CEO Bloggers' Club

media+marketing business trend links

Wii Straps Foreshadow Future of 'Avatar Marketing" - Just as we're entering the age of Avatar marketing, the New York Times reports that Nintendo to Offer Sturdier Straps for Wii. Studier straps! Yes indeed, folks; we are just beginning a wild new ride in interactive media and once the keyboards are combined with SecondLife wii-like technology and video blogging, we'll see brand-entertainment to a degree not seen before (oops - except of course in person).

• iTune Your Brand- Seems like a new marketing technique. Well, it's one CEO Les Moonves is currently doing by reviving one of the greatest and most storied brands in the history of all media - CBS Records. Yes, but how?! CBS is like so old media compared to Google and Yahoo. Answer: by allowing the CBS brand to partner with music providers such as Apple's iTunes. Hey, so, if a big media company can do this, ask yourself, can you and your small business brand do it too? Simple? Easy? Make a podcast. Make an entertaining weekly radio piece and engage your audiences. Become a resource and bang - you've revived your brand.
• Turn Your Monitor Off- Will you keep your computer on stand-by while you are away from your home-office over the holidays? Did you know it could lead to global warming? Thought not, but this is what the BBC is reporting in "Turning off the Digital World". Who would have ever thunk the two could be tied together? "The lights won't be on the office Christmas tree but on the monitors, photocopiers, fax machines, phone rechargers and PCs that will be left on standby or, worse, turned on throughout the break," says the report. Lesson: sure it take more power to turn the average light bulb on/off than to just keep it on in many cases, but unless you are outsourcing your computer to a Third World country over the holiday break, turn the machines off. And, caveat, go see Happy Feet already.
• Business Meetings in Second Life - Have you attended a virtual trade show or business meeting in SecondLife? Seems some users are entrigued by the capability of the virtual world to bring them directly in touch with the 'untouchables'. Reports ZDNet's Dana Gardner, "There is an egalitarian equalizing effect when your avatar IMs with another … even if you know who they are. There's a comfort level with being virtual, and the IBMers seemed eager to chat with lots of folks. I can see getting better access to executives and the creative minds at IBM in Second Life than I do in real life, and that's a good thing."
• Craig Newmark, Help Me Market My Business! - Entreprenuer's Shanon Lewis guides us in how to strategically integrate our small business ads into the World of Craigslist. Shanon Lewis is a web-marketing expert who specializes in marketing on Craigslist. She's also the author of The Unofficial Craigslist Book and regularly shares her wisdom on Craigslist and online marketing at her popular blog.
• Mass Media Isn't Dead - We're pitching company marketers on niche media? On the micro properties that lay in the tail? Telling them that to reach target demogrphics that :30 second spot is so done. And this report comes out? Americans will spend a whopping five months watching and listening to the media in 2007, a new report suggests. Con: five months certainly is an awfully long time...who would want to spend a whole five months like that? Pro: marketers will love to hear that America is still listening to them. Trouble is Americans are actually speaking back at companies and brands. Let's hope marketers remember to focus their marketing not only at Americans, but market with Americans.
• Christian Teen Marketing? Believe it, it is big business. Writes Anastasia Goodstein in the Huffington Post: "I am fascinated by how this subculture [Christians] appropriates popular youth culture and creates its own version of everything -- Christian wrestling, the Christian version of American Idol (called "Gifted"), Christian rock festivals, Bibles that look like teen magazines, Christian manga (Japanese style comic books) and skateboarding ministries. I've met youth ministers at the same youth marketing conferences where marketers pay $1-2K to attend to learn 'What teens want.' It may have a 'higher calling,' but Christian teen media is big business."
• Africanize Your Marketing - Is your marketing and branding integrating Africa? Didn't think so. Looks like Hollywood beat you to the punch. Marketers have embraced cause-marketing, sponsorship and green-marketing. Now it's the "Africa-effect". Read more about what I mean here where MSNBC reports that "Hollywood has embraced Africa -- as a place to shoot films and as a source of fresh dramatic themes." If we put two and two together (Seth Godin's brand storytelling technique) with the Africa new fresh and dramatic theme thing, sure seems an upstart brand could have a one-up on competitors in building a story in the media - if Brad and Anjolie and Madonna are doing it - why can't your brand? Am I crazy? Watch a brand that takes up this technique will be seen so crazy - so crazy all the way to the bank.

