On the heels of Advertising Week and all of the feel-good excitement it generates, the feeling intensified that there's too much mis-directed emphasis in digital media. The reasons for this could be due to digital media's "youth," but I'm worried it's based more on lack of vision or creativity. Far too often, the take-aways from large events or [...]
I've been quite bullish on the need to move away from straight demographics in marketing and media from some time. And I haven't been alone. We see in research that a person's age or sex isn't always the best marker of what the consumer is interested in. Even some products that historically might have been [...]
More brands and agencies are finding that the opportunity to generate video views cheaply online are only part of the equation. The online video platform is allowing marketers the opportunity to present some targeted creative that might have otherwise been considered out of bounds and accesses a new audience. A case in point is Ragu's [...]
USA Today filed a report on hotels and their "new" quest to engage teens and pre-teens with programming and other benefits to build early hotel loyalty. The quest is all fine and good, but USAT assumes that the marketing is specific to the teens, when the real recipient is the parent. When you look at [...]
After a ten-day blackout of Viacom-owned cable networks on DirecTV, the sides finally announced this morning that they have come to an agreement. It may be a while before it is absolutely clear what the real impact of this standoff was. During the blackout, there were measurable elements that fluctuated but the real ramifications could be [...]
A few weeks ago, I was showing a cousin visiting from Germany (in the middle of a year-long volunteering stint in Mexico City) around Los Angeles. Part of that trip took us to the Pueblo de Los Angeles - the original city of Los Angeles - and its environs. Needless to say, the area is [...]
Sarah Mahoney might have incorrectly or unfairly categorized JCPenney's newest ad as pandering to the Right in her recent MediaPost entry. Whether it is, in fact, the company's attempt to counter any backlash that they have received from their same-sex marriage ads or not, they might be doing more damage than good - due to [...]
Media As more and more people are surfing the internet through their smartphones or tablets, the optimal serving of assets specific to that platform becomes more important. There are some who default to a mobile version and some who just provide the website as you would see it through a computer browser. Others provide [...]
At the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles last week, Lionsgate's CEO, Jon Feltheimer responded to a question with the statement that studios will likely be spending less on television ads and more on digital promotion in the future. Whether that full shift takes place in a few years or a decade, I don't know. But the shift has [...]
Over the past couple of days, there's been many good panels taking place at the Spring Digital Hollywood conference in Marina del Rey. I believe I heard the conference's organizer, Victor Harwood, mention that there were over 600 participants through around five or six concurrent program lines (such as the Variety Entertainment and Technology, Connected TV - Hollywood Alliance, [...]