For a while now media companies have been pointing to third-party ad networks (such as 24/7 Real Media) as contributors to the devaluation of online content. The alternative has been to bring ad sales in house (or partner with other media companies to start their own networks). In the short-term this is a costly approach, but all are betting that the creation of a trusted, high-quality environment will change perceptions and ultimately bolster the value of content.
AOL’s previous strategy to utilize third-party ad networks performed poorly for them - ad revenue dropped 18% year over year. And considering the size of AOL it’s highly likely that this move played a role in the devaluation of online content.
AOL has since changed their strategy. And in this video from Ad Age Walker Jacobs, SVP of Digital Ad Sales for Turner talks about what drove them to do the same.
Great spot from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners for Sprint: Anthem. I like how they slip in a plug for the Palm Pre at the end. The spot pushes you to a beautiful site with more data visualization. How accurate is the data? Who cares.
With cruises being the low-cost vacation alternative, Carnival Cruises is among those not dialing back their marketing spend. This street-side interactive digital aquarium campaign caught my attention. The execution seems a bit rudimentary—but points are given on the concept. My gut reaction was that this tech-focused campaign didn’t speak to their core demographic. I always envisioned the cruise-goers to be my 60 year old accountant. But I was surprised to find out that 25-39 year olds represent a significant group for them - and one that I’d expect holds some growth opportunities in this economy.
I’m going to try to run out and check out the one here in New York.
Last week the news media and the blogosphere were all abuzz about Skittles new “website”. The quotations are around “website” because it really isn’t a website, it’s a widget that sits on top of a series of non-Skittles sites - a siteless site. The widget points you to various social sites around the web, most notably Twitter, where you can see the communities comments about Skittles in real, unedited -time. Critics have declared this everything from “breakthrough” to “idiotic”. But all seem to agree that this won’t sell more Skittles.
What interested me through this whole affair was the headlines and abstracts that were popping up in Google News as I searched for “Skittles” last week. A large majority of the stories mentioned the name of the agency “Moderista!”. Modernista! was not however the agency that created this experience, it was Agency.com. Modernista! was mentioned because they used this same siteless approach to their very own website which launched a year earlier.
While most of the chatter focused on this brave move by Skittles, all of the subtext felt like the creative wind was knocked out of Agency.com’s sails in “adapting” this concept. Maybe the Agency.com folks felt that enough time had past or that the Modernista! audience was too industry-inside for anyone to care. In any case I wonder if Modernista’s phones might be ringing more than Agency.com’s this week.
Last week the news media and the blogosphere were all abuzz about