GenDigital

How Legit Is Your Green Marketing?

Ok, so we all know "green" is the new black. On a daily basis it's virtually impossible to not hear of some brand or company touting their "green" plans in newspaper and magazine articles, sites and blogs, cable news nets, radio spots...basically whatever media you choose to interact with, you're hearing something "green." What we're starting to see from some of our panelists, mainly those on the older side, 20 to 26 is a certain level of skepticism. We just wrapped up our monthly immersion and many of the posts from panelists when the subject turned to the environment and "green" marketing sounded like this one: "I think the whole “green” phenomenon is getting boring too. I understand how important it is to conserve natural resources and be kind to the planet, but hearing about it every day several times a day is annoying.  Of course, this panelist was still in the minority for having negative feelings, the more prevalent type of responses we received went something like this: "GREEN IS IN! All over campus you see "Go Green" signs and almost any products that promote going "Green" are popular. So, what's the action item here. Well, our opinion would be this...the market we cover, younger consumers, are looking for basic pragmatic like steps they can take on to reduce their personal impact on the environment. At the same time, they're looking to companies and brands to help them outline what exactly these steps would include. So clearly there is opportunity here, but tread carefully and think about something relatively simple and straightforward whether it be some kind of recycling drive, clothing drive or sustainable food push, trying to do more than one of these things might be too overwhelming for the audience, at least right now.   

Court Rules In Favor Of Alcohol Ads In VA Campus Newspapers

With stories buzzing around the net today ranging from MySpace's music endeavors to the rumored release of a new iPhone, this story will probably not receive a lot of ink. The Cavalier Daily, the University of Virginia's campus newspaper reports that a Virginia court has ruled in favor of allowing alcohol advertisements in their paper as well as in Virginia Tech's campus newspaper, The Collegiate Times. Citing the first amendment suppression, the Virginia chapter of the ACLU stepped up to represent the school's papers. Can you imagine the letters and calls school officials will receive today from parents and organizations like MADD? Honestly though, I'm not sure this will turn into anything substantial for the papers. Yes, it's true that most college kids read their campus newspaper, more than 80% of them according to our latest data. However, beer and alcohol companies are constantly under heavy scrutiny and pressure as it relates to their media buys. I don't think it is feasible that just because all of the sudden two campus papers in Virginia accept alcohol ads, the brands will come running with 52 week plans. If anything, it might be a good community and social responsibility push for a brand leader like A&B's Budweiser to come in with creative that talks about responsibility exclusively, but the notion that they'd run a pure branding campaign instead is not realistic, they'd be killed in the mainstream media.

Facebook Partners With CareerBuilder For Job Ads

Facebook has announced a new deal with CareerBuilder that will enable CareerBuilder clients to run job recruiting campaigns within select portions of the Facebook member network. Certainly, it was only a matter of time before the number one site among teens and college students did a job-related deal. It's a huge win for CareerBuilder, and a pretty large blow to Monster, whose college-oriented MonsterTRAK service had been the category leader among students to date, but news of this deal, assuming it's executed and managed correctly, will definitely put a damper on rival efforts. Based on some of the details of the deal, my guess is that this is far and away the largest advertiser deal Facebook has secured to date. I would not be surprised if this is a guaranteed $20MM to $30MM a year for them.

Are You Trying To Kills Us?

The woman's scream in this spot from 7Up just might be the single most annoying thing I've ever heard. For some reason though, it's still running and I was surprised to see on some of the ad creative blogs how many people had positive comments related to the spot, I thought it was the longest 30 seconds of my life. Go figure, different strokes for different folks.

NBC Continues Multi-Platform Push With New Gaming Deal

Pretty soon we won't be able to call them NBC Television Network instead we will have to call them NBC Multimedia. Just coming off an announcement regarding an in-stadium deal cut with Arena Media Networks, the Peacock expanded its offerings again, this time closing a deal with IGA, a leading in-game advertising network competing mainly with Microsoft-owned Massive. We've pondered the effectiveness of in-game advertising in the past, and according to most people who follow the category, in-game advertising is growing at a faster clip than Internet advertising. The latest deal with IGA enables NBC to now offer its advertisers a multitude of touch points ranging from on-air, to in-person, online, wireless and through video games. The aggressive series of deals should provide some extra promotional cushion as we get closer and closer to the next Olympic Games in Beijing.

