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Providing a daily dose of news and features from the world of the brand experience, media, and advertising industry for both the consumer and branding professional.

Advantage of Youth: ignorance

Young people make better entrepreneurs because they're too inexperienced to know that their ideas are silly:

The mistakes novices make come from a lack of experience. They overestimate mere fads, seeing revolution everywhere, and they make this kind of mistake a thousand times before they learn better. But the experts make the opposite mistake, so that when a real once-in-a-lifetime change comes along, they regard it as a fad. As a result of this asymmetry, the novice makes their one good call during an actual revolution, at exactly the same time the expert makes their one big mistake, but at that moment, that’s all that is needed to give the newcomer a considerable edge.

» corante.com [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

A Fair(y) Use Tale: Disney Characters Explain Copyright

"A Fair(y) Use Tale" mashes up all your Disney favorites to humorously and effectively explain copyright law. The ten minute movie, directed by Eric Faden, came out of Stanford University's Fair Use Project Documentary Film Program. Stanford's Fair Use Project--to which Stanford Law professor, Copyright guru, Creative Commons advocate and Wired writer Lawrence Lessig contributes--was founded last year to "support to a range of projects designed to clarify, and extend, the boundaries of fair use in order to enhance creative freedom." And, well, the movie is damn sure creative, and certainly seems to take the boundaries of fair use about as far as they can go.

Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University created the short film. He "is an assistant professor of Film Studies and English at Bucknell University. His research includes early cinema and digital imagery. He has also made several experimental films that imagine what academic research might look like as a product of electronic (rather than literary) culture."

» watch on youtube.com » mp4 [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Phantom Audi TV commercial in Toronto

Audi apparently thought it could pull one over on the residents of Toronto, but it got caught. The automaker from Ingolstadt applied for a permit from the Film and Television Office of Toronto to shoot a commercial that would allow it to place double "T" statues that measure six feet high and fifteen feet long all over the city for a period of three days. A press release issued by Audi, however, confirms that no commercial would be shot, but rather that the statues are meant to act as billboards advertising the new Audi TT. The placement of the statues as advertisements, though, violates the city's signage laws.

» illegalsigns.ca / pr [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Microsoft splashes $6bn on aQuantive

Microsoft agreed to spend $6bn buying digital marketing company aQuantive, based locally in Seattle, Washington. Now $6bn is pretty much small change for Microsoft - indeed the software group said the deal is not expected to have a significant impact on the company’s financial guidance - but this is an 85% premium on Thursday’s close for aQuantive, which must raise some eyebrows. The shares closed at $35.87 on Thursday - compare that to the $66.50 a share in cash Microsoft has just tabled.

Consolidation in the online advertising space has been rather brisk recently, with Google snapping up DoubleClick for $3.1bn, Yahoo! buying Right Media and WPP grabbing 24/7 Real Media just this week. Indeed, as a result of the Google/DoubleClick love-in, people started to question where that leaves Microsoft and recent speculation has seen its name linked with that of Yahoo! as a result.

» ft.com [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

[PDF] How To Beat The Stock Market: Buy Companies With High Customer Satisfaction Scores

A study in the Journal of Marketing concludes that you can beat the market consistently by buying stock in companies with high customer satisfaction ratings:

Using a back-tested paper portfolio and an actual case, the authors of a study published in the Journal of Marketing found that companies at the top 20% of the the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) greatly outperformed the the stock market, generating a 40% return. From 1996-2003, the portfolio outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 93%, the S&P 500 by 201%, and NASDAQ by 335%.

[ PDF ] view document » consumerist.com [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Use Your Driver's License as a Debit Card

A startup promises to save both drivers and gas station owners a bundle at the pump by cutting credit cards out of the payment process. A two-year-old company called National Payment Card allows customers to pay for gas by swiping their driver's license and entering a PIN.

Aurora Bisig is a big believer in retailer discount cards. At her last count, she had a dozen—from Sam's Club (WMT) to nearly every grocery store in Central Texas. So this March, when the Austin (Tex.) insurance agent pulled into a gas station for a fill-up and saw a sign promising an additional 10¢ off per gallon for signing up with a new e-payment program, she was interested.

She was also pleased to learn that the "RollbackPrice" program wouldn't require her to add another piece of plastic to her overstuffed wallet. Instead, after entering her driver's license number and bank account information online with a two-year-old company called National Payment Card (NPC), she'd be able to pay for gas just by swiping her driver's license (linked directly, via the existing magnetic stripe, to her bank account), and entering a personal identification number.

