Caffeinated posts from an ACD/Copywriter. I write about advertising, design, astronomy, cooking, and pretty much anything else that strikes my fancy, including random bits of reference info for work purposes. You may also know me as 'that other gal' who helps run Adland.
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Friday, December 28, 2007
[ Links to Sip 12.28.07 ]

+ Best Internet Marketing Blog Posts of 2007 has some decent links to check out.

Ritz Crackers' new campaign stresses fun over function.

The “Ritz. Open for Fun” campaign may fly, or it may thud, but one thing is certain: It will be hard to miss.



And, of course, there will be commercials. The inaugural one — called, appropriately enough, “Opener” — shows blink-of-an-eye vignettes of fantastical Ritz-induced fun. A boy and his dog play Frisbee with a Ritz, a girl blows bubbles through a Ritz, Ritz-shaped confetti rains down on an amusement park, a magician pulls Ritz crackers from someone’s ear, ... well, you get the idea. Two 15-second spots, one using live action to simulate a video game and another using animation to simulate a party, will make their debuts as well.

“We don’t want consumers to just think Ritz is a fun cracker,” said Andrew Benett, president of Euro RSCG, the agency that dreamed up the campaign. “We want them to think Ritz is a champion of all kinds of fun.”

Euro pitched the “Open for Fun” idea. It presented Ritz with the results of a “Ritz fun pulse,” a survey asking people what’s more fun (puppies won over chocolate, Swiss cheese beat out snow angels, and only doctors were considered less fun than President Bush). And it sketched out ideas for Web games and ads.

“We wanted to create a magical world of Ritz, not one that’s anchored in some kind of functional benefit,” Mr. Benett said.

New Year’s Eve is just the launch pad for an integrated campaign that will stretch throughout 2008. Already on ritzcrackers.com is a rudimentary quiz that lets visitors rate the fun quotient of silly activities like shooting their house with paintballs. There will be an expanded quiz, as well as online games in the form of banner ads (for example, tick-tack-toe, with Ritz Crackers as the O’s and stylized boxes as the X’s).

There will be more commercials, both live action and animated — one of them has a cracker saying “don’t tell peanut butter we’ve been dating jelly” — in English and Spanish.

There will be posters on buildings and construction sites showing Ritz crackers with humorous lines (“Crummy — but not like those guys you dated in college,” or “If being flaky is bad, we don’t wanna be good”). There will be print ads in unusual sizes and shapes, particularly in women’s magazines (Ritz’s core customer is women 25 to 54). And of course, there will be some in-store ads.

The need to increase internet capacity is growing.

The ANA envisions a slower 2008.

The ANA predicts a continued emphasis on innovation and creativity in all aspects of advertising and media planning, including ad creative and delivery strategies. Such focus will only be strengthened by the ongoing fragmentation of audiences as new media possibilities proliferate--another key driver of change next year.

With innovation will come an increased demand for measurement and accountability. The ANA believes companies will begin creating positions for "accountability officers" who will lead strategies to implement better measurement of delivery and results.

Tribbit is a site I stumbled across, which looks like it could be interesting. The premise is that you create a site that is a tribute to someone or something.

Logolounge on logo trends of 2007.

Predictions of social trends that will effect marketing in 2008.

Communispace has a study out on how fulfilling 6 human social needs creates business value from social networks.

The Six Social Needs People Seek in Social Networks:

1. Expressing personal identity: online social networks provide people with the ultimate tool for defining and redefining themselves, as evidenced in profile pages on Facebook and MySpace.

2. Status and self-esteem: the need for autonomy, recognition and achievement are essential to our sense of self-worth and are fulfilled in online communities, blogs, and social networks that provide a way to develop and manage a virtual reputation.

3. Giving and getting help: people have a need to both seek and provide help to others.Mutual assistance between strangers is a phenomenon that has been uniquely enabled by the Internet.

4. Affiliation and belonging: online communities are becoming the way people find, create and connect with others “just like me” – people who share similar tastes, sensibilities, orientations or interests.

5. Sense of community: a sense of belonging or affiliation alone is not equivalent to a true sense of community. Achieving a real sense of community requires long-lasting reciprocal relationships and a mutual commitment to the needs of the community as a whole.

Communispace tapped its other research on social networking behavior and found that when companies meet the full range of social needs, they gain trust and deep insights into their consumers and community members – marketing nirvana. And when companies go still further to actively embrace and act on people’s ideas they fulfill a sixth social need:

6. Reassurance of value and self worth. People want to be reassured of their worth and value, and seek confirmation that what they say and do matters to others and has an impact on the world around them. Meeting all 5 + 1 of these social needs generally requires the level of intimacy and facilitation that are the hallmarks of smaller, invitation only online communities.

