Iconic Covers

The 02138 cover here along with one from New York (below) challenge us in a similiar way to the approach of George Lois, who enjoyed taunting our sensibilities with his many covers for Esquire magazine.

On "The Charlie Rose Show" in June 2005, Mr. Lois described how he came to created the Ali cover that created a buzz that grew into a roar!

"Harry Hayes came to me. I did covers for him and I -- for 10 years -- and I did three covers during a very tough period of Ali`s life. " He was waiting for the Supreme Court to make a decision. And that kind of nailed down the fact that I and many other people in America saw Ali as a martyr."

***The 40 greatest magazine covers of the past 40 years ---as selected by the American Society of Magazine Editors. American Society of Magazine Editors Unveiled for more information on their Top 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years published in 2005 <> contact Cristina Dinozo, Manager/Communications, MPA cdinozo@magazine.org. Rolling Stone's John Lennon-Yoko Ono cover of Jan. 22, 1981, ranked first; In third place was the April 1968*** cover of Esquire, "The Passion of Muhammad Ali," showing the heavyweight champ with arrows in his body, taken as the Supreme Court considered his five-year jail sentence for draft evasion. It later ruled in Ali's favor and Playboy's October 1971 cover tied for 29th.

Enjoy a stroll through ad legend George Lois' exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York here: http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/exhibitions.php?id=8158&ref=calendar !

***

How to Double your Ad Sales Revenues

Time and again the sales closers at leading media use The Advertising Database.

How do you prospect?

Recent research conducted by MIT and Kellogg reinforces Arthur Barbato’s Cardinal Principle of Sales Success. If you make access to the decision makers within brands fast and easy to use your sales will likely increase. The cardinal principle of salesperson acceptance is embedded in self-interest. If the individual salesperson perceives value they will embrace it. If they don’t, they won’t.

Quid pro quo.

Pleasing every individual on a sales team is theoretically possible, but not likely. It is important to emphasize that there is no way everyone is going to be immediately satisfied with changes no matter how effective they may be in enlarging the sales performance by virtue of the fact of natural resistance to anything that looks complicated by a stiff learning curve. In other words, user acceptance results in more sales.

“Doubledown had revenue of more than $10 million in 2007 and anticipates at least twice as much in 2008. The company’s advertising pages increased by 68 percent from 2006 to 2007, to 1,089 from 648. Doubledown’s bigger and more established competitor, The Robb Report, also had an increase in ad pages in 2007, to 1,763 from 1,752 in 2006, according to TNS Media Intelligence."-nytimes.com_32408-By CATE DOTY
Published: March 24, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/business/media/24traders.html?ref=business

photo credit: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Media Sales Performance Implications

Our observations suggest that the market rewards media sales executives that perceive opportunities early, scan for targets, and zoom in to produce an actionable group of prospects for their respective media and move on them before others in media sales.

Conversely, the market tends to punish those media sales executives that depend on existing brand relationships to sustain their ad revenue pipeline.

Followers, or those that merely imitate the moves of ad sales leaders, typically lose significant revenue streams to the leaders that ID the brands and agencies that are attuned to their media and timing by virtue of an identified RFP or plan timing preference.

Thousands of brands with agency URLs on http://www.addataexpress.com/ More brands with target demographics, geographic emphases, media preferences, and plan timing then you will likely find anywhere else.

email me: art [at] addata.net ;)

World's Largest Spirits OOH Ad

Jim Beam, along with the RIO All-Suite Hotel & Casino teamed up to unveil the world's largest distilled spirits advertisement for a summer ending roar of WOM! The building wrap, measures 32,000 square feet and is 40 stories tall. That is roughly --- 400 feet tall!

JB Brands gave the nod to a new marketing paradigm this summer. A shift that began with a huge dose of humor and drama as a 20-foot-long message was hung from Beam Brands’ CMO, Rory Finlay’s office late this summer that read, “Building brands people want to talk about.” Rory got the nod in January - - - he was a key player in the launch of Orbit gum... nothing like a campaign that is so hugely successful that you have trouble spending the money they throw at you, is there!?!... 23 million when Rory took over, then 28 million the following year and last year Rory's team was asked to spend 50 million in ad dollars - - - 48 million was confirmed spent by TNS in 2006.

Omnicom’s Zocalo Group along with energyBBDO and Zipatoni (see earlier article) have all been tapped, so, more to come…for sure…the movement of their TV spots walks the same walk: Fox Sports Network, OLN, Nip/Tuck, then The Best Damn Sports Show Period, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and now Spike TV. All air after 9PM and all attract a 74%+ over 21 audience.
btw- The effort to build the buzz into a roar continues with the creation of a seven-figure funding pool for WOM ideas from anyone within JB Brands!

Old School propinquity? A very recent Senate Resolution establishes September as National Bourbon Heritage Month!

