November 24, 2009
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Tags: View All | Chris Abraham | David Armano | David Berkowitz | Josh Bernoff | Craig Daitch | Colleen DeCourcy | Freddie Laker | Kelly Mooney | B.L. Ochman | Judy Shapiro | Reuben Steiger | Mat Zucker | Blogger Bios | About

Sorry Rupert, News Content Is Not a Google Killer

Why Microsoft Shouldn't Overpay for Exclusive Content for Bing

Extra, extra, read all about it! Exclusive news, only in today's edition of Bing. You won't find these stories in Google! Only in Bing! Get your Bing now, hot off the press!

That's right, folks. Just when you thought they were dead, we've got ourselves a real old-fashioned newspaper war heating up. But rather than being between publications, this war may be fought over who carries those publications to readers. Bing has had talks with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation about "de-indexing" itself from Google, the Financial Times reported.

Such a deal, it's argued by some, would give Bing compelling and exclusive content that would pull people away from Google (plus line Murdoch's pockets with a little more cash). Who wouldn't choose Bing over Google if only Bing had content from the Wall Street Journal, for example?

Reality check time. Earlier this decade, the Wall Street Journal wasn't listed in Google at all, due to a total paywall and restrictions that it had up. Despite that, Google developed into the search juggernaut it is today. Clearly, that Wall Street Journal being in Google wasn't crucial to Google's success.



Is the Promise of Viral Success Holding the Ad Industry Back?

Great 'Social Creative' Alone Does Not a Viral Video Make

Josh Warner
Josh Warner
Recently Tim Williams, founder of Ignition, in an otherwise spot-on AdAge blog post, asked, "How much does it cost to reach a million people on YouTube?" Tim's answer: $0.

YouTube ad sales will disagree with Tim and so do I.

To reach a million people on any social network, including (or, I should say, especially) YouTube, takes time, money and a huge dollop of creativity and planning. I imagine Tim is being dramatic to make a point: spend more money on creative and your media costs will be lower because more people share good creative on social networks.



JC Penney's 'Doghouse' Returns

Last Year's Massive Holiday Viral Is Back, and Shorter

Regardless of whether the ad critics liked JC Penney's "Beware of the Doghouse" viral video last year, the masses did.

The idea behind the film was that men who gave their wives lame holiday gifts, such as vacuum cleaners, would be dropped down a rabbit hole called the doghouse to be judged by a jury of scathing, scorned wives. The campaign racked up millions of views in its quest to promote JC Penney's jewelry department -- jewelry, of course, being the ticket out of the doghouse.

This year, it's "Return of the Doghouse." JC Penney again tapped with Saatchi & Saatchi for the video creative, which is blessedly down from four minutes and 45 seconds to two minutes and 55 seconds, and North Kingdom for the website, where, per a JC Penney statement, visitors can "build a case against their bad gift giver filled with written statements and imported photos, videos and witness testimony as evidence of the bad gift-giving. Each case file will be compiled into a trial movie and given its own web address, allowing users to share (can be e-mailed or posted to MySpace and Facebook) the link with friends." Razorfish handled online media buying and planning.

Advertising Age Embedded Player



A DigitalNext Challenge: What's Your Favorite Consumer Mobile Application?

Criteria: Real Apps with Long-Term Value that Create Loyalty

Josh Bernoff
Josh Bernoff
Consumers are surrounded by more information, with more immediate access to it, than ever before. Mobile internet access (but also mobile email and SMS text messages) are a big part of that. Mobile applications can get access to location, a camera, your identity, your phone number and SMS messages, not to mention the plain old wonderful real-time 'net. This changes things. As a marketer or other corporate staffer, your best action is to provide mobile customers as much information as possible, as instantly as possible.

I'd like to hear your nominations for the best mobile applications that empower consumers. I'm not talking about quick-hit mobile campaigns. I mean real applications that are of long-term value to consumers and create loyalty by surrounding people with information.