Inspired by networking sites, teens are creating more online content.

More and more teenagers are publishing their photos, diaries, videos and art online, fueled in part by social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, according to a report released Wednesday.

Almost two-thirds of online teens have created something online, whether it's a personal Web page or a remixed video, according to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Sites such as Facebook and MySpace have opened the doors, giving them many of the necessary tools.

"Social networking is this fabulous opportunity to share content," said Amanda Lenhart, co-author of report. "You're not just posting it in a vacuum. You're also getting feedback from people."

The report found that 39 percent of online teens have shared their personal art, photos, stories or videos on the Internet, up from 33 percent in 2004. Almost 30 percent have penned their own online journal or blog, up from 19 percent in 2004. And 26 percent, up from 19 percent, have remixed content - often known as mashups - using the content they find online and turning it into their own creations, the study said.

The Wall Street Journal's list of Best and Worst Ads of 2007.

How to market to the modern mom.

According to a recent survey of 3,500 U.S. mothers by BSM Media, 65 percent of mothers feel that they are "under-served" by advertisers — either because mom-focused ads don't resonate with moms or because the ads aren't aimed at moms at all. Strike the right nerve, though, and there's a mountain of money to be made.

First, consider the medium. Print magazines tend to be more effective at catching a mom's eye than newspapers. Moms read an average of 4.1 magazines a month, according to BSM Media. Radio works, too: Moms spend a lot of time in the car.

Moms are also increasingly online: 71 percent use the Internet to research purchases. By contrast, only about 20 percent comb newspaper ads.

"[Moms] don't use a camera because it has eight mega-pixels, but because it captures their memories," says Karen Cage, a spokesperson for HP. "Making that technology understandable and approachable is beneficial to the consumer."

On the Web, don't just rely on banner ads — moms want to engage in a conversation. A good deal of action happens at social networks like Maya's Mom and Café Mom, and at mom-centric blogs like BlogHer.

"We recognize that we don't always do a really good job via advertising or providing a comfortable dealer experience [to women and moms]," says Christopher Barger, director of global communications technology for General Motors. "We have been looking at how we can use [online] social media to improve our efforts there."

Labels: ad news, adbiz, adgruntie, consumer-generated, interactive, online advertising, social networking, trends, web, wisdom, work

Thursday, December 20, 2007
[ Holiday Fun and Some Stats ]

+ PCorNot is a great holiday card/mircosite from Ogilvy, Durham. Love the copy!

MusicFont at p22.com turns your words into music! Very cool. You can select from a variety of instruments for playback, download the sheet music and even the music file. (via HOW Blog)



Holiday fun from PUMA. (via Make TheLogoBigger)

Some interesting data from PEW/Interactive:
>Digital Footprints: Online identity management and search in the age of transparency.
>Teens and Social Media: The use of social media gains a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media.
(via BrandflakesforBreakfast)

Labels: adgruntie, agency, creative, fun, interactive, reference, social networking, trends, wisdom, work

[ Links To Sip 12.20.07 ]

+ Man, oh man, has it been busy. Nearly every day I have tabs that stay open all day long with things I mean to post here, and then run out of time. And when I do get a chance to post it's just a bunch of links--which hey--is better than nothing. ;)

Widgets are the new ad kid on the block

Web execs should be spending higher

150 Years of Advertising in the Netherlands

Time Magazine's Top 10 Ads of 2007

NYTimes looks back at advertising in 2007

Business Week begins its year in review

MarketingWeek's Year in Review

W+K get tapped by Heineken

Marketers Turn Up the 'Toons For Holiday Ads

Why Many Marketers Struggle With Social Media

Labels: ad news, adbiz, adgruntie, branding, campaign, creative, links

Friday, December 14, 2007
[ Front page news ]

+ Newseum features a great interactive way to view newspaper front pages from various cities around the globe. We've seen this before but not with such nice functionality.

Labels: creative, life, sidetracks

Monday, December 10, 2007
[ Links To Sip 12.10.07 ]

+ Tip: Supervising Productivity

BoDO (Business of Design Online) has been featuring some articles by Mark McGuinness on Time Management. Some interesting stuff. They've compiled the information from his postings into a free eBook. You can get it here.

Challenge your geography IQ.

DF Krause makes fun of Wendy's tagline: That's Right(TM).

