An annual survey by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) conducted to help shape its Annual Conference in October 2005, ranked accountability as senior marketers' top priority. The survey asked senior marketers to choose their top three issues from a comprehensive list and then rank them in order of importance, from one to three. Of the 111 respondents, more marketers indicated a greater concern about ccountability (61 total responses) than any other issues. Building strong brand franchises and integrated marketing communications ranked closely in the second and third positions with 48 and 45 total responses respectively. While last year the same top three issues emerged from the survey, this year building strong brand franchises switched with accountability for the top issue on marketers' minds.
The following is the list of issues ranked in order of importance according to the total responses: -- Accountability -- Building strong brand franchises -- Integrated Marketing Communications -- Media fragmentation -- Structuring a marketing organization -- Consumer control over how they view advertising -- Innovation in a marketing organization -- Globalization of marketing efforts -- Growth of multicultural consumer segments -- Advertising creative that achieves business results -- Impact of technology on marketing -- Regulatory/legislative issues
A sweeping look at the long, slow decline of traditional newspapers, challenges facing publishers and new directions of the newspaper industry are covered in this piece.
The gist? A shift to "readership" instead of "circulation as a metric, migration to online properties, easier navigation and the unsolved debate over free versus paid.
Fox Sports en Español, Fox Sports Latin America and Proteus, a developer and publisher of mobile entertainment content, have launched Fox Sports Copa Móvil, a suite of mobile products and services allowing fans to get in on the action of the Copa Libertadores, a prestigious club soccer tournament in the Americas. Fox Sports Copa Móvil initially will be available in the United States and Brazil, and soon to subscribers in Mexico and throughout Latin America. The service will include personalized score alerts, exclusive ringtones, mobile wallpapers, on-air polling, and mobile video services. Copa Móvil will be promoted throughout the tournament with in-game broadcast messaging and 30-second promotional spots on the Fox Sports en Español and Fox Sports Latin America networks. According to Forrester Research, U.S. Hispanics are far more inclined than the general population to adopt and pay for new wireless services such as photo messaging and ringtones, spending an average of $54.65 on wireless service per month, approximately $10 more than any other U.S. ethnic group.
Steve Parsons, writing on Weblogs, Inc. website, Joystiq, is angered over gaming maker Funcom's insertion of ads into its MMORPG Anarchy Online. Granting the ad-supported game is free and a subscription version is ad-free, Parsons claims the company responsible for the advertising is "delusional" quoting Massive, "Through our own research we know that most gamers want in-game advertisement to heighten the sense of realism." To which, Parsons chimes, "Yes, ram advertising down our throats. Make sure we have no avenue of escape. After all, nothing quite adds to the realism of an RPG set in a futuristic world like an advert for an online casino."
It's true that ad creep has pervaded every corner of life and is showing no signs of slowing. It's all over people's bodies now, in urinals, at ski areas. It won't be long before a crafty marketer implants a targeted message inside the bowels of a surgical patient simply to sell the latest cancer drug to the surgeons performing the operation.
They say Bangkok is a place where people are pretty open about sex.
With a city name like that, it's not surprising. However, a promotion for St. Herb Company's breast beautifying cream, which had three models receiving a topless breast massage at a press event to demonstrate the product's breast growth qualities, didn't go over so well. St. Herb says they launched the stunt to prove its "breast beautifying" advertising claims which is simply a veiled term for "breast enlarging," a term which faces greater scrutiny. Apparently the stuff works as one of the models reports her breasts had become firmer and the gap between them smaller.
Writing in Ad Age, Rance Crain claims, contrary to popular belief, the mass market is alive and well. It's creative that's dead. Crain feels advertising simply isn't creative enough anymore to move product. While creative does seem to be, well, creatively challenged these days, last we looked, there seem to be more than three TV networks, not to mention all these other things called cable channels through which one must psychotically surf to make sure the latest groundbreaking episode of The Ashlee Simpson Show isn't missed. Oh, and there's this thing called the Internet too. It has tons of these places called "websites." Not sure what they are but it everyone seems to have one. Oh, duh, we get Rance's point now.
There's still a mass market because the market is so massive. Phew. We felt stupid there for a minute.
Oh, and speaking of massive. There's such a massive amount of magazines now too. That helps the massive market too. Back in the day, there used to be this really big magazine called National Geographic that, like, everybody read. It was so cool. The pictures were neat too. But now there's so many other important magazines like, oh, Star and Radar that everyone has to read to know the really cool stuff like whether their number is in Paris Hilton's Sidekick.
Oops. We digress. Crain was talking about creative sucking too and the need for yet another CxO title - the Chief Creative Officer. Better go read his article to see what that's all about.
