Video and advertising

From a 202er:

I saw this article and thought it had some relevance as we are building our own IS sites and lab Web sites.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/business/media/11adco.html?_r=1&ref=media

Litigation in virtual space

Check out this new suit involving Second Life.
What does it mean to interact in cyberspace? How are marketing and advertising changed and affected when you move out of real life and into Second Life? Is Second Life "real"? What ethical responsibilities do we have in different spaces?

Viral video consequences

"Viral" has a certain meaning for us amid our spate of H1N1 warnings, but in marketing, the concept refers to getting your message consumed and extended via sharing among users on social networks. Facebook and Twitter matter, but e-mail is still a primary way we set viral messages in motion interpersonally.
A Danish organization learned something about this recently when a fracas erupted over a video "hoax" uploaded to YouTube. Check out the video and some of the reaction.
Some people are asking, "What were they thinking?" Others are saying, "They were thinking there's no such thing as bad publicity. In viral terms, this thing was a monster hit."
What say ye?

Sensitivity and advertising

Ad agency DDB Brasil is facing outrage over an ad it created that used imagery evoking 9/11 to make a point about the tsunami and conservation for client World Wildlife Fund (this story is a touch confusing, so I recommend watching the ad posted at the end).
A print ad ran once in obscurity, and the agency initially claimed it hadn't created a video that was working its way around the Web. But when the blogosphere lit up, everything came out.
What is the role of sensitivity in advertising? Give me an example of a time a shocking ad might be used to positive effect. Do you think this ad should have been created and run? What cross-cultural issues are at play, given that the 9/11 attacks were against the U.S. but this agency is international?

Cable ad targeting

Interesting cable industry development, enabling ad delivery according to customer demographics.
Online ads have been targeted (not just by demos, but by behavior) extensively. But that targeting is not without controversy.
It's well worth your time to understand why targeting is desirable and why it can be controversial.

Overbilling and ethics

Agency Leo Burnett settled an overbilling case with the Army, agreeing to $15.5 million in cash and credit for work performed.
What are an organization's ethical duties to its clients? How are those duties communicated and reinforced? What does this case do to Burnett's reputation, if anything?

Wearing an advertiser's colors

A 202er submits this blog post on the Memphis hoops team's decision not to switch its team uniforms to the FedEx colors for a game.
She highlights an interesting ethical dilemma. What's the limit of corporate sponsorship and support? How far should a team go? What lines should not be crossed? For instance, the UW has an initiative to try to curb binge drinking. Does this mean its athletic teams should not accept sponsorship from Miller Brewing or Absolut? Where would you draw the lines?

Kellogg Dumping Phelps

The bong hit that continues to haunt:
http://adage.com/article?article_id=134363
Michael Phelps loses an endorsement deal, what may the first in a line.
What is a celebrity's responsibility to the clients that hire him as a face for their brand? What is his responsibility to the public in general? How serious was this mistake? How seriously should he pay for it?

Super Bowl flops

Adweek has a good roundup of famous (infamous?) Super Bowl commercials that failed. Worth watching the links.

Ads and Accuracy

The two presidential campaigns got into multiple kerfuffles last fall over the accuracy of campaign advertising. It's a pretty common development.
Here's just one example.
But now that we have the benefit of time and distance, did it matter? In what ways does campaign advertising sway the electorate? Should we expect it to be "accurate"? How is that accuracy determined in the arena of politics? Isn't one man's misinterpretation another man's firm conviction? Are these ethics questions only or should we think about legal ramifications?

Promises, promises

So it turns out that Barack Obama handed out a lot of assurances during his campaign. Many, many more than his predecessors (about double Bush and Clinton).
These came out in speeches and his online content but also very prominently in his campaign advertising.
Now PolitiFact wants to check out how good he is at keeping them.
What is the role of campaign advertising in establishing policy? How closely should we scrutinize campaign ads? Are they really about issues or really about personality? How do they matter?

Super Bowl Ads and the Blogosphere

Looks like the recession may cutting into chatter about the upcoming Super Bowl ads. Discussions are down, according to Ad Age and others.
What does this mean for these spots? Does it make the massive investment less worth it? How much does this buzz help a brand?

