logos

2006-11-01T18:20:00.000-08:00

Notice I didn't say hate. Hate's a strong word for something that is a staple of the industry that I love. But over the past few weeks, I've come to the realization that I really dread when our agency has to do a logo job. It's not that we can't or we won't - we've done some really cool and awesome logos over the last 17 years - many of which you'd definitely recognize.

You see, it's just that it is one of the projects that we work on that causes the most undue stress, agony and HEARTBURN. The reason this happens, is because many business owners just plain believe that their logo is their brand. They truly believe that this is what defines them; therefore, it MUST be so incredibly mind blowing that they can barely speak real words when they see it.

And what happens when a small business owner thinks this way? They start to fantasize in their mind long before we present creative to them about how awesome it is. Do they realize that these types of expectations can rarely ever be met? Probably not. Inevitably, they are disappointed when they see the logos and don't fall ass first right out of their conference room chairs. It's a task that is seldom met by even the great agencies of the world, especially in the first round.

What we need to work on is making sure a customer's expectations are realistic from the start. The truth is, your brand is so much more than just how awesome your logo is. Your brand is your unique selling proposition (USP), your people, your culture, your product, your service, etc. These aren't things that can be communicated with just a logo or "graphic design." Think about it - some of the best brands in the world have logos that could have been designed by a wanna-be artist.

Don't believe me? Well, you've probably never even paid attention because logos are seldom shown by themselves without their other brand elements - they're usually communicated with an emotion or a message. Nike, Microsoft, VW, Sony - they're not good logos, they're well communicated brands. Check these beauties out:

So, Mr. or Mrs. marketing director or small business owner - the next time you have your agency design you a logo for your brand, make sure your expectations aren't out of whack - you could end up unnecessarily disappointed.

Until next time,

Garret Ohm

Tried Live.com?

2006-10-30T12:29:00.000-08:00

Hi all -

I just read an article about it this morning. Has anyone tried www.live.com? It's Microsoft's entry into the search forum, and it seems at first eerily similar to Google. Check it out if you get a chance. One of the coolest things that I've seen about it so far, other than its appealing layout, is the ability to customize your search results.

Play with it a little bit. There's a decent chance that someday soon, www.live.com will be the majority of America's start page.

-Garret

AAB Golf Tournament

2006-10-30T08:38:00.000-08:00

Hi all -

I just wanted to let you know that it's official. I am now the chairperson of the 2007 Advertising Association of Baltimore golf tournament. NICE! I played in the tournament this year at Mountain Branch, and hope to deliver an even better event this year.

If anyone is interested in sponsorship, or playing, give me a call or email!

Garret Ohm

Video Gamer Target Audience

2006-10-19T07:42:00.000-07:00

If you had to guess what the typical demographic was for video gamers, what would you guess it would be? Me? Before reading the article below, I would have guessed that it would be 14-17 year old boys, with little to no annual income. WRONG. Check it out - this is good hard research from the Center for Media Research that suggests that the average video gamer is actually 41 years old and more than HALF are WOMEN. Stunning marketing research. Talk with you later,

Garret Ohm
We Know Target Audience Research

Average Video Gamer is 41 and Half Are Female

According to comScore Media Metrix, the second quarter results of Game Metrix, a quarterly syndicated study found that video games have much broader appeal than teenage boys. On average, gamers are 41 years of age with an average annual income of $55,000. Further, females account for 52 percent of the gaming audience. The average gamer has been online for nine years and 84 percent have broadband access at home.

When asked about their primary reason for purchasing their last game, more then one-quarter of those using each type of device stated that they purchased their last game because they had played it before and enjoyed the experience. The next most popular responses included "I heard good things about it" and "A friend recommended it," indicating the importance of word-of-mouth recommendations in influencing purchase behavior.

Erin Hunter, executive vice president of comScore's Media and Entertainment Group, says that "...These findings underscore the importance of marketing to, and listening to, experienced gamers. Familiarity with a particular game can influence both the gamers' direct purchase behavior, as well others' purchase behavior through positive word-of-mouth."

Top Motivations for Gamers to Buy Games
	Gaming Device
Reasons for Purchasing Last Game	Console	PC (CD/DVD)	Mobile
I played it before and liked it	24%	27%	29%
It's a sequel to a game that I like	16%	13%	8%
I heard good things about it	11%	8%	15%
A friend recommended it	9%	12%	8%
Price	8%	8%	9%
Got good reviews from critics/reviewers	7%	3%	6%
I saw/ heard an advertisement for the game	6%	4%	8%
I wanted to demo the game	5%	4%	6%
Someone gave it to me, but I did not ask for it	3%	8%	5%
Source: Game Metrix

Heavy gamers were more likely to accept and embrace in-game advertising than light/medium gamers. 37 percent agreed that featuring actual products or companies in games make the games feel more realistic, while 27 percent of light/ medium gamers agreed. Half of heavy gamers believe that advergaming "is inevitable and will be in all or most games in the future," compared to 42 percent of light/medium gamers.

(Heavy gamers played games at least 16 hours per week or played games on two or more devices for at least 11 hours per week. Light/ medium gamers played video games for less than 11 hours per week. One quarter of respondents qualified as heavy gamers, while the remaining 75 percent fell into the light/medium gamer segment.)

Ms. Hunter concludes that "From the advertiser's standpoint, gaming is a potentially powerful medium for reaching consumers who may not be reachable via more traditional means..."

For this release and more information about comScore Game Metrix, please visit here.

Most Affluent Women Have a Relationship With The Internet

2006-10-19T06:21:00.000-07:00

Here are some cool research statistics that will definitely help us when planning media for clients looking to reach affluent women. It looks like pretty much all working women access the internet. Many of these women are actually purchasing products or services on the internet! Cool research, give it a quick look - it's from the Center for Media Research.

Almost All Affluent Working Women Turning to the Internet

According to new research by The Media Audit, affluent working women with family incomes of $75,000 or more are growing in number and 94.3 percent access the Internet during an average month. From 2004 to 2005 the percent of affluent working women making five or more purchases on the Internet increased from 54.1 percent to 56.6 percent. The percent making 12 or more purchases in the same years increased from 30.0 percent to 32.2.

Bob Jordan, president of International Demographics, Inc., said "From 2004 to 2005 affluent working women increased from 8.7 percent to 9.2 percent of the 137 million adults in the (markets surveyed)... (and) have also made some rather dramatic changes in their media habits."

"The percentage of working women that spent at least 430 minutes a week on the Internet (heavy users) jumped from 48.6 percent in 2004 to 50.8 percent in 2005," says Jordan. "Heavy use of radio, television, newspapers and direct mail all declined within this group. The collective Internet changes for this group are significant, and other media is... paying the price"

Among all adults, just 35.2 percent have homes valued at more than $200,000. Among affluent working women the percentage is 63.9; 31.0 percent have homes valued at $400,000 or more. "These are mostly college educated (58.1 percent) two income (69.0 percent) families," says Jordan.

