 I'm Hamptons Material Kicking off its 16 week summer run for the rich and wish-they-were-rich, Hamptons Magazine held its annual "we're hipper and richer than you" party, at BLVD where guests mugged for photographer Nikola Tamindzic. Gawker reports guests were mostly wannabes, Eurotrash and publicists gushing about how they going to the Hamptons "with friends," "renting" or "sharing." Few owned up to, well, actually owning any property in the Hamptons.
Gawker, curious as to who reads Hampton Magazine, took a look at the magazine's demographics which revealed readers to be an average age of 33, have home worth $2.6 million, spend $25,000 annually on clothes and drive Aston Martins, Bentleys, Ferraris, Hummers, Jaguars and Maseratis. Clearly, guests were not readers.
Dayton, Ohio ad agency The Next Wave launched a guerrilla marketing campaign targeting attendees of a Dayton Ad Club seminar at which the author of Guerrilla Marketing, Al Lautenslager spoke. With sidewalk chalk slogans such as "You can read a book about 'Guerrilla Marketers' or you can hire one- www.thenextwave.biz," Big ideas, so little sidewalk" and "it's only chalk-not like we spent thousands to get your attention. You probably can’t imagine what we'd do with real money," The Next Wave attempted to persuade attendees books and seminars are not the answer to successful guerrilla marketing. While their messages were ultimately hosed off, they did receive a new business call during the event.
Nikolai Borg, born in 1919, claims he developed of the Volkswagen logo in June 1939 under the direction of Nazi engineer Fritz Todt. Borg does not want money but simply acknowledgment from VW. VW is denying Borg's involvement and claims the logo was submitted to the Third Reich patent office for copyright in 1938. VW also denied Todt ran the "Volswagen" project which was part of a larger Nazi "Kraft durch Freude" project which was a propaganda recruitment campaign. One of the primary aspects of the KdF program is said to have been the encouragement of people to buy the "people's car" or "Volkswagen."
The outer ring of the VW logo was a cog, not the current circle. That was later change by the British after WWII. The logo for the DAF, parent to KdF and a Nazi trade union, was a swastika surrounded by a cog. Whether Borg's claim is true or not, Volkswagen, though it needed really worry at this point, is distancing itself from the situation. Borg will present his case July 6.
While this could be considered tipping the scales a bit, we'd at least like to let you know Adrants has been considered, once again, by MarketingSherpa to be of the best individual weblogs on general marketing and advertising. If you are so inclined and would like to vote for us, as well as for the many other fine weblogs listed, feel free to visit the survey here and cast your vote. Voting ends Wednesday, June 8th, 2005.
Stay Free reports Clear Channel Radio (as initially determined through Whois registration and copied here) is behind a fake pirate radio station website in Ohio on which, for the past week, the practices of Clear Channel itself have been mocked. According to those that visited, the site contained content as well as discussion boards. Though upon visiting the site today, the site simply says, "The radio revolution begins Tuesday May 31st. Stay Tuned." Even Whois info seems to, somehow, have been changed removing all reference to Clear Channel. It seems Clear Channel has hastily cleared it's path of all detection.
The site is said to be a promotion for a format change for one of Clear Channel's Akron Ohio stations. According to those in the area, other station broadcasts in the area, on Clear Channel stations, have been interrupted with cryptic promotional messages. More discussion and details here.
If you're interested in viral marketing, there's a business network you might consider joining. Hosted, as is the Adrants Network, on Soflow, the Viral and Word of Mouth Network is a network for people involved or interested in viral and word of mouth marketing. Launched at the beginning of May the network already has over 300 members including some of the top minds in the field. Join here if you're interested.
 I'm Cool! I Podcast! One the heels of, "OMG, we have to get all our clients to blog!" comes "OMG, screw blogs, this Podcast thing is it baby!" Yup. Like lemmings (and I know because I was one for years) the ad industry is gaga over Podcasting. As Publicis Groupe Media Chief Innovation Officer (how's that for a title?) says, "Podcasting is one of the developments, along with online digital music services like iTunes and Rhapsody, that allow a consumer to be their own programmer. That will obsolete terrestrial radio for many advertisers,"
Ah the, the attack of the consumer media clones. Backyard Barbecue Tips By Bill. Luscious Lawns By Lucy. Subway Satire By Sally. Taxi Tips From Tom. If the industry stressed over fragmentation in the 80's and 90's, it ain't seen nothin' yet. But, just how much fragmentation do we want. Do we want one media outlet for every citizen in the world? Oh, don't get all Huffington on me. Of course, I'm generalizing and Podcasting can be a very good thing. In fact, may larger companies such as GM, NPR and Volvo and making great use of the medium right now. It's just amusing to see such hype, excitement and explosion of podcast related start ups for a medium most have no idea exist.
Citing video news releases, product placement and interactive television aimed at children, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein has asked the FCC to expand its investigation into product placement disclosure and strengthen guidelines. As reported in As Age, Adelstein told the Media Institute, "People out there are frustrated by what they see as fake news and relentless marketing. The use of covert commercial pitches is penetrating deeper and deeper into our media."
While our normal pithiness calls for us to poke fun at government agencies creating rules that assume people are stupid and can't figure things out for themselves, we, believe it or not, feel some control is warranted. Advertising, because of people's increased ability to ignore it, is getting desperate. very desperate. A roadblock buy once meant buying every spot on every network during a single time period or plastering posters over an entire subway station. It now means, literally, creating an advertising barrier so intense, so pervasive one would have to leave the solar system to avoid an ad. It's reached the point on insanity as marketers, who are not entirely at fault since they are faced with intense media fragmentation and consumer control over media, grasp for any and all possible means to get their message in front of potential customers.
While inviting the government into things is not always the best solution, something, anything is needed to guide the advertising beast as it relentlessly seeks eyeballs with cash.
While Commercial Alert's Gary Ruskin says, "Good luck," cell phone providers have adopted a set of guidelines, Consumer Best Practices Guidelines for Cross-Carrier Mobile Content Services, which is intended to place limits on marketer's use of the cell phone as an advertising medium. The guidelines call for double opt-in to promotions, how people are charged for air time and wording people can use to opt in or out of promotions. Even as the guidelines are adopted by all major U.S cell phone companies, Ruskin believes cell advertising will, none the less, proliferate and cause a backlash similar to those that have occurred in Europe where the medium is more established. Ruskin is particularly concerned over the guideline's allowance of opt-in list sale to third parties.
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