media+marketing business trend links

• Understanding Generation Y - Y2Curious: America’s Generation Y has grown up around various phenomena including the Internet with online chatting, Wikipedia, YouTube and its numerous informational resources, digital video and music, Tickle Me Elmos, continued abuse of underage drinking and iPods. - @ The Oberlin Review
• Times Sq. Ads Spread Via Tourists’ Cameras - Advertisers have long been drawn to Times Square as a valuable place to reach consumers, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for space on billboards and blazing video screens. But recently they have discovered that down on the ground, new technology has given low cost, face-to-face marketing campaigns something of a cutting edge as consumers spread their messages on the Internet. - @New York Times
• Google 2.0: From search engine to media powerhouse - Just a few months ago, investors wondered whether Google would have an Act 2. The novelty of search-based advertising had faded along with triple-digit growth in quarterly revenues. Meanwhile, Google's strategy for releasing new products seemed incoherent. No more. - @Seattle Times
• Gawk, don't talk - The New York-based former FT journalist has made millions from launching and selling websites. He tells James Silver about readers' insatiable need for gossip and how George Clooney did his advertising for him - @Guardian Unlimited
• Avatar technology comes to mobile phones - CBS Interactive will launch the first avatar-based mobile game tied to a major TV show for The CW's America's Next Top Model. - Gizmag
• Kosher food brand looks for growth - as its matzo factory annually churns out 75.6 million sheets of unleavened bread in 14 flavors for its core Jewish customers, company leaders are creating a new strategy: turning a staid brand into more of a contemporary, perhaps even trendy, one. - @ BusinessWeek
• Brand names resonate when it comes to online bookings - More than half of the transactions on big airlines come through their websites, one expert says. -@ LA Times
• The Hat Trick That Didn’t Happen - I had great hopes that 2006 would be the Year of the Avatar. After all, few things are more curious and compelling than the growing popularity of virtual worlds like Second Life and There.com. -@ New York Times

media+marketing business trend links

• MySpace: Marketing bonanza for bands - Attracting people to a video shoot is one way bands use MySpace.com to connect with fans and promote themselves. They also use it to inform people about upcoming shows, announce radio appearances, list equipment for sale, and post auditions and other news. -The Register Guard
• Mike Santor of Technology Advisors, Inc. sends in this tip that people are apparently using YouTube for posting resumes in video form. -Wall Street Journal Online
• Wiki-Style Book Project - Bambi covers how you get everyone to write one book with a unified voice. She asked Barry Libert who is spearheading the first book project to be written in Wiki-style. The book is about how communities will change business. About 50,000 people were asked to participate. About 2500 signed up. About 250 are active and 25 are very, very active, she says.
• Longing for More Web Video - Short-form video dominates the Internet today, but when longer content finds a comfortable place online, traditional TV may have cause for concern - Catherine Haloran @ BusinessWeek
• When You Start Messing With My Brand, It's Time to Mobilize- According to the folks at urban-wear brand Sean John, knock-off goods are flooding the market, harming legitimate manufacturers and retailers - Globe & Mail
• Whole New World Awaits On the Web - Visitors to Second Life can walk, fly, dress up, play music, visit clubs and make real money - Toronto Star
• Duct Tape Marketing Book - Pre-Order your copies of John Jantsch's new book, Duct Tape Marketing - The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide, and take advantage of thousands of dollars in small business marketing products and services. - featuring a foreword by Michael Gerber and afterword by Guy Kawasaki - Pre-Order Today 

media+marketing business trend links

• Marketing Mashups: Consumers ‘Configure Culture’ - Was 2006 the year of marketing by “remix, mashups and ‘configurable culture’'? According to Marissa Gluck, Founder of Radar Research, it was. At the recent Ad-Tech conference in NYC, Gluck made a case for marketing by consumer remixes and mashups.  Gluck cited “configurable culture” phenomena occurring in television, music, movies. - ZDNet Digital Micro Markets
• A Walk On The Virtual Side - Marketers love Second Life, or at least the idea of Second Life, as well. About 40 real-world companies have established beachheads, more for pumping up the “cool” factor of their brands than for moving real products. Sony BMG,  Bertelsmann AG, has a spot where musicians perform. In November, IBM and Dell opened big sites; and, the president of Nintendo of America has been making the rounds as well. - Elizabeth Corcoran @ Forbes.com
• Google's 'Nowhere Near a Bubble' - Bear Stearns - Peck contends that a $600 price tag for Google really isn’t that high. “Comparisons to 1999 Internet valuations indicate Google is nowhere near a bubble,” he writes. - Seeking Alpha
• BrandAnimation: Changing the Rules of Engagement - Customers have always asserted their control in the marketplace, whether they think about it or not, by choosing certain products over others. What customers have, until recently failed to realize is that their power could be exerted to go even further--to essentially control the way that brands communicate with them. - Erik Hauser @ Chief Marketer
• Nominate Yourself to The Webby Awards- The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web's infancy, The Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities
• Author Advocates Asking Customers for Innovations - Your customers may know more about your company than you do, so why not harness their passions and insights to build your business? - Richard Pachter @ Miami Herald
• The Ultimate BS Catcher - What we learn from Bank of America's YouTube gaffe and how others can avoid such ghastly brand embarrassments - Jonah Bloom @ AdAge
• The eBay Model Goes To The Movies - InDplay Inc. occupies the middle ground between the frenzied user-generated playground of YouTube Inc. and the select world of theatrical distribution. - BusinessWeek
• Have Camera Phone? Yahoo and Reuters Want You to Work for Their News Service - Just yesterday, Reuters and Yahoo announced that anyone with a digital camera or a camera phone could submit pictures and video of news events, to be placed throughout Reuters.com and Yahoo News. - Saul Hansell @ The New York Times
• Music Biz Seeks Second Life via Virtual Real Estate - Two years ago it was MySpace. This year it was YouTube. For next year, the music biz seems to be betting on Second Life - Scientific American

