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August 2003
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Viewpoint Gets New CEORich Media provider Viewpoint replaced long time CEO Bob Rice with Jay Amato, former COO of systems integration company Vanstar and head of the Technology Access Action Coalition/ACT, a pro-Microsoft lobbying group. Based on Mr. Amato's connections to Microsoft, it... continue reading »Time Wins With Online SubsTime Inc's move to a paid online access model has proved to be a success with most sites maintaining traffic levels, and Entertainment Weekly gaining 1,500 new subscribers in two days. Wall Street Journal reports. Steve Hall comments.... continue reading »Agencies to Stop Exaggerating Billings FiguresWhile few people really believed agency billings numbers, the extremely inclusive figures that agencies claimed they spent on behalf of clients, one unintended consequence of the recent Sarbanes-Oxley financial reporting reform act may be to curtail the traditionally bombastic claims.... continue reading »Matching Services Seek Product ExtensionsFacing plateauing subscriber rolls and slowing revenue growth, online dating services like Match.com are seeking new ways to employ their database matching engines to seek new business niches. Shorn of accounting and acquisition-related charges, several of the larger online dating... continue reading »Red Stripe. Hurray Beer!Red Strip beer is doing a great cross-media campaign on TV and the radio to drive traffic online to their site and eBay. Rick Bruner comments.... continue reading »New Search Algorithm Focuses on IndividualKaltix, a start up formed by three Stanford University PageRank members, the group advancing the current Google algorithm, is heralding a new approach to search algorithms. Their new formula aims to deliver search results based on individuals needs and interests... continue reading »More Predictions of Steady Broadband GrowthYankee Group and Forrester Research predict that broadband will reach nearly 50 percent of U.S. households in the next four years. E-Commerce Times reports. Rick Bruner thinks this may be slightly optimistic, but agrees that the continued pace of broadband... continue reading »Sprint & Real Introduce Streaming for MobilesRealNetworks and Sprint announced today the introduction of streaming video and audio content on Sprint's PCS mobile phone network, to include news and entertainment programming from the likes of ABC News, NPR, CBS Marketwatch, ABC News and The Weather Channel.... continue reading »Do-not-spam List Criticism FlawedHaving yet to see someone on the email marketing side explain why the do-not-email list would fail, at least without using flawed arguments, Michael Mayor's recent iMedia piece proves no exception. iMedia Connection reports. Tom Hespos comments.... continue reading »Celebs Sought to Pitch Cigarettes for Free SmokesFreedom Tobacco is appealing to celebrities to smoke its new brand of cigarettes, Legal, in exchange for a lifetime supply of smokes. CNN reports. Rick Bruner coughs.... continue reading »Worst Marketing Idea of the Year: Nazi ThemeThe mind boggles. A Hong Kong fashion company is reportedly rethinking its idea to feature swastikas and other Nazi symbols its new line of clothes. CNN reports. Rick Bruner is uncharacteristically speechless.... continue reading »Weasels Make Bull Bearish on Cock-and-Bull Web MailOn the advice of lawyers, Merrill Lynch began blocking its employees from outside email services including Hotmail and Yahoo. They join the growing number of companies fearing security issues, legal problems and reductions in worker productivity. Dow Jones reports. Seana... continue reading »IE Patent Infringement to Cost MS $521 MillionA jury awarded Chicago-based Eolas Technologies Inc. about half a billion dollars from Microsoft yesterday for damages stemming from infringement of a patent that specifies how a user might access interactive applications within web pages. AP reports. Tig Tillinghast posts.... continue reading »Arnold's Campaign Inspires… MerchandizingHe's back, bigger than ever. Internet retailer TotalRecall2003.com has begun selling t-shirts featuring parodies of the actor's famous one-liners, including: "Hasta la vista, Davis," "It's not a rumor" and "Vote for me if you want to live." Seana Mulcahy reports... continue reading »Overture to Googlize ListingsIn an e-mail to advertisers today, Overture announced additional matching options familiar to those already using Google's AdWords program. The new options will include "Broad Match" and "Phrase Match," as well as the ability to exclude keywords that indicate lack... continue reading »Gartner Report Only Slightly GloomyMarketers might be from Venus and sales reps from Mars, but agency executives have their heads firmly stuck in the sands of Planet X. Internet Advertising Report pointed out that a new GartnerG2 study of ad executives