Google is working on technology that would use unused television airwaves for wireless Internet access.

Google is the third company to build technology that would work with the unused airwaves, known as white spaces, located between channels used by TV broadcasters. Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, and Royal Philips Electronics NV, Europe's biggest consumer-electronics company, submitted test devices to the FCC earlier this year.

The three companies are part of a group that wants the FCC to free up the airwaves for unlicensed uses, such as free mobile Internet access, after broadcasters convert to digital signals in 2009. The so-called White Spaces Coalition must first convince the FCC that the products won't disrupt TV reception.

CBS to open concept restaurant at Gillette Stadium.

The restaurant will sit at the mouth of the stadium as part of the adjacent Patriot Place retail complex under development in Foxborough. Kraft said he initially considered the sports dining venue ESPN Zone for the site, but decided he wanted a fresh concept for the massive new shopping and entertainment center and approached a friend, CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves. ESPN Zone offers a similar set-up, serving grill food with big-screen televisions and nonstop sports coverage.

"We want to be a unique destination. We have a great relationship with CBS, and their network is so much bigger than sports," Kraft said.

CBS Scene is the network's first foray into the restaurant industry, following in the footsteps of other broadcast stations like ESPN and Fox, which each operate restaurant chains. CBS televises most Patriots games and also owns WBCN-FM, the Patriots flagship radio station. The network also airs other major sporting tournaments, including the US Open, the Masters, and the NCAA basketball tournament every March.

On the first floor in Foxborough, CBS Scene will have meeting space and a store selling DVDs of network and classic shows, hats, T-shirts, and other merchandise. There will be dining on the second floor and a bar on the top floor. Architect Cambridge Seven Associates is designing the entire restaurant like a studio, with lighting grids and state-of-the-art monitors, and is equipping the location with satellites and other technology to broadcast live radio and television events.

"It's a way to expand the CBS brand in a great location, and this could be the first of a number of restaurants," Moonves said.

Um. Ok.

Color of the year for 2008? Pantone says it will be PANTONE 18-3943 Blue Iris.

"It best represents color direction in 2008 for fashion, cosmetics and home products," explains Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. "As a reflection of the times, Blue Iris brings together the dependable aspect of blue, underscored by a strong, soul-searching purple cast. Emotionally, it is anchoring and meditative with a touch of magic. Look for it artfully combined with deeper plums, red-browns, yellow-greens, grapes and grays."

Packaged Goods See Web Traffic Soar.

Unique visitors to package-goods brand websites soared 10% compared with a year ago in the third quarter to 66.4 million, according to data shared exclusively with Ad Age by ComScore. The tally is double the 5% rise in the U.S. internet users to 181.9 million.

The traffic increase, according to ComScore, appears to come primarily from a surge in online display advertising from package-goods players, who, while relatively late to embrace the medium, are now coming on strong.

Marketers Focus More On Global 'Tribes' Than on Nationalities -

xecutives seeking to expand their companies' global reach long have focused on tailoring products to fit the local tastes of consumers in different countries. Increasingly, however, they also have a strong sense of the commonality of their global consumers. As the world shrinks, especially for young, Internet-savvy consumers, they must now also cater to particular subcultures of customers who share very similar outlooks, styles and aspirations despite their different nationalities and languages.

"We're seeing global tribes forming around the world that are more and more interconnected through technology," says Melanie Healey, president, Global Health and Feminine Care at Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati.

Among these tribes: teenagers from every continent who socialize on the Internet and like the same music and fashions, working women trying to juggle careers and families, and baby boomers. "If you focus on the similarities instead of the differences [in these tribes], key business opportunities emerge," says Ms. Healey.

Managers in P&G's feminine-care products division, for example, are using this approach to efficiently reach more global customers. After conducting extensive market research, they concluded that teenage girls on every continent have the same concerns and questions about puberty. That means "we can write all the answers at once for the Web site -- which is available in 40 countries -- and then translate these into many languages," says Bob Arnold, Global FemCare interactive manager and head of P&G's beinggirl.com Web site. "It's more efficient -- and we don't need offices all over the world to do this."

"Historically we used to be focused on discovering the common hopes and dreams within a country, but now we're seeing that the real commonalities are in generations across geographical borders," adds James Haskett, brand franchise leader of P&G's Global Always/Whisper brands.

