We don't profess to have a clue how the inner working of the Nielsen measurement conglomerate works but common sense tell us if they can measure a minute, they can certainly measure 30 seconds. Answering the industries call to measure what matters, the commercials rather than the programs in which they air, Nielsen has announced new minute by minute ratings but has also scrapped plans to measure smaller chunks of time in which most commercial actually air. The new system will allow for matching a measured minute to the time an ad ran but why not simply measure the actual ads? Oh, because most suck, no one watches them and it will quickly become apparent that placing a :30 on TV is no longer a wise decision thereby causing a dramatic drop in television revenue, part of which goes to pay the hefty sums Nielsen charges for its measurement services. Sort of a catch-22 situation.
This old system of measurement really should be dumped and replaced with a system like Ad ID and other "marker" technology used by viral marketers to track viewership of viral video. The thing gets viewed, it gets counted. It doesn't get viewed, it doesn't get counted. That doesn't happen with Nielsen. And yea, yea, there's the whole thing about matching viewership to demographics but hey, we just write about this stuff. We don't profess to be able to figure it out.
Spoofing the Citroen robot dance, Maverick Media has created a version, called Car Jak'd, to promote the Sony Playstation 2's Jak X combat racing game. The original robot in the ad, which, itself, has been spoofed a few times is, with this spoof finally laid to rest.
If you work in advertising or marketing there are two podcasts you should be listening to. The first, American Copywriter, produced by Wichita-based Sullivan Higdon & Sink creative team John January and Tug McTighe is like hanging with an insightful creative team as they riff about what's right and wrong with the industry, interview adver-celebs, skewer really bad creative, heap praise on great work, banter about pop culture and admire the return of the Doublemint twins. The chemistry between the two is flawless with each one bouncing perfectly off the other.
The second, Across the Sound, produced by Jaffe LLC President Joseph Jaffe and CooperKatz & Company Client Services VP Steve Rubel, is more structured and fact-filled than American Copywriter with podcast episodes broken into segments such as a wrap up of current news and trends called Podbits, a summary of topics blogged by Joe and Steve called What We're Blogging About, a Theme of the Week section and a Winners and Losers section that examines the past week's successes and failures. The chemistry between Joe and Steve is a bit different, perhaps because they are sitting, literally, across the Long Island Sound while recording the podcast while John and Tug, who have worked together for years, are in the same room while recording.
Each podcast approaches its coverage differently but the two, together, make the perfect combination of audio information about current advertising and marketing news, issues, trends and opinion. Both should be listened to, without fail, each week.
