In an agreement between CBS and Capitol Records, a ring tone of Coldplay's "Talk," the second single from the double platinum album X&Y, will be embedded into the content of the CSI:NY episode to be broadcast Wednesday, November 30. In the episode, CSI: NY's Danny Messer is investigating a case when his cell phone rings to the tune of "Talk." We'll wait while you snicker at the real life likelihood of that.
Following the scene, CBS will run promotional messages during the act break in the episode telling viewers how they can purchase and download the ringtone.
While it's so easy to press 411 instead of looking for that old fashioned thing they call the Phone Book, there's always a bit of pain each month as you check your land and cell phone bills which usually contain more than a few over-priced 411 charges. A relatively new service, called 1-800-FREE411 intends to eliminate that pain and, at the same time, create a new ad medium.
1-800-FREE411 is a free 411 service that is supported by advertising. When callers dial the number, a computer voice welcomes them to 1-800-FREE411 and asks for the city, state, business or residence and attempts to get the number. If it can't, a human operator finds the number. While the number is being found, which, of course, doesn't take nine seconds, a nine second ad plays giving the caller the choice to respond to the ad or simply get the number they wanted in the first place. Advertisers pay for ads only when callers "dial through" in response to the ad.
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While this song has been out for a while, it's yet another shining example of consumer created brand love. After discovering Apple's GarageBand, Daphna Kalfon created a song called I Love My Mac. Similar to George Master's iPod commercial, it expresses a deep appreciation of a product that people love. Not to be outdone by Mac lovers, a Windows lover has created a song based on the Windows start up sound and other system sounds.
Not every brand can generate this sort of appreciation and creativity but as Seth Godin has always said, create a great product first and all else will follow.
Steve Rubel reports Google is gearing up readying a fierce fight for classified ad dollars as evidenced by a job posting the company placed on HotJobs seeking a Classified Vertical Markets Director who would be given responsibility to "develop and execute on a strategy for driving ad sales with all advertisers in the Classifieds category on a national/international level, working with all sales channels and resources (DSO, ISO, Online)." With the launch of Google Base, a tool that allows anyone to add anything to Google's database, the move into the classified space is a no brainer. While it might take a while to ween people from the likes of Craig's List and newspaper classified placements, there's no doubt, a serious dent will be made by Google in this space. Rubel also reports Microsoft isn't going to let Google have all the fun.
The ad industry is all a twitter about recent rulings by the Children's Advertising Review Board reports Ad Age. CARU, a division of the self-regulatory group National Advertising Review Council, has been battling Kraft over a Lunchables Chicken Shake-Ups ad which CARU claimed did not properly represent four out of the five food groups as required by the group's guidelines. Kraft revised the ads but said forcing advertisers to show all required food groups might cause advertisers to "depict an overabundance of foods."
Advertising attorney Douglas Wood told Ad Age CARU is overstepping its bounds by making the wrong way, saying, "Doing so [make policy changes in advertising practices] through cases rather than rule-making is a very dangerous road. By using a case to announce a broad reaching rule, some will argue that CARU has eliminated the deliberative process and engaged in rule-making more by fiat than fairness. Without doubt, this will further fuel the debate that CARU has become too aggressive."
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