The 10 markets with the highest percentages of affluent working women are:

Washington, DC, 14.7
Southern New Hampshire, 13.0
San Jose, 12.5
Hartford, 12.3
Minneapolis-St Paul, 11.9
Little Rock, 11.7
Omaha-Council Bluffs, 11.7
San Francisco, 11.6
Baltimore, 11.4
Madison, 11.3

On the other hand, Jordan pointed out that a community may not be "poor" even with a low percentage of affluent working women. As an example he noted that even Daytona Beach, which has the lowest percent of affluent working women (3.6 percent) of the markets surveyed, ... is ninth among the 87 markets in percentages (13.9 percent) of affluent empty nesters with household incomes of $50,000 or more."

For more, go to The Media Audit here.

Advertising Goes Down The Toilet

2006-10-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

I read this article at www.brandchannel.com and really enjoyed it. I thought you would as well. It's about the power and/or danger of advertising where people do their business. No, not THAT kind of business......

Enjoy: http://www.brandchannel.com/start1.asp?fa_id=335

Sincerely,

Garret Ohm
garret@thecyphersagency.com

Wal Mart's Christmas Gift List

2006-10-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

From AdAge...
Wal-Mart's launch of a new kind of "wish list" Christmas site for children has drawn the ire of consumer advocates. "If you show us what you want on your list, we'll blast it off to your parents," says an animated holiday elf named Wally who guides children through a seemingly endless conveyor belt of toys on the retailer's website. Children who click a "yes" button to have a product e-mailed to their parents hear a round of applause. If they click the "no" button, the rejected toy gets boxed up and unceremoniously sent to a dump truck.

The animated Wally, and his elf friend Mary, characters with quirky accents and irreverent attitudes, are also the stars of an upcoming 60-second, 3-D spot that will run in cinemas this holiday season, and they will also appear in TV spots and in a special comic book that will be sent to children who visit the website of the nation's largest toy retailer.

Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood is launching a letter-writing campaign among its 7,000 members asking Wal-Mart to close down the site. "Families have a hard enough time navigating holiday commercialism without the world's largest retailer bypassing parents entirely and urging children to nag," said Susan Linn, co-founder. "For a company that purports to be family-friendly and promote family values it's very disrespectful of both parents and children." What do you think?

So, did Wal-Mart overstep its bounds with a holiday website that allows children to build a toy wish list that the retailer e-mails to their parents? What do you think?

Garret Ohm

Cool Ads

2006-10-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

A friend of mine that is in the business passed along some cool non-traditional advertising techniques that I wanted to pass along. Check them out:

An ad for a plastic surgeon...

Fun ad for a music-related client...

Folgers Coffee...

Firearms expo...

An ad for a solution that helps stop nail biting...

Pretty sweet, huh?

Garret

Blogging About Blogs

2006-10-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to promote a very good Blog that deals with Internet useage. If you want to check it out, go to:

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/

Garret

Did You Know?

2006-10-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

Did you know?

54% of consumers resist marketing?
56% of consumers actually avoid products that are overmarketed?
69% of consumers actually go out of their way to block advertising?

It's true - the research tells us so. So how are YOU reaching out to your target consumer?

When Brands Collide

2006-10-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

The other day I bought a pair of shoes. Anyone that knows me knows that this can be a huge undertaking. Usually, it involves at least a lap and a half around Arundel Mills mall. For those of you who are counting, there are 19 stores in Arundel Mills that sell men's shoes. 19! I usually have to stop at every one, just to make sure I'm not missing any.

So the shoes I bought are shown here (well, those are like mine - mine actually have white in the back where the black is....):

Guess what type they are? Most people know that the three diagonal stripes comes from the Adidas brand (four is K Swiss, two is Steve Madden). But it clearly says Goodyear on the side of the shoe. What the heck?

Well, being the brand-phile that I am, I had to buy the pair of shoes that had not one, but TWO brands incorporated into the shoe. Now, I'm not sure how it all went down, but I can totally rationalize why both of these companies probably got together on the deal where Goodyear would supply the rubber for the soles of an Adidas shoe.

My guess is that Goodyear marketing executives were sitting around the conference room table thinking about innovative new ways to get the Goodyear name out in front of their target audience, which I'm assuming is largely Males 18-35 that are into the performance of their automobile. And if you've been reading my other blogs, you know that breaking through to this group is harder than ever....

So someone probably started thinking of how they could cross promote with other brands that are popular with this audience. Maybe they even thought - "hey, maybe we could provide free Goodyear rubber in exchange for prominent brand placement." Someone probably started thinking about what brands use rubber...."hey, shoe companies use rubber. What's a popular shoe brand with Males 18-35? ADIDAS."

Then, someone gets on the phone with Adidas' marketing department and makes the offer to supply the rubber for the soles at no charge, in exchange for them putting out a co-branded shoe. Pretty cool idea, and in my opinion I think it works well. If nothing else, it shows innovative marketing. And I have to say it produced a pretty cool darn shoe. Which, incidentally, is a damn good shoe for driving - it's excellent for the heel and toe downshifting method!

So the lesson here? I think that brands big and small need to look further into cross promotions. I think this is going to be an even more effective way to enhance your brand awareness as time goes by.

Cheers, that's all for now...

Garret Ohm

The New Mass Comm

2006-10-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hi all - while I was out winning The Brick Companies Classic, this ended up in my Inbox from The Center for Media Research. It's a good article about the "future" of mass communication. With these 16-34's getting older and the new generation being even more digitally savvy, marketers really need to watch how they integrate these new mediums into their advertising budgets. We're working with a couple of new retail clients right now, and this is definitely an area of consideration for us - in fact, we're even suggesting a couple of clients who focus on females 16-34 start a Myspace page! Fun times....

G

Digital Consumers are Transforming Mass Communication

A new study by Universal McCann, "The New 'Digital Divide', How the New Generation of Digital Consumers are Transforming Mass Communication," concludes that consumers are increasingly relying on non-traditional platforms for entertainment, news, social interactions, shopping, and other daily activities.

The Executive Summary reports that there was a time when music was the great divide between generations. Today, technology has become the source of the "generation gap." A younger, tech savvy segment adopting new media platforms, with the 16-34 age group leading the way in socializing:

The age group 16-34 is 25% more likely than ages 35-49 to use instant messenger, with over 75% of ages 16-34 currently using at least one service.
About 40% age P16-34 belong to a social network site; this is twice the percentage of 35-49 year olds.
Nearly 40% of are16-34 have met someone face to face after meeting on the Internet.
Yahoo, AOL and MSN Messenger are among the top Internet services in terms of awareness and use by ages16-34.
This is followed closely behind by social networking site, Myspace.com with 43% of 16-34's being current users. In comparison, only 16% of 35-49's are using Myspace.

David Cohen EVP, U.S. Director of Digital Communications concluded that "there is no doubt that we are moving rapidly from a world of passive receptivity to active engagement. No longer can we simply broadcast our messages to a mass audience and hope that our standard metrics of reach and frequency will guarantee success. Accountable engagement innovation is the battlefield of the 21st century..."

