Tag: advertising

Catchin’ Up On The Chum

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Yes, the conference is past, and so it is time to throw some news chum in the waters. Of course, times being what they are, this chum is economic. Will it sink or swim? Only you can tell.

  • From the “Iris Lucerne” Department: Back in the 1970s, during the last economic crisis, the Ralphs grocery chain introduced “Plain Wrap”. Well, guess what? Store-brands are hot again. Dollar sales of store brands increased 10% during the 52 weeks before Nov. 1, compared with a 3% gain for branded products, according to the Nielsen market research company. Store brands now account for nearly 22% of products sold at the grocery, up from 20% a year ago, Nielsen found. At Kroger (now the parent of Ralphs), store brands account for 26% of grocery sales. I can certainly attest to buying store brands, especially from Trader Joes and Fresh and Easy, who are primarily store-brand products.
  • From the “Would You Like an Ad on the Side?” Department: Another article in the NY Times talks about the difficulty social networking sites such as Facebook are having with advertising. It seems that most folks ignore the text or banner ads, and only pay attention to specially crafted sites. I don’t know how this has affected LJ advertising, but it could explain some of the sponsored communities that have been showing up.
  • From the “Smokum Peace Pipe. Tobacco. Rot Lungs.” Department: The chief of the Unkechaug Nation in New York has vowed to keep selling cigarettes, even in the face of a lawsuit from the City of New York that claims that nation — the closest reservation to New York City — has become a “tax evasion haven” and a drain on the city’s coffers. New York City officials say millions of cartons of untaxed cigarettes are sold every year by Poospatuck retailers to bootleggers who smuggle them into the city to resell for about $5 a pack, not the $8 or $9 charged by New York retailers who pay the state and city taxes of $4.25 a pack. Where’s Stan Freberg when we need him?
  • From the “I Get A Charge Out Of This” Department: The Federal Reserve on Thursday will vote on sweeping reform of the credit card industry that would ban practices such as retroactively increasing interest rates at will and charging late fees when consumers are not given a reasonable amount of time to make payments. Among the many provisions is a ban on raising interest rates on existing balances unless the customer was 30 days or more late in paying the minimum. Other circumstances in which a rate change would be allowed would be if the card had a variable rate or a promotional rate that was set to expire. Banks would also not be able to treat a payment as late if the customer had not been given a fair amount of time to make that payment. The proposal would also dictate how credit card companies should apply customers’ payments that exceed the minimum required each month. When different annual percentage rates apply to different balances on the same card, banks would be prohibited from applying the entire amount to the balance with the lowest rate. Many card issuers do that so that debts with the highest interest rates linger the longest, thereby costing the consumer more.
  • From the “This Mall Is Going To The Dogs” Department: More and more stores, according to the LA Times, are allowing dogs in the store. Every store is different, and the rules often vary depend on the size of the dog, but the bottom line is: they would probably rather clean up after an accident than lose a sale, especially these days.
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‘Tis The Season To Be Chummy

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Today’s lunchtime news chum seems to all be connected to marketing and advertising. I have no idea why.

  • From the “Creative Financing” Department: Tired of the mundane school fundraiser? Have enough greeting cards? Don’t need another magazine subscription? An instructor in Rancho Bernardo (near San Diego) has a novel idea: Sell advertising space on the exams. The teacher, Nick Farber, started letting parents and local businesses sponsor tests this fall after learning budget cuts would limit his in-school printing allowance — tracked by the school’s copy machines — to $316 for the year. The cost of printing quizzes and tests for his 167 students will easily be more than $500, he said. So Farber, who says he’d never asked for money from parents in his 18 years of high school teaching, pitched the ad idea to parents at a September back-to-school night. For checks made to the math department — $10 a quiz, $20 a test or $30 for a final exam — they could insert an inspirational quote — their own or someone else’s — or a business advertisement at the bottom of the first page. He’s already collected more than $300, and is on track to top $1,000.
  • From the “Valley of the Dolls” Department: There has been an interesting legal verdict in the battle of Barbie vs. Bratz. The judge banned MGA from making or selling the Bratz doll. Note that this is almost 30% of the business of MGA (HQed in the San Fernando Valley). The LA Times gives more details: the judge ruled that Mattel (HQed in El Segundo) is the legal owner of the edgy toy line and has the right to recall all unsold Bratz. The order says that MGA may no longer manufacture, sell, advertise or license its core lineup of Bratz dolls or any other product with the Bratz name. However, the order does not take effect until February, and an appeal is expected. My expectation: Mattel will keep manufacturing the dolls under their imprimatur, and there will be more job losses in the valley.
  • From the “Notice how Saturn wasn’t in the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter?” Department: As we all know, the “Big 3” are all in DC pleading for their lives (oops) asking for a handout (oops) groveling. One piece of information coming out of this is that the one division truly GM created, Saturn, may be on the chopping block (most of the brands came in with the mergers that created GM). According to the LA Times, Saturn may be on the chopping block, be sold, or be merged. It has evidently not been profitable, they’ve abandoned most of their original core ideas, and their cars are either rebadgings or imported Opels that the exchange rate is killing. Instead of being a model of how to compete with the Japanese and other imports (the original goal of Saturn), it has become a drag, and didn’t provide ideas to improve the other divisions. This is highlighted in the NY Times article on the subject. Could perhaps GM be too hidebound, and this be the reason for its failure? Nah. GM knows it isn’t their fault.
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Weekend News Chum

