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A Rare Google Goof

Thu, 28 May 2009 14:55:37 -0400

In hopes of repeating the success of Google's Adsense program, Google Inc. thought it had developed a technology for transmitting, scheduling and tracking radio ads.

Unfortunately, their foray into selling radio advertising and tracking the success of radio scripts with web links in them did not revolutionize the media aspect of the business. Instead, Google is pulling the plug on its attempt to automate radio-ad sales tomorrow (May 31, 2009).

Google said it has "Devoted substantial resources to developing radio and print ad," but the resulting products "didn't have the impact we had hoped for."

It's a shame that even the brilliant minds at Google could not figure out a way to track consumer response to a radio spot. Like the famous Wanamaker quote, this may be an example of advertising working, despite not having a way to prove it:
 "I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but I can never find out which half." -
Read the full story from the Wall Street Journal here: Radio Tunes Out Google in Rare Miss for Web Titan

Ramsey discusses the economy at national Town Hall Meeting

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:35:59 -0400

Tonight, over a million people in more than 6,000 locations joined together to listen to Dave Ramsey's Town Hall for Hope as he offered his thoughts on the economy, the fear-inducing media, and how to turn the tide of fear in our communities.
Some of the highlights:
Ramsey cautioned against the “Spirit of Fear” people are picking up from the media—in many cases, for his audience, that would be Fox News.
The general premise of the evening’s talk: Fear is the antithesis of Hope.
He believes that government interference is a “dumb idea” and compared today's economy to the events of the Great Depression.
In 1939, John Maynard Keynes, who some consider the “father of capitalism” visited FDR and advised him: “Government must invest in public works and must run deficit spending” to bring us out of the Depression. Thanks in part to the New Deal, we went from 25% unemployment to 1%, but part of that, as Ramsey pointed out, was due to WWII.
Milton Friedman later challenged the notion of government involvement and the ideas behind the WPA, claiming the depression was a result of “government mismanagement.”
Ramsey agrees with Milton and says good government is built on three legs: Political freedom, economic freedom, and moral restraint.
He believes in “capitalism with a value system,” but when people are scrambling for money, that value system seems to shift: "Commerce without mortality destroys.”
Ramsey quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “Doing well is a result of doing good” and reminded us that we need to allow for failure. He mentioned a book called “Failing Forward” which sounds like something we could all stand to read right now, and said, “Success is the pile of failures you’re standing on.”
Because he believes the market is artificially low right now, he tried to compare today’s economy to that of the Depression and subsequent recessions to put things in perspective.
During the depression, the market dropped 80% and we had 25% unemployment.
In 1973 the market dropped 50% with 11% inflation.
Right now, unemployment is “only 8%” and the market? Well, although Fox does not mention it, it’s up 22% in 7 weeks.
Ramsey thinks it’s the housing market that will lead us out of this situation and says, “This is the best time to buy a house in 30 years—IF you are not broke.”
Meanwhile, we should all take responsibility for "our own messes.”
He cautioned against doing business with the big banks because "They have no soul” and suggested supporting small local banks. He believes Gold is a “crummy investment” and says it has averaged a paltry 1.54% return from 1833 to 2001, noting that it’s at a 176 year high right now. NOT the time to buy.
Ramsey took some listener questions, then closed with the three things to do if you’re "Struggling with Hope”
1. Take action. Inject yourself. Get up, get out, sweat. Meet people, talk, get creative. If you got pushed out of the nest, maybe it’s your time to fly to a new perch. Flap your wings rather than fall down the cliff.
2. Don't engage in “loser talk.” Avoid negative "Eeyore" people who focus only on gloom and doom. Read. Meet people. You will be the same person in five years "except for the books you read and the people you meet.”
3. Get back to Giving. Our country is good at giving in times of need and disaster, but we need to do better because we have so much. Give your time and help others less fortunate. It will take your eyes off your own woes and remind you that there are others struggling with hope. Offer it to others and you will restore it in yourself.
It’s nice to be reminded that the world is not coming to an end and that things are not as bad as the media might present them.
Let’s al keep that in mind, consider our new sources and how they make their money and attract viewers (remember, there’s always NPR) and help our fellow man.
Get creative in your thinking (or hire someone who is), keep investing, keep advertising, and keep your chin up.
After all, as Ramsey did tonight, offering hope to others may be the best way to provide hope and optimism to ourselves.

