So now we have M. Night Shyamalan's newest flick, Signs. Supposedly all about the alien influence of this phenomenon because how excited would a movie be about the reality of this whole thing. You do know there is a whole contingent of crop circles creators out there, don't you? Yes, they are entirely man made. Sorry to burst your bubble.
But, now that this is out in the open why not take advantage of it like marketing does of everything else? How about a giant crop circle of the Coke logo? Or, god forbid, an X10 camera configuration? Or even the Golden Arches? Come on marketers...this is your chance to jump on the latest trend in "intrusive" media. Well, intrusive only to aerial photographers and airline passengers but that's a minor point, right?
Besides, it's for a good cause too. Help the farmers of our nation with fees for field usage so that they could actually afford to live in their world of fixed prices that beat down their ability to make a profit.
In fact, farmers have all the right equipment for this too. Instead of tramping down the hay or corn and ruining it, why not cut it with the appropriate farm equipment....in the light of day no less. Surely, easier then the late night foot stomping method. And, a double win for the farmer. He gets his crops and some cash just for mowing it.
Come on all you marketers with deep pockets. Do your part! Give to the needy and get your flashy logo splattered all over the last remaining piece of nature not yet splattered with the filth of commercialism.
Oh, wait...commercialism. Oh, that's a good thing. Sorry. Repeat after me: Marketing is Good! Marketing is Good! Marketing is good....
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Leave it to the Brady Bunch to become the "new cool" in Old Navy's new campaign:
"The Rugby Bunch" is the story of a lovely lady (Fairchild), a man and six kids, who dance around in a very Brandy house and replicate images from the classic TV show's opening scenes, including a march-and-pose on the steps and the legendary tic-tac-toe box featuring close-ups of Fairchild and her co-actors. The ad, which promotes Old Navy's Rugby shirt collection for men, women and kids, broke nationally late last week on network and cable, per parent San Francisco-based Gap's in-house creative unit with ad agency Modernista, Boston.
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I think that with all the new "rich media" ad formats that have appeared lately, this one from Point Roll has some good things going for it. It's a banner. We're all used to that. It doesn't dance across your screen in an annoying fashion, yet, it drops down a full mini site's worth of informatiom. I think it has serious merit. Story from Clickz:
A new trend in ad design has emerged over the past year few years, and it's beginning to take hold -- so much so that I venture to say the days of struggling to fit a coherent ad message into a 468 x 60 pixel banner are coming to an end. The ads, and the company that creates the technology behind them, are called Point�Roll, and they're providing advertisers with much more space within a banner than was previously available.
It's MUCH better then Shoskeles
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From iMedia Connection
A new study from GartnerG2 reports that B2B advertisers are reluctant to move online because most Websites have broad appeal and cannot identify the specific markets they are targeting.
We need more VertMarkets of the world to counter this.
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You know the drill. "Oh, the client hates online". "The site won't let you do that". "I'm not convinced of this mediums validity"
Jeff Jaffe cuts through all this puffery about online advertising foot dragging. A good read:
Jaffe Juice: Who's the Bad Guy? Buyers. Sellers. Clients. Just who is responsible for inhibiting or slowing the growth of Interactive Advertising? You might be surprised by what Joseph Jaffe thinks.
Good thoughts to heed.
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Finally, something to cut through all the messy paper work. Hope it works.
From MediaPost
AdSEND, the Associated Press�s digital ad delivery unit, is currently developing a new service that will streamline multi-market newspaper buys. Set to launch this fall, AP AdVantage will be a web-based service available to buyers and newspapers that will allow for easy placing and tracking of orders, consolidated billing and improved communication between advertisers and papers.
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Yea, yea. We all heard about the study on how obese we are and Derek Jackson of the Boston Globe takes it further with an article about the demise of phys ed in public schools.
I never new that most kids don't go to phys ed anymore. No wonder most kids have no sense of team spirit or drive to compete. After all, that's the real world. As much as we might love to all sit around in a one of those "self-esteem" sessions, we better get off our collective asses and realize that the real world is all about competition.
Oh, and for all of you who think that winning and losing hurts our poor little child's self esteem, you might also note that the physical exercise involved in act of winning and losing a phys ed dodge ball game INCREASES self esteem.
Get off your ass!
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In high school, I endured the usual label of band geek. That was until we got a new band director who whipped us so far into shape that the term geek simply was not applicable anymore. We even had football players cheering us on! Since high school, the ranks of those choosing to be a part of the marching band in high school and the parents and teachers that support it have dwindled greatly. Some say it's because it takes too much time or that their child needs more free time. I say we became lazy. We allowed our children to become lazy. We lost our spirit to care about participating in school support.
I felt very proud to be a part of it. Besides, those busrides to and from the football games were perfect for getting with the girl of your dreams!
It's nice to read about a group that still has this spirit and that is so enticing that they have to turn people away. Read about it in the Boston Globe
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Saw this post on SherpaBlog. With crap that fills one's Inbox these days, it's nice to see that one company is at least trying to make online correspondence more palatable. Some nice tips...
[07/23/02] BEST PRACTICES IN CUSTOMER SERVICE REPLY EMAIL
Just got a note from Clif Bar customer service in response to a
query about their product that I posted using their site form
yesterday. If you are in charge of deciding what your customer
service email should look like, you might want to steal an idea
from them:
1. The "From" was a real person's name. In fact it's the name of
the person who signed the letter.
2. The subject line simply read: CLIF BAR INC which is pretty
bare bones, but since they didn't use their brand name in the
"from" line sticking it prominently in the subject line was
mission critical. Also, because it didn't use up all 30
characters or so that I can see of subject lines in my inbox, it
actually really stood out due to brevity. Plus it just looked
honest. So despite the fact that I get so much spam these days I
often enough delete "real" messages by mistake that get caught up
in it, I noticed this one.
3. The letter was in text-only. No HTML.
4. The letter started with a few lines of white space, which
caught my attention because it was, well, odd. Then there was
today's date, then a few more lines of white space and then a
salutation "Dear Anne".... and oh I get it, it's a real letter!
And you know, suddenly it felt very honest and respectful and
pleasant. Especially after spam overload.
5. After giving me some advice about my question (including handy
links) the last paragraph gave me a toll free phone number to
call plus an email address if I had any more questions.
6. And just like a "real letter" it ended with a "Sincerely," and
then a real person's name and title there at Clif.
http://www.clifbar.com
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Thank God that iVillage is listening to it's users. Over 90% of the sites users claimed that pop ups were the most frustrating feature of the site. Read the article on Media Daily News
This is so right. We are killing the medium with these senseless commecial bombardments that people obviously hate with a passion. I applaud the iVillage decision and call upon all other publishers to to the same.
Save The Web, Kill Pop Ups (and Unders)
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