PVRblog via engadget reports TiVo is testing a program they eluded to earlier where banner-like ads appear on the screen as users fast forward through ads. Making matter worse, the banner ads are so big, the user can't really see when the ads have stopped and the programming has started again. Chock up another for corporate buffoonery here. engadget, being the geek blog it is, offers readers a link to the TiVo tweak that reprograms the buttons on the TiVo remote so the units jumps forward 30 seconds rather than fast forwarding, thereby avoiding both the ads and the new banner unit.
We're all for easy, efficient access to information about marketing and advertising. There's nothing more satisfying than finding a website that contains every single tidbit of relevant news you could every want - except when that site steals the content in full and does not link back to the original source. One Massachusetts based company has just launched such a monster.
Here's how the service is described in their press release, "Massachusetts based advertising agency Mass Reach Interactive has built a free peer to peer (Linux/PHP) database allowing advertising executives to share content and creative with one another. http://www.thebriefcase.org contains content offered by Mediapost, emarketer, ClickZ, Business Wire, iMediaConnection, Ad Rants, Reuters and many more free of charge. You could just go to each site and look for the right article, but it may no longer be available. Often you would have to search 50 sites to find the article you need. We aren’t reinventing the wheel here, just trying to make the life of road warriors a bit easier."
So there you have it. Because "the Briefcase" is a repository for articles cut and pasted from other sources without proper attribution, Mass Reach Interactive is stealing not just content but advertising revenue from all the news sources it contains on its site. Oh, they do list sources but the links, while the site says they must link to the original source, just circle back to the full text of the article on "the Briefcase" site. In fact, here isn't even a field to enter a source on the submission page. We found no links on the site's articles to original sources.
We're no lawyer but this sure sounds like the blatant breaking of some kind of copyright law. Or at least a high degree of idiotic stupidity.
UPDATE: It appears Mass Reach Interactive has read this article. They've made some changes to the site. The link to the original article is now included and, rather than pasting the entire article onto the site, they've wisely included an excerpt, albeit, a long one, of the original atticle.
Capitalizing on the arrival of Daylight Saving Time, Old Navy has launched Flip Ahead, a site full of all things Spring. From the history of Daylight Savings Time to flip flop wearing dos and don'ts to a make-your-own flip flop music mixer to a contest to win 365 pairs of flip flops, the site engages and does so in that necessary hippy dippy style so important to today's youth marketers. Huh? Did we just write that? Well, anyway, check it out. It'll subtract ten minutes from your day.
Sometimes a commercial is so creative, so inventive, so amusing, it has to be viewed over and over again not because it's so brilliant but because its brilliance outshines the product being promoted. That's the case with this new commercial by TBWA/Chiat/Day for Skittles Smoothie Mix. We viewed it and were enthralled by the two talking sheep with human heads but we're not sure what the spot was promoting. Hold on a sec - we'll watch it again for you and let you know. OK, now we get it. Funny. Unusual combinations. Get it? Odd flavors combined to form new Skittles flavors aligned with the odd combination of sheep and human head. OK, we're cool with it now. But Skittles shouldn't worry. We're slow and we're sure everyone else will get it the first time.
Alrighty then, other fascinating spots this week, as featured in Ad Age's TV Spots of the Week include those dang Chipotle commercials on PBS; Unicel, who, unlike all other cell carriers who think cell phone-based video, mp3 capability, camera and IM are the only things cell phones are good for, illustrates a far more practical, utilitarian use; a spot for Sony's new PSP shot in typical music video style; an absolutely hilarious Japanese spot promoting Ajinomoto Stadium with girls that talk like old men; a spot from Cellular South that has something to do with old land-line phones, an Anheuser-Busch spot that has the Clydsdales, in a very un-post 911 like moment and a spot from Dad's Dog Food with doggie angels and devils.
Like a flesh eating virus, advertising continues to devour every last morsel of media content forgetting that, one day, it will stand alone, left to consume itself like a black hole nearing a food-induced orgasm as its hunger ravenously overtakes its lifeblood of available content. PBS and Chipotle Mexican Grill are speeding that process with PBS' airing of three, very commercial ad units that intertwine the message with the network's content by spoofing it.
The three spots; one which shows a pledge drive MC drowned out by the sound of ringing telephones as operators gorge on burritos, one which shows an Alistaire Cook look-a-like sign language woman signing incorrectly due to her burrito eating and one which shows a newscast interrupted as the newscaster slips out of frame because the cameraman is, you guessed it, eating a burrito, are the surest sign that public television - already on a long downward spiral into commercialism - has taken one monstrously historic jump over the shark.
Like we wrote years ago, it won't be long before a brand paints a homeowner's house for free as long as the brand can paint a gigantic logo on the front of the house. View the spot here. That is, of course, after you view the TV Guide commercial sponsoring the Chipotle commercial. Is that a sick joke, Ad Age?