Spring Cleaning makes sense while your competition is in the dust

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:33:33 -0400

Academics Peter Dickson and Joseph Giglierano believe companies worry about two kinds of failure: “Sinking the boat” (ruining a company by making a bad bet) or “Missing the boat” (letting a great opportunity pass).

Lately, it seems like more companies are worried about sinking their boat than missing it.

In the late nineteen-twenties, Kellogg and Post cereals dominated the market. When the Depression hit, Post did the predictable thing: it reined in expenses and cut back on advertising. But Kellogg doubled its ad budget, moved aggressively into radio advertising, and heavily pushed its new cereal, Rice Krispies. By 1933, even as the economy cratered, Kellogg’s profits had risen almost thirty per cent and they became the industry’s dominant player.

You’d think that everyone would want to emulate Kellogg’s success, but, when hard times hit, most companies end up behaving more like Post. They hunker down, cut spending, and pray for good times to return.

They cut advertising budgets and invest less in R&D to preserve what they have. But numerous studies have shown that companies who keep spending during recessions do significantly better than those who make make big cuts.

Recessions create more opportunity for challengers, not less. When everyone is advertising, for instance, it’s hard to separate yourself from the pack; when ads are scarcer, the returns on investment seem to rise.

Hyundai has made huge gains in market share this year, thanks to a hefty advertising budget and a guarantee to take back cars from owners who have lost their jobs.

It’s true that the uncertainty of recessions creates an opportunity for serious profits. The historical record is full of companies that made successful gambles in hard times:

Kraft introduced Miracle Whip in 1933 and saw it become America’s best-selling dressing in six months

Texas Instruments brought out the transistor radio in the 1954 recession

Apple launched the iPod in 2001.

Full article here:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2009/04/20/090420ta_talk_surowiecki

In a bad economy, even the Superbowl is taking a hit.

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 11:43:15 -0500

In these tough economic times, it's easy to see: The Super Bowl is taking a hit, too.

The No. 1 sporting event in America is still a big deal. Nearly 100 million of us will tune in Sunday night when the Pittsburgh Steelers play the Arizona Cardinals.
But in these tough economic times, it's easy to see: The Super Bowl is taking a hit, too.
General Motors and FedEx pulled their TV ads, even though NBC lowered the price. Playboy canceled its annual party. Almost 200 fewer media credentials were issued.
"When I think of the NFL, I think of recession-proof," Cardinals lineman Elliot Vallejo said this week. "But that's not true anymore."
"Some of the guys I tailgate with, they're blue-collar guys making $30,000 or $35,000 a year, and they didn't have the $1,600 you had to put up in advance to get into the lottery for Super Bowl tickets," he said. "In the past, I think they would've done anything to get to the Super Bowl. Not now, not with this economy."

On the other hand, it might be cheaper to go to the game.
While tickets are still pricey — about 15,000 at a record $1,000 apiece and 53,000 at $800 each — another 1,000 cost $500, down from last year's low of $700, the first cut in Super Bowl history.
And tickets that cost $2,500 or more from scalpers and brokers could be selling at face value by kickoff.
"I haven't seen empty stadiums yet." Cardinals defensive end Travis LaBoy said. "But they're saying this is the lowest price for a Super Bowl ticket. That's the economy, tenfold."

