Brand Central Station

Last week was Adweek’s big week.  The big three-o. 

Alison Fahey provided the requisite “look back” editorial to kick the whole thing off.  More impressive was the celebratory web site launched last Monday.  (See it here.)

Ragan Report’s Mark Ragan provides this excellent video post on how to shoot better pictures for your publications as part of a larger post on improving picture quality in your corporate collateral and communications pieces.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Be4VtbgJo]

Excellent post and excellent information. Well worth the time to watch (and share) the video.

Just received word today that VeohTV is going away.  Of course, this may be old news to some, but not for me.  Maybe my antenna is up on services like Veoh, Hulu and others (including, of course, YouTube).  The online, digital video content stream seems to be more vital than ever before, and Veoh now looks like they’re jumping into it with both feet in a way that will allow viewers to take their online content with them.

Even when they’re not online.

Veoh took the opportunity today (via e-mail) to explain about their switch from VeohTV to a downloadable application that connects to Veoh.com.  By concentrating on the user experience, the team at Veoh came to the conclusion that re-booting their service as a stand alone application was a better choice:

The Veoh Web Player enables you to watch videos of any length right in your browser without launching a separate application. You can download videos for later viewing, even when you’re not connected to the Internet. The Web Player also consumes fewer system resources than VeohTV.

This is all interesting news when you consider that by separating the player from the site, Veoh can now distribute its player on other portable media.  Last week, the company announced it was releasing a version of its player to be included on SanDisk flash drives.

For advertisers and marketers what this means is that ad insertions into streaming content are now portable, as well.  How this plays into possible promotions or creative executions remains to be seen.  But we can no longer assume that if someone sees an ad on a streaming broadcast that they’re sitting in front of a computer screen on a desk in a living room, bedroom, kitchen, office, etc.

Are the expectations for the incoming Obama administration too high?  The Obama-Biden campaign certainly re-set the rules of political campaigns with their 2008 effort – raising more money, spending more money and engaging people on a level unlike anything in living memory.  But will the public’s anticipation and expectations of the new administration and, more specifically, the promise to continue reaching out and engaging the public, be met to everyone’s satisfaction?

It reminds me of the expectations and constant chatter surrounding Social Media.  In fact, I don’t think there’s any question that an Obama Administration will be the first to fully embrace the uber-democracy that is the online/Social Media world.

My only question is: can a 18th century institution like the US Federal Government adapt quickly enough to not get completely balled up in an avalanche of 21st century Social Media interactivity?

(more…)

Given the economic challenges facing small and large businesses today (check out article on marketing during a recession, here), effective communications with employees is quickly rising in importance among managers and ownership.  A recent survey of executives at 425 large businesses (conducted by Message Bank, LLC) showed that these senior managers are increasing their communications efforts with shareholders and customers (as expected) but also with employees.

(more…)

For ad agencies and PR firms on the hunt for new business (and, let’s face it, who’s not?), online search consultancy, AgencyFinder, has announced a new, branded service called AgencyFinder PitchCast.  The blog (and subsequent e-mail bulletin) provides a thumbnail description of each new search assignment received by AgencyFinder.  Bulletins are issued each evening after a new assignment is posted to the blog.

Subscription to the bulletin is free.

To view the PitchCast blog, click here.

In honor of InBev finally closing their deal on Anhueser-Busch, we’ve dug up this classic tv spot:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aWzuQ1ufGs]

For those who really enjoy a good pity party (yes, you Cubs fans), here’s a link to another classic Bud spot (one of my personal faves).  For all the rest of us, I guess we’ll just have to hold on to our fond memories of Spuds McKenzie.

Books are a big deal in our family.  In fact, with four kids, the only gift we know will go over well with all of them are gift cards to the local Border’s.  But that’s not because of brand loyalty to the bookseller – it’s because my wife and kids love books.

So what could possibly be better than giving them a book made especially for them?

iStockphoto.com and Blurb have teamed up to promote a “build your own coffee table book” program that allows you to use photos from the online stock photo service to create and publish a custom book to give as a gift.  Pricing starts at just $4.95 – although it’s likely your creation will run somewhere in the $25 – 50 range.

(more…)

Gary Goldhammer’s recent post on his Below the Fold blog recalls a reporters life before the ubiquity of the Internet or the advent of “social media.”

It’s a great piece on the emotional connection between reporting and being a reporter.

Read it.

My business partner and I have a meeting with a client today.  We’re going over marketing and media plans for 2009 and talking about a whole host of issues related to what we accomplished this past year and where we’re going in the next.

But when I talk to some of my friends who are either freelancers or own their own small agencies, they’re too busy scrambling to get work done for this year to even think about sitting down with clients and talking about the year to come.  And that’s a major problem.

As I mentioned in my post on Marketing in a Recession, you have to make sure your happy customers are exactly that: happy.  And that’s because the 80/20 rule quickly turns into a 90/5 situation.  The economy will force more of your eggs into a smaller basket – to not take the time now to make sure that basket belongs to you is foolish.

(more…)

There’s a great piece on Fast Company about Interference’s Sam Ewen.  The article, written by Rob Walker, profiles Ewen and his company’s “nontraditional” approach to creating word-of-mouth buzz for clients.

It’s a fun read and for those ad agency and PR-types who are trying to understand the value of “guerilla marketing” efforts in the entire marketing, mix – this should be required reading.

A young Peter Arnett when he was a field reporter for the AP in Vietnam

Richard Edelman writes about his recent conversation with Mike Oreskes, the US editor for the Associated Press.  While PR gurus like Steve Rubel write about the end of media as we know it (especially print), Oreskes and the folks at the AP are finding ways to add value to their service and make the digital transformation that will be required of all media at some point or another.

Most interesting part of the entire conversation bewteen the two though (at least to me), was the insight that the AP has more than 800 reporters and editors in the US alone – there to fill in where local media is cutting back.  Oreskes refers to a need for “hyper-local” coverage as part of the reason why the AP is working to establish a national footprint beyond New York and Washington, DC.

Richard has asked us to provide our experiences with AP reporters – if you have one, do him the favor of replying (the “online conversations” Richard has with readers of his blog are sometimes more interesting than the original posts, themselves).  View the blog post here.