Archive for
February, 2010
A Super “Bowl” Filled To The Rim With Doritos
Category: Retail/Grocery| Stevens & Tate Speaks
8 Feb 2010This year Doritos again conducted their annual Super Bowl TV commercial contest, “Crash The Super Bowl” with the top winner receiving $1,000,000 for their efforts. They aired four winners, each were :30. The spots aired were chosen by the fans prior to the game from six finalist posted on CrashTheSuperBowl.com. The website has a Forum for fans to offer opinions, a Gallery to view the over 100 entries and even a “Herbert Brother How To” that explains the do’s and dont’s of making a commercial.
Doritos has done an excellent job at engaging their tribe by creating an online event that far outweighs the time value of four :30 spots. Some of the magic comes from repeating the event annually. This gives their following an opportunity to grow year after year.
All the spots poke a little fun at Doritos lovers and all seem to have someone getting hurt or put through some pain. This seems to be part of the formula. It’s Doritos meets America’s Funniest Videos. We still like to see others in pain, as long as we know it’s not real. My favorite Doritos spot was the “Funeral” were a man asks to be buried in a coffin filled with Doritos. It shows true love for the product and has more humor than pain, since the man is not actually dead. Visit CrashTheSuperBowl.com to view all four winners.
Nothing Memorable About This Year’s Anheuser-Busch Super Bowl Ads
Category: Retail/Grocery| Stevens & Tate Speaks
8 Feb 2010For the amount of money Anheuser-Busch spent on Super Bowl advertising, the company is not likely to see a return on its investment. With eight ads, the majority for Bud Light, there still wasn’t anything nearly as memorable as the frogs or the “what’s up” campaigns of years past. In fact, this year’s “electronic voice” spot was a lame remake of the “what’s up” ads. Not very original!
And what was the point of the Bud Light “beer house?” I understand that this commercial is trying to be humorous, but when did messaging become irrelevant in advertising? What are the benefits of Bud Light? On the other hand, the Michelob Ultra spot with Lance Armstrong was straightforward…nothing clever but at least it had a message.
My three favorite Anheuser-Busch spots were the ones that messaged on the characters’ love of the beer. First, the “building a bridge” to get the Budweiser truck across to the town was interesting—the villagers love their Budweiser so much they are willing to do anything to make sure they receive their beer. The “asteroid” spot, where the scientists decided to party with Bud Light when they thought the earth was being destroyed by an asteroid, rang true. Ok – that’s something I would do! The Bud Light plane crash ad was funny too.
Budweiser Select 55 – forgettable. “Book Club” – a bit sexist. The most popular Budweiser spot was the “bull” making friends with the Clydesdales. Good thing they decided (at the last minute) to bring the Clydesdales back!
The only other alcohol advertiser was Miller, with just one spot. At least that spot was true to Miller’s message strategy – that Miller High Life is the beer for the common people.
The Super Bowl has become the biggest day for advertising, with nearly as much buzz created about the ads that run during the game as the game itself. This year, the Saints scored a victory but Anheuser-Busch did not.
Post-Recession Marketing – What’s Important to the Consumer
Category: Media News| Stevens & Tate Speaks
5 Feb 2010With the markets on the rebound and stories of the W-Curve beginning to wane, it appears the U.S. economy may recover within the next year or so. While this turnaround is largely dependent on growth in consumer spending, marketers will need to redefine and communicate differently to the new consumer of the post-recession era.
These targets may never return to previous levels of spending, nor even think of buying products in the same way…or at the same price. The new consumer will take a much more cautious approach to spending and saving money in the future. He/she may believe that another recession could occur shortly after his/her retirement and education portfolios values return to where they were in 2007. And, price will become the key determinant in the purchase of products and services for the majority of Americans, cutting across multiple demographic and lifestyle segments.
Brand image, enhanced product features and value perceptions may not regain their former status in the purchase decisions for a long time. Marketers will be challenged in their efforts to position and distinguish their brands when all category players are competing on price.