The younger set has adopted many of these emerging technologies at a faster rate with three out of four of the 16-34 heavy Internet users currently using instant messenger. Additionally, there are twice as many 16-34s visiting social networking sites than those 35-49. Other findings include:

71% of the 16-34 year olds have participated in a blogging activity.
The 16-34's are three times more likely (25%) than those 35-49 to manage and/or write their own blog.
While personal and family/friend are the most common types of blogs among the younger group, more than 40% are developing photo and pop culture (music/film) blogs as well.
One third of 16-34's have participated in peer-to-peer file sharing compared to just 12% of those 35-49.
Thus far, just 10% of 16-34 year old heavy Internet users say they have used IPTV and only 14% have used voice over Internet protocol.
When asked which information source they would miss the most, television came out on top, with 27% of 16-34's and 29% of 35-49's saying they would miss this medium
There are still low levels of usage and intention to use RSS feeds, with nearly half of our sample unaware of what they are.

Email Marketing

2006-10-02T08:05:00.000-07:00

So are email marketers getting smarter, or are consumers starting to greet email marketing with (slightly) open arms? You tell me...From the Center for Media Research.

Garret

E-Mail Marketing Getting High Click, Open, and Conversion Relative to Cost

WebSurveyor Corp., partnering with Internet Retailer released an August survey of IR e-newsletter readers revealing that web merchants have very ambitious plans to increase both the size and scope of their e-mail marketing efforts. 18.4% expect to grow their opt-in lists by more than 50% within the next year, while another 25.1% will increase their lists by 16% to 50%.

Reported by Mark Brohan in a recent article, he says that 73% of chain retailers, catalogers, virtual merchants and consumer brand manufacturers taking part in the monthly survey on e-mail marketing, spend 5% of their marketing budget or less on e-mail marketing, yet just over half of respondents, 50.6%, report that 6% or more of their sales come from e-mail marketing, with 25% saying the proportion is over 11%.

The report found that

57% of the respondents have opt-in lists of fewer than 50,000 names
24.3% have 51,000 to 400,000 names
9.1% have 401,000 to 1 million names
10% have more than 1 million

63.8% of retailers conduct up to three e-mail campaigns each month and another 25.2% conduct between four and eight campaigns, says the report. 62.8% also indicate that they've increased the frequency of e-mail campaigns in the past year.

E-mail marketing consultants consider an open rate of about 20% and a click-through rate of 4% to 5% to be a highly effective e-mail campaign.

26.5% of participants in the survey report open rates of 20% or more (11.2% reported 20% to 25% while 15.3% said more than 25%)
11.8% report open rates of 16% to 19%
14.6% report e-mail open rates of less than 5%
6.2% say open rates of 1% or less.

Click-through and Conversion averages are growing:

17% report e-mail click-through rates of 16% or more
28.9% report click-through rates of 6% to 15%.
20.2% of respondents report e-mail sales conversion rates of 1% to 2%
26.5% with conversion averages of between 2.1% and 4%
14% with conversion rates of between 4.1%
10%, and 3.2% with sales conversion averages greater than 10%

Brohan concludes that by working smarter with existing resources while controlling costs, web retailers expect a sizeable return on their investment in e-mail marketing. Compared to the rising cost of paid search, he says, which can absorb up to 50% of a big retailer's total annual online marketing budget, e-mail marketing remains relatively inexpensive.

41.6% of all retailers taking part in the research spend less than 1% of their total annual marketing budgets on e-mail. That compares with
31.3 % spend between 1% and 5%
13.8% commit 6% to 10%
5.6% spend from 11% to 15%
3.8% from 16% to 25%
4.1% with e-mail budgets that account for 25% of their overall marketing budgets

Branding and ROI Go Hand In Hand

2006-09-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

Great article from OnlineSpin, written by Dave Morgan of Tacoda. I thought I'd pass it along to all you folks ravenously searching for great marketing articles.

G

Branding and ROI, Mutually Exclusive?
By Dave Morgan

In the old days of advertising and marketing, people that did branding and people that focused on ROI were polar opposites. They lived on different ends of the world. The former were in the high end of the advertising world, where it was all about sizzle and premium traditional media environments, the latter were in the less glamorous direct marketing world, where it was all numbers, postal rates, telesales and the business of managing lists. Their two worlds couldn't have been more different. The former hung out in glitzy, high visibility places like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, the latter in more remote, subdued locales, with cheaper real estate, labor and data geeks--places like Central Florida.

Most importantly, brand advertisers cared little about measurable sales and ROI. For direct marketers, that was all that they cared about.

No more. These days, all marketers want measurable results related to sales objectives from their advertising and marketing expenditures, particularly online. A big part of this has certainly been driven by the fact that a large portion of early online advertisers were direct marketers. Many think that this focus on measurability will go away as more and more of the traditional brand advertisers show up online. I don't think that will happen. All online advertisers, including those for whom branding is the primary objective, will want more and more ROI measurability. Why do I believe that?

Inertia requires it. Online ad budgets have to come from somewhere, and something extra is going to be needed to move it. Traditional media are notoriously bad at ROI metrics, so online buyers will look for better measurability there to justify moving the money.

Sales channels and marketing are becoming more integrated. As the clients' businesses become more integrated and measurable, so must all of their advertising, irrespective of whether it is branding or promotional.

The corporate game is changing. Sarbanes-Oxley is the new law of the land, and auditors must certify it. They understand numbers, not emotions. They don't care much about the difference between branding and direct response, and they certainly don't understand (or approve) of the fact that branding campaigns frequently bring with them tickets to the Super Bowl or Cannes.

All media buying is becoming more sophisticated. The reorganization of the media departments into media agencies has brought much more specialization and sophistication and scale to the business. They can now afford and use technologies that can measure things that were only dreamed of before. Their businesses run on very tight margins, so ROI metrics are super critical to them.

Competition. Publishers are creating and integrating their own proprietary measurement tools and data as competitive differentiators. Many of these are able to deliver detailed ROI metrics. Keeping up with the Joneses--and their order flow--will do much to drive this market.

Because you can. Online advertising is measurable, and systems now permit high degrees of post-impression sales measurement. Many brand buyers will want it, just because it is available and of interest to them and their clients.

It's no longer a black and white world of branding and direct marketing. The future, I think, will be much grayer, as branding takes on ROI characteristics, and direct marketing, likewise, will probably take on elements of brand advertising. Whatever the outcome, ROI and measurable sales results are here to stay. Branding and ROI are certainly not mutually exclusive anymore.

Dave Morgan is Chairman of Tacoda.

Analysis Paralysis

2006-09-26T17:41:00.000-07:00

Hi all - here's an excerpt I was reading from an article written by Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of "guerilla marketing." It was pretty good so I wanted to pass it along. The full article can be read at the link at the bottom of this post.

Garret Ohm
Guerilla Marketer

Guerrillas are never stopped by analysis paralysis. Don’t let it stop you.