Sponsored Wal-Mart Page on Facebook Creates "Enlightening Conversation" Among Members

In the midst of the super critical back to school season, marketers and retailers pull out all stops in hopes of effectively capturing a greater share of dollars from student shoppers and their parents. As a sign of the times, marketers are shifting some of their ad dollars towards emerging media platforms, namely social networking sites like Facebook. One of our proprietary panelists sent us a link to this sponsored page that Wal-Mart currently has on Facebook promoting its suite of products for back to school and already it looks like some mainstream media outlets, including Business Week have already picked up on what is sure to be a future case study on the ins and outs of marketing on social networking sites. The sponsored Wal-Mart page on Facebook has 840 members as of this morning, and many of these members aren't exactly pro Wal-Mart if you know what I mean. In case you haven't seen firsthand what the whole notion of social networking marketing and participatory media can look like, I would strongly encourage you to peruse through the site. There is a chorus of negative comments from Facebook members regarding Wal-Mart, clearly the folks at Bentonville are well aware of is. At the same time, there has been seem overwhelming positive comments left on the page by members as well praising Wal-Mart for their community and outreach efforts. Look folks, (and this is something we have been speaking with our clients now for over two years) marketing on social networking sites is no joke and certainly not for the faint of heart. This audience is not shy about expressing their feelings when it comes to corporate America or price of gasoline for that matter. I look at the this as a huge litmus test for Wal-Mart and other major corporations who for one reason or another tend to generate controversy. The fact that Wal-Mart has kept the page up there even as some members essentially pummel them I believe is actually quite remarkable. They are opening up the door and stimulating valuable conversation among the Facebook member base, and I really hope they don't take it down. It is our belief that the conversation that is being generated will end up benefiting Wal-Mart in the end with respect to this audience segment. A lot of these students are posting what we consider to be thoughtful and sincere commentary. No one ever said social network marketing was going to be easy (certainly we have stressed this to our clients), but the reality is we wholeheartedly applaud the world's largest retailer for keeping the page live and not folding.

NBCU Sets Mark For Online Video Ads

As everyone in the Internet advertising world looks to draw up some standards for the fast growing online video category, NBC Universal has taken a lead step by announcing it will limit its pre-roll spots, those spots airing before the actual content streams, to 15 seconds or less. This is part symbolic and part pragmatic. First, I think it is symbolic as online video looks to differentiate from television. More practically speaking, there has been substantial feedback, the majority of which has been negative from Internet users regarding pre-roll spots, thus, limiting them to a very bearable 15 seconds makes a lot of sense. I wonder if this is a watershed moment where everyone else will soon follow NBCU's policy, much the same way everyone in the television business followed ABC's push of the power and influence of the 18-49 year old ratings in the 70's and 80's.

MTV Goes Platform Agnostic in Upfront Presentation

Executives from the leading broadcast and cable television networks are out in the marketplace pitching their new program schedules and advertising opportunities to the media buying community as part of the $9+ billion annual ritual also known as the upfront buying season. Like last year, television executives are focusing on their interactive and digital assets as a centerpiece of their offerings rather than an afterthought. When it comes to the youth market in particular, all eyes are on MTV who unveiled a platform agnostic pitch to advertisers yesterday. The company spoke of several new and innovative advertising placement opportunities, an extension of their branded entertainment offering and exclusive ad ownership of individual programs. Clearly a lot of these opportunities can show up on-air, online or via wireless devices, which speaks to the whole 360 view everyone is talking about but few are actually doing (ESPN being the one company that comes to mind that can truly execute against this). But I think the real story and bottom line for MTV, is that whole thing surrounding the lose of Myspace to Fox and their tangles with YouTube has ultimately served as a wake up call for the oringial purveyors of the coolness factor. They are back to innovating and truth be told, they have a lot of smart people over there that are extraordinarily focused. You can say they were asleep at the wheel for a little while, but they're up now and just down three more Red Bulls, so look out.

Viacom Goes With Yahoo For Search Partner

You didn't think they would actually go with Google did you? Well, I guess stranger things have happened, but as it turns out Viacom is partnering with Yahoo and their new Panama technology for sponsored search across 33 of their branded sites including MTV.com, Nick.com, BET.com and Comedycentral.com, among others. Although media outlets and a lot of the Wall St. community really gave it to Yahoo for being late in delivering its Panama search technology and falling so far behind Google for monetized search, I think the statement "better late than never" might apply here. Reports have been circulating in recent weeks, indicating that the new search technology has exceeded expectations and Yahoo stands to gain heavily as it partners with more high-trafficked sites...the 33 Viacom sites are a pretty good start.

Oops, Another Event, More Uproar From Boston

What the heck is it about Boston and event marketing these days? At this point, if I was a brand marketer or media company exec about to execute an event marketing program, I would make sure three times over that absolutely nothing would be going in Boston, because, quite frankly, they're lame. Without going into too much detail, Cadbury Schweppes-owned Dr. Pepper was running a multi-market sweepstakes/scavenger hunt-type promotion whereby contestants using clues provided by Dr. P were searching for a coin they could then redeem for $1 million. Cool, right...wrong, in the case of Boston. As the story goes, one of the clues lead contestants to the Granary Burying Ground, the final home of some seriously important historic figures like Paul Revere and John Hancock, among others. Well, anyway, contestants started showing up at the gates (although there are conflicting reports on how many people showed up) so the city said they were forced to shut it the whole place down. Dr. Pepper reacted immediately amending the Boston portion of the sweeps and issuing a very quick statement of apology to the city. Certainly they learned something from the whole Cartoon Network debacle, but I have to think at this point, that it is just better off for marketers to stay away from Boston, it's more trouble than its worth.