Labels: Advertising, Marketing, Social media

Great white paper on why advertising agencies are called advertising agencies. Should they be called that now that we do so much more than advertising?

Labels: Advertising

New book from Alex Bogusky /John Winsor. Hit the link for a nice summary.

Labels: Advertising

Check out this billboard for Sun Chips done by Juniper Park an agency out of Canada. Sun Chips are made with solar energy in Modesto, California and Juniper Park took that concept and applied it to their newest billboards. This is absolutely brilliant in my opinion. Click the link below to watch the video. Enjoy.

Labels: Advertising, creativity

From mashable.com today by Adam Ostrow:

Labels: Advertising

A few days ago I received a package from a company called Gilt Groupe. They are an online store that peddles brand name fashion apparel at discount prices. Every week they have sales from name brand designers and you're notified by E-mail of what brands will be having sales that week as well as the day and time the sale starts.

The reason I feel compelled to post this is I purchased a T-shirt form this site that arrived two days later! I recently made a purchase on Zappos and even though they tout themselves as giving free shipping and consistently upgrading packages to over night...I still haven't received my shoes! This was actually the fastest I've ever received anything when ordering online and I wasn't expecting such quickness especially over a shirt. I was even more excited when I opened what looked to be a normal shipping box to find that they had printed on the inside of the box as well as used tissue paper and a foiled thank you card. I wish every company realized that it's all in the details. I'll be purchasing from this company many more times in the future. Check them out if you'd like at www.gilt.com

Labels: Advertising, creativity

The Chart of the day from Silicon Alley Insider.

The growth of Internet advertising through the medium's first 14 years obliterates the growth of advertising for cable and broadcast television over their first 14 years. Here's a revenue comparison in current inflation-adjusted dollars.

Related articles by Zemanta

• BusinessInsider.com: 27 publishers look at advertising banner alternatives (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• Comcast OnDemand Goes Online (technologizer.com)

Labels: Advertising, Media, mobile web, Online advertising, Silicon Alley Insider

We've seen our favorite celebs promoting a slew of products on their shows or in their movies, but what about their access to all the products? Another angle to getting product placed is through gift bags or promotional events. Freebie for the celeb might mean free advertising of the product. Get the celeb to love your goods & they will promote out of passion- or will they?



Stay tuned in the remaining '09 months for more posts and detail on Product Research!

Labels: Advertising, Product Placement.

Congress voted yesterday to delay the DTV switch until June 12th. This will become official once President Obama signs the bill. Only time will tell if another 4 months will be enough for people to be prepared or if officials will call for another delay.

Labels: Advertising, Media

So we've seen the movies, but what about our favorite TV shows? Do we use these products? Did we even realize they were in the episode? Did that News cast just give me feature story or was that product placement in an informative fashion?

Watch your favorite tonight and try to write down all the placement just for kicks.

Labels: Advertising, Product Placement.

This is one that I just had to post. I am starting with this for day one of my viedo tease stream becasue it's my favorite & it's so in your face.

Labels: Advertising, Product Placement.

Ah, product placement. We see it on TV, in the Movies, & even in the News these days- not to mention the value of placing your product in a Promotional Emmy’s gift bag, or sending it down the red carpet!

With all the products out there and all the creative ways to get your product placed in this chaotic ad world, sometimes it’s entertaining to just sit back and watch your favorite actor get intimate with everyday products that you may or may not crave.

Throughout the year 2009- keep an eye out for my observations & research regarding product placement… I’ll take you through the Who, What, When, Where, & Why’s- all in hopes to assist you to make an educated decision whether or not product placement is right for you or your client. At first you’ll notice a slew of video examples, but then each month I’ll do my best to provide more detail on multiple angles like what product placement is, why it’s out there,& if it’s feasible for you… starting with this video… Welcome to Product Placement!

Labels: Advertising, Product Placement.

