Advertising Management

Hello!

Everyone is talking about the iPhone. Go to http://www.apple.com/iphone/ to check it out.

Slate's Ad Report Card has an audio commentary on the long-running advertising campaign by MasterCard and its most recent gig. Interesting concept on the 'life cycle' of a campaign.

In the hopes of promoting new slapstick date flick, conveniently called 'Date Movie', producers are using the help of agencies Organic and Deep Focus to promote the new movie. Visitors to the website of the movie are given the chance to 'embellish' their MySpace profiles by entering their user names, which then links them to a pimped-up version of their profile. The interactive experience continues with a dwarf actor from the movie mocking your lame site and asking you whether you would like to keep this new version.
I personally haven't accepted the new version, wary that I'll attract the wrong crowd:) But this is ultimately a new stage in WOM advertising. Organic and Deep Focus surely know how to attract the right market to MySpace and the collaboration between the movie's producers and MySpace has opened the door to many other WOM opportunities...

See full article here.

As I am preparing Monday's lecture, I decided to surf the Web a bit to see what is the latest in the Word-of-Mouth (WOM) world. Here is an overview of the exciting events brought to you by yours truly:

1) Steve Rubel has been hired by the big-time PR firm Edelman. According to Media Post, "Rubel's hire is part of a shift in Edelman's strategy--from a centralized, company-controlled message to a more two-way conversation with the public." Rubel has a pretty interesting marketing blog. Apprently, Edelman seems to be specializing in the blog practice.

2) What is the latest on BzzAgent? Well, they have not been doing too badly. First, in January they raised $13+ mil of venture capital. Then, a few days ago they announced a change in their business model. Whereas before they basically managed each campaign on their own, an advertiser will now be able to purchase access to their hive volunteers.

3) On the measurement side, BuzzMetrics was recently bought out by VNU. The new company is Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

4) We talked about BMW films in both of my classes. The newest thing that BMW is doing is soliciting writers to include BMW in their stories which will later be released as podcasts.

5) P& G is launching a new WOM effort targeting Moms, similar to their teen-oriented Tremor division.

6) Check out womma.org for more news, info, stories.

7) Check out the Onion for a spoof of viral marketing.

The ad critics have spoken, and here is what they said:

Ad Critic:
Top 3: Fed Ex, Sprint Locker Room, CareerBuilder Celebration
Bottom 3: GoDaddy.com, Diet Pepsi, Michelob Ultra

2) USA Today Ad Meter Poll

Bud Light, Budweiser, FedEx

In other Super Bowl-realted news, check out the microsite that AtmosphereBBDO created for Pizza Hut's Cheesy Bites campaign.

Large online communities may begin charging companies, "electronic postage," to deliver email - whether that consists of advertisements or regular statements or correspondence. Who'll cash in? The large networks of course, like AOL and Yahoo, as well as companies developing infrastructure to facilitate the trade, such as Goodmail systems and Bonded Sender, which is owned by Return Path.

Read more of what the NY Times has to say about it here.

Here are some follow-up links on Pokemon:

1) An article on 4Kids
2) Pokemon cut ties with 4Kids Entertainment in Dec, 2005 and brought the management of the licensing properties in-house. This makes sense given our discussion in class.

There is a new paper by Kartono and Rao that measures the effect of brand equity on brand's market performance using auto data. The model may help managers make better brand equity management decisions.