Many business owners realize the simplicity of marketing, but just don’t know where they should begin. Analysis paralysis stops them in their tracks. So many tasks. Where to start? So they don’t start. They know what they must do, but don’t really have a plan, so they make disconnected efforts to achieve a hazy goal. When they don’t see encouraging results right off the bat, they lose confidence, if any existed in the first place.

If there’s any correct time to start, it’s right now. If there’s any proper place, it’s right where you are. You’ll never feel you are completely ready, so you may as well begin immediately.

If there’s any secret to be learned, it’s the secret of taking action and never stopping. You’ve heard Diana Ross sing when she was a member of The Supremes. Hear now what she says about taking action: "You can’t just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream; you’ve got to get out there and make it happen for yourself."

Guerrillas have learned that the best time to market is when they don’t need any more business. They know that the best source of new clients is old clients and that the best marketing is characterized by quality and not quantity. They realize that their best marketing vehicle, and least expensive, is a satisfied customer. And they know that the two best ways to measure their marketing are by customer retention and by profits, both a part of each other.

The rest of the article can be found here: http://www.gmarketing.com/articles/read/10/

Mobile TV?

2006-09-26T17:12:00.000-07:00

For all you hardcore new media followers, here's a new study from The Center for Media Research that talks about Mobile TV - an emerging form of new media that is going to take over the world pretty soon!

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Consumers Want TV At Their Fingertips

According to Telephia, researcher to communications and new media markets, the mobile TV audience grew 45 percent to 3.7 million subscribers in Q2 2006. The third screen allows consumers to get news and information while on the go, with news, weather and sports channels topping the list as the most watched mobile TV content. Total quarterly mobile TV revenues increased to $86 million last quarter, an increase of 67 percent since Q1.

Tamara Gaffney, Director of Product Management, Telephia, says "Mobile TV is the fastest growing wireless data service, ... (with) the potential to be the most important new form of media since the advent of the Internet."

Among all mobile TV users:

ABC News was the most watched mobile TV channel in Q2 2006, with 40 percent of the total mobile TV audience
Thirty-two percent of the total mobile TV audience watched The Weather Channel
Fox Sports was third at 31 percent
ESPN next with and 29 percent of the mobile TV audience
Fox News fifth at 22 percent

In terms of access reach, people who watch relative to those who had access to the channel, CNN secured the top spot with 65 percent of mobile TV users. The Weather Channel had the widest distribution with an access rate of 82 percent.

Gaffney added, "...Consumers want television at their fingertips... News and information is the killer app for mobile television..."

Mobile TV Channels by Audience Share
*Channel*	Share of Total Audience
ABC News	40%
The Weather Channel	32%
Fox Sports	31%
ESPN	29%
Fox News	22%
NBC Mobile News	20%
Comedy Central	16%
AccuWeather	15%
Discovery Kids	15%
Discovery Channel	13%
CNN	12%
E!	12%
Source: Telephia Mobile TV Diary Report, Q2 2006

Mobile TV Channels by Coverage Area Reach
	Access Reach (% of Audience with Access to Channel That Viewed)		Access (% of Total Audience With Access to Channel)
Channel
CNN	65%	18%
ABC News	55%	78%
Fox News	49%	38%
AccuWeather	46%	34%
The Weather Channel	45%	82%
Comedy Central	41%	37%
ESPN	39%	63%
Discovery Channel	32%	37%
Fox Sports	31%	79%
NBC Mobile News	30%	64%
E!	26%	37%
Discovery Kids	25%	30%
Source: Telephia Mobile TV Diary Report, Q2 2006

For more information, visit Telephia here.

Ford Marketing Blunder?

2006-09-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

Hi all - I was listening to Howard Stern on Sirius Sattelite Radio yesterday and heard a rather peculiar exchange that made me think, "I have to write about this." It's really more about radio product placement. I've talked about product placement a few times lately, but mostly referring to television or movie product placement. But every now and again, crafty marketers figure out ways to get their products significant coverage on radio as well.

Howard started for some reason talking about the fact that it was about time for him to buy a new car. He was mentioning that he was thinking about buying a truck. A few of the folks on the show mentioned a few trucks to consider and he commented about how he really needed to get on finding a new car. He said he'd never own a General Motors Car (can't blame him!), but other than that, I don't think he had any specific leads on the truck he wanted.

Then, out of nowhere, the screeners put a call through from a woman supposedly from Ford Motor Company. She was all excited to be talking to Howard. She didn't sound too sophisticated, so I'm not sure what her position was with Ford, or even whether she was a dealer. In any event, without hesitation, she offered Howard a free 2 year lease on a brand new Lincoln Navigator.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I heard this, I was completely pissed off. Howard Stern, the man who earned a $500,000,000 5 year contract (no, I didn't add an extra zero accidentally) DOES NOT NEED A FREE CAR. What the hell are they doing offering a half-billionaire a free car? I don't know if many other people were as pissy about this as I was, but I just thought it was ludicrous. There's no way their PR company could have possibly approved this call. At least, I hope not.

Come on, Ford - in your struggles, don't you think you should be doing something positive for the community like giving away cars to homeless shelters or something rather than giving freebies to the ultra-rich? Dumb move. Not that I really ever would, but now I'm DEFINITELY never buying a Ford. Idiots. Even Howard thought it was pretty ludicrous that they were offering him a free car, and promptly turned it down. Kudos Howard - it just goes to show you that your ego has not gotten the best of you.

Product placement gone wrong! Oh, and for all of you folks that don't have Sirius, I highly recommend it.

Garret Ohm

Creative is NOT a Department

2006-09-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

Here's an article from Tony Mikes from the Second Wind Network, which is a nationwide network of ad agencies. We're a member of this organization, so we're privy to some pretty good stuff from time to time. I like this article and would like to put it into practice at a much higher level here. It's definitely something to strive for.

Later,

Garret

Creative Is NOT a Department

Last week I did an in-house seminar for one of our members. During a discussion of the agency’s core strengths, one of the account supervisors said to me that she felt the agency would be a lot better if the creative department could actually meet a deadline and bring forth more economical solutions to client’s problems. Just as I was about to answer, a thought occurred to me… as enlightened a thought as I’ve had in the past few years.

“Creative” is not a department. Creative is an agency way of life in the 21st century.

In a recent survey of Second Wind member’s clients, we asked, “What do you want from your agency?” Overwhelmingly, they said, “Ideas. We can do almost anything for ourselves these days what with Google, gaggles of vendors and corporate buying power. What we can’t seem to produce within our corporate culture is ideas.” You see, clients really want creative from agencies. Any agency that believes “creative” is just another department risks losing the ability to satisfy their clients.

How do you turn your department-oriented agency into one big creative entity? It’s easy. Just follow these steps.

