Advertising Management

Welcome, MGT 554 students!

2007-01-10T18:21:00.000-08:00

Hello!

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

Terminate a Stale Ad Campaign? Priceless.

2006-03-16T15:23:00.000-08:00

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.

Movie to 'Pimp' Personal Profile

2006-02-17T22:59:00.000-08:00

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.

Word of Mouth Marketing

2006-02-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

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.

Super Bowl Mania

2006-02-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

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.

Stamps to Deliver Email? - The Horror is True

2006-02-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

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.

More on Pokemon

2006-01-30T12:37:00.000-08:00

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.

Modeling Brand Equity

2006-01-27T11:45:00.000-08:00

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.

Don't Advertise!

2006-01-26T12:34:00.000-08:00

Indeed, this was the message at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association's meeting recently. Word-of-mouth advertising--also known as viral and buzz marketing--has become so popular that an entire industry of professional advertising firms has sprung up to address it. Blogs, Podcasting and online message boards (GoGroups anyone?) are some of the most popular online areas for messages. Furthermore, the search for real-life "cool kids" to promote brands is out - and the search for online "influencers" and "promoters" is on.

Read the rest of what the NYTimes has to say about it here.

A few notes

2006-01-24T10:59:00.000-08:00

I hop that you enjoyed the economic theories lecture. I wanted to do a few follow-ups on that.

1) If you want to read more about Google's foray into radio, please check out my other blog: E-Business and Marketing
2) To read further on "The Matchmaker," go to Roni's web site.
3) Touradj is the guest blogger this week

Welcome to Advertising Management!

2006-01-17T08:44:00.000-08:00

Hello, everyone. I hope that you had a nice break and are excited about the spring semester. In this blog, I will post links to supplementary readings for the class as well as other thoughts and comments. I will ask each of you to be a guest blogger for a few days, so you can contribute to the blog. In addition, you should always feel free to use the "talk back" feature.

Here are some interesting advertising-related stories in the news:

1) Expedia launches a new ad campaign
2) $5.75 billion was spent on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) in 2005
3) VNU BRINGS TOGETHER BUZZMETRICS, INTELLISEEK
TO CREATE NIELSEN BUZZMETRICS SERVICE -- I got this press release a bit early since I am on their mailing list, but I am sure that it will be on PR news wire soon

Consumers Are Aware of Product Placements

2005-10-12T06:30:00.000-07:00

One mechanism through which product placement is said to work is the credibility that the host (a TV show or a magazine) lends to the advertiser. However, this strategy may be jeopardized if the consumer is aware of the tactic. Well, not necessarily. It may be possible to construct a situation where the advertiser does some "stealth" marketing, the consumer is aware of it, and the tactic may still work.

A recent study by Starcom USA actually shows that consumers are widely aware of editorial plugs in magazines and actually expect to hear about brands in articles, especially in the style section of the magazine.

BMW pulls out of branded entertainment

2005-10-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly, BMW decided to pull out of branded entertainment. Read more about it at Ad Age. (This is especially interesting to the readers of HBS case about BMW's Z3 launch).

The Buzz about Buzz

2005-10-11T08:17:00.000-07:00

There has been lots of negative buzz lately about buzz marketing, beginning with a scary headline in Ad Age stating "Is Buzz Marketing Illegal?"

Here is a reading list (in chronological order) about the issue in the past year or so:

1) The Sunday Times article talking about the Boston-based Bzz Agent (Dec 5, 2004).
2) An Ad Age article, "Is Buzz Marketing Illegal?"
3) A rebuttal by WOMMA's Andy Sernovitz to the Ad Age article

The placebo effects of marketing

2005-08-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

I just came across a new interesting research paper by Shiv et al. that discusses the placebo effects of marketing. The authors show that marketing actions can change on a very basic level the utility derived from the product,

"In three experiments we show that consumers paying a discounted price for a product (e.g., an energy drink thought to increase mental acuity) can end up deriving less actual benefit from consuming this product (e.g., they are able to solve fewer puzzles) compared to consumers who purchase and consume the exact same product but pay its regular price."

This highlights the power that marketers have on people's basic perceptions.

Target is the Sole Advertiser in New Yorker

2005-08-18T06:42:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of New Yorker (Aug 22) features one advertiser only: Target. This generated a bit of buzz since this is the first time that the New Yorker has done something like this. For more detail, see NYTimes article. My favorite quote from that article was what David Remnick (the editor) wrote in an email once he ws informed that he woudl have Target only in his issue: "Ads are ads, and I have no problem at all with Target's advertising a lot, all at once, or a page at a time." The ads were illustrations done by artists featuring NY scenes as well as Target logo. They were all done in red, black and whote. Very cool, in my opinion. I am a long-time New Yorker subscriber, and I was very impressed.

Dove ads feature "real women"?

2005-08-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

I keep seeing the Dove ads on billboards everywhere. (When we were in San Francisco, there was no way of escaping them). It seems that the ads have generated some controversy even though their "we all look beautiful" message seems pretty safe. My own 2 cents is that the women on the ads may not be as thin as models but they are still pretty slim. Here is a nice article in Slate about it.

Nader attacks marketing of cell phones to kids

2005-07-28T07:24:00.000-07:00

Ad Age reported that Ralph Nader's group posted a letter urging a ban of marketing of cell phones to children. This was prompted by Disney's and Sprint's plans to offer phone service to children 8 - 12.

Here is an excerpt from the letter,

"... despite the industry’s rhetoric, Disney and the telecommunications companies really want to use children as conduits to their parents’ wallets. And marketers want another way to bypass parents and speak directly to the nation’s children." (www.commercialalert.com)

Sexualizing Fast Food Online

2005-07-27T06:41:00.000-07:00

I was reading about the fact that Burger King has a new site that has managed to anger some due to its racy content. The site is called "coqroq" and features a gallery of shots of young women who crowd around the rooster rocker. Not as funny as subservient chicken, in my opinion.

A New Approach to Measuring TV ratings

2005-07-27T06:34:00.000-07:00

Adweek (Juky 18, 2005, page 9) talks about a new approach to measuring TV ratings. Instead of random sampling of the entire US population (Nielsen's approach), some comapnies, including erinMedia want to use the set-top box data in the homes of the subscribers to digital cable. There are problems with this approach since it involves the cooperation of cable operators.

Welcome to MGT 554

2005-07-26T10:38:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog is to facilitate discussion to Advertising Management -- an MBA class at Yale SOM.