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Short Term GAIN, Long Term Gain
Submitted by David Burk on Wed, 2009-01-28 16:15. Advertising | media | media consolidation | online advertisingIf you're not a fan of Jack Myers, I hope this post will change your mind. The post addresses these questions:
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Marketers and media companies are troubled and faced with a conundrum. How do you deal with the realities of a depressed economy and falling sales? How can management both meet short-term revenue demands and invest in the future? How do we "disenthrall ourselves" from the models and business demands of the past when we depend on these models for our day-to-day survival? And how can we possibly invest in new strategies and approaches when there is not sufficient budget to support the barest minimum of what we require day-to-day to meet our most basic goals?ÂÂ
The answer is one we've been giving our clients, but it extremely difficult to implement. "Managers must define and implement two separate and distinct strategies." One for the immediate needs, and one for the long run. A favorite client of ours told us that he hired us to do thinking and building for "the next three months, the next year, the next three years," all at the same time. This was a very long and successful engagement.
The SEM Agency Dilemma
Submitted by David Burk on Wed, 2009-01-28 11:56. advertising agency | paid search | SEMOur famed Media and Analytics Director, Ingrid Nielsen, sent me this article by Steve Baldwin yesterday. It is about how Paid Search is not the same thing as traditional media or even online media planning/buying/tracking. However, the business model around these services is inherited and outdated. Paid Search is a partnership and can't be done in a factory setting. Or, to quote Leon Atkinson, it's "craftwork" not "factory work." I'll predict lots of consolidation in this industry because volume is the only play at this point. But, I'm also sure a great deal of creativity and effectiveness will be lost in the long run.
A New Model for Storytelling?
Submitted by Lina Smelansky on Thu, 2009-01-22 12:09. movie storytellingWired online magazine featured an amusing article on Monday, 1/19, titled "Scott Brown on Why Hollywood Needs a New Model for Storytelling."
 In the midst of what Brown calls a "multiplatform, multipolar, mashup-media culture," the article illuminates the dwindling fate of the traditional storytelling model in Hollywood. With the plethora of interactive (and sometimes hyperactive), "reality-based," user-generated content being consumed through various media, the traditional hero's story is slowly becoming a thing of the past.ÂÂ
Scott Brown's tongue-in-cheek alternative "Die Hard" plot makes one wonder - is our adoration and addiction to interactive, byte-sized media consumption contributing to this shift in storytelling? And if so, is this a natural evolution, or will the nostalgia for traditional storytelling creep in?
Either way, the Internet is the place to satisfy your craving for "Story," whatever type it may be.
The [anxiously awaited] Clear Ink Holiday Status Generator
Submitted by Stephanie Gerson on Sat, 2008-12-20 10:26. clear ink | Facebook | holidaysBored of all those same ol' holiday greeting cards? Wish you could spread the holiday cheer even while away, i.e. away from your hand-held device? Well fret no more, and allow me to proudly introduce the Clear Ink Holiday Status Generator! It's a Facebook application that, as its name implies, generates holiday-oriented status updates. It randomly selects from a database of paintstakingly curated holiday updates, letting your friends know that you, for example, "stole Christmas from the grinch and are giving it back to the people," or are "experiencing the moral stimulation of making New Year's resolutions." Or perhaps that you're "attempting to incorporate mistletoe into a pick-up line." Heh. We'd reveal the others, but that would ruin the fun. The idea here is to produce a more creative, attention-drawing, and share-worthy interpretation of a holiday e-card, that will get added by our friends and their friends and their friends, travel to 6 degrees of separation and beyond, and go (wait...get ready to cringe) "viral," instantly winning us a host of new clients and rendering "Clear Ink" synonymous with "fabulous" in the world of digital advertising. Or something like that. Anyway. Add it. Tell your friends to add it. And now, please excuse Stephanie (yours truly) as she "looks up, and wonders where reindeer poop while they fly."
also heartwarmly dedicated to Leon, and all rap Lovers in the house
Submitted by Stephanie Gerson on Thu, 2008-12-11 10:20. rap | twitterQ: What's better than a blog about lame twitter marketing?