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- Tags: brand awareness, Media News
Facebook’s New Redesign
Category: Social Media
5 Feb 2010Facebook is celebrating its recent 6th birthday by rolling out a dramatic redesign of its homepage. This new layout places a new emphasis on search and allows Facebook users to sort through much more information without ever leaving the homepage.
What additional changes have taken place?
- The search bar is now much larger and more prominently placed.
- Many of the items (like groups and events) that were kept in the Applications Menu have been moved back to the left sidebar on the homepage and rather than taking users to a new page, these now open within the main window where the news feed usually appears.
- Instant messaging and e-mail-like message inbox have been moved out of the periphery. Not only can users check their inbox from a dropdown menu at the top, they can send messages from there as well.
- A user’s IM contact list is no longer hidden in a popup menu in the bottom right hand corner of the site; is it now in the left sidebar.
Facebook is currently in the process of rolling these new features. The entire Facebook Community should have access to the new homepage shortly.
The Best of Reading Apps…2009!
Category: Media News| Stevens & Tate Speaks
5 Feb 2010You probably know an iPhone owner or two who just can’t wait to demonstrate their favorite application. There has been much written about the booming market of apps and how they can change your lifestyle.
But a fairer assessment is that the iPhone is a device for the polymath. Virtually any fascination is enriched with an app. Marathon racing? Try RunKeeper, which tracks your distance and time using GPS. An art lover? Yours, Vincent from the Van Gogh Museum, with its galleries and archival letters, can’t be missed. Stargazing is never the same once you’ve got Pocket Universe, an augmented reality app that points out the constellations overhead as if there were no fog or clouds obstructing your view. Even some of the sillier seeming apps, like Flashlight, really come in handy while looking for a seat in a movie theater.
But after looking into many apps, I have come up with the best of the best regarding “receiving content to read”. This keeps you on top of events and newsworthy stories from around the globe.
Instapaper (Free)
Ever come across something you would really like to read, but don’t have the time? Instapaper provides an easy way to save articles for you to read at a more convenient moment. After creating an account, you download a button for your browser. Any time you click the bookmarklet, Instapaper saves the text on a website in a readable format, stripped of ads and images. It is easy to download your saved articles to your iPhone and read them on the train ride home, or whenever you have a few extra minutes. Instapaper is widely used – and loved. Wired’s Dylan F. Tweney once wrote on the Gadget Lab blog that Instapaper “just about justifies the phone’s purchase price all by itself.” Also be sure to have a look at Instapaper’s most frequently bookmarked articles at Give Me Something to Read. It is an eclectic list of magazine articles and short fiction from publications like The Atlantic, Seed magazine, and The New Republic.
Newsstand ($4.99)
With an aggregator like Newsstand, you “subscribe” to your favorite publications so you can read them all in one place. Simply type in the names of websites that you like to read and it will alert you to fresh content. Newsstand has a mock newspaper interface for reading headlines and articles. Many newspapers and blogs even display their full articles in this format, known as “RSS,” so you can read everything in the app without waiting for Safari to load. Newsstand is best for casual use; with more than about a dozen subscriptions, the app may feel overwhelming. And use care when subscribing to large publications, like BBC News, or you will be flooded. Instead of a publication’s main feed, you might want to subscribe to specific sections like “Science & Environment,” which, in the case of the BBC, averages about 50 updates in a week.
Stanza (Free)
The Kindle may have a longer battery life and E Ink, but the iPhone has an even greater advantage as an eReader – it’s almost always with you. While the small screen may not be ergonomically ideal, the iPhone’s portability means that at a moment’s notice you can download and start reading any digital book available online. The iPhone touchscreen makes reading a seamless experience. And if you choose a public domain literary classic, it won’t cost you anything.
Of the several free eReader apps, Stanza is the finest. It is the easiest to customize, offering dozens of options to change fonts, size, brightness, and color for the most ideal reading interface. Tapping on any word prompts a dictionary definition and gives Stanza an edge over Barnes & Noble’s eReader and the Kindle for iPhone. Even purchasing a book is less complicated on Stanza, which provides fast access to several sources other than Stanza’s parent company, Amazon.