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

A few items noted over the weekend:

  • From the “It keeps going, and going, and going… Someone just blow the damn thing up!” Department: It is the 20th anniversary of the Engergizer Bunny. Introduced in 1989, it has become iconic, representing the ability to hang in there and keep going. The ad agency DDB Needham Worldwide Inc. came up with the idea of the drum-beating bunny. In a recent advertising-related study, 95% of respondents were aware of the bunny. AdAge.com has named it one of the top 10 advertising icons. And in 2006, the Oxford English Dictionary defined the Energizer Bunny as “a persistent or indefatigable person or phenomenon.” Icons that last that long are rare (but do exist).
  • From the “Go VTC Your Grandmother” Department: Do you know who the biggest users of webcams are? Grandparents. According to the NY Times, Video calling, long anticipated by science fiction, is filtering into everyday use. And two demographic groups not particularly known for being high-tech are among the earliest adopters: Toddlers and grandparents.
  • From the “Arrrr. Oyyyyy. Arrrr. Oyyyyy.” Department: The LA Times has an interesting book review: “Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean”. Yup, just like the conversos, there is another avenue used by folks fleeing the inquisition: piracy. Quite an interesting review, matey.
  • From the “From the Desert to the Sea…” Department: A generation from now, people will watch Mary Tyler Moore and not even get the joke of Ted Baxter. That’s because the notion of a high-paid lead anchor on the local news is going away. Across the country, local TV are facing an economic slump and a severe advertising downturn, they are cutting costs drastically…. and veteran anchors, with their expensive contracts, seem to be shouldering a disproportionate share of the cutbacks. When station managers are forced to make cuts, hefty anchor salaries are a tempting target. I remember the days of the long-time local anchors in Los Angeles, and the best we have left is Paul Moyers or Colleen Williams (which aren’t much). Our network anchors cut their teeth on local news (I remember Tom Brokaw as a local in LA), so I think this will be a loss.

As I said, just some random articles that caught my eye.

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Advertising

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I’ve been thinking even more (as I eat my lunch) about the latest LJ bru-ha-ha about new free accounts having to have ads. Lots of folks, if you were to read the comments on the recent news posts, believe there should never be ads on LiveJournal; that somehow the service should be provided solely on the back of the paid users. They seem to feel that they should have the right to create as many ad-free no-cost accounts as they want, and that their payment on one account somehow would justify and cover their use of resources. They seem to feel that programmers employed by Livejournal should add all sorts of nifty features, and their salaries would magically come from somewhere. But I digress.

What got me thinking about this again was looking at some of the news sites I regularly visit. They are ad supported. No one complains. Folks who put up their wordpress or blogspot blogs have ads on the blogs… and no one complains about those ads. Google presents sponsored results everytime you do a search. No one complains. People have links to books and other stuff and make Amazon referral credits… and no one complains. You visit Slashdot, and there are ads. So what’s so special about Livejournal?

Could it be that people have less control over the ads? They view the page as their own, and thus want more control over the ads and placement? I know on Boardgamegeek, one can control the placement of the ad, but one can’t eliminate it without paying. Perhaps folks are upset that something might be advertised that they don’t personally endorse. Again, that’s addressable, either through an automatic disclaimer (“This ad placed by Livejournal Inc, not the journal owner”), or by providing selections about the categories of products that could be advertised on a page. Perhaps folks wish that LJ would share the income from the ads on their page with them via some formula (perhaps it could build up credits towards various goodies such as extra userpics, more storage, LJ gift-certificates for V-gifts, or other features people want).

(Note: I’m aware that the original LJ owners promised no advertising. But those creating new accounts never had those promises made to them, plus we’ve changed owners twice since then. So, at least for the sake of discussion, let’s set that particular issue to the side.)

ETA: (There’s also the issue of the “free” content drawing people to LJ, and thus enhancing business. Some believe that the ad-free accounts are suitable draws for the creation of free content. But there are other models for this — again, I point to BGG and the Geekgold system, where you get virtual geekgold that you can then use for fancier user pictures or microbadges, or to gift others for their good stuff. A similar approach could be used at LJ to get good content, especially if you seeded all users with some small amount of GoatFood to gift others for good posts)

So what’s so bad about advertising? It’s the American way.