found little progress... continue reading »IPG Shops Await CleaverTensions have risen in the halls of IPG shops McCann-Erickson, Initiative Media, Lowe and Draft, as the struggling firms get a head start on a restructuring plan to be detailed later this morning. McCann's job cuts may reach 500. The... continue reading »Legitimate Email Marketing Struggling to get ThroughResearch by Return Path has found that one in six permission-based emails is filtered or blocked. The study was based on the top 12 ISPs, and was conducted in the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2003. These findings represent a... continue reading »Advertisers Fail to Match Spending to Viewer InterestMediaPost's Joe Mandese conducted a fascinating analysis of advertiser spending versus the amount of time viewers spend involved with the various media. He finds that, relative to the average per capita hours spent watching a particular medium, newspapers and print... continue reading »Comedian Tom Mabe Goes After Telemarketers, SpammersComedian and jingle writer Tom Mabe attacks telemarketers on his new CD, "A Wake-Up Call for Telemarketers," released today. The CD contains excerpts of calls he made to telemarketers last year at a telemarketing convention in Washington, D.C. CBS News... continue reading »E-commerce Managers Humble on ServiceA ForeSee Results study shows that e-commerce customers rated the average site about 77 out of 100 in terms of satisfaction of service, while e-commerce site employees gave themselves the lower score of 63. IAR reports. Tig Tillinghast posts.... continue reading »Reebok Character, Others Join CA RaceLester Spreight, the actor who plays Terry Tate in Reebok's television commercials has entered the now comical California Governors race. Reebok on behalf of Spreight filed official documents. In support of the candidate, Reebok has created a promotional web... continue reading »Is Technology or Location the Key to Amazon's Success?Robert Loch discusses Jeff Bezos claim, made in an interview today, that technology rather than location is Amazon's greatest strength. Business Week Reports.... continue reading »Lockheed Buys Washpost.com Media for Bomb AdsLockheed Martin is running ads for bombs on the Washingtonpost.com website. The ad shows a moving target tracked by sight guides. Following the story path of News > Nation > National Security > Weapons of Mass Destruction > WMD Editorials,... continue reading »Kylie Lingerie Ad a Stealth Single PromoRobert Loch discusses Kylie's latest lingerie ad, suggesting that it is in fact a pop single promo in disguise. ... continue reading »Teens: TV Pales Next to ReadingTeens spend two hours each week reading the Internet or books and magazines for every one hour they spend watching the tube. The reading category does not include email reading or writing, which would have made the proportion even more... continue reading »Online Shopping Spreading RapidlyOnline shopping household will increase by about two thirds in the next five years, according to a new Forrester study. 25 million additional households will join today's 38-million-strong online buying household universe. Internet Retailer reports. Tig Tillinghast posts.... continue reading »Draft to Bring Old Client New MediaFleetwood Enterprises, the half-century-old RV maker, chose Draft to bring its media effort up to its potential. Fleetwood said it sees more benefit today in the more measurable media, including its web site, direct marketing and customer relationship management. Fleetwood's... continue reading »$400 Billion Industry Has Online OpportunitiesToday's iMedia contains a review of the enormous grocery industry's initial and potential future online marketing opportunities. Somewhat underestimated in the past has been the opportunity for comestible companies to use the Internet as a business-to-business channel to market to... continue reading »IPG Sheds 2,400 People, More to ComeIn an earnings call reporting another loss yesterday, IPG disclosed that it cut staff by about 2,400 since January. As the company took the brunt of its restructuring charges in this past quarter, IPG shop workers hoped that this signified... continue reading »Overture and Quigo Team up for Contextual AdsThe contextual advertising ball keeps rolling, as MediaPost reports that Quigo signed a deal with Overture. This may indicate that Overture is planning to pursue the smaller and mid-sized publishers that use the Quigo contextual advertising services. Existing content inventory... continue reading »AIM Members Call on DMA to Fire PresidentDM News quotes an unnamed "well-placed" source as saying that a lobbying effort is underway from members of the Association for Interactive Marketing to oust its parent group's president and CEO H. Robert Wientzen. DM News reports. Tig Tillinghast posts.... continue reading »British Film to be the World's First E-PremiereThis is not a Love