Miller creativity

Here's more on the Miller 1-second ads we covered in lecture:

http://www.adweek.com/aw/creative/ad-of-the-day/article_display.jsp?creativeId=269983

and you can view the set of ads at http://1secondad.com/VerifyAge.aspx

be sure to verify your age correctly : )

Political advertising

J-School affiliated faculty member Ken Goldstein has interesting followup to the debate and assertions about the negativity of political ads:

http://www.news.wisc.edu/releases/14838

I also found this perspective intriguing:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/163476

Ad controversy

When should student publications accept and reject advertising that prompts controversy? Conservative commentator David Horowitz has stirred the pot yet again, this time at UCSB.
What responsibilities do student publishers face? What's the role of free speech here? What's Horowitz's obligation in placing the ad?
This sort of communication reared its head here at the UW a few years back. Then some administrators chimed in. Then still more defended the students.

Ads and Newspapers in One Post

Great intersection of news and strat comm. A cooperative has introduced quadrantONE, a way for national advertisers to push their messages out to smaller local and regional newspaper sites. If you're Miller Beer, you're not going to negotiate individually with the Journal Sentinel, State Journal, etc., to post ads on their sites. The theory is that quandrantONE will give media buyers a chance to specialize without too much effort in contacting individual outlets.
Newspapers are in trouble. Ad revenues are down, as is circulation. Advertisers need new avenues to consumers. No one has figured out a way to truly leverage the Web as a revenue model. Will this work? What do you think?

Super Bowl Ads

So we didn't have much time to chat yesterday about the advertising bonanza that is the Super Bowl. Which ads did you like? Which did you hate? Which do you think have the greatest effect? And what about the Richard Simmons spot ... was it insensitive?
More on ads. It's Super Tuesday. What are you reading about candidates' ads? I'm getting a lot of that kind of traffic on Facebook, especially notes about this piece in support of Obama. Curious how this is playing with your generation.

Accuracy in Advertising

A local example of how inaccuracy can bite you. Those ads cost a pretty penny to make and to run, yet their effectiveness has been significantly diminished by the simplest of errors. Media coverage of the mistake has outstripped the attention the spots may have earned on their own.
Makes a 10-point deduction for fact errors in J202 look like chump change. You've asked me repeatedly if we had a "10 Commandments of Media Ethics," what would be the first one. I'm nothing if not consistent: in news and strat comm, above all things, get it right.

Interactive and Advertising

OK, I'm putting this post up at my own risk, knowing that by the time you follow the link, the digital ad will likely have changed ... but here it goes.
Apple did a digital media buy on the front page of the NYT online today. It features a sidebar ad that interacts with a banner across the top below the masthead.
We all know I'm a cardinal among the Mac faithful, but I'd like to know what you think of this ad creatively and strategically. Does it make sense visually? Would you ever play it to get the interaction to work? Does it motivate you to buy? Do you think you're part of their target? Does digital make sense here? Does a buy with the Times make sense?
And I'll pull my soapbox out one final time this semester. If you're in strat comm and not thinking about digital, you are missing the biggest boat in the ocean right now.

Kid Creates Apple Ad

Lots of buzz in the marketing world these days regarding consumer-generated content. The theory is something like open-source in the computer world: the more people you let in on the creative process, the more likely you are to get new ideas and great advertising.
The problem is that you also get lots of dreck. Katy and the Culver kids tried creating an ad for Dove and while my 4-year-old looks darned cute, it isn't exactly something that would move a lot of soap.
So this week, Apple went live with a revamped version of an idea generated by an English student. I'm a fan. What about you? Think this is the future of advertising, consumers creating messages?
Note that this is also an "old media" story. The kid stuck his original on YouTube in mid-September and by mid-October, he had 2,000 hits. The New York Times put it in Stuart Elliott's column (on an inside page, mind you) and in less than 12 hours, the spot went to 20,000 hits. It's now at about 340,000.
Pieces like this often need the support of the (gasp) the "mainstream media." Now, if entities like the NYT can just figure out a way to make money off that hit-generating...