Today’s (9.17.07) New York Times (nytimes.com) list of Magazine Ad page changes includes: Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Guideposts, and The Smithsonian. Both The New York Post www.NYPOST.com and The Wall Street Journal www.wsj.com have announced spin-off publications that are designed to "add ad pages" today too!

OOH Spring 2007 in New York City

The USPS installed R2D2 mailboxes in major cities from LA to NYC. As the legion of Star Wars fans around the world first learned 30 years ago, R2-D2 is the droid companion to the lead actor hero and embodies the dependability for which the Postal Service is equally renowned.

The photo of the ad wrapped Post Office Mail Box here was taken at the corner of 34th and Fifth, across the street from The Empire State Building.

Not only do the new OOH wrapped US Mail Boxes look like the ever-popular Star Wars character, feature the address of a website that gives hints that entices interaction revealing the “real meaning” behind this unprecedented promotion

http://www.uspsjedimaster.com/


- - - they are active US Mail drop points too!

R2-D2 collection boxes have also been spotted in Richmond VA and Columbus OH. Unfortunately, the one in downtown Columbus is now MIA!




At the other end of the spectrum in OOH pictured here from a site on 32nd St and Madison Ave. The Alt Press poster, is garnering a good buzz in metro centers from NY to LA. Here is a photo of the latest OOH www.Altpress.com poster- - - which is so coveted - - - it is being traded on eBay.

Mobile Advertising Targets Key Demographic

How do you get your prime demographic target to enter your store?

Send them downloadable coupons through their phones! T.G.I.Fridays, Hardee’s and a plethora of pizza parlors have learned that it works! According to The Advertising Database’s March edition T.G.I.Fridays demographic target audience is 25-49.

One company, Cellfire, currently has downloadable coupons available for either a free appetizer or $5 off a $15 purchase. One user of CellFire, reportedly using the service for a couple of weeks now say they get a variety of coupons from T.G.I. Fridays, Hollywood Video, Omaha Steaks, 1-800-Flowers, and eMagazine invites from both new and traditional magazines too such as Conde Nast’s Portfolio, Wired, GQ, Brides and others.

Hardee's in both St. Louis and Indianapolis began experimenting with CellFire a few weeks ago and testing is “going well” and may soon be expanded nationally. Their marketing team is tracking responses and building algorithms to quantify the results.

How many young men or women do you know who clip coupons?

My guess would be not many! National restaurants realize this, and in an effort to better entice their target market and interact with them many will be offering coupons that can be downloaded directly to their mobile phone. Once on the phone, the consumer only has to show the screen to the cashier to receive the discounted price.

Hardee's in Indianapolis and St. Louis began using the service a few weeks ago to test their market, and if it proves to be successful they may expand it nationally. "We're getting positive feedback from a couple of restaurants. It's too early to talk about expansion," according to Steve Lemley, VP of Field Marketing for Hardee's.
The current favorite advertising delivery methods for enticing interaction are text messaging invites for food discount coupons and sweeps that vary from a trip to Orlando, to win an iPod and invites to vote for something such as your favorite American Idol.
American Express, has begun to stream adapted TV ads on cell phones.

Last summer, you may recall, McDonald's in Southern California distributed coupons for a free McFlurry. Customers had go to a Web site, enter a cell-phone number, and then they would get the coupon as a text message.

Dunkin' Donuts had a similar campaign back in 2005 in Boston for 99-cent lattes. Dunkin’ Donuts marketing reports that store traffic increased 21 percent within the targeted geographical distribution.

The Marion Chronicle-Tribune reports: "The Internet is limited. Paper coupons are expensive." Brent Dusing, co-founder and CEO of Cellfire added,"... with the mobile phone we have a pervasive relationship with the consumer."

Besides your wallet and keys, your cell is something that you don't leave home without, isn’t it? email arthur[at]addata.net with any questions.
BTW- Here is Hardee's latest web site to complete a beautiful cross-platform mix of mobile TV spots and web. http://www.spicybuffalo.com

Blogophobia's Cure

The uptrend of web 2.0 blogging is a wave that must be rode, but increasingly, the corporate world is finding difficulty doing anything beyond defenestrating in-house submissions. So prevalent is this tendency to find absolutely nothing but yawns and banal sleep inducing posts in-house that blogging is the latest corporate function to be out-sourced!


Just look at these Advertising Industry Blogs that have, well, virtually died on the vine:


BBDO http://www.bbdo-u.com/blog

DNA Blog http://blog.dna.co.uk

Sense http://www.senseworldwide.com/2.0

TBWA http://thebigwhatadventure.com


No doubt about it, writing about yourself is a most difficult exercise.


Here's how it works.


The outsource blogging media firm (PayPerPost) charges a Brand or Senior Corporate Entity for the work done, upon approval, so both Brands and Companies can enjoy the snarky humor and unique perspective of some of the brightest writers on the planet.