Pepsi is ringing in the new year with the debut of the first TV ad by its new agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day. (The agency's creative director, Brett Craig, was in Boise earlier this year to talk to Boise Ad Fed about its work). The spot, "Wordplay," began running yesterday on YouTube and is attached to a microsite, Refresheverything.com. The work is meant to appeal to millennials. See here for details and to view the spot. Note the new logo, as well.

Labels: Advertising

The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging designers to design a poster that "depicts the transformation of America into a country that holds its leaders accountable; that strives to restore eroded civil liberties; that works to change policies that are unconstitutional."

The winner will receive a $500 cash prize, and will have their design featured as part of the ACLU's national campaign. Additionally, the ACLU intends to hold an event in Washington DC in January featuring the top designs.

The deadline is January 4th, 2009. Find out more and submit your entry.

Labels: Advertising

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeFirst thing every morning I send out a "quote of the day" to the agency. The topics range all over the place. Occasionally, I might post one up here, like today's.


“They prefer stability over conflict, continuity over disorder, and GM’s way over anybody else’s. They believe that hard work will overcome adversity, and that tomorrow will be better than today – despite four decades of evidence to the contrary. In many ways the story of General Motors since the 1960s is a tale of accelerating irrelevance. Customer preferences changed, competition tightened, technology made big leaps, and GM was always driving a lap behind..... Over the years the company has tried to reform itself any number of times, but it has been doomed by what ONCE made it successful: doing it the GM way.”

Alex Taylor III, a writer that has been covering GM for the last three decades. This quote is from his latest article in the December issue of Fortune. I am sure you are all familiar with GM’s woes, but consider this -Toyota, through their progressive direction of capitalizing on changing consumer interests and technology is no where near needing a bailout and has a market cap of $103.6 Billion. GM, who has said they are not interested in thinking like Toyota, has a market cap of $1.8 Billion.

If you want to be relevant in business and stay there, consumer driven-continual change, harvesting technology to your benefit and some level of conflict and disorder are all conditions of success. You can quote me on that...


-jamie

Related articles by Zemanta

• General Motors and the Citigroup Bailout
• U.S. auto sales hit new lows
• GM's U.S. sales drop 41.3 percent
• Auto sales plunge in November

Labels: Advertising, Business

Image via Wikipedia

Check out this interesting article from the Economist on where online spending will go in the downturn. Yes, the Economist. Find it HERE.

Excerpt:

...All this makes spending on advertising much less speculative, so that it starts to be treated instead as a cost of sales. This is one reason why online advertising should suffer less than other sorts. This week eMarketer, a market-research firm, predicted that online-advertising spending in America, which makes up about half the global total, will increase by 8.9% in 2009, rather than the 14.5% it had forecast in August. The firm thinks search advertising will grow by 14.9% and rich-media ads by 7.5%, whereas display ads will grow by 6.6%. In short, online advertising will continue to expand in the recession—just not as quickly as previously expected.

Online marketing increasingly aims for awareness, consideration, preference and loyalty all at once. Mr Rothenberg gives the example of a rich-media ad for Kraft, a food company, in which a yummy image raises brand awareness, a click reveals a recipe that increases consideration, another click provides coupons and yet another click initiates a game that can be shared with friends.
Marketing managers can therefore defend their online budgets as being both above and below the line.

Worth a read.

-jamie

Related articles by Zemanta

• Study Shows Brand Building Online Works
• Internet Marketing: Different Website Marketing Techniques

Labels: Advertising, interactive, Online advertising

This headline is how Scott Monty at Ford Motors describes social media. Brilliant, I think, as we all play a role in it--I know here, at DC, we do. Much of the social media work falls to or is centered around PR, as Scott mentions in this Q & A, but all departments are touched by/contribute to the work. Who would have guessed a year ago that Ford Motors would have a social media strategy, a full-time strategist and a staff and agency backing him? Anyway, if you want a quick education, read the Q&A. And, if you're interested, check out Scott's blog.

Labels: Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeGreat article from Dave Chase (Sun Valley Online, New West Media) pointing out that companies can and do prosper during economic turmoil. Worth the read when thinking about grabbing market share during this downturn. Ok, during this recession...