[20 meaningless points to anyone who can indicate why I chose this userpic. You have to pick the right reason.]

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Advertising Icons

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

We all grew up with icons of advertising. Elsie the Cow. Mr. Whipple. Capt. Crunch. Ronald McDonald. The Jolly Green Giant. People or images that come to represent a particular company or product. Some of them become so powerful companies try to abandon them and are forced to bring them back (for example, the Traveller’s umbrella). Others retire to the status of fond memory, such as Speedy Alka-Seltzer, the Campbell Soup Kids, or the Charlie Chaplin-esque Tramp used to sell the first IBM PCs.

I bring this up because the Sacramento Bee has an interesting article today on such icons. It talks about a large number of them, from the Burger King “King” (who’s popularity I still don’t understand) to Morris the Cat. It mentions some unsuccessful ones, such as the Arby “Oven Mitt” or the Pizza Hut “Noid”. It also indicates that there is currently a survey going on at Yahoo! to pick your favorite advertising icon. The winner will be inducted into the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame.

So who’s in the running? This years competition consists of: the Budweiser Clydesdales, Mr. Goodwrench, the Maytag Repairman, the Serta Sheep, the MSN Butterfly, McGruff the Crime Dog, the Fruit of the Loom Guys, the Coppertone Girl, Charlie the Tuna, the Keebler Elves, Smokey Bear, the Energy Hog, the California Raisins, the Chick-Fil-A Cows, the Travelocity Roaming Gnome, the Burger King, Little Debbie, Orville Redenbacher, Snap, Crackle & Pop, the Crash Test Dummies, the Doublemint Twins, Twinkie the Kid, the Geico Cavemen (the Gecko is already in), Morris the Cat, the Vlasic Stork, and the AOL Running Man. Some of these I’ve never heard of (“the Energy Hog”? “the Chick-Fil-A Cows”?)

As an aside, I should note that I’m attempting to create an icon… I want you to think of me everytime time you see a California Route 1 shield. Is it working? Huh? Huh?

So what are your favorite icons? Which ones do you hate? Which ones should they have put on the list?

[Can anyone answer why I used Stan Freberg as my userpic here… oh, and mateys, remember that tomorrow be “Talk Like a Pirate” day… so get ready to shiver those timbers.]

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Today In The News

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Some news items that caught my eye, for various reasons:

  • From the “If You Build It, They Will Come” Department: The international developer Hines (no, he’s not named Duncan) has just bought some property in Santa Monica to build an office project, according to the LA Times. Now, normally this wouldn’t be news to most folks, but it caught my eye because of the location. You see, this project is going to be on a 7-acre site at the northeast corner of Olympic and 26th Street. Hines plans to remove the three industrial buildings on the site and build two- to four-story office buildings totaling about 300,000 square feet for entertainment use.

    Here’s where it gets interesting to me. The land is the site of the former Paper Mate plant, and is across the street from the Water Gardens. The seller was a family trust that had held the land since the 1950s, specifically, the estate of John M. Stahl. Why is this of interest? The “Water Gardens” land, according to the article, was “developed into an industrial park for use by Rand Corp.” In 1958, it was actually spun off into a little company called System Development Corporation, where I used to work.

    SDC has seen its former buildings wiped off the map. The Colorado Blvd site held one of the first SAGE computers, as well as the Q7A. 3000 Olympic is gone. 5151 Camino Ruiz has been subdivided (although I think the building is still there). Ah, memories.

  • From the “And Then There Were Two” Department: I remember many years ago when I bought my first computer. There were all these companies building and selling their computer. You never went with the name brands, because you could get so much more with the small shops. I remember working with Advanced Computer Center in Pasadena (now gone) buying my first Sager 8200 laptop. I mention this because today’s news reports that Acer Computers is in the process of buying Gateway computers, of the formerly cow-decorated boxes. Just like HP has done with Compaq, Acer will be targeted as the consumer line, and Gateway as the higher-end corporate line. Of course, Gateway owns emachines, and is in negotiations to buy Packard Bell. More and more consolidation in the business. I’m not sure this is a good thing.
  • From the “Perhaps Stan Freberg Was Right” Department: Advertising is everywhere these days. According to the New York Times, it is in the air, as planes replace their livery with ads, put ads on the tray tables, have advertisements on napkins and on the overhead bins. It is on cars, as people wrap their SUVs, and Chevy has even introduced the HHR Panel, which is easily wrapped (just like the Scion xB was). You can’t escape it. So what’s the funniest place you’ve seen an ad?
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