» businessweek.com [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Survey: Second Life residents are in favour of brands

CB News in partnership with Repères presents an opinion poll conducted among 1085 Second Life residents on their perception of Real Life brands in this universe.

The main thing learnt from the poll was that the presence of RL brands is perceived as positive by a great majority of Second Life residents: 66% believe that the presence of RL brands has a positive impact on SL, whereas 22% believe that RL brands have no impact on SL, and only 11% believe that RL brands have a negative impact on SL. Therefore there is no evidence of any overexposure effect or rejection. On the contrary, the avatars are looking forward to the presence of brands (45% of respondents even want more brands) because they enhance and give more credibility to Second Life:

- they give realism and substance to SL by establishing a link with Real Life,
- they make SL more interesting by increasing the number of residents and thus contribute to a greater permanence of this universe.

On the contrary, the main obstacles have more to do with the fear of spoiling the universe, by being too close to real life or too commercial.

[ PDF ] view document » f.abiven [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Web 2.0 hype is making web firms neglect the basics of good design

Describing Web 2.0 as the "latest fashion", Mr Nielsen said many sites paying attention to it were neglecting some of the principles of good design and usability established over the last decade. Good practices include making a site easy to use, good search tools, the use of text free of jargon, usability testing and a consideration of design even before the first line of code is written.

Sadly, said Mr Nielsen, the rush to embrace Web 2.0 technology meant that many firms were turning their back on the basics. "They should get the basics right first," he said. "Sadly most websites do not have those primary things right."

» bbc.co.uk [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

PlayStation 3 Virtual World / Home Beta Trial

Home is a real-time 3D, networked community that serves as a meeting place for PlayStation 3 users from around the world, where they can interact, communicate, join online games, shop, share content and even build their own personal spaces. Home will be available as a free download from the PlayStation Store and will launch directly from the PS3 system's Home Menu.

» homebetatrial.com [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

New Way to Read Online Text - LiveLink

Scientists at a small startup called Walker Reading Technologies in Minnesota have determined that the human brain is not wired properly to read block text. They have found that our eyes view text as if they're peering through a straw. Not only does your brain see the text on the line you're reading, but it's also uploading superfluous information from the two lines above and the two lines below. This causes your brain to engage in a tug of war as it fights to filter and ignore the noise. The result is slower reading speeds and decreased comprehension. The company has developed a product that automatically re-formats text in a way that your brain can more easily comprehend.

» liveink.com

Viral Marketing for the Real World

Cathy Olofson sits down with Columbia University professor Duncan Watts to discuss his new article in the May 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review, "Viral Marketing for the Real World." Watts explains that while marketing messages may not exactly spread like disease, viral marketing, if used correctly, can be an extremely successful and cost-effective means for getting the word out.

[ mp3 ] listen or download

Eye tracking billboards to monitor people

A Canadian firm has launched a device that can track the gaze of multiple people from up to 10 metres away. Originally developed at Queen's University, Ontario, they hope to sell it to advertisers to allow them to monitor how many people look at their ads. Admittedly they are trying more benign stuff too like better hearing aids, but I doubt that will make up for movie posters that make a song and dance whenever you glance their way.

» newscientisttech.com

Bill Moggridge: What makes for good design

Bill Moggridge has been an industrial designer for 40 years. In 1979, he designed what many call the first laptop computer: the GRiD Compass, which was used by businesspeople as well as by NASA and the U.S. military. The Compass established the language of laptop design: hinged closure, flat display, low-profile keyboard, and metal housing. In 1991, Moggridge cofounded Ideo, a design consultancy based in Palo Alto, CA. He is the founder of a movement known as "interaction design," which aims to do for the virtual world what industrial design does for the physical. In the recently published book Designing Interactions, he interviews 42 influential designers.

» technologyreview.com

über bloggers

It's no secret that bloggers are becoming increasingly influential. But Arrington is part of an emerging crowd of writers who use their narrowly focused blogs, such as hyperlocal real estate reports, green guides, or Web 2.0 startup reviews, to establish themselves as thought leaders. These new influencers are taking a page from the blog networks Gawker and Weblogs Inc. and turning rapid-fire, around-the-clock blog patter that makes and shapes the news into a hot new online media model.

Companies are directing more efforts toward buttering up these New Media players, often feeding them exclusives that play well with their targeted audiences. And for marketers who are increasingly comfortable with spending money on blogs, advertising with these opinion leaders provides instant cachet.