Meet regularly to discuss the agency’s work. I know one agency that has a corkboard at the rear of the agency and tacks up recently completed work, where anyone can write on the piece and comment about it. At the end of the month they have a meeting to discuss the marked-up work. This is a great incentive for better work.
As you develop your agency’s mission and vision, make sure you include points about being a creative organization.
Don’t limit your creative vision to considering artwork and copywriting as the only creative products in your agency. I sincerely believe there is a tremendous amount of creativity today in media planning, strategic planning and research.
Make a big deal when the agency wins creative awards -- for agency staff and clients. Awards serve almost no practical purpose other than to make your employees and your clients feel good.
Along the same lines, be active in submitting work to the proper creative awards competitions. Nothing succeeds like success.
Make the creative brief sacred in your agency. If everyone knows that your agency will produce a first-class creative brief, your creative product will be better and your staff will have a creative flag to salute. The brief is a very important part of success in the best agencies.
Learn how to brainstorm. The one key is encouragement. In a great brainstorming session, there are no bad ideas, only ideas we don’t accept at the time. If you want to inspire a creative culture in your agency, you’ve got to involve the whole team.
Make your environment creative. What does it hurt to decorate the agency in a creative way? Colors, posters, banners, open space and collaborative areas all inspire your entire organization to be creative, not just the few people in the creative department.

One important caveat: under no circumstances should you add to the natural antipathy that occurs between creative and account service. This single-handedly undermines the philosophy of the whole organization being creative. In fact, as an agency principal, you can help the individuals in these areas see the humor in their differences and use that to the creative advantage of the entire agency.

What’s the benefit of this? In a future where ideas become our only asset, every agency has to become a more creative entity. Get busy getting creative.

Brand Cameo - Product Placement

2006-09-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Hi All -

Check this out - You all know that I love www.brandchannel.com because it talks all about branding, one thing that's very near and dear to our hearts.

But this is a cool feature section that Brandchannel runs. It's called Brand Cameo. It showcases all of the different brands that are featured in the blockbuster movies.

http://www.brandchannel.com/brandcameo_films.asp#234

Garret

Whoa, Long Time No Talkie...

2006-09-15T06:59:00.001-07:00

I just realized it's been almost two weeks since I've written anything on here. I cannot get in the habit of not writing, so I'm going to post this article I just read, even though it has NOTHING to do with Baltimore and Washington D.C. area marketing and advertising. NOTHING.

It just makes me happy.

Enjoy:
http://www.mpt.org/motorweek/reviews/rt2602a.shtml

Garret Ohm

Tivo What?

2006-08-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

Are you listening, media planners? This is a recent article I had in my inbox from The Center for Media Research.

Product Placement to Offset Ad-Skipping

According to research released by PQ Media, global paid product placement spending surged 42.2% to $2.21 billion in 2005 with double-digit growth expected to continue in 2006 and beyond, as brand marketers scramble to effectively engage consumers worldwide.

Patrick Quinn, president of PQ Media, said "Product placement has evolved from a novel marketing tactic to a key marketing strategy on a global scale, as brand marketers seek more effective methods to make important emotional connections with consumers... there is a new media order emerging worldwide in which fear of ad-skipping technology, doubts about traditional advertising's effectiveness, and declining government media subsidies have fueled a dramatic increase in the value of seamless brand integration."

Global paid product placement spending in TV, film and other media is expected to climb another 38.8% to $3.07 billion in 2006, driven by the continued shift in the world's leading markets toward a paid placement structure from a barter and added-value model, according to the report.

Global Paid Product Placement Spending: 2000 to 2005 ($US Millions)
	*Television*		*Film*		Other Media*		*Total*
*Year*	*Spend*	*Growth*	*Spend*	*Growth*	*Spend*	*Growth*	*Spend*	*Growth*
2005	$1,429.3	56.8%	$ 721.8	20.5	$58.1	32.3%	$2,209.2	42.2%
2006	2,113.1	47.8	876.1	21.4	77.7	33.7	3,066.9	38.8
2010	5,561.6	--	1,768.5	--	221.3	--	7,551.4	--
Sources: PQ Media, iTVX

*Other media, including magazines, newspapers, videogames, Internet, music, books, and radio

The transition is moving slower in Europe due to stricter rules governing the use of product placement. But, opines the report, this will change by year-end 2007, when the European Union is expected to liberalize restrictions encumbering growth in this region, fueling significant upside in some European markets.

The US is by far the world's largest paid product placement market at $1.50 billion in 2005, up 48.7%, making the US the world's fastest growing market as well. The US market tends to be much more advanced than other countries, and it is the model to which most other countries aspire. The majority of spending in the US and abroad is derived from five key product categories: transportation & parts, apparel & accessories, food & beverage, travel & leisure, and media & entertainment.

The report forecasts that global paid product placement spending will grow at a compound annual rate of 27.9% in the 2005-2010 period to $7.55 billion, as product placement growth continues to significantly outpace that of traditional advertising and marketing. The overall value of the worldwide product placement market, including the barter/exposure value of non-paid placements, will increase 18.4% compounded annually to $13.96 billion in 2010.

New Nike Ad With Maria Sharipova

2006-08-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-_CgWugraA

Pretty dang sweet ad!

Garret

Tidbit on Marketing To Moms

2006-08-30T10:27:00.000-07:00

According to Marketing to Moms, a division of BSM Media, Inc., word of mouth is the strongest form of marketing within the mom segment. 55% of mothers say they rely on recommendations when making purchases for the home, and that number jumps to 64 percent when it comes to buying a product for their child. Moreover, 71 percent of moms report they are likely to use the Internet for product information, advice or general information.

WOW. Who would have thought the data would be that strong on what motivates moms to buy. Not me. But it will certainly help us to develop marketing strategy for our clients that are involved in marketing to moms.

Garret

The Future of The Agency

2006-08-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

An interesting look into the future of the agency, and some thoughts on why an ad agency is the best bet.

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The Agency Of The Future--Or, Now What?
By Cory Treffiletti

Now what?

So you figured out search. You launched an affiliate program. You commissioned some amazing display units to run in banners, skyscrapers and L-Rec's. You built a profile page on MySpace. You did a partnership with one of the portals, and your Web site was featured in a movie. You may have even partnered with a mobile provider.

So now what?

Every few months, there's a new technology or a new tool launched that allows you to reach your customers in an exciting manner which "breaks through the clutter"--but not all of them are appropriate for your client or your brand. How do you make sense of all these twists and turns in the life of a media consumer? How do you decide what and what not to include? How do you navigate the open seas of marketing, so to speak?

It's not a new idea, but you need to become agnostic again and identify which of the new technologies and strategies are relevant. You need to rise above the cacophony of traditional and digital marketing and identify the tactical elements that are in harmony with your strategy. You need to analyze the porosity of the tools you're looking to utilize, and see which filter out the unwanted audience members and allow you to reach only those you intended to reach.

Not every new tool or development will be appropriate. Not every new idea is applicable, but you can't ignore them. Without third parties examining these elements and trying to determine what works and what doesn't, your marketing becomes stale, and you get lost in the race to garner the attention of the consumer.