Here is the story.



-jamie

Labels: Advertising, Marketing

Two articles to read carefully, both dealing with the economic crisis and its increasing impact on advertising agencies. One's from the Idaho Business Review, and the other is from the New York Times. The articles hum a similar tune from a national and local perspective - not one of panic, but of calculated and often difficult business moves as a response to the tumultuous economy. And both articles include somewhat ominous references to the especially poor fall quarter for retail, foreshadowing an increasingly slow winter and Christmas season. Idaho Business Review article is here and the New York Times' is here.

To quote our quotemaster Jamie, "...just in case, buckle your seat belts as there could be some minor turbulence ahead (which is when I always like to order a drink). "

Labels: Advertising

There's a really great industry blogger out of the UK who keeps a blog called Scamp.

Earlier this week, he posted up the world's most popular ad blogs. Thought it would be helpful to re-post here. They are measured by traffic rankings from Alexa.

Top 25 Ad Blogs(world ranking)

1 Ads Of The World 9,561 ↓
2 AdRants 20,122 ↑
3 Adland 45,268
4 Adverbox 53,169
5 Creativity 55,077
6 AdFreak 61,570
7 Coloribus 61,751 ↓
8 Advertising/Design Goodness 68,983
9 Adverblog 71,732
10 Bannerblog 78,281
11 Logic + Emotion 111,232
12 Copyranter 115,783 ↓
13 AdPulp 123,110
14 Ad Forum 126,470
15 The Inspiration Room Daily 135,391 ↓
16 ViralBlog 169,483
17 Best Ads On TV 181,003
18 Jaffe Juice 274,786 ↓
19 Scamp, 285,912
20 Crackunit 312,842
21 Behind The Buzz 324,282
22 AdScam 328,713 ↓
23 Make The Logo Bigger 330,415
24 Experience Curve 378,548
25 BrandFlakes for Breakfast 384,844

An ↑ means a blog's traffic has gone up by 15% or more in the last quarter, and a ↓ means it's gone down 15%.

-John Drake

Labels: Advertising

We love Mad Men... and Matt Groening

Labels: Advertising

Here is some work our Project Managers are loving right now-

Labels: Advertising, interactive, Web

Thought this campaign was interesting. It is for a new line of bikes called "Dark Custom" and is targeted towards 20 something riders who we called Modern Outlaws. The reason I wanted to share this is because of a piece of marketing that I received a few days ago that I feel is working very hard for the brand. The photo above is of a direct mail piece that contained two stickers of logos that were designed for specific usage with the Dark Custom campaign. The card that accompanied the stickers says that they're limited edition and if I want the other two to complete the set of four, I can go to a Harley dealer and get them. 

Labels: Advertising

There is a new book coming out called The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It. The authors both hold senior positions at Young & Rubicam (Y&R), part of the largest ad agency holding company in the world, WPP Group. Their book sounds an alarm based on a gap in value between how consumers and investors perceive brands. The authors have a proprietary research tool that they use to measure value, and they've found that investors reward companies with greater brand awareness, even if consumers don't see much utility. I've yet to read this book but fully intend too. Just though you might enjoy a suggested piece of reading and if you don't you'll probably have fun playing around the Brand Asset Evaluator widget on the books website. Check it out below.

www.thebrandbubble.com

Labels: Advertising, branding

The new Routan is here. (Nice that the agency chose a .org site too. )

www.Routanboom.org

Labels: Advertising

Wonder what CP+B is doing for Microsoft? Here is the story.

Labels: Advertising

Idaho's gold medal winning cyclist Kristin Armstrong loves chocolate milk. Armstrong is an active proponent of chocolate milk as a refreshing and refueling choice for post-workout thirst quenching or general enjoyment.

Last Thursday, Armstrong worked with Drake Cooper, United Dairymen of Idaho and North by Northwest to shoot a commercial promoting chocolate milk as her beverage of choice. Armstrong is sponsored by the United Dairymen of Idaho (Drake Cooper's new client.) Check out the pictures for a sneak peak.