Think of these as the digital version of potent, passionate trade press writers. They swarm every novelty in areas like tech, creating problems and buzz for companies and innovations. They report news and publish it alongside analysis of newspaper stories and company releases. These posts are salted with strong doses of personality, sparking discussions across the Web. By melding their own insights and opinions with the aggregated views of others, they're starting to gain leverage. "In a time-starved world, people—especially decision-makers—have very little time, but do not want to miss being in the know," says Rishad Tobaccowala, chief innovation officer at advertising firm Publicis Groupe Media.

» Business Week

2007 Digital outlook report

Avenue A | Razorfish has released Digital Outlook Report 2007, a 140-page PDF that describes where marketing dollars are being spent online, key trends that will impact marketers in 2007, and new quantitative research on best practices for measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.

[ PDF ] DigitalMediaOutlook07

Research : B2B blogging and marketing

Business blogs can shorten sales cycles when they connect decision-makers to the designers and thought leaders who shape new products and services. Unfortunately, B2B blogs are new and evolving; only a small fraction of Fortune 500 companies sponsor one today. This early state represents both an opportunity and a concern for business marketers, especially early pioneers at high-tech firms where evangelists and engineers lead blogging efforts. Forrester believes that B2B blogs can open the formerly closed borders of corporations to prospects, customers, and investors. Marketing's role here is to leverage good blog content produced by technologists into their sales and PR activities, and create guidelines that keep individual bloggers from exposing inside information or straying off topics into areas that don't support the business.

» forrester

Research: Obstacles for over-the-top TV

Now that so much video is available online, television executives are asking if future TV programming will be delivered over the Internet, bypassing today's traditional cable and satellite providers. This idea, known as "over-the-top TV," faces four obstacles: lack of Internet connections to TV sets, bandwidth-limited video quality, lack of business models, and the challenge of navigating through thousands of video programs. All of these are on the way to being solved, but, even so, it will take at least five years before over-the-top TV can compete at all with cable or satellite.

» forrester

Marketing agencies' value still below the highs of dotcom era

Media & internet agency valuations remain way below their peak of the dotcom era in spite of hype about the internet's "second coming" via video-sharing, blogs and so-called Web 2.0 trends increasing digital agency revenues.

At the internet bubble's height in March 2000, the average price-earnings multiple of UK-listed media agencies was 76 times historic earnings per share, according to Datastream, the information provider.

» Financial Times

Dreams & illusions, A Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi

The new museum [a branch of the Louvre] will be housed on an island, named Saadiyat, or “Paradise”. As well as the Louvre, there will be a new branch of New York’s Guggenheim Museum, a performing arts museum, a maritime museum - plus an art biennale, wildlife reserves, luxury hotels, shopping malls and restaurants. The purpose of the development, costing many millions of dollars (the island’s infrastructure alone will cost $1 billion), is to reinforce perceptions of the capital city as a regional and international business and tourism hub.

I was taken round a scale model of the art district by one of the directors of the development. The new Guggenheim is designed by Frank Gehry, the new Louvre by Jean Nouvel, who modernised the Louvre in Paris, and the performing arts museum by Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid.

» telegraph.co.uk [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Many Eyes: Collective intelligence for insight and analysis

Many Eyes is a bet on the power of human visual intelligence to find patterns. Our goal is to "democratize" visualization and to enable a new social kind of data analysis. As visualization designers we have witnessed and experienced many of those wondrous sparks. But in recent years, we have become acutely aware that the visualizations and the sparks they generate, take on new value in a social setting. Visualization is a catalyst for discussion and collective insight about data. We all deal with data that we'd like to understand better.

» alphaworks.ibm.com [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Polymer Vision: Organic based rollable displays

Polymer Vision announced its cooperation with Innos to establish the world’s first production facility for organic semiconductor based rollable displays. Manufacturing will start this year to meet the increasing commercial demand for the unique Polymer Vision display technology.

» polymervision.com / PDF download [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Taking the pulse of the people: Newest awards by popular vote

What is America's favorite example of good design? The Smithsonian's Cooper- Hewitt National Design Museum in New York has been asking that question this autumn by urging people to vote for their favorites in the first People's Design Awards.

What does the response tell us about America's perceptions of design?

For starters, it suggests that design is one of those subjects on which most people have opinions, often strong ones. Public votes and prizes are precarious projects for museums, accustomed to exploring subjects with scholarly subtlety in exhibitions, rather than delivering absolute judgments by naming winners and losers. As the Turner Prize for contemporary art proves year after year at the Tate Britain, awards are remarkably effective at generating media coverage and public debate, and at provoking controversy and accusations of sensationalism.