The Coming Darwinism of IPhone Apps

There's an App for That -- for Now

Chris Cunningham
Chris Cunningham
I'm confident that if Charles Darwin were here today, he'd have something to teach us about apps.

I've been fortunate to be at the forefront of apps. Prior to starting my company, I was leading the charge for the app's predecessor, the widget, and this led to my fascination with Facebook's 2007 move to open its API to third-party developers and publishers. And what I've seen on Facebook -- a winnowing down of the number of apps -- will soon be happening to the iPhone platform.



Behind the Redesign: Virgin.com Mixes Social Activity and Lead Generation

Rokkan Talks About Redesigning Richard Branson's Corporate Site

Charles Bae
Charles Bae
[Editor's note: Virgin.com's recent revamp turned the corporate site into a social-media hub for the corporate brand. The site also acts as a lead generator for the various business units. Rokkan, the agency that designed it, talked us through it. Here's the case study, in their words.]

The total overhaul of Virgin.com had two equal goals: lead generation and social activity. This weaving together of corporate content and user-generated content called for a distinct creative approach that skewed a little more toward e-commerce/online review sites, such as Apple.com, chow.com and even Amazon.com. The key differentiating factor, of course, is that you are not actually buying anything on Virgin.com.

Today, the new Virgin.com lets consumers learn about Virgin the company, coupled with social tools for real-time dialogue, from rants to raves. Bringing it all together is the consistent presence of company founder Richard Branson. Here's how we did it.



Brands on Twitter: 76% of Accounts Are Infrequent Users

Many Apply Traditional Marketing to Emerging Channel

Chris Perry
Chris Perry
I often have a love-hate thing going with Twitter.

On one-hand it's a platform for the trivial. A time-suck. A platform to distract and, at the same time, isolate ourselves from subjects out of sync with our own worldview. On the other, it's a proven platform that carries incredible power to reshape how we learn, interact and share with communities online. For marketers and media-makers, it's hard to think of a recent innovation that's altered our landscape more than the simple 140 character platform. And for that I'm skewing to the love side of the spectrum.

Where do companies fit on the spectrum? Is it on the collective corporate radar? How is it being used? And in an age where advocacy carries the day, is it being used as a way to truly engage customers and other important stakeholders to the brand?



Why the FDA Needs to Accept PhRMA's Social Proposal

Patients Are Researching 21st-Century-Style, Marketers Need to be Able to Be There Too

Josh Bernoff
Josh Bernoff
The pharmaceutical industry and the FDA are in a strange position.

People are discussing drugs and treatments all over net, from WebMD to the American Cancer Society's Cancer Survivors' Network.

But pharmaceutical companies can't encourage or participate in this activity in any way. In one case in my research, a pharma company employee begged me to take down a reference to a site her company had sponsored -- the logo was right there on the site -- even though the company had provided an unrestricted grant and did not influence content in any way. This level of hypocrisy is absurd, and serves no one.



Why Digital Agencies Are Indeed Ready to Lead

They Understand the Technology, the Speed of Iteration and Analytics

Jacques-Hervé Roubert
Jacques-Herve Roubert
Over the past 18 months, a great debate has consumed our industry: Are digital agencies poised to sit at the head of the advertising table? Depending on whom you ask and what you read, the answer seems to flip flop -- with a majority of people still having reservations and making claims that digital agencies aren't ready to lead.



Three Things YouTube Has Learned From Pre-Roll Video Advertising

And It Hopes to Learn More By Testing Skippable Ads

Once upon a time, YouTube was a site that didn't believe in pre-roll. My how times have changed.

YouTube skippable preroll adEnlarge

Today it's launching yet another incarnation in its video-monetization plan: skippable ads. These have a small icon in the upper right offering viewers a "skip this ad" option. Clicking it takes one straight to the video.

Why might it launch such a thing? First of all, it believes it'll be able to command higher prices from advertisers for the ads because the users will actually want to be engaged and watching. But it also hopes giving people the option to skip will result in better research about what makes people want to watch an ad. Here are a few things it's already learned about pre-rolls:


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