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, links

[ Live banner ads ]

+ Darryl at Brandflakesforbreakfast pointed out this neat idea from Mediafront in Norway. Copywriters monitor the websites where media placement is live and create live commentary ads through sketches and words on the changing content of the website. Crazy. It's a fantastic idea, but I don't know that I'd want to be one of the writers...And they must have had a very trusting client to let them produce ads that they didn't approve. ;)
Don't see this happening with any of my current clients for that reason. It's definitely an innovative way to be relevant. :)

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, banner ad, campaign, copy, creative, inspiration, interactive, media, online advertising, web, work

Friday, December 07, 2007
[ Interactive agencies and broader skills ]

+ Forrester says "Web Shops Not Ready to Lead".

Digital agencies are improving their skills to help clients strategically, but still fall short in their ability to lead broader marketing and brand strategy, according to a new report by Forrester Research.

That inability means Web agencies in the near term will continue to be relegated to the role of implementer, while a client's traditional shop takes the lead, said Brian Haven, a Forrester analyst.
"The interactive agencies are in a position where all their staff is focused on executing on digital," he said. "They need people who understand that broader relationship between online and offline media."

Forrester included the assessment in a report that evaluated the capabilities of top digital marketing agencies. It ranked Microsoft's Avenue A/Razorfish and WPP Group's OgilvyInteractive as the leading digital marketing shops, followed by independent Sapient.

Most of the agencies evaluated have deep expertise in "traditional" interactive media like display advertising, e-mail and search, Haven said, but there is a wider gap in new areas, particularly social media. The challenge for digital shops is not just executing campaigns with consumer-generated components or on Facebook and MySpace but figuring out what interactions in those channels means for clients, he said.

"The question is what are they going to bring to the table about what effect social media has," Haven said. "It's not going to be an impression or click through."

For a shop like Avenue A/Razorfish, its expertise in digital channels comes at a price, the report concludes: it doesn't have the expertise to lead brand strategy across channels. "The interactive agency doesn't have those chops yet," Haven said.

I find it interesting coming from a traditional background and now working primarily in the interactive realm how true this is. In some instances I've seen, it's not so much that the interactive agencies don't have the ability to think globally or to lead concepts across channels. The statement to me seems a disconnect, to be honest. It's not so much that there is not the ability to do so, it's the lack of organization to do so.

If interactive agencies were given the brief the same day as the traditional agency(s), perhaps there would be a better attempt to have the digital agencies lead. But this is rare. Typically, it's the client's decision to have the traditional media lead the digital - yes, even if it's the POP. This doesn't always make sense. And even if different agencies are working for a brand for their respective media expertise, it seems to me that it would be beneficial for all to be a part of the brainstorming for concepts that would work across all channels - you know, integrated.

Until that happens there is no way that any digital agency is going to take the lead. Too many clients don't see how to do that or the reason for it, and it would probably freak out a lot of the traditional agencies as well for that to happen. It's going to be up to clients to push to have their digital agency take the lead creatively - and without that decision from the money-holders, I doubt we'll see any change.

Which is the other reason for the inability. If the client doesn't have the money to support the staffing needs - why would a digital agency hire people with a background that included such knowledge? They'd rather have people on staff who have a background/experience doing what they need at that time. Granted, of course that doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who do have the experience working in the digital world. Anyone with more than 8-10 years experience had to be working in some other medium prior to the launch of interactive. Not only that, but I have seen (and am) plenty of people who work across media channels. Those who have an understanding of the concept as a whole and figuring out how it can play out in a variety of media seems to be a skill that is dying out. And yet, from the article it seems like it is something that someone apparently is looking for again. Point overall here being, when the clients start expecting this skill from their digital agency, I cannot see how it would be difficult to move forward to meet that expectation. But the expectation needs to be in place for companies (yes, that's what an agency is) to justify adding the "new" job requirement to their open position lists.

Labels: adgruntie, agency, branding, interactive, work

Monday, December 03, 2007
[ Nothing compares to 2 ]

+ Go. Watch. Now - Grey Creative Director Tor Myhren gets his Creatives ready for the move to CubicleLand on the second floor.

Labels: adbiz, adgruntie, adland, cubelife, fun, watch

[ Welcome to the Dell Ad Agency ]

+ On Saturday, Dell Inc. announced it would team up with the WPP Group to create a marketing agency to handle $4.5 billion in Dell accounts over three years.

Dell’s advertising and marketing business had been spread among 800 companies worldwide.

“We are making a mutual investment in people, processes and technology to provide greater continuity of the Dell brand globally,” said Casey Jones, vice president for global brand marketing at Dell. “And we will operate together as one marketing and communications team.”

Labels: ad news, adbiz, adgruntie, agency

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