» peoplesdesignaward.org

» Search Branding-Specific Tags: Design Awards - Turner Prize - Contemporary Art
» International Herald Tribune

Podcast: Marketing Metrics and Financial Performance

[mp3] Listen or Download / Wharton

Consumers Increasingly Focus On Price

Are consumers becoming more price-sensitive? Yes. Our data shows that consumers increasingly favor price over brand and they are less likely to spend more for products that save them time and hassles or that have an image that they like. But not all consumers are the same. Our research also shows that males of all ages are less price-sensitive than females — and that young males are a good target for marketing non-price attributes.

» Search Branding-Specific Tags: price-sensitive - price over brand
» Forrester Research

Web 3.0 - Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense.

Their goal is to add a layer of meaning on top of the existing Web that would make it less of a catalog and more of a guide — and even provide the foundation for systems that can reason in a human fashion. That level of artificial intelligence, with machines doing the thinking instead of simply following commands, has eluded researchers for more than half a century.

These ideas, which some people are calling Web 3.0, as the story notes, could well be the foundation for one of the Next Big Things in technology. Smart entrepreneurs are working now on making them real.

In the news category, the value of this approach is obvious: sifting through the huge amount of noise and finding the signal, then putting it all together in a coherent (or at least more coherent) whole than we can dream of today. Again, people are working on this, and some may be getting fairly close to a first approximation. But it will be an extremely difficult problem, the kind that tech folks call “nontrivial.”
Then again, the nontrivial problems are worth the most — when they’re solved.

» Search Branding-Specific Tags: Common Sense - Artificial Intelligence
» NY Times

HD DVD Movies: Studios eye the high capacity medium's potential for new ad revenue.

"The extra space gives the studios room not only for high-definition video and enhanced audio, but also for a bevy of interactive features, including games, picture-in-picture commentaries and Web links.

Some car chases in movies are so over the top that you might find yourself mentally trying to add up the cost of all the wreckage. Now Progressive Direct will do the math for you. It teamed up with Universal Studios Home Entertainment to insert a running tally of the destruction into the recent release of "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" on high-definition DVD. As cars smack into one another in Tokyo, a display in a small window keeps track: Roof repair: $209; taillights: $451; fender: $618."

» Search Branding-Specific Tags: HD DVD - Universal Studios - Advergames
» NY Times

J&J Selects INVEGA as Brand Name for the treatment of schizophrenia drug.

Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, announced that it has selected INVEGA™ as the brand name for paliperidone extended release tablets, the company's investigational oral atypical antipsychotic. The company is seeking approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market INVEGA™ for the treatment of schizophrenia.

» Search Branding-Specific Tags: Schizophrenia - Drug Name - Drug Naming
» Johnson & Johnson

Google's Marissa Mayer: Speed Matters

Marissa Mayer, Google’s (GOOG) vice president for search products and user experience, has a secret. Or she did, until her brief presentation this afternoon at the Web 2.0 Summit today in San Francisco.

Her secret: on the Web, speed matters.

Mayer described an interesting experiment Google performed a few years ago. The idea was to figure out the ideal number of results to display in response to a search query. When Google asked users if they wanted 10, 20 or 30 results on the first page, the winner was 30. More is better, was the apparent thinking. But consumer behavior told a different story: the more responses Google displayed, the fewer searches each user performed. It was, she said, an indication of “extreme unhappiness.” But it was the opposite of what people said they wanted.

The question was why that was happening? In essense, Google figured out that the answer was speed: it simplying took a lot longer - too long - to display the screen with more results.

Mayer said she looked for an uncontrolled variable - and it turned out to be speed. Load times increased from 0.4 seconds for 10 results, to 0.9 seconds for 30 results. Google’s approach, she said, “is to make it up in volume.” There is less time per transaction, but you can “generate more area under the curve over time” with “lots of small and fast interactions.”

Mayer says the need for speed will lead to some “key changes coming,” including richer support for Javascript in particular and client side applications in general. She also noted that mobile access speeds are “fundamentally too slow,” and predicted that there will be “real advances in mobile hardware.”

» Search Branding-Specific Tags: Web 2 - User Experience - Google
» SeekingAlpha

The Executive Guide to the BlogoSphere (pdf)

Christopher Graves, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
Download PDF: BlogoSphere

John Naisbitt's 11 mindsets of forecasting

1. While many things change, most things remain constant.
2. The future is embedded in the present.
3. Focus on the score of the game.
4. Understanding how powerfull it is not to be right.
5. See the future as a picture puzzle.
6. Don’t get so far ahead of the parade that people don’t know you’re in it.
7. Resistance to change falls if benefits are real.
8. Things that we expect to happen always happen more slowly.
9. You don’t get results by solving problems but by exploiting opportunities.
10. Don’t add unless you subtract.
11. Don’t forget the ecology of technology.