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/9120194?MSNHPHCP&gt1=39002

This year, Super Bowl Ads go hard-sell 2

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 11:43:07 -0500

Over the years, the Super Bowl been called the Ad Bowl, the Bud Bowl and the Buzz Bowl. Super Bowl XLIII on Sunday will probably go down as Hard-Sell Bowl.
As the economy soured, advertisers began crafting a hard-sell approach to their game ads, and the results will be on display Sunday. They offer a stark contrast to the slapstick of Budweiser's gassy horse and Electronic Data Systems' Herding Cats ads that in past years tended to soft-peddle products and services.
Example: Telefora's ad, which features talking flowers, plugs a $29.99 price for Valentine's Day arrangements. Ms. Resnick says Teleflora tweaked the ad to make sure that came through loud and clear after "price won over all other things in our ad testing. Consumers want value."

Watch General Electric's "Scarecrow" ad for Super Bowl XLIII.
More Super Bowl Ads
• Coca-Cola's "Avatar" ad
• Pepsi Max's "I'm Good" ad
Several other big game advertisers, including General Electric's Universal Orlando theme park and the Denny's chain of restaurants, are pursuing the hard-sell in the hope their ads will have an immediate effect on sales and store traffic. Denny's ad will tout a breakfast giveaway, while Universal will hype its own promotional offering. Both are keeping the come-ons a secret until game day.
Cash4Gold, which buys gold jewelry from consumers, will air a spot that features Ed McMahon and MC Hammer, two celebrities in the news recently for their financial woes, using the service. Throughout much of the spot, the company's Web address appears prominently.
The strategy jibes with the recession and the exorbitant price of ad time during the football match-up. While the Super Bowl is always the priciest TV real estate, this year marketers are paying as much as $3 million for 30 seconds of ad time, about a 10% increase from last year's prices.

NBC Universal
Universal Studios' Super Bowl ad, above, ballyhoos a promotion.
"Any advertisers that are going to spend $2 million or $3 million for a spot, their shareholders and chief executives will want to see a return on that," says Mark Chmiel, Denny's chief marketing officer.
Attack ads are a popular technique in a tough business climate, and the Denny's ad also takes a swipe at rival DineEquity's IHOP chain and its well-known pancake breakfast, which includes candy and whipped cream. In the spot, gangsters are in a restaurant planning something sinister. "I got a feeling Benny talked," says the boss. "Ya want me to take care of it?" asks a henchman. Before the boss can answer, the dark proceedings are interrupted by a waitress spraying a face on a pancake with whipped cream.
The harsh headlines about stock market plunges, home foreclosures and layoffs also have some advertisers ditching the typical funny and irreverent Super Bowl approach in favor of more emotional and nostalgic pitches.
Cars.com, which is owned by media companies Belo, Gannett, McClatchy, Tribune and Washington Post, last year ran two funny ads. This year it's out to pluck the heartstrings a bit with a spot about an overconfident nerd who ends up needing a little help from Cars.com after all. Universal Orlando, which offered up a funny big game ad in 2002, now will show a kid dressed up as a superhero.

Coca-Cola Co. -- 'Heist'
1:00
Watch Coca-Cola Co.'s "Heist" ad for Super Bowl XLIII.
The king of Super Bowl slapstick itself is trying something different. Anheuser-Busch InBev's Budweiser brand has three of its iconic Clydesdale ads teed up for the game, including two soft spots, one that tells the story of the horses' immigration to the U.S.
General Electric will tap childhood memories with a Wizard of Oz theme, as a scarecrow made of wire dances by a power plant. A Bridgestone ad shows Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head taking a drive. Even PepsiCo, which routinely tweaks rival Coca-Cola, will run ads dreamily musing on optimism, while Coke hypes "open happiness."
Viewers hungry for some hard-hitting fun needn't despair. One ad for PepsiCo's PepsiMax shows men getting hit with lumber, a bowling ball and a golf club and responding, "I'm good."
http://adage.com/brightcove/lineup.php?lineup=1266084202

Bloggers not buzzing about the 2009 Superbowl spots

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:15:02 -0500

Present company excluded, even Go Daddy playing on Danica Patrick's hotness is not creating much online chatter.