NPR (Free)
In July of last year, National Public Radio released all its material online so that anyone with enough technical savvy could build applications using the network’s vast archives and streaming audio. Shortly after, a formidable unofficial NPR app emerged called NPR Addict. The official NPR app quietly debuted last summer. Have you made the switch? You should. The official app is remarkably robust, with a sleek interface for searching by show, topic, or station.
Newspaper Web Sites Attract 37% of All Internet Users
Category: Media News
4 Feb 2010According to an article run on WebProNews this week, newspaper web sites attracted an average monthly unique audience of 72 million visitors in the 4th quarter of 2009. This number represents about 37% of all Internet users.
This data came from a custom analysis by Nielsen Online for the Newspaper Association of America. Newspaper web sites users generated more than 3.2 billion page views during the quarter while spending more than 2.4 billion minutes on these sites.
The data also found that the average time spent per person on newspaper web sites during the fourth quarter varied. In October, users spent an average of 34 minutes and 14 seconds on these types of web sites. In November it was 32 minutes and 44 seconds. In December it was up to 34 minutes and 52 seconds.
Where Reality Meets Advertising: A New Opportunity From North Of The Border
Category: Stevens & Tate Speaks
4 Feb 2010Looking for something new? In a universe where advertisers are constantly looking for that next great place to expose their must-have products to the marketplace, it’s becoming more and more difficult to find areas that haven’t already been reached.
In recent years, the advertising community has secured product placements in movies, music videos, TV shows (dramas, sitcoms, reality, you name it) stadium sponsorship/ownership, social media endorsements and viral events/storylines galore–they’ve even secured body art on athletes at certain high profile events.
The latest, freshest opportunity blows in from north of the border in the form of a new reality-based show called Commercial Break, created in partnership between a Toronto-based Ad agency and a high-profile commercial production company. From its description, the show combines elements of AMC’s blockbuster hit, Madmen, with NBC’s single elimination series, The Apprentice.
The show’s relevance comes from the fact that it is based on 10 contestants creating real ads for real clients in the hope of landing a year-long contract with a high profile Toronto production company. The product advertisers, who were in the process of being secured, would have the tremendous advantage of having their virtues discussed ad nauseum during the creative process and broadcast to the show’s loyal followers (and numerous YouTube and other social site’s viewers as well).
To read more about this unusual ad venture, click here.
So What’s Next For Social Media?
Category: Social Media
4 Feb 2010Social media, as author Pete Blackshaw puts it in his article A Short (and Personal) History of Social Media, is a breathtaking and disruptive development in marketing and communication. In his article found in Advertising Age, Blackshaw gives a brief overview of this history of social media from his perspective and makes predictions about what may be coming next.
There is no doubt that Social Media is big — really big. In the not-so-distant future, expect to hear much more about “enterprise social media” strategy. Good, old-fashioned customer-relationship management will take on new meaning and resonance. This is because half of the game of social media marketing is understanding the relationship between existing business processes (service, training, product performance) and conversational output. Strategies and tactics must then be adjusted accordingly.
Marketing organizations will continue to undergo a dramatic transformation, as social media softens all silos, unleashes both friendly and hostile departmental and agency competition, and sets new standards of accountability thanks to the radically transparent nature of the content.
In the future, companies and brands will also be forced to step out of the fog and work with much clearer boundaries. Like it or not, FTC rules on testimonials and disclosure will force us to clarify who’s behind the recommendation or conversation sans ambiguity. Indeed, Paul Rand, CEO of Zocalo Group and recently elected president of the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association, notes that we are in a new era where ethics and clear disclosure in word-of-mouth and social-media communications are “inseparable from the brand-building mix.” Newly appointed Council of Better Business Bureaus CEO Steve Cox tells me social media has set a “dramatically higher bar of expectations around trust.” They are right.
