Ever since Howdy Doody showed up in the 1950’s, PR and marketing folks have wanted to know how many people are watching a particular TV show. This sets advertising rates, actor salaries, and a million other things. Most of this is based on the Nielsen ratings, which is possibly the most laughable measurement tool in the history of everything. Nielsen selects a certain amount of people to wire a box to their TV that sends data OVER A PHONE LINE or to keep a journal about what they’ve been watching. Seriously. Starting to understand why CBS cleans up in the ratings? They target older demographics since older demographics are the ones most likely to use a systems like Nielsen. Enter Viggle. Continue reading
Tag Archives: advertising
You Are The Most Valuable Product On The Internet
Much has been made of Google’s unified privacy policy that went into effect last week. In my Twitter feed, I saw the usual suspects; threats of dumping all Google products, enraged people shouting about how Google is out to take over the world, you know, a whole lot of this. Perhaps these people are unaware of how commerce on the Internet works. This is always a good reminder for us as PR pros, and for our clients. The number of companies that collect your data for their own marketing purposes or for their partners is astronomical. However, let’s rundown a few of the major names to put this in perspective: Continue reading
The Next Great PR Firm
What will be the next great, innovative PR firm?
I wrote this question in a note in my iPhone late one night last week. For those who don’t know me, I’m a bit of a nerd, and yes, these are the things I think about. Primarily, I posed this question to myself as part of my job at PRSA, which includes advocating the business value of PR. But I also ask it because I’m genuinely interested in finding the answer.
Who among my generation of PR pros — those old enough to remember Bacon’s before it became Cision but young enough that our entire careers have evolved online — will create the next great PR firm? The next Edelman or Burson-Marsteller or SHIFT Communications. The type of PR firm that comes to define a generation within the industry and advances the business of PR well beyond the status quo. Continue reading
Are Marketers Losing Interest in Twitter?
Remember when every blog post and article in AdAge and Mashable was about how great Twitter was for marketers? That seems so 2009, doesn’t it? When was the last time you read a big story on how Twitter is grabbing marketers’ attentions and clients’ interests?
It’s just not happening much anymore. And, as we all know, if something is hot in marketing, we’ll talk it up endlessly, analyze its benefits and potential downfalls and examine every little nook and cranny of what makes something the current/next big thing.
And yet none of that is happening around Twitter. At least not on the scale it was six months ago, and certainly not on the scale of Facebook. Continue reading
Latest ‘Got Milk?’ Campaign Shows Worst of Marketing
“We accomplished what we set out to accomplish.”
Keep that quote in the back of your mind as you read skim pick apart the main points of this post. I’ll tell you who uttered this seemingly innocuous statement in a minute, but first, some background information:
It seems that the California Milk Processor Board — you probably know it as the folks who brought us the ubiquitous “Got Milk?” campaign and its many impostors — has gotten itself into some social media hot water over its most recent campaign.
What could be so unseemly about a milk ad, you ask? Well, when you try to use something that is wholly unfunny (like milk) as a way to poke fun of something that is also not humorous (e.g., women struggling with PMS) into an ad to sell more of your product, people tend to take offense at that. Or just get really annoyed. Continue reading
Google’s Savvy Marketing Launch of Google+
Some quick thoughts from a marketing, PR and ad perspective on Google’s just announced new foray into social networking — the terribly named Google+ (as Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land terms it*).
As I tweeted earlier in the day:
keithtrivitt: Prediction: Ad buyers will be all over Google+. More open analytics plus more targeted networks to tap into http://t.co/usHznta
I like that Google has started out by opening Google+ to only a select few and allowing them to invite their friends. Continue reading
Battle in Adland: A response
Keith poses an interesting argument in his post Battle in Adland: Big Shops Encroach on Little’s Digital Turf, and while I tend to agree with the top level assertions, I think there are many more layers to this particular onion. A rising tide in our industry surely floats all boats, and the fact that more companies/organizations/individuals are becoming digitally savvy, and larger percentages of marketing and communications budgets are being allocated to digital, means more of us have and will continue to have jobs. That helps everyone – a larger pie from which to slice.
But I disagree with the position that larger agencies are “catching up.” With acquisition-based growth, perhaps it’s more accurate to say they’re buying up. Continue reading
Stop the Silly Social Media Ownership Battles
Much fuss has been made in various marketing, PR and advertising circles about the supposed “death” of traditional media and marketing. They were to have become a sort of vestigal organ of the new-wave social and digital marketing scene.
As reality would have it, things haven’t quite worked out that way. Whether it’s continuing reports of traditional media – such as newspapers and TV – feeding much of the content we consume via social media, or collaborative efforts on behalf of competing marketers to increase their power, today’s marketing scene is more about the vast opportunities now available because of digital opening new doors, rather than who is winning which battles and how.
At least, that’s how it should be. Continue reading
Battle in Adland: Big Shops Encroach on Little’s Digital Turf
As the global economy continues to waver, things are looking positively rosy for advertising and public relations firms. With Veronis Suhler Stevenson predicting a 55-percent increase in U.S. spending on public relations services by 2013 (up to $8 billion annually), news has been rushing in from all sides of the major ad holding companies of expanding revenues and new digital opportunities.
The uptick in optimism started last week when Publicis reported a 19.8-percent increase in full-year revenue. Omnicom added to the fun after reporting 2010 revenues that were up 6.4 percent, which prompted this headline from the normally stoic Financial Times: “Omnicom heralds advertising acceleration.” Not a bad assessment of happy days to come.
But things really picked up this week after WPP announced it was developing a new interactive ad network to fully vest itself in all things digital. Continue reading
Ethical vs. Unethical: A Lot Rides on Only 2 Letters
Mere weeks after the PR world was shocked with news of unethical product review practices of client-developed iPhone apps by Reverb Communications, the profession is again faced with revelations of supposedly unethical practices, this time stemming from the undisclosed use of paid spokespeople by the toy industry as supposedly third-part, objective experts on local TV newscasts throughout the country, as Los Angeles Times media columnist Jim Rainey chronicled last week.
This glaring example of ethical misgivings from the toy industry brings clear an ugly truth in the new world of public relations: what is often best for the client is increasingly winning out over what is most ethical and best for consumers.
And that’s bad news for anyone serious about seeing the profession evolve and thrive. Continue reading