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Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Marketing and Advertising Trends From the Past WeekI was out of town over the past few days...but all the news you need is right here!
Research shows social nets more popular than e-mail
Social networking, defined
as "member communities," has an active reach of 67% as compared to 65% for e-mail, per a Nielsen study. The audience
for social nets and blogs also is rising at twice the pace of portals, e-mail, search and other key sources of Web traffic,
according to Nielsen.
Google offers targeting with a twist
Despite its relatively small
share of the U.S. online display sector, Google is poised to make a splash with its new cookie-based behavioral targeting
plan, per this article. While this sort of targeting is nothing new, Google is allowing users access to a preferences utility
where they can adjust the way in which they are targeted.
What smartphones tell advertisers
For marketers, smartphones
are a potential treasure trove, because they not only contain information about a user's mobile Web surfing habits and
favorite applications but also his or her exact location. While privacy advocates are concerned about the potential for intrusiveness,
for mobile marketers, location-based advertising is something of a holy grail. Eric Bader, managing partner of Brand in Hand,
said, "Everyone's in an arms race to find out more and more about their users."
Poll: 90% of users concerned about Web privacy
More than nine in 10 survey
respondents ranked online privacy as an issue of importance to them, a new poll by TRUSTe has found. Only 28% were comfortable
with the practice of behavioral targeting, while roughly three in four of those surveyed backed this statement: "The
Internet is not well regulated, and naive users can easily be taken advantage of."
Retro boxes: General Mills gets it; Tropicana doesn't
 The retro boxes for Lucky Charms,
Trix and other General Mills cereals work because they are simple, bring back memories and keep icons such as the Trix bunny
and Cocoa Puffs bird, Adweek columnist Barbara Lippert says. By contrast, the failed Tropicana package redesign was drained
of meaning and looked generic.
Real films use fake Web sites as promotional tools
This article provides thumbnails
and links to three fake corporate Web sites launched to promote a trio of major Hollywood films: Skynet Research for "Terminator
Salvation" (May 21 release); Virtual Self Industries for "The Surrogates" (Sept. 25 release), and the Institute
for Human Continuity for "2012"
Popular Coke page on Facebook created by a devoted fan
The second-most-popular Facebook
page, after that for President Barack Obama, is a page celebrating Coca-Cola created by an aspiring actor. There are a reported
253 pages devoted to the soft drink on the social network, but this one has attracted 3.3 million fans -- for reasons that
continue to mystify marketing execs.
Mintel examines the "new normal"
Consumers are trading "up,
down and over" as they seek the best values in the recession, perhaps spending more on affordable luxuries such as chocolate
or watching movies at home instead of going out. Brand trust and perceptions of value, quality and creativity are critical.
As news industry contracts, some cities could be left paperless
Circulation of printed newspapers
has dropped precipitously over the last two decades, even as the online audience has grown. But the expense of large news-gathering
organizations is difficult to support on digital revenues, and as a result, newspapers are shedding staff and in some cases
folding altogether. Mike Simonton, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, said, "In 2009 and 2010, all the two-newspaper
markets will become one-newspaper markets, and you will start to see one-newspaper markets become no-newspaper markets."
9:37 am cdt
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