Archive for October, 2005

The AdPulp Blog gets all techno on us with this post about automated milking machines and a dairy farm that allows the cows to decide when it’s time to come in for a squeeze.

While it shifts the traditional dairy farm paradigm it makes us wonder: “When will you be able to do this with creatives?”

… and you thought outsourcing was a problem?

Technorati Tags: , ,

All comments (c) 2005, Brand Central Station – all rights reserved. For more information about BCS, please visit our website.

If you’re considering launching an online marketing campaign that targets blogs, this post from Steve Rubel at the MicroPersuasion blog should be required reading (and listening). Steve offers up a 31-minute podcast on blog marketing from Jupiter research that’s quite useful.

Highly recommended.

Technorati Tags: , ,

It’s hardly news, but the boys at the Brand Autopsy Blog have found some articles that explain the difference between the way men and women view print ads.

My favorite line from this post: “… brand recall suffers because men are too busy ogling the hotties and not the logos.”

What? There are logos in ads? Who knew.

Technorati Tags: , ,

All comments (c) 2005, Brand Central Station – all rights reserved. For more information about BCS, please visit our website.

This post, just one item in MediaPost’s Daily News section, illustrates the increasing importance product placements are taking in the media mix for many consumer brands. Just in the past week, Dairy Queen, Westin Hotels, Aston Martin and BP have managed to get major airtime not with commercial messages but more subtly, as part of the storyline.

This isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. Product placements have been part of the mass media landscape for about as long as there has been a mass media. For that matter, the fact that a paying customer (i.e. the advertiser) has sway over the editorial output of a medium isn’t all that unusual, either. After all, in the early days of all media (with the exception of the Internet) relied on corporate sponsorship or underwriting to stay alive. And the price for that financial support was often paid in coverage, commercial or otherwise.

But what’s interesting to note now is that as mass media – and especially television – tries to maintain some form of economic growth, the media is now actively courting brands with offers to work them into storylines.

Writers and other studio professionals have a problem with this, of course. These sponsorships directly effect their work and they feel they should receive their fair share of the spoils. This residual income is relatively small now but everyone knows it could (and probably will) grow to be much more significant. Staking a claim in the grubsteak early is key.

But smart media consumers have to ask: “What is driving this resurgent interest in product placements?” The answer, I think, is primarily technological.

You see, we consumers have a short memory and an even shorter attention span. Most of us don’t remember when television shows had keynote sponsors that were worked into their shows through a combination of live commercials, celebrity tours or cameo mentions in skits performed during “variety” shows.

Instead, what we remember is that the Internet was, primarily, a venture funded by the government, research institutions and universities and as a result, was devoid of commercial messages. That is no longer the case, of course. But there are still a number of Internet “purists” who decry the commercialization of the world-wide web.

Technology has had its impact as well, making it possible to remotely excise some of the media clutter that invades our homes on a daily basis. TiVo and other DVR’s can cut out commercials automatically; cable and satellite service providers tout programming that is “commercial free.”

In reaction to the possibility of subscription-based, satellite radio, many radio stations now limit the amount of commercial messages per hour to make sure there’s room for more “programming.”

Even newspapers and magazines, in an effort to generate more revenues, are providing a variety of inserts and outserts that are easily pulled from the publication and discarded in the trash bin.

So, brands have to find a relevant way to reach the consumer. Product placements provide that opportunity – especially if the brand is an integral part of the story. The “fuzzy grey line” in all of this, though, is in determining where a brand can be considered an integral part of a story compared to where a placement becomes a “gratuitous plug” for a sponsor.

What is the litmus test? That remains to be seen. Something tells me the creative types (e.g. directors, writers, producers) will all weigh in on this conversation and influence it greatly.

One thing is for certain, though: Wherever the line gets drawn, consumers will be paying to put it there.


ProBlogger links to this article in the Wall Street Journal on Splogs – a relatively new development in the continuing evolution of junk online content. The term Splog is a contraction of “Spam Blog.” Steve Rubel has also written about it.

For those of you that blog, you may have had your entries hijacked by random posts that have nothing to do with your blog but they encourage you to link to random sites. It’s all a shell game intended to move these junk sites up the page rankings on various search engines and, as a result, increase the “real estate” value of those sites as advertising locations.

It’s a nasty business but there are remedies that you can use to beat the spammers. Make sure that if you’re using an integrated comments system (like the kind you sign up for through Blogger), that you turn on the “Word Verification” feature. That feature requires you to re-type a six-letter code before your comments or links will be accepted. The spam-bots can’t handle it.

Interesting stuff.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Here’s a great post from the Slacker Manager Blog about procrastination. Great recreational reading (when you get around to it).

Technorati Tags: , ,

Mike Driehorst, author of the Mike’s Points Blog, wrote about a recent blog post I wrote on our Brandcrafting Blog.

It’s flattering to have people take a stand on an issue you’ve identified. Mike and I have now gone back and forth on a number of different items and issues.

And that, my friends, is what “social media” is all about.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

I’m frequently discussing the nuances of history and language with clients and business partners (after all, about 1/3 of the work we do is international). This post, from the Strategic Name Development Blog, is a great bit to keep in my back pocket as I travel off to Europe this week for some more meetings.

Thanks, Diane! Great work.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

The authors of the BrandXPress Blog have dug up a great list of the 10 Key Attributes of Brand-Guided Company – which just may be a great litmus test to use when searching for new business prospects.

Another key finding of the research used for this blog post: “brand-guided companies have profitability margins nearly twice the industry standard.”

Technorati Tags: , ,


Micro Persuasion author and social media guru, Steve Rubel, calls out a couple of ABC affiliates that have started vcasts (video podcasting) some of their content.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Thanks again to John Jantsch (author of the Duct Tape Marketing Blog) for telling it like it is. The guy is right on here, folks. In less than a page, John hits on some of the most important problems facing web sites owned and controlled by small businesses.

If you have a client whose disappointed with the performance of his web site, pull out this article and then work through the site with your client from the beginning.

You’ll be surprised what turns up.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Because we know everyone in our business has plenty of extra time on their hands …

Harry Joiner, The Marketing Headhunter has come through big-time with a list of recommended reading for anyone aspiring to be an advertising copywriter when (or is it “if”) they grow up. The list includes:

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
The Robert Collier Letter Book by Robert Collier
Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples
How To Write A Good Advertisement by Vic Schwab
The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches by Joe Karbo
Advertising Secrets of the Written Word by Joe Sugarman
Break-Through Advertising by Eugene M. Schwartz
Seven Steps To Freedom by Ben Suarez
The stunningly great April 1, 1987 newsletter by Gary Halbert

To learn more about what to read first and why, read Harry’s blog post in its entirity.

Great stuff.

Technorati Tags: , ,

All comments (c) 2005, Brand Central Station – all rights reserved. For more information about BCS, please visit our website.