Brands will need to work extra hard to remain credible in this environment. In this consumer-controlled surveillance culture, brands have no shortage of vulnerabilities and exposure points. That puts a massive premium of what Blackshaw is fond of calling “The Six Drivers of Brand Credibility”. These six drivers are: trust, transparency, authenticity, affirmation, listening and responsiveness. Brands will need to work much harder in this environment to earn consumers’ loyalty and advocacy.
On some level this all sounds pretty basic. Social media isn’t a shiny new object. Foundations matter. The boring basics keep things sustainable.
The ABC’s of RSS
Category: Web 2.0
3 Feb 2010RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, blogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed so whoever would like to read their published content can obtain it regularly.
Recently, SiteProNews has published an article that helps readers understand the terms relating to RSS. Check out the ABC’s of RSS below:
A – AutoDiscovery
Auto Discovery is code that is inserted into the header of an HTML web page, which then indicates to readers that an RSS feed is available for the content.
B – Blogs
Blogs are web logs that are updated regularly, usually on a daily basis. Blogs generally contain information related to a specific topic. In some cases, blogs are used as daily diaries about people’s personal lives, political views, or even as social commentaries. The truth of the matter is that blogs can be shaped into whatever the author wants them to be. While initially thought of as diaries or online journals, blogs have evolved into the latest fresh web content.
C – Cache
Cache is a temporary storage area for frequently-accessed or recently-accessed data. Having certain data stored in a cache area speeds up the operation of the computer. Using a cache with RSS feeds will help minimize bandwidth and display an RSS feed’s content quicker.
D – Display
Many webmasters post the content of an RSS feed on their website. They use either PHP, ASP, or javascript for such purposes. If done properly, the feed’s content will dynamically update as the content of the feed changes.
E – Elements
Within an RSS feed, there are various feed elements. The elements of an RSS feed are defined by tags.
F – Filter
Many RSS feeds contain duplicate or similar content. Publishers can filter RSS feeds so that they only see content that they wish to see, by filtering out duplicate postings.
G – GUID
GUID stands for Globally Unique IDentifier. The RSS specification strongly suggests that each RSS feed item have a unique GUID. If you are creating feeds, a GUID is important because GUIDs are often used by feed readers and aggregators to determine if a feed item is new or simply an existing item that has been updated. Each item in the RSS feed should have a unique GUID.
H – HTML
HTML, which is the acronym for HyperText Markup Language, is frequently used to design websites.
I – iTunes Namespace
The iTunes Namespace allows the user to add the information necessary to have a podcast listed on the Apple iTunes Music Store (ITMS).
J – JavaScript
JavaScript can be used to display the content of an RSS feed.
K – Keywords
Keywords should be integrated into the RSS feed to help search engines determine what the RSS feed is about.
L – Links
Links are used to direct RSS readers to the original webpage containing information that directly relates to the feed.
M – Mashup
A mashup is a combination of multiple RSS feeds that have been merged together to create a new, single feed.
N – Namespace Extensions
The RSS specification allows you to create and use your own custom elements (tags) in any RSS feed by declaring your own namespace. Doing this is 100% in line with the RSS specification and the feed will validate. However, you should have a specific and well-planned reason to do so. No RSS readers, or other RSS processing applications, will be able to use your custom info for any purpose. Adding elements (tags) would typically be used only in an in-house situation where both the writing application and the reading application have prior knowledge of the new tags.
O – OPML
OPML, or Outline Processor Markup Language, is a file format standard that can be used to exchange subscription lists between programs. OPML is used as a standard to import or export groups of RSS feed subscriptions. OPML was initially designed by Radio UserLand as a file format for outlines. The purpose of this format is to provide a way to exchange information between outliners and Internet services. OPML has since been adopted for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators. OPML is an open format, allowing other services to extend the format. While OPML was not initially designed as a vehicle to share RSS feeds, it has become the de facto standard. OPML, like RSS, is based on RSS, and because of the similarities, those familiar with RSS have embraced OPML as a way to share RSS feed collections
P – Podcasting
Podcasting is online audio content that is delivered via an RSS feed. Many people equate podcasting to “radio on demand”. However, in reality, podcasting gives the listener far more options than radio does, in terms of content and programming. In addition, podcast listeners can determine their own time and the place for listening, meaning they decide what programming they want to receive, and when they want to listen to it. Listeners can retain audio archives to listen to later, at their leisure. While blogs have turned many bloggers into journalists, podcasting has the potential to turn podcasters into radio personalities.
