As a sports fan, one of my guilty pleasures is sitting down on Sunday afternoon and watching 6+ hours of straight football. I get all comfy on my couch, with my snacks handy, and settle in for a wonderful day of watching men pulverize each other while trying to move an oblong ball around.
Because I am so entrenched in my comfy seat with blanket, snacks, etc., I do not get up and go to the fridge when one of the numerous commercial breaks comes along. I either chat with my wife, or actually watch the commercials.
Of recent, one commercial has…
In the electronic information age, policing your brand will require frequent surveys of the Web in order to keep tabs on your brand’s presence in Cyberspace. Who knows what’s happening to it out there? Cybersquatters, typosquatters, spoof sites, gripe sites, feigned competitors, and blatant impostors are among only the illegal (or barely legal) brand diluters. The Semantic Web provides ample online fora where literally anyone, often anonymously, can offer commentary and insight about your product/service/company/organization in real time, directly affecting its image and reputation… your brand.
“Fan sites” have proven to be especially problematic. By its very definition, a fan site…
Okay, sadly, I admit that I know the words to several New Kids On The Block songs. Imagine my surprise when I saw a NKOTB video playing on VH1 the other day. At first I thought it was a flash back piece but noticed the date at the end as 2008. What?! A comeback.
The boys are back and have debuted at #1 on the Billboard pop charts. In this day of choreographed dance steps and enhanced voices is this too little too late or is the timing right for these guys to reach out their audience and revitalize their careers? What do…
I’m a fan of Weezer as it is and this video is a fun collection of things we’ve seen around the web along with calling out some brands that try to set the tone for how we define ourselves. Enjoy the highlights of the individuals who have achieved web stardom and how they’re participating/incorporated into the song. Thanks Weezer!
Have a great memorial day weekend.
compliments of Paul Isakson
I work at a digital agency and we have an amazing team of programmers that can build just about anything we can dream up for our clients (and sell, that is). We’ve developed a motion sensing basketball game based on the Wii concept, interactive sweepstakes and experiential marketing programs. Tons of fun stuff.
That’s why I get a kick of of m0serious and his design code rap. Coding is critical to making the creative voice and message of a brand come alive online. Not many clients are that concerned with what’s under the hood as long as their brand can interact and communicate…
OK, the first part of that headline is not true, but the second part is. Clorox, the company known for its cleaning products, has put out its first album, called The Blue Sky Project: A Clorox Charity Collection.
The project contains seven songs, five of which were created for the company’s TV advertising campaign. In contrast to older Clorox ads that used upbeat jingles, the “new ads use ethereal orchestral music and pop tunes to sell the company’s line of bleaches, disinfectants and other home-cleaning products,” says the Wall Street Journal.
The Journal goes on to say that Clorox is not the only company to…
LONG have I waited for the place where urban music, advertising and artist relations converge.
With the creation of Translation Advertising, the brainchild of Hip-hop and business mogul Jay-Z, 38, and entrepreneur Steve Stoute, 37, this fantasy is finally realized.
Translation Advertising will be a part of Translation Consultation and Brand Imaging which last year Stoute sold to Interpublic, the third largest agency company, for an estimated 15 million.
Interpublic has a 49 percent stake in Translation Advertising while Stoute and Jay-Z maintain 51 percent.
According to a NY Times article, the Interpublic venture is indicative of the intensifying interest on Madison Avenue in…
Can what worked for Radiohead work for Nine Inch Nails? Don’t know, but the band is trying the same pricing model.
The group recently released its latest album, Ghost, online free of DRM restrictions and at pay-what-you-wish pricing, according to MediaPost blogger Wendy Davis. She says they are offering nine of the album’s 36 tracks for free. Fans can purchase all tracks for as little as $5 or as much as $300 for an autographed set (This has sold out). There’s also a $10 version and one for $75.
The official download requires email registration at the site to get a download link. You can…
The Associated Press ran a story Jan. 9 about the album In Rainbows, touting the new CD release as No. 1 on the charts. The story notes the original marketing strategy—sort of a non-strategy-strategy, really. The album was released as a digital download. Customers could pay what they wanted to or not pay at all. The AP says the British alt-rock group Radiohead “declined” to say how many copies were moved by the digital download offer, or how much money was made in that effort. But Wired magazine got the scoop, in an interview with Radiohead front guy Thom Yorke. Yorke…
Everyone knows of the huge success Radiohead experienced via its pay-what-you’d-like sales model. The band made more money off In Rainbows using that model than all their other albums combined, according to a Wired interview.
So, why has the band now chosen to release the album on a per-track basis via iTunes, which is a departure from their previous stance?
Album sales are in a free-fall industry-wide, but that trend didn’t affect the sales of In Rainbows, so, clearly, that’s not the reason.
Based on what I’ve been able to surmise it has to do with the band’s split from EMI, the result being they now…
There was a time not so long ago that Louis Vuitton and Britney Spears could have been connected at the hip. But, it’s no longer 2001, and Spears is a drastically different person (or at least portrayed differently in the media) than she was back then.
That’s why LV filed a lawsuit, which they won, against Sony BMG (Spears’ record label) when the pop star used the LV logo in a recent video without the designer’s permission.
Check out the video here.
Sure, free exposure for any company is usually a good thing, but when that exposure comes from someone who as recently…
I have been a Netflix subscriber for some time now and I tend to notice the promotions that are printed on the inside flap of my envelopes whenever I receive my movies.
The most recent promotion to catch my eye was for emusic.com, a music subscription service that sells music in the unprotected MP3 format. The campaign certainly caught my attention - big, bold words stating 35 Free Downloads are hard to miss.
I believe that this is a smart campaign because people using Netflix are web-savvy by default and so the audience that they reach is relevant. More importantly, it has a…
With 957,000 units moved in the first six days of sales, KANYE WEST is the undisputed winner of the West v. Cent, Soundscan clash.
West’s Graduation, his third solo project, ranks 15thamong greatest sale weeks, since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking in 1991.
50 Cent’s Curtis moved 691,000 units, no small feat, and is also to be commended. “I am very excited to have participated in one of the biggest album release weeks in the last two years. This marks a great moment for hip-hop music, one that will go down in history,” said Cent.
Total sales for West, Cent, and Kenny Chesney, the third runner-up…
Today, on the sixth anniversary of the worst act of “terror” on American soil, I find myself preoccupied with the record sales of two of Hip-Hop’s most 
notable artists. With both Curtis - Cent and Graduation – West, released on the same day, once again the record executes have pitted two Hip-Hop brands against one another in an attempt to boost sales. Ingenious!
What better way to tap into the tightly clenched wallets of the masses use to illegal downloads and bootlegged CD’s. Play up the David versus Goliath saga and watch the dollars roll in. This strategy has proven true in the past,…
