PSFK Author:
Guy Brighton

There’s an interesting piece on the Profero site on how companies that have chosen to take digital into their hearts could thrive in the recession:

2009/10 will see the toughest financial period for nearly quarter of a century, but managed correctly brands with an unambiguous, intelligent and coherent digital strategy, the ones that have had the foresight to utilise their digital presence over the last few years to generate a genuine consumer loyalty and create a lasting dialogue, could achieve some relative benefits in the slump and weather the storm better than their purely offline, or less savvy competitors. It’s a big “if”, and it is impossible to say just how things will pan out, but one suspects that the brands that come out of this with the least damage will be the ones who have understood and taken seriously the centrality of digital in twenty-first century life. Those that have chosen to ignore the influence of digital in modern society, whether by accident, an inability to adapt or by design, may just find these tough times just that little bit tougher.

Profero

By Scott Burns of The Spark Agency

There’s a Jykell & Hyde battle raging in boardrooms across corporate America.

On one side, we have a savvy, in-the-know VP-Marketing that understands that the old product development & marketing models are extinct. On the other side, we have an under-the-gun, sleep deprived VP-Sales who keeps one eye on the stock ticker and another on the Board of Directors.

Unfortunately, this person is often one in the same. Fighting the daily battle of increased revenue & a responsibility to the shareholders versus the understanding that in the new economy less is more, this person is being pulled in two completely opposite directions.

This is called the Wal-Mart Effect.

For just about every major consumer products manufacturer, Wal-Mart is their largest retailer. And as everyone’s largest retailer, they have begun dictating not only how manufacturers sell & market their products…but what those products are, what they’re called and how they’re packaged.

If Wal-Mart comes a’ calling, telling you to create a product that they will sell exclusively, guaranteeing you increased revenue, market-share, and ultimately, profits…and if you don’t, they’ll offer the opportunity to each and everyone of your most bloodthirsty competitors.

Who are you loyal to? The shareholders? The consumer? The retailer? Or the brand? And if you pick one…can you survive without the other?

See also: Coke: Wal-Mart Shakes Up Delivery System

Google continues to improve as it is testing a new model where advertisers only pay when a Web user buys a product, qualifies a sales lead, or signs on mailing list. This is best response against click-fraud and Google plans to charge advertisers more for this model. While this is great for some advertisers who want ROI, who knows if this model will ever replace the way advertising campaigns online work. It’s not just about clicks and hits anymore– just ask someone who uses Google Anaytics about how it changes the way you think about websites.

I also think about Subservient Chicken and wonder how many of its hits translated into actual purchase. Speaking of which, Burger King has a new online campaign called Huckin’ Chicken where the website is dependent on user hits. When it gets to 1 million, there is a surprise finale. It has already reached a million but you can still check it out here: www.huckinchicken.com

Analysts were quick to describe the cost-per-action test as an important step for the company. Advertisers have been asking for it and will respond favorably, said Safa Rashtchy, an analyst at Piper Jaffray.

For an advertiser, “that’s the ultimate way to verify you have a serious customer,” says Philip Remek, at analyst at Guzman & Co. “That’s [also] how you handle click fraud.”

Google did not say how many advertisers were involved in the test or how long they would last. It also declined to say what bids the new ads were generating at auction. However, analysts said they expected the Cost-Per-Action ads to sell at higher prices than the pay-for-click ads.

The challenge for Google will be to strike a balance between the two. While the Cost-Per-Action ads cost more per action, an ad that sells no products could bring the company less revenue overall.

From: Wall Street Journal: Google Tests New Action-Based Ads

Paul Beelen has put together a good introduction to what Advertising 2.0 entails. As he puts it simply as:

What everybody in advertising, marketing, and media should know about the technologies that are reshaping their business.

PaulBeelen.com: Advertising 2.0 Whitepaper

With Superman opening this weekend, Warner Bros. is using alternative ways to reach its audience from Myspace pages to commercials with Shaquille O’Neal during the NBA Finals.

Modifying the MySpace design to have a Superman look is a great way to promote the upcoming movie. MySpace is currently the 5th most popular site in the world and has a young demographic that goes to the movies quite often, when they aren’t downloading them. This campaign is far more effective then just a standard banner ad, and probably cost a lot more money too. There are tons of ads on MySpace, but how many of them do people even notice or click on? With this campaign they effectively modified the design of MySpace’s homepage encouraging your eyes to look at the background and characters in the movie. The background is like eye candy thus creating an effect that makes you want to find out what all the fuss is about. This emotion will most likely end in a click on a Superman ad.

Pronet Advertising: Marketing 2.0: WB entices MySpacers

Here’s a look at a product placement company called Propaganda GEM that specializes in getting products into music videos. They’ve also developed a methodology for evaluating qualitative and quantitative aspects of product placement.

Advertisers work with a placement agency on an ongoing basis to arrange placements, and a product will often appear in more than one music video. For example, Bang & Olufsen’s television screens are integrated into a Moby and Gwen Stefani video “South Side,” Jennifer Lopez’s “Ain’t it Funny,” Pink’s “Family Portrait,” Usher’s “U Got It Bad” and Enrique Iglesias and Lionel Richie’s “To Love A Woman.”

There are often multiple products placed in a video. For example, Moby featured three Propaganda GEM clients in one.

“If a music video seems like it’s becoming an advertisement, we stop,” Doss says. “This is different than a commercial. The goal is to seamlessly marry a product that fits within the story being told or the lifestyle being communicated.”

Media Life: Your Client in Video Downloads

It’s all around us and there is nothing anyone can do. Today companies are merging at an alarming rate. Alarming because I believe companies are after that monopoly money, and I’m not talking Milton Bradley, and not thinking through the effects it may have on their company. Everywhere I turn I see a billboard announcing the newest merge. Every channel I turn to I see a new commercial announcing things like “Sprint now together with Nextel.”

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“Bambi only out for seventy days then it goes back into the vault.” This is what I heard early this morning while my son lay sleeping on my shoulder and I flipped through the channels. It immediately got me thinking about Disney having the whole limited edition thing “on lock.” It also got me thinking about how it’s not the limited edition thing that is getting old but the way so many people are approaching the whole thing that is getting old, but more on that later.

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Scenario:
Tom, a marketing consultant of a quickly growing firm just fell in love with blogging but his busy schedule does not allow him to update as much as he’d like to. He just got a new Nokia and wants try out LifeBlogging. LifeBlogging is a technology used with TypePad to allow Nokia mobile users the ability of updating their blogs with photos, movies and text taken from their phone. A week later into LifeBlogging, Toms blog is full of interesting photos and captions from meetings with cool clients, lunches with hot girls, office work and his daily life. Since everything is instantaneous with LifeBlogging and uploaded at that moment in Toms life, a meaningful experience is created with his viewers. An experience that might be a bit harder, if even possible, to create with a digital camera, a computer and some free time at the end of the day.

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