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In addition to being a news junkie, I am now a habitual contextual ad consumer. Many Web surfers, when visiting a news page try to block out all the ads that layer the screen to focus on the news text. But me, I look for the news and then I go in for the fun stuff--the sometimes very poorly placed contextual ads. Let's just say it gives me something to sardonically scoff about as I drink my coffee every morning.

A few examples (poor taste and all)...
--The quickie divorce ad that runs alongside a news story about a man murdering his family (if only he'd known he could have been divorced in 48 hours!)
--The luxury cruise ad that floats across the screen when you are reading about a ferry disaster (because it's always sunny in Greece!)
--Alongside a story about Sen. John Kerry runs an ad about visiting County Kerry, Ireland (ah, the luck of the Irish)
--Reports on car accidents are accompanied by text ads pushing the availability of cheap cars (because I'd love to buy one they just unwrapped from that light pole!)

You get the idea. Some of the flubs I see are just egregiously bad; others are just kind of amusing. So what is it going to take to clean up this part of marketing? It seems like a great opportunity for some smart database marketers and computer programmers to get together and find a solution. It is obvious that advertisers don't want to be paying for ads that accompany the wrong message, and news sites don't want to appear foolish either. Who's going to pick this up and run with it? Don't worry about me, I'll find something else to ridicule.

Posted by Allison at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When is Chris Anderson going to take a break?

I like the theory behind Chris Anderson's book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, and as marketers you should consider it, too. It basically says that businesses in the new economy will thrive on selling a larger catalog of products to niche markets (for example, the success of Netflix). The book came out about a year ago, has been on the business bestseller list, and has been reported upon, quoted and bantied about in marketing and advertising circles since. Anderson has been expanding on the success of the theory through numerous speaking engagements on the conference circuit--perhaps too many? I saw Anderson's presentation at AMA's Mplanet conference in December--just about six months after the book came out--and already some attendees were saying they'd seen the presentation before. To Anderson's credit and engaging presentation skills, the said attendees still went and saw it again.

As someone who takes a birds' eye view of the marketing industry, Anderson has been popping up absolutely everywhere, and, for me, it's to the point where I see his name on a conference listing and think "oh, not AGAIN." So I say, this guy needs a break. If you haven't read the book or seen him present, go buy it or catch him at any of the big summer conferences (he'll be at AdTech in August). After that I think it is time to let him go write another book (on his blog he says he's working on one)--or just rest on his laurels a bit and do his day job as the editor of Wired.

So how about it? Are you one of the thousands that have you seen Anderson's presentation or read his book? What do you think?

Posted by Allison at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A rather cool photo essay appears on