There's been much written about the state of the agency world over the last few months, as a number of really intelligent people have recently fled the agency world and run to the safe haven of client-side marketing. I for one considered this tactic--and realized that those exciting new technologies and ideas were why I couldn't quite leave the agency world behind yet.

These third parties are needed to evaluate the changing landscape. If you want to get the most out of the agency of the future, challenge it. Ask it for a POV on new technology. Don't just ask it for the same old retread of what's been done before. Push the envelope and push your business forward!

I think that for all the beatings agencies have taken over the past few years due to the repeated jabs from procurement specialists and tightfisted Mike Tyson-like budgeting, agencies are still the only ones capable of seeing the bigger picture through the trees. Media buying may be commoditized and creative may be squeezed, but I still see the agencies as the potential for an un-biased third party who can provide a no-holds-barred look at what needs to be done. They can help you evaluate these new trends if you allow them the freedom and push them for innovation. Your client-side team may be good, but they get mired in the details of the day-to-day. Use that outside force for what it was meant to be used for.

The agency is going to evolve to become a business partner rather than a marketing partner. Your agency should not only provide you with a campaign recommendation--but it should also provide you with projections and business analysis that demonstrates the kind of impact these efforts will have on driving the only thing that truly matters to any marketer: sales!

The agency of the future will be integrated into your business beyond the development of media and creative campaigns. The agency of the future will be able to answer the question, "Now what?" The agency of the future should be able to provide you with a bleeding edge analysis for what works, what doesn't, and--more important--how all these elements will work together in the coming years. This is the kind of insight no one but a third party focused on this kind of information can provide. This is where the agency of the future will prove its value.

So next time you get a down minute, pick up the phone and call your agency contacts and ask them, "Now what?" You should get some very interesting answers.

Mini Ad in Car & Driver

2006-08-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

So last night my issue of Car & Driver showed up in my inbox, much to my delight. I know, I'm a nerd. I've accepted it. So, I did the same thing I do every time I get a new magazine--immediately dove in!

Leafing through the magazine, I saw many of the new 2007 model year cars. But as an ad-man, of course, the biggest thing I notice are the new car ads. The one the struck me the most was the new ad for the Mini-cooper. It was pretty awesome - I hadn't really seen a great Mini print ad since CP+B resigned the account to tackle the North American marketing account for Volkswagen. But this one is pretty cool - it's just a bunch of jumbled up words on a page, with the message, "complimentary decoder with every Mini purchase."

It's an interesting shift from Mini's recent strategy of pushing the car's "small" characterisics. Now, it's almost as if they're saying that owning a Mini puts you in an elite club that only Mini owners would understand. I'm not sure if the Mini brand has that kind of pull just yet (especially since the car's price tag is so attainable) but it's interesting. At the very least, it has the people talking and ME WRITING.

Here's a quick blurb about the campaign:

Click Here

More later, my people.

Garret Ohm

MySpace Is Insane

2006-08-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

Check this article from CNN Money out. It's about the founders of MySpace. They are two dudes that at this point have to be pretty content with their lives. They took an idea they had for a social networking Web site and built it into by far the largest social networking site there is. I have to admit, we are a part of that network! Check us out here:

Anyway, here is a pretty cool article about the "Myspace Cowboys" and their glorious life after their company was gobbled up by Rupert Murdoch. I'm jealous. Pretty cool, though.

Click Here

Garret Ohm

Search Engine Results Happen For a Reason!

2006-08-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

Hi all - Here's some commentary from Andrew Wetzler that I thought was interesting about paid search engine marketing vs. natural search. It's truly two different ballgames, and natural search results don't come without effort.

To me, this article is great motivation to get on board and start moving with your search engine marketing program, both paid inclusion and natural search engine optimization.

Cheers,

Garret Ohm

Strong Natural Positions Are Not A Birthright
by Andrew Wetzler, Friday, August 25, 2006

I WAS CHATTING WITH A marketing manager from a well-established West Coast real estate brokerage the other day. He expressed a philosophy that I have heard a million times before, and always wondered at, because it's amazingly misguided.

In a nutshell, he said that because his company is the leader in its market and has been around longer than anyone else, it should thus be at the top of the heap in the natural results. Furthermore, the companies who are showing up ahead of his company in the rankings are much smaller, with a lesser reputation--so, in effect, he said, they shouldn't be there.

Guess what. Those factors will make a huge difference on the paid side of the fence, but they don't mean a lot from an organic perspective. While some people bemoan the fact that the Internet has become a pay-for-presence entity, I give the engines, Google especially, credit for maintaining the integrity of their algorithmic results. As many of us have learned, achieving and maintaining impressive natural positioning doesn't occur by accident, nor is it a factor of your pedigree.

I have found that in many cases there is a generational factor in the mix when companies think like this. Their industry leadership position is more a function of time-in-the-game than anything else--and they are being run by individuals who are in the latter stage of their careers. In other words, their significant market share is a result of a competitive advantage that they have held for years.

It's got to be particularly disconcerting to see other companies forge ahead of them in the search results who haven't paid their dues, who are encroaching on their turf, or who may be in another time zone or even on a different continent. It has also got to be very scary, as the Internet and search do not represent any sort of comfort zone.

Businesses who share this mindset ought to accept these realities and get on board with search. The upside potential is too great--and the opportunity lost by staying on the sidelines is too significant.

It is well known that Bill Gates underestimated the potential of the Internet for a very long time. As a result, Microsoft didn't allocate the resources that it could have early on. When you look at the market leaders in the space, you see that MSN continues to play catch-up to both Google and Yahoo. In an eerily similar manner to my discussion with that real estate company, the long time market leader (Microsoft) didn't accept the realities of the changing landscape and failed to adjust quickly enough.

More About :05 Video Advertisements

2006-08-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

:05 video ads are cool, and that's a fact. I especially love Eric Picard's creative graph in this article. I hope you enjoy it and that it opens your mind to the possibilities of using traditional media in a non traditional way!

The Importance of the :05 Video Ad

By Eric Picard

The :05 video ad format is rapidly gaining momentum, so today I'll call out the reasons it's such an important development.

DVRs

The :05 standard is beginning to take hold in broadcast TV because of the DVR. DVR users frequently fast-forward through advertising. Being human, they typically fast-forward too far into the content. So they rewind. Research shows they're seeing the last five seconds or so of the last ad in the pod.

Logically, the last ad is becoming more valuable. The new trend is for networks to place a :05 ad at the very end of a pod. Expect to see more :05 ads in that position.

The Annoyance Factor

When it comes to broadband video, there are even more compelling reasons to begin investigating the :05 format, especially when you consider new video consumption in emerging media such as portable video players.

We've done significant research into video ads' consumer annoyance factor. One of our strongest findings is consumer tolerance for ads lasts five to seven seconds then immediately turns to annoyance:

Given the very short durations of typical broadband video, this format provides a short brand and message exposure opportunity within a consumer's tolerance range. This should drive video consumption in a streaming Web page scenario as well as acceptance of video advertising. We're currently doing research on consumer acceptance of :05 video ad pods within longer-form content. I'll probably be able to share results with you in the coming months.