Q – Query
Webmasters can create RSS feeds based on search queries for their websites.
R – RSS
RSS is a standard format for syndicating content on the Internet. The content can be anything! Information contained in an RSS feed is often syndicated on other sites, which expands its reach. Website visitors love RSS because they choose which feeds they wish to subscribe to. If at any point they are unhappy with the content contained in the RSS feed, they simply unsubscribe and no longer receive notification of feed updates. RSS is really a win-win for both subscribers and publishers. In order to get a better understanding of how RSS works, download an RSS reader or use a web aggregator and subscribe to an RSS feed (they are usually indicated by a small orange icon).
S – Syndication
Syndication is the supply of material for reuse and integration with other material.
T – Template
Many webmasters use templates to layout the contents of their RSS feed and make it match there website.
U – URL
URLs can be embedded into the description of the RSS feed items, so that when the feed is syndicated, the content originator gains backlinks.
V- Validate
Feed validation is important. If a feed is not properly formed, it will not always be valid for reading.
W – Website
Updates RSS feeds can be set up to notify visitors when a website changes.
X – XML
RSS is a subset of XML, or eXtensible Markup Language.
Y – Yahoo Answers
Yahoo’s interactive system of questions and answers can be tracked using RSS feeds. You can create keyword or category feeds for anything in Yahoo Answers.
Z – Zero Feeds
Not having RSS feeds for your website puts you at a competitive disadvantage. RSS feeds bring traffic and help the stickiness of your website.
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- Tags: RSS, RSS Feeds, Web 2.0
The Super Bowl Shuffle for Advertisers
Category: Retail/Grocery| Social Media
3 Feb 2010This January, marketing mainstays like FedEx, General Motors and Pepsi announced that they would be opting out of this year’s ad extravaganza, the Super Bowl.
Adverting Age has recently run an article titled Super Bowl Shuffle: Why Marketers Will Shift to ‘Platforms’, which discusses the phenomenon of advertising and the Super Bowl.
The article claims that for those looking to gauge the health of the ad industry, Super Bowl advertising is a bit of red herring. CBS is charging about $2.5 million for 30 seconds of commercial time, and rightfully so. Rarely do you get so many Americans watching one event and actually enjoying the advertising. It is a tremendous opportunity for most brand marketers and it would be foolish to look at this year’s Super Bowl as proof of either the rejuvenation of the 30-second spot or the rejection of it.
There certainly will be advertising winners (and losers) on Super Bowl Sunday but let’s hope that the Monday morning quarterback chatter doesn’t obscure the larger shift at hand for marketers this year. 2010 will be the year of the “platform” for advertisers.
Unlike a website, banner, Facebook application or 30-second spot, a platform is an always-on digital environment that allows brands to run specific or multiple programs. The goal of a platform is to meaningfully engage consumers on multiple levels. For some brands, this means creating an experience with integrated commerce. For others, it means enabling consumers to connect with each other in valuable, unexpected ways.
But for marketers, the real winners this year will be the brands who have built these platforms to engage consumers well after this year’s Super Bowl becomes a distant memory. Here are some examples of the types of platforms that are being created and executed today:
- Community Action Platforms
- Crowdsourcing Platforms
- Commerce Platforms
- Brand Experience Platforms
- Social CRM Platforms
These are just a few examples of the kinds of platform moves brand marketers will make in 2010, but there will certainly be more — especially with the rise in mobile and emerging technologies such as “touch” and augmented reality. To read this article in its entirety, click here.
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- JassiMostru: Hi Very nice and intrestingss story. [...]
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- Elmhurst Erik: The Baby Boomers are unlike any generation. They revolutionized society and mass media. I love ov [...]
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