The commercial will soon be appearing on a TV near you, but feel free to check out the finished product below.

Labels: Advertising, Chocolate milk, Dairy, Drake Cooper PR, food and beverage, United Dairymen of Idaho

New ad ideas and execution are sure to be unveiled by some of the greats during and leading up to the Olympic Games. Get ready for an education...

Brands Get Social for Olympics
Lenovo, McDonald's among companies seeking consumer connections
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3ic31a126930417b29723f11f73e61f12e
July 22, 2008
By Brian Morrissey

Labels: Advertising

Every industry enjoys acknowledgment, and advertising is no different. This season, Drake Cooper is happy to report that the agency took home 37 Rockies at the state ad industry award show. Among the total were 5 Golds and 22 Silvers.

Labels: Advertising, Advertising Awards, Drake Cooper

ValleyRide, the Treasure Valley’s bus system and one of Drake Cooper’s clients, is growing in popularity, as gas prices go up, and citizens and businesses discover the cost savings involved in riding the bus. The most significant increase in ridership has occurred on the Intercounty bus line between Caldwell/Nampa.


ValleyRide has seen bus ridership soar by 3,000 people (boardings) or 60 percent between July and October in 2007, and so far in 2008, the trend is continuing. It will be interesting to see how $4 gas prices change ridership patterns.


In 2007, Drake Cooper once again won the bid to be ValleyRide’s marketing partner but this time, with a very different idea on ways to use the limited dollars available to market ValleyRide programs. As ValleyRide rolls out bus stops across the Valley, Drake Cooper has become a grassroots marketing agent, using primarily PR tactics, earned media and marketing collateral (often posted inside the bus) to help spread the word. There is no mass media “advertising” per se anymore.


Part of the program is to stay in touch with bus riders, of course. I rode the Intercounty bus service recently to see who was riding the bus and why, while a freelance photographer shot B-roll video for a news release we produced for ValleyRide. Bus riders on the ValleyRide #40 Nampa/Meridian Express told me that high fuel prices and dramatic cost savings by riding the bus have inspired them to hop on board.


The Express route departs Karcher Mall at 6:30 a.m., makes brief stops at the BSU West Campus in Nampa and at Gold’s Gym in Meridian, and then takes the freeway into downtown Boise, arriving at 7:25 a.m. Four different ValleyRide express routes travel many times daily from Canyon County to the Boise area to accommodate the demand.


“When gas prices went above $2 several years ago, I decided to try it,” said Georgeann Williams of Nampa, who works at the Idaho Elks Rehabilitation Hospital in Boise. “My employer pays for three-quarters of my pass, so I pay only $16 a month.”


Dan Narsavage of Nampa, a GIS analyst in the Ada County Assessor’s office, said his employer also covers the majority of the cost of his monthly bus pass, leaving him to pay only $13. “With my truck, I can’t get into Boise and back on $13 for one week, much less one month,” Narsavage says. “It’s pretty much a no-brainer.”


This year, Drake Cooper joined in to help the cause and will reimburse any employee the equivalent value to a monthly bus pass if that employee utilizes any form of alternative transportation.


It’s our view that citizens and the marketplace will continue to find new ways to drive progressive changes for alternative transportation.


ValleyRide’s conversion to a new fixed-location bus stops system in Canyon County was extremely well-received in late February. The objectives of the fixed bus stop system are to improve on-time service and safety, and position ValleyRide to grow. The media turned out in force to witness the new bus stop system in Caldwell and Nampa, and Caldwell Mayor Garrett Nancolas and Nampa Mayor Tom Dale were brimming with enthusiasm. Watch the videos attached here.



Now ValleyRide is working on implementing a new bus stop system for Ada County, beginning in September. Watch for news about the Bus Stops Here campaign, a ValleyRide initiative that Drake Cooper has assisted with PR work and a host of new marketing materials to help consumers learn about the location of new bus stops and how to navigate the system.


Power to the people!

Watch newscast.

Labels: Advertising, campaign planning, government