When you extend the video annoyance factor to other video media, such as mobile phones and portable video players, we believe (and should have data in coming months to back up) that video ad tolerance will be a significant hindrance factor to growth. Certainly other factors must be addressed, such as counting, tracking, and cross-media frequency of video messages.

Frequency by the Numbers

I'd also like to see research on the value of the :05 format as it relates to frequency. When a consumer's exposed to a :30 brand message in broadcast and the advertiser's goal is a reach of 3-5, is there enough impact in extending those frequencies through online video?

What about long-form video content (e.g., TV shows) offered either through streaming Web views or in portable video scenarios? Will consumers tolerate a :30 pre-roll ad, followed by content with several :05 ads by the same advertiser (and perhaps others) spread throughout with extensions of the original message? We saw ABC inserting just a few ads in primetime content offered streaming from its Web site. It denoted in the player exactly where the ads would show up. But it limited the number of ads to just a few.

Clearly, ABC is monetizing online content less effectively with only a few video ads, compared to the 20 or so ads per half hour of content on TV. Say the publisher is getting $40 CPM (define) for a primetime commercial. It has 20 commercials in a 30-minute show (a conservative estimate) and reaches 10 million households. That breaks down to about $400,000 per ad, or $8 million per 30-minute show.

If that same show ran online with the same number of ads, we can expect a $35 CPM for premium broadband video pre-rolls. If there's just one pre-roll and 5 million additional people watch the show online, we get an incremental $125,000 in revenue for the network for that show. With four additional ads inserted, that's $625,000.

What happens if we sell pods of :05 ads similar to the broadcast experience? With a conservative $10 CPM, we get $150,000

per ad in incremental revenue for the network. It's also a more palatable user experience. What if we turned those :05 ads into ads with enhanced targeting or with the ability to let the user telescope into a long-form ad? If we just get a 50 percent CPM lift, this would turn into about $225,000 of incremental revenue per ad per episode. It turns a dud of a show into a much more interesting investment. With targeting and enhanced ad formats, we could easily double revenue.

The industry must focus on pushing the :05 format to increase the amount of inventory available to advertisers and they can start creating short edits of ads for use in other media. Right now there are very few 1:05 video ads available to run on broadband, let alone :05 ads. We need creatives to master this format.

We must also lock down the definition of this short-form ad format. There's work going on in the EU toward an :08 standard (about half of a :15). If we're going to go short, we should do it in a way that will make consumers happy while retaining brand value.

The Difference Between Media Now and Media THEN

2006-08-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

Seana has some good points in this article she wrote about how the people involved with new media used to bash TV and print and used to claim that it was a legitimate medium, possibly a bit prematurely. Now it truly IS a crucial medium, she sees that TV and print are crucial drivers to the Web and vice versa. They need to be used in conjunction with each other...integrated media, imagine that!

Enjoy!

Garret Ohm

We (Finally) Have A Seat At The Table
By Seana Mulcahy

Remember a few years ago? A typical day-in-the-life was assembling Powerpoint decks to justify why our prospects should advertise online. We all used the same facts and figures. We cooed about the Web being the fastest growing media in the history of time. We bashed television and print (oops). We also talked about how trackable online advertising was. We schlepped the deck around from prospect to prospect. We hoped for a mere percentage of a media budget to be carved off and allocated to our "new media."

Luckily, those days are over. Now I spend my time (per prospects' request) illustrating the most effective ways to advertise online. We talk about integration and synergy. We urge clients and prospects not to think about the digital space as stand-alone. We often struggle to quantify vehicles such as word-of-mouth, viral, blogging and podcasting.

I just read a great article in Strategy + Business magazine called "The Future of Advertising Is Now," which says that the "future" of the digital space is finally arriving. This writer couldn't agree more.

It's time for big media companies (and the rest of us) to look at all media platforms holistically. We need to keep a close eye on how the consumer uses media. Advertising nowadays must have a multi-platform approach. According to the article, when brand marketers and media companies consider this concept they:

• "Shift spending and management attention to digital media, and use those media to more effectively influence consumer purchase behavior.
• Develop formats to promote interaction with audiences, especially their most likely consumers.
• Create new research approaches and metrics that measure outcomes, not inputs.
• Combine "above-the-line" advertising (TV, radio, and print) and "below-the-line" marketing (promotions, sponsorships, events, public relations) in new two-way, integrated campaigns.
• Create their own branded entertainment assets and appeal to customers directly through them.
• "In-source" new skills and capabilities to achieve greater sales impact and other measurable results."

Many of us still, however, experience brands only allocating 5 percent to 10 percent of their marketing dollars toward the online space. This still does not make any sense to me. Is it just habit? Is it lack of trust in the medium? Do these folks take in account broadband's being in about two-thirds of American households? Do they realize how many people are beginning to use TiVo, DVRs and cable on-demand features to skip commercials altogether? Haven't they read about the infiltration of blogs, social networking sites, video on demand and the like? Why the hesitation? Will anyone move away from a TV-centric media buying mentality?

I was watching the Emmys last night. Conan O'Brien was talking about the threat of TiVo in his monologue. He said, "Now viewers can skip commercials with TiVo instead of just leaving the room." Isn't it true? He then talked about losing the younger audiences: "And the kids aren't watching us, they're watching a cat on a toilet on YouTube!"

Funny thing is, it is true. I was watching with my resident 16-year-old. She sat for a few minutes here and there, but kept getting up from the couch. She kept grabbing the clicker, going over to VH-1 and all sorts of music videos. Then she left the couch to go into the kitchen, hop on the computer, etc. She had music streaming on her PC, was downloading music, looking at Web sites and IMing friends. Oh yes I forgot, her phone kept chiming that she had text messages.

Certainly this scenario pertains to a younger audience. However, sitting down for an entire Emmy show was almost painstaking. The format seemed, well, I don't know--old. There was really nothing that kept me engaged. The commercials were a blur to me. I have to give those advertisers a bit of credit, though. They had Web sites to log onto and URLs tagged all over the place. However, I don't remember anything creative or compelling enough to make me want to log on.

So all in all, we have a permanent seat at the table--but we still only have a few percent of media dollars. What do we need to do as an industry to get the share we deserve? Is it creative? Strategy? As I scratch my head, help me out--post your thoughts to the Spin blog. As Gloria Gaynor once belted out, "I will survive. I will survive...hey heyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Advertising Push vs. Pull

2006-08-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

This is an article written by Tony Mikes from The Second Wind Network, of which we are members. It's a network of about 700 small and medium sized advertising agencies. Here Tony writes about the push/pull strategy difference between the Web and traditional advertising. Pretty good stuff:

Advertising Needs a New Model
Read this carefully:

The old advertising model where advertisers and their agencies pay for the privilege of exposing an audience to their message is fading away. It is fast being replaced by one in which advertisers pay only for real and fully measurable actions by consumers.

