iMediaConnection's Media Strategies Editor Jim Meskauskas approaches the cookie conundrum with six suggestions marketers may wish to consider in the face of a seemingly huge consumer cookie rebellion. Maskauskus suggests the advertising industry take strides to educate consumers about the advantages cookies provide; educate the industry so those that use cookies or make software that uses cookies understand how each discipline values the cookies; make the cookie hard to find like United Virtualities has done with its Flash-based PIE technology; keep quiet about the whole debate acknowledging that talking about cookies just brings unwanted attention; forget about the cookie and and rely on other existing tracking technologies; and simply surrender control to consumers allowing them to create Passport like "universal cookies" containing any type of information the consumer choose to provide and allowing them to decide whether they share it or not.
My Little Pony, a toy line for girls from Hasbro that was extremely popular in the 1980's, has launched an exhibit/promotion called The Pony Project. Hasbro, to re-energize the My Little Pony Line, has invited young, contemporary female artists of varied backgrounds such as graffiti, fashion, illustration, photography, and fine art to customize blank 18” My Little Pony figures. Artists like Claw Money (graffiti writer), Maya Hayuk (fine artist), Betsey Johnson (designer), and Kozyndan (illustrator) will create their versions of My Little Pony.
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So we finally got around to reading today's MediaPost newsletter and, upon opening it, were instantly attracted to an ad for alloy media + marketing which is promoting its 2005 College Explorer Youth Study. The ad, with the ubiquitous, exposed hottie-belly, is accompanied by the headline, "It's not what you think. It's what we know." The ad then animates to a frame promoting the study. This ad does three things brilliantly. It grabs attention. It debunks stereotypes. And it promotes a study that, one assumes, paints a realistic picture of the college market rather than the standard, Spring Break, thong-wearing, sex-crazed image we're all so fond of writing about. Of course the full image on the study order page sort of brings it all back home.
Knowing this site's audience, Alloy should really be advertising that study here.
TAG Body spray is getting the promotional online game treatment with Hide the Hotties and House Call. Hide the Hotties provides four increasingly difficult game levels in which you have to hide the hotties hanging in your pad before their Dad shows up at the door and kicks the crap out of you. Apparently, if you type the T, A, and G keys, that unlocks a bikini version of the game. This didn't work for us. House Call, which really should have been called Booty Call, lets the gamer sneak through the house to hook up with the hottie of the house.
The first one is amusing. The second one just doesn't work that well. Of course, that could simply be because we suck at online gaming and have an ADD-style attention span.
As we previously eluded to, Ask Jeeves, today, has made its official announcement it has launched a new sponsored listings program similar to Google's AdWords. The offering, an auction-based system called Sponsored Listings, is replacing the company's older Premier Listings product. Sponsored Listings will appear above Google AdWords which also appear on the site. The product is available now to existing Ask Jeeves Advertisers and will be available to new advertisers August 15.
Premium Network Inc., an online advertising and promotions firm, has announced the introduction of a new 300x250 in-page and pop-up full-motion sound and video ad unit allowing marketers to use standard broadcast commercials online. By converting standard AVI files to 15 second video ad spots, marketing ads can be deployed on individual sites or across the entire network of websites in the Premium Network. In addition, in-page or pop-up ads can have a click-through URL or, in some cases, can open an advertiser’s website in the background.
Currently, Premium Networks is using the ad unit to promote the Bantam Books release of Blind Alley on the Crimescene .
Confirming the well known fact that there are no more new ideas and that the sincerest form of flattery in advertising is to copy another's work, Starbucks is the second company, after Netscape, to copy the office cubicle microsite thing, apparently originated by Hostway in April. Now, for those who like to snoop, yes, Starbuck's version of the office cubicle site, called DoubleShot, resides on a site that was registered way back in 1998 but an informant tell us the cubicle creative was recently launched. No doubt, Adrants readers will correct any errors in this assumption.
The site itself has all the usual stuff from a lame video to a picture of parents that say "hello" to a gadget sweepstakes to voice mail messages to a ceiling darts to a number you can call to reach "Hank" who, of course, isn't answering. It's all been done before. Done. Done. Done. But, why is it that we spent so much time on the site engaging in "brand immersion" as those account management types like to call it? maybe the office cubicle is the new :30. Hey, the :30 worked forever. Why not the office cubicle?
MediaPost's Amy Corr has gathered together a few recent campaign launches in her Out to Launch column, one of which proves beer marketers haven't left scantily clad women as seducers...uh...sellers of its products. A new campaign for Milwaukee's Best (yes, they do need all the help they can get) has launched on TV, print, an on the web with the tagline, "Brewed for a Man's Taste." Taste in what, you ask. Taste in "finely tuned" woman apparently. The website has all the usual male stupidity such as an ogling game in which a man must avert his eyes from his best friend's girlfriend's cleavage but if that's not possible, the site also provides wallpaper and downloads of finely Photoshopped models to ogle on the privacy one's own computer screen.
While the site reinforces man's neaderthal tendencies, the commercials, which feature proverbially manly men acting proverbially unmanly, are actually quite funny and not far from reality.
Kosher.com has launched a little promotional cartoon, created by Dan Meth, which does a great job clearly explaining the Kosher.com offering. From mentioning the foods they carry by name and showing them to explaining where they came from to telling you how can buy them, Kosher.com makes it clear they are they place to go to when Kosher food is what's for dinner. It's not rocket science but, unfortunately, too many commercials try to be and fail. This one doesn't and, pleasantly, succeeds.
A tipster tells us Ask Jeeves will announce its entry into the world of paid search bidding with the launch of a new product interface on August 1. Reportedly, the service will compete with Google and Yahoo's keyword bidding products leaving MSN the last to enter this arena.
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