As a prelude to the first ad:tech keynote given by Sequoia Capital Partner Mark Kvamme, ad:tech chair Susan Bratton welcomed a packed room of attendess to ad:tech San Francisco 2006 and told the audience there would be 9,000 attendees to this years show, breaking all former ad:tech attendence records. In addition, she mentioned there would be 300 exhibitors, 200 speakers and 55 sessions, more than any prior conference. Noting the conference's tenth tyear anniversary, Bratton, calling the show the "biggest, deepest and widest" to date, told the audience ad:tech would be expanding its conference series to Sydney, Hamburg and Paris this year and, in 2007, to Mumbai, Dubai among others.
Following her introduction, Bratton introduced Kvamme who quickly followed the ten year theme Bratton had begun by telling the audience the next ten years will see growth in the Internet space that will make the first ten years seem trivial. Noting all media expcept the Internet is declining in use, Kvamme pointed out the disparity between adspend and consumption comparing television to the Internet. Thirty two percent of people are reached by TV and 38 percent of ad dollars are allocated to TV. In contrast, the Internet reached 32 percent of people but only receives five percent of ad dollars. With TV CPMs hovering around $64 and $10 to $30 for the Internet, Kvamme sees huge growth potential for Internet advertising.
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Animal Magazine, the yardstick by which all New York culture is measured, has re-launched its website blog-style. Already, Animal's got high-jacked Facebook pictures of Moby hanging with a bunch of college hotties, a nod to Chelsea's apparent fixation with the male appendage and one of New York's finest mouthing off as only the finest can.
This isn't really new but it's worth noting The Weinstein Company, formed last October by Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein, has embraced the whole social media/online video thing and is promoting its movies on YouTube. Deep Focus handles the account. Up now are two trailers for Lucky Number Slevin, a trailer for Clerks II and, just added, a clip that includes the first eight minutes of Lucky Number Slevin. There's no need to rely on a studio website or movie trailers in physical theaters when you can get your trailer hundreds of thousand of additional people as in the case of Clerks II which has, to date, been viewed 217,505 times. Of course just one showing of one trailer on one day across, say, 2000 theaters with 150 theater-goers gets 300,000 views but hey, they're getting 217,505 more views then they might have had they not posted the trailer on YouTube.
Eschewing the usual approach to marketing games and, perhaps heeding recent research boomers are the new black, Nintendo has introduced and is marketing a game called Brain Age and is positioning it as a means to exercise the mind and keep one sharp. Writing in MarketingProfs, Karl Long says, "Nintendo is essentially turning market perception on its head, positioning the video game as positive 'mental exercise,' as opposed to the common perception of it being a pointless, mind-numbing activity."
We all know those mythical days of corporately untainted music are over and have given way to overly commercialized, manufactured pop groups. Noting that trend, Saatchi & Saatchi UK figures they nor their clients should be left out of the fun and have created a band for hire. Saatchi has brought together four twenty-something girls (not shown in the photo) who will completely give themselves over to the whim of the advertiser who chooses to cough up the dough to sponsor them. Everything from the name of the band, musical style, lyrics, clothing, the food they eat and the liquid they drink will be under control of the advertiser.
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In reaction to ABC's announcement it would provide advertiser-supported free programming online without the ability to skip ads, Todd Copelvitz suggested ABC check out these things called DVRs and Slingbox which allows a person to access their DVR from anywhere in the world...and skip the ads. Now, Todd has a guest writer who likens the industry's missteps 100 years ago with the advent of radio to current missteps by broadcaster faced with the possibilities the Internet provides.
The writer wonder about ABC's mindset here writing, "...does anyone really believe that if you force me to sit through a commercial while watching one of these shows online that I'll really pay attention to it? Nope, I'll be checking my email, having an IM conversation and paying my bills online. Because that's how I use my broadband connection and any advertiser trying to get my attention has to understand that."
Following in the boundary-pushing footsteps of the Schering baby-in-a-dumpster ad comes this Thialand ad for the Nikon Cool Pix S4 which uses military gun site imagery to convey the effectiveness of Nikon technology. Surely and ad that would never run in America but, apparently, the rest of the world has dispensed with this thing called political correctness.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says the future of television advertising is in its past. He says bring back the live commercial so the viewer (nor the advertiser) will know what to expect until it happens. Calling them Reality Commercials, Cuban claims implementing such a thing would not be a technical challeng or a creatyive one but it would entail a whole lot more work. He cites a couple of examples which does get the mind thinking. After all, a commercial riffing unexpectedly off what the viewer just watched would be far more interesting and integrated than a canned spot. And, oh, the potential for screw ups....that alone would keep a fair amount of people watching.
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There's an interesting conversation going on in the Adrants forum about the recent death of several magazines and the effect the Internet is having on the magazine industry. Some feel the physical nature of the magazine and the impracticality of the laptop making its way into the bathroom or to the beach will keep magazines alive. Others feel the connected teen has no need for paper nor the patience to way for what can be had instantaneously online. Visit the forum here.
Writing on his weblog, Advertising Ourselves to Death, Todd Copelzitz celebrates the cluelessness of agency execs and media companies when it comes to understanding digital media. Copelvitz takes a look at the Pathfinder debacle - the old on and the new - and the genral cluelessness of elder creatives struggling to understand this thing called new media.
Citing an article written by Aaron Baar called Teaching As Old(er) Creative New Tricks, Copelvitz calls out some gems such as 54 year old Carmichael Lynch Chairman Jack Supple's regular meetings with his web designers (rather than just jumping into the new tech himself) to stay current with new media. From the same article, it appears 54 year old Jeff Goodby at least grasps the concept of jumping in with b oth feet saying, "I used to think you could noodle something out on a pad and have someone else execute it on a computer. But now I believe you have to understand technology just to know what's possible."
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