If you believe this, then you must realize how important it is for your agency to fully embrace internet marketing.

On the internet, only those who already want what your client offers even come close to seeing your marketing. They actively seek your client’s products and then click through to find out more. In this environment, you deal with interested prospects. It’s very efficient.

With traditional media, you hope that your marketing; TV, radio print, out-of home, etc is being viewed and noticed, and that it inspires prospects to check into it further.

Hoping to be noticed is the problem. Every time you run a spot or place an ad, you hope that maybe your target audience might be out there watching or listening. But, in reality, you have no idea where your prospects are at that moment. They may be in the bathroom, making a sandwich, away for the week and not reading the paper, or even worse, using Tivo on your ad as well as any others. This is just NOT very efficient.

Today’s consumers are very smart. They know how to use media, they are fairly cynical about advertising and they really don’t have a lot of time. So, highly directed media that allows them and enables them to find what they want, quickly and completely, is mandatory.

At the same time, it is becoming very clear that today’s consumers are hungry for something more than a transactional relationship with companies. They yearn for a more intimate, more caring relationship with their favorite brands. They WANT to be loyal, and they want to be advocates of their brand choices.

All of this absolutely fits the new model of convergence in media.

On one hand, buyers want the efficiency of on-line, and on the other, they want a strong brand relationship.

Your agency can supply both. Unlike internet-only agencies whose only stock in trade is based on CPC, CPA and other click metrics, and unlike old-fashioned traditional agencies (where you used to reside), your agency can combine converged philosophy and strong brand relationships with razor sharp measurement.

There are two ways to do this:

Grow your brand development capabilities. You are already good at branding. This is not brand development. Branding is what you do after you develop a brand for a client. Brand development is helping your clients to find the “sweet spot”. It’s their claim of distinction, the promise they make to their customers. It’s the truth of the company. The brand truth or promise is very important in this age of very smart, but relationship-starved consumers. The Brand Establishment is a group of agencies within Second Wind who have decided to devote themselves to brand development . If you are interested, call Jim Hughes at 949-633-2222.
Learn all you can about internet marketing metrics. Research and become familiar with SEM (search engine marketing), SEO, organic search, internet advertising, rich media, e-mail marketing, gaming, mobile marketing, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, shoshmosis, wikis and the other 21st century tools, that are now an important part of any company’s marketing mix. Then put all your new knowledge to use, and put a program in place, in-house! The internet is such a powerful and incredibly efficient marketing tool that you can’t afford not to be good at it as your agency progresses.

Integrating these marketing strategies and forming a convergence style will set you up as an important marketing partner for prospects and clients in the future.

It's Been A While

2006-08-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

Hi all -

Well, I've been off getting hitched and whatnot, so it's been a while since I've posted. I'll do some solid advertising and marketing-based commentary very soon, I promise, but in the meantime, many many good solid articles have been sent to me that I wanted to post. Here they come! Enjoy!

Online Video Advertising: A Primer for Publishers
by Jesse Chenard, Monday, August 28, 2006

Once upon a time, way back when, in an innocent time before snakes on planes, video was a novelty for Web publishers. Seen as a marketing tool to drive awareness for offline properties or products, online video was rarely part of a commerce or advertising solution (read: cost center.)

Enter 2006. No longer is online video a loss leader for Web publishers. It's increasingly a prime revenue source and major opportunity. With opportunity, of course, comes complexity. How do you make an online video effort not only engaging and attractive for end users, but also profitable and successful from a business standpoint?

Step 1: Start with good content. The first ingredient is good content. Without it there isn't much draw and certainly very little revenue. For sites like YouTube, content is entirely composed of user submissions. (I won't touch the whole copyright debate here.)

On the opposite end of the spectrum are content producers. In some cases they are making the content available for syndication but increasingly, are also looking to go directly to consumers with their own Web sites. In between you have the aggregators who get their content from a mix of user-generated and professionally produced sources.

Step 2: Determine your business model. The irony of online video for publishers is that the more successful they are at getting eyeballs, the more expensive it becomes. There are myriad examples of great content that cost someone a lot of money. Jib-Jab's first video cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in streaming costs and bursting fees and, unfortunately, had no business model to recoup those losses.

How are you going to monetize your online video? Do you sell access to the video, or do you sell access to the consumers of the video? If your choice is to sell access to the video, then you have to start looking at DRM solutions, payment processing, fulfillment and customer support. Increasingly, though, publishers are going for the latter business model: allowing access to their consumers via video advertising, sponsorships, companion banners, etc.

Step 3: Ad sales: remember that every stream served with no ad is a lost opportunity for revenue. Assuming that you've chosen advertising as your revenue model, you need to identify where those ad dollars are going to come from. You have a few choices here. The most obvious is to sell the inventory yourself. If you are a large publisher and have the in-house staff to support it, you will probably do very well with this method. But be careful--many large publishers are finding that the months it takes to get a video ad sales team up to speed can be very costly.

If you don't fall into that category, don't despair. There are other options, from working with rep firms to video ad networks. In the banner world, the majority of successful publishers take a mixed approach, with internal ad sales representing the majority of their inventory, but one or more ad networks moving unsold inventory. We see this as the most successful model for online video ad inventory as well.

Step 4: Decide on distribution How are you going to distribute your content? There are basically three choices--and your decision should be guided by your projected volume and uptime requirements:
1. Build out or leverage your own hosting infrastructure for delivery. At lower volumes, this is your most cost-effective solution.
2. Engage a CDN (content delivery network)--at higher volumes, economies of scale kick in and CDNs can handle a lot more technical complexities, including load balancing. Once you're at a point that downtime is costly, this makes a lot more sense.
3. There are full-service shops who will handle the distribution for you, as well as everything else, at a cost.

Step 5: Decide on presentation and delivery The first decision is which video format to use (WM, Flash, QT or Real). The criteria are: target audience, desired reach, quality concerns, security needs and whether you need live or on-demand. More and more publishers are using Flash. It seems to offer the best combination of these factors with the largest user base.

Finally, what technologies will you use for ad insertion? There are many criteria to look for. I'll list a few, but I don't have the room to go into detail. I promise a future column on this topic if you're interested.
1. Do you just want pre-roll and post-roll, or do you think you might need mid-roll as well--the ability to create custom combinations?
2. Will you use multiple ad sales sources?
3. Are you working with an ad network that supplies ads dynamically?
4. What are your distribution requirements? Will it work with your CDN?
5. What are your ad-logic server requirements?
6. Can you skin and customize your player?
7. What are your requirements for companion banners?
8. Does it integrate with your CMS and workflow processes?

As I said before, with opportunity comes complexity. But I hope I've given you some tools to help you know what decisions you need to make and how to begin or improve your existing solution. In the end, you'll find that making money from online video advertising isn't a fantasy.

Jesse Chenard is Chief Technology Officer at Tremor Network. Jesse authored the Ad-inStream patent and was previously a senior sales engineer at Speedera Networks.