media+marketing business trend lniks

• Marketing Takes Many Forms - Advertisers get creative to capture elusive eyes - @ The Cincinnati Enquirere
• Second Life Suffers from Growing Pains - Falling house prices in the US, unsold properties and builders dramatically cutting starts on new homes might as well be in another world to the residents of Second Life, the online universe where construction is booming to keep pace with rampant immigration. - @ MSNBC
• Moving Beyond YouTube - A collection of online editing applications lets people do more than just watch and share video. - @ Technology Review
• What's The Big Idea? - Concept albums, which had their heyday in the era of vinyl, are once again in vogue in the digital age. - @ The OC Register
• Is Sluggish Sector Ready For Retail 2.0? - Interactive sales tags, smart shopping carts and all manner of new gizmos are aiming to help retailers reinvent the shopping experience and make it more fun. - Sandra O'Loughlin @ BrandWeek
• Historic Single Day Online Retail Sales Historic Single Day Online Retail Sales - Cyber Monday 2006 sales totaled $608 million, up 26 percent versus the same day last year. - @ Center For Media Research
• Open-Source Spying - “Web 2.0” technologies that encourage people to share information — blogs, photo-posting sites like Flickr or the reader-generated encyclopedia Wikipedia — often made it easier to collaborate with other" - as well as the CIA. - @The New York Times
• The Future of Web Ads Is in Britain - Online advertising is racing ahead in Britain, growing at a roughly 40 percent annual rate, and is expected to account for as much as 14 percent of overall ad spending this year, according to media buying agencies. That is the highest level in the world, and more than double the percentage in the United States. - Louise Story & Eric Pfanner @  The New York Times
• Advertising: 'Blog Placement' an Intensifying Trend - "Blog placement" is a growing trend in advertising, with elite bloggers receiving gifts like show tickets, laptops and bottles of Champagne. A surprising number of established bloggers are said to be unaware that simple ethics codes exist to guide relations with advertisers - International Herald Tribune
• Consumers Like Companies That Let Them Create Ads, But Young Adults Still Not Buying It - American Marketing Association (AMA) unveiled research that shows consumers believe companies who use customer-created advertising are more creative, customer-friendly and innovative than companies that use only professionally created advertising.  - BackChannelMedia
• What's Next for MySpace - News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch has had a stellar year with his Internet ventures. His goals for the next year are even shinier - @Business Week

media+marketing business trend links

• Yahoo Memo: The 'Peanut Butter Manifesto' - An internal document by Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior vice president, says Yahoo is spreading its resources too thinly, like peanut butter on a slice of bread. Full text of the document is below. - @ BubbleGeneration
• France's Blogging Phenom Goes Global - A free blogging service started by a rap radio station, Skyblog has MySpace beat in France—and is looking to expand in Europe and the U.S. - Dan Carlin @ BusinessWeek
• Wal-Mart Plans to Test Online Films - The decade-old DVD moved two small steps closer yesterday to technology’s endangered-species list - Brad Stone @ New York Times
• The Metaphysical Economies - If you haven't noticed, there is a digital life form quickly populating metaphysical economies on the Internet. Now beyond a decade as a commercialized technology platform, the Web has become home to three-dimensional cyber cities whose residents are known as avatars....not surprisingly, these avatars (who are, for now, just mere puppets on a digital stage) are also wont to embrace the most banal, yet therapeutic of man's activities or rituals -- shopping. On Cyworld, South Korea's most popular social network, 20 million members represented by their avatars are buying products. - @ Bambi via MarketWatch