Blog mentions of the phrase "Super Bowl ads" appear to be running at least 20% below the rate this time last year.

Dearth of newsworthy ads Maybe the lack of buzz so far for this year's ads is people's preoccupation with the economy and other big news events, such as President Barack Obama's inauguration and the Rod Blagojevich impeachment.
Another factor may be the apparent absence from this year's game of advertisers that promoted their commercials fairly aggressively and often effectively prior to past games, including Nationwide Insurance, Emerald Nuts, Procter & Gamble Co. (with last year's Tide to Go ad) and Unilever (with ads in past years for Degree, Dove and Sunsilk).
Fear of backlash The economy could figure into a buzz deficit in a less obvious way, as some marketers, fearing a backlash from a public weary of waste and conspicuous consumption, tone down efforts to hype ads, or simply pull back on budgets for promoting their ads. "There may be a little hesitancy to overhype the game in light of the economy," Mr. Blackshaw said. "And it may be a matter of consumers being a little bit distracted right now."
If marketers truly are being intentionally low-key about their Super Bowl investments prior to the game, it's an ironically bad idea, because it will reduce their return on investment and actually add to waste, Mr. Nail said.
Another problem may be a simple lack of news. All is not lost, however, just because buzz is muted prior to the game. By far the biggest spike in online buzz surrounding the ads comes the day of and in the days immediately after the game. That's when mentions of Super Bowl ads spiked to more than 2.5% of all blogs last year, more than five times the peak recorded prior to the game.
Rising traffic on Twitter may yet lead to an overall increase in Super Bowl buzz this year, Mr. Blackshaw said -- though that will also raise questions about the quality of the buzz. With a substantial amount of Twitter chatter coming from people in the marketing industry, much of the buzz will amount to inside-baseball talk about the ads on football's biggest spectacle.

Full article here: http://adage.com/article?article_id=134172

Two unsold spots in 2009 Superbowl ad line-up

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:13:29 -0500

NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol said the network is down to just two available Super Bowl spots and has managed to sell all of them at prices above $2.4 million, a sign that economic issues haven't thwarted advertisers' desire to be in the annual football classic.
As of yesterday, "we had four spots to sell," Mr. Ebersol said in a conference call today. "I'm told within the last few hours two of those four have sold." Mr. Ebersol yesterday said NBC had sold about a dozen of its ads at its asking price of $3 million.

Fox sold out the 2008 Super Bowl when it sought $2.7 million for 30 seconds of ad time. The match between the New York Giants and New England Patriots generated record ratings -- 97.5 million people in the U.S., according to Nielsen -- and record ad revenue: $186.3 million, according to TNS Media Intelligence, up from $151.5 million in 2007.
Still, Mr. Ebersol called the sales process since Sept. 5 a "tough slog." As recently as last week, NBC said it had sold more than 90% of its 67-spot inventory -- meaning that it had less than six spots left -- but ad buyers said they believed the network had as many as eight to 12 ads on its hands. To get the ad slots sold, media buyers said, the NBC was packaging ad time in its Super Bowl pre-game show.
Mr. Ebersol said the economy hasn't been much of a drag on Super Bowl sales. The fact "that our sales department sold 85% of the inventory in early September isolated us from a lot of the pain that the rest of the broadcast industry is feeling, including us on other endeavors," he said. "This Super Bowl, because it was sold so early, is largely immune to that pressure."
Most Super Bowl spots are meant to run just once during the broadcast. Running it many times would dull its impact and even cause what ad executives call "wear out" among viewers. Seeing one of those ads -- with their high production values and special effects -- turn up several times during the game and afterward could signal that NBC offered additional but lower-cost inventory to get certain marketers into the lineup.

Full article here: http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=134166