Clergy Abuse Tracker - This One is Great!

Nothing to do with marketing but I couldn't pass up passing this one along:

Poynter.org - Clergy Abuse Tracker
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Pop Ups Programmed Out of Existence?

From a CNET story entitled, Dodging pop-ups with Mozilla:

Mozilla 1.0, launched in early June as the first public version of the Netscape-inspired open-source browser, lets Web surfers easily zap unsolicited windows known as pop-up ads, which are widely used by mainstream sites including America Online and its subsidiary Netscape Communications. Though heralded by Mozilla users, a group that includes many Web developers, the tool didn't make the cut for the preview version of Netscape 7.0 and won't appear in its upcoming launch, according to the company.

It's obvious why the AOL/TimeWarner owned Netscape did not include the blocking code in this latest release. Even thought the percentage of Netscape web browsers is very low compared to that of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, all of us in advertising need to realize that the day of pop ups, pop unders, Shoskeles and other overly intrusive is numbered. Users will not stand for it and marketers will alienate consumers with this continued approach.

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All Media Spending Up?

Well, almost. According to a study just released by Veronis Suhler Stevenson and reported on MediaPost's Research Center, media advertising spend is expected to end the year on an up note of 177.1 billion, up 2.9%. All areas will be up except consumer magazines.

If you hold to the belief that advertising is a leading and lagging indicator of the economic roller coaster ride, one would assume that the overall economy should be in great health right about now. Well, I guess all assumptions can't be true. In any event, it's a nice piece of news.

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Brand Name Awareness Ammunition

Well, we knew it all along. Maybe our clients didn't or maybe it was just an excuse not to allocate the right budget to a brand building effort but it is now supported by a recent study: Brand names really do stick in brain

Brand names do matter. Brand names do mean something to consumers. Consumers prefer well known brand names. I mean it's rather obvious to all of us in the business but here is just one more piece of research that we can slide across the conference table to our brand-averse clients. Maybe, just maybe, they will see the light.
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