There's a billboard campaign in Chicago for Fritos's Lays potato chips that claims Chicagoans "prefer the taste of Lay's over Jays." Chicago-based Jays isn't going to let Fritos off so easily and has sued Fritos for lying and wants Fritos to turn over the research Fritos supposedly did to back up its claim. The lawsuit claims Fritos is comparing their brand to a non existent, unflavored Jays potato chip brand but a visit to Jays website shows a bag of regular potato chips top on their product list. Unless you can call potato chips made out of potatoes, oil and salt unflavored, Jays definitely markets a brand of unflavored potato chips.
On Wednesday, a U.S. District judge said Fritos had to turn over its so-called research because the public has a right to know. Since Wednesday, Fritos has been unavailable for comment. Apparently, the entire company is involved in fielding a research study.
UPDATE: Jay beats Lays.
A little over a year ago, there was big uproar over a spoof PUMA ad campaign that showed a lucky guy dribbling with excitement after receiving a certain pleasurable treatment from his girl. After laying low for a while, the footwear maker has decided to go lame and tame for its fall ad campaign. One of the ads features Red Sox center fielder Johnny Damon sitting on the ground with a bat on his lap flashing the peace sign with a one word headline, "Hello." That ad is likely to generate enough brand awareness for a family of microbes compared to the notoriety it received from the aforementioned blowjob ads. Oops, now we'll be getting cease and desists again.
Bill McCloskey, whose company, Emerging Interest, puts out a product called Comprehensive Email Tracking System which is made up of a vast database of monitored email addresses, has released month's worth of email tracking data to draw a picture detailing who is using email to sell product. The top market sectors using email marketing are coupons and promotion, home-based businesses, credit card companies, business services, home study, online universities and computer products. The coupons and promotions category is made up of companies who use opt-in email addresses to send third party offers and includes companies such as Remodel 4 Free, owned by 123 Click; SubscriberBase, owned by FreeSlide; Franklin Surveys, owned by SilverCarrot; GroupLotto and Winhundred.com, owned by Traffix; Enjoy Savings, owned by Advertising.com; Quality Health, owned by Marketing Technology Solutions; WinSweepstakes.net and Jackpot.com, owned by The Vendare Group; and It's Your Opinion, owned by Permission Data LLC. The rest of the study details the other categories and reveals most big brands are still not using email in their marketing programs.
MediaLife conducted a poll among its readers querying whether or not readers felt newspapers other than those already reported cheat of their circulation figures. In the study, 71.2 percent agreed with the statement, "There are more bad seeds, but not an entire crop. I think a closer investigation into other newspapers would find that the same thing is happening elsewhere, though I believe the majority are staying honest." And close to a fourth (24.7 percent) agreed with the statement, "The crop is rotten. If three papers are doing it, who?s to say 300 aren'?t? I?ve become wary of newspapers because of this, and I?m advising my clients as such." Only 4.1 percent think the problem is limited to the reported offenders. More study results reported here.
In another self serving study, this time by Time Inc.'s First Moments, it was found that most moms are getting their product information from other moms (77 percent), healthcare providers (69 percent) and mother in laws (62 percent). First Moments just happens to be in the business of product sampling through doctors which, of course, is one of the highest ranking (90 percent) means through which moms get their product info.
A recent study conducted by Forrester Consulting for Return Path found 61 percent of corporations use commercial spam filtering, 49 percent write their own filtering software, 37 percent maintain private blacklists and 34 percent use public blacklists. What's a poor B2B marketer to do in the face of these increasingly bigger hurdles? Well we all know companies don't sponsor research like this unless they have something to sell that solves the exact problem detailed in the study.
So, along with the release of the study, Return Path has announced a new version of its Spam Filtering Monitor, part of its Delivery Assurance Solutions, which expands the filtering, tracking and monitoring tools marketers can use to glean "context and actionable information" about why their email campaign didn't make it through.
