22. March 2008 by bryan.lonn.

After a long beta test, Hulu.com is officially live.  The website is Televisions answer to YouTube.com.  The site features full shows from most of the distributing houses (Ex. Fox, CBS, NBC, etc.).  You can also see clips and the site has a vast social board to talk about television.  It’s indeed a web 2.0 site and will offer tons of free media, broadcasting at 128k compression.  Have fun with the new site!

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20. March 2008 by bryan.lonn.

At the recent Advertising Age Digital conference, Frank Cooper, VP of marketing at Pepsi-Cola said, “are you ready to jump into user-generated content instead of sitting on the sidelines?” His belief is that creativity is like a pyramid and on top is Hollywood and the bottom is user-generated content, we’re in the middle (agencies). We need to start doing rather than waiting for people to come to us.

Cooper is a bright guy and has said a number of true statements. Too many agencies are still thinking Internet as a medium is still a gamble and some are pointing at user-generated content as a gamble. The truth be told, you reach a higher amount of impressions and the reach is far greater for almost nothing in cost. That’s not a gamble but just practicality.

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19. March 2008 by bryan.lonn.

Recently, at a conference in New York the executive editor of USA Today, Kinsey Wilson, was perplexed on how to get advertising dollars for the failing newspaper.  Here is our list of the five things USA Today can do:

5.  Sell to the highest bidder - Yahoo and Microsoft, JP Morgan and Bear Sterns and USA Today and US Weekly.

4.   Cut the newspaper entirely - The PR would push USA Today more than ever before and it could give way to the first digital or podcast subscriptions.

3.  Amazon’s Kindle could be the savior - Get in a partnership with Amazon and distribute better content on the Kindle for up to the hour newspaper.

2.  Remove management -  USA Today has had a legacy of bad choices recently and it seems to keep going back to the MAN!

1. Follow Chicago-Tribune - During rough times they started Career-Builder.   How about a free version of eBay that is advertising supported?

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19. March 2008 by bryan.lonn.

Matthew Creamer, editor of Advertising Age said, “It’s not about advertising online anymore…we’re in a time where brands can create their own content online.” Creamer is right, brands can own their content online, but that still wont drive all consumers to the content.  Look at Anheuser-Busch’s Bud.TV. The site drives consumers to a brand owned content site that pushes Budweiser. The site is a great non-traditional idea but will only draw the Generation Y and maybe X crowd.  Traditional ad spots online are still the greatest way to reach Baby Boomers, which still hold the majority of the buying-power market. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves Creamer and lose potential customers.

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19. March 2008 by bryan.lonn.

iReport.com is a new website that lets users put up news worthy information.  The site receives now about 15,000 videos and photos a month that are considered news relevant.  Launched by CNN, International, the site is mainly driving viewers to the users generated news content.  If the content is deemed interesting and legitiment the information will be brought to the CNN staff.  How’s that for empowering consumers?

www.ireport.com 

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19. March 2008 by bryan.lonn.

CNN recently launched a new show called, “Ballot Bowl.”  The shows idea was to bring down the amount of time news anchors talk and build-up candidates to talk more during the hours of the show.  CNN researched that their anchors speak 6 to 1 times more than guests and candidates.  Since the majority of television viewers prefer debates (candidates speaking), more than anything on news television is was no surprise to go this route.  Expect more people speaking their mind in future CNN broadcasts.

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14. March 2008 by bryan.lonn.

Today at the McGraw-Hill media summit, Howell Raines former New York Times executive director, said, “Newspapers are fading away faster than we thought.”  Since classified dollars have been going from Newspaper to Internet by an alarming rate, everyone should pull their stocks in the Newspaper medium.  Uh-oh!

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13. March 2008 by bryan.lonn.

Thanks to Kroger stores Americans can use cell phone coupons in select stores.  Unilever, Procter & Gamble and others are testing the successfulness of Cell Phone coupons.  So come on Americans use your cell phone coupons at the nearest Kroger store and make this tactic grow!

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13. March 2008 by bryan.lonn.

Today, the Radio Advertising Bureau held a conference on the radio medium.  The event included a number of companies, press and  visionaries.  John Mittnacht, Director of Advertising at Citigroup, claims that Radio is the best medium for their company.  The segmentation, creativity and cost were the biggest reasons for this statement.  Citigroup believes radio is the one medium that is the most cost effective for getting new or returning customers.  I wonder if satellite radio’s commercial-free radio will catch on so much that segmentation may dwindle.

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13. March 2008 by bryan.lonn.

A record 5.4 billion dollars will be spent this year on political advertising. Eighty-five to 95% of this budget will be used in television and direct mail. Results are showing more swing voters are effected by traditional means over non-traditional. Only 1% of this budget will be used digitally. Since digital advertising is cheaper than the alternative it’s no surprise it is lower. But after seeing the success of viral marketing for the Obama camp you would think more politicians would gravitate to non-traditional advertising as the big new medium. My thinking is within the next ten years we will see more dollars going towards digital tactics.

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