Song is to be the first film premiered online. BBC reports. Robert Loch comments. ... continue reading »24/7 Real Media Re-brands 'Website Results' Division24/7 Real Media, in a effort to further capitalize on the popularity of search engine marketing, has re-branded its paid search division, Website Results, to 24/7 Search. This follows yesterday's announcement in which the company reported a return to a... continue reading »AOL Execs Seek to Drop AOL from TW NameAOL executives want to remove "AOL" from the AOL Time Warner name to -- get this -- protect AOL's brand integrity as the company's once-good name is dragged through the mud in business articles due, to the company's poor performance... continue reading »T-Online Boots Overture for GoogleExercising the right to terminate its contract with Overture in the event of a competitive acquisition, T-Online severed its relationship with Overture and signed a multi-year deal with Google. CNET reports. Steve Hall comments.... continue reading »Desktop Weatherman Promotes Halifax InsuranceU.K. based Halifax Insurance is promoting itself with a downloadable desktop character called Howard the Weatherman. Howard is a cartoon version of the corporate personality and will rest in your menu bar and then stroll across your screen to deliver... continue reading »Wi-fi Is Special Sauce in Selling Lunch to GeeksStarbucks pioneered the ambitious practice of offering wireless Internet access but is discovering that it can't break even on charging for the service due to costs with the billing system. Schlotzsky's may be smarter to just give the service away... continue reading »Union Uses Web to Pressure Verizon With 'Switch' CampaignThe A.F.L.-C.I.O. is upping pressure on Verizon in labor negotiations by registering names of Verizon customers on a web site who are ready to pledge to switch service to AT&T if talks don't go the workers' way. NYT and Reuters... continue reading »Payment Study Reveals Human InsecuritiesA study by PaymentOne indicates people who do not purchase things online might still be hung up on security concerns. What isn't indicated in the released data is whether or not the security concerns arise because of the transaction mechanism... continue reading »Are Pop-Ups Effective?A detailed discussion of pop-ups draws on a wide array of research, in the hope of establishing whether or not this format works. Wharton reports. Robert Loch posts. ... continue reading »In Wilderness, Voice UnneededDartmouth College has shown that when the very best technology is omnipresent, hidden by its very ubiquity, people use communications differently. This media experiment in the wilderness helps define what media choices people will make and what means marketers may... continue reading »Teachers Featured in Three Email Case StudiesIn reaching teachers, study guides are the "incentive of choice" to get classroom instructors to open and respond to email messages. Three brands - History Channel, Polaroid and Boston's Museum of Science - provide case study fodder for this niche... continue reading »Showtime's Jordan Berman on Net MarketingiMedia interviews Showtime Networks' online manager, Jordan Berman. He has a fairly diverse portfolio of responsibilities, including online advertising, promotions, search engine marketing, subscription ordering, co-branding opportunities and new technology initiatives. The biggest lesson learned: "The importance of having the... continue reading »Google Releases Calculator, ToolbarGoogle release a new calculator today, covering some of the distance opened up previously by rival AlltheWeb.com. The company also released a new version of its Google toolbar. CNET reports. Tig Tillinghast reports.... continue reading »Targeting Delivers 2,200 Percent Response IncreaseA new case study reveals that audience targeting on the web actually increases response. Granted, this is a no-brainer but a 2,200 percent increase is nothing to dismiss. Mediapost reports. Steve Hall sings praises for targeting.... continue reading »What's Up Doc? IM Comes AliveTied into the September release of the Loonie Tunes movie, Marx Toys has developed Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck IM buddy toys that are capable of interacting with a computer, enabling them to speak IM messages. The toy can also... continue reading »Microsoft Taps AKQA for XboxMicrosoft chose the San Francisco office of AKQA to handle its Xbox online advertising, including promotions for titles "Age of Empires" and "Project Gotham Racing 2." Internet.com reports. Tig Tillinghast posts.... continue reading »'Counter-Googling' Extends Personalized Marketing to Personalized ServiceThe practice of "Googling" someone or snooping into a person's background by doing a Google search has taken a twist. In what has been dubbed, "Counter-Googling," marketers are using the Internet to snoop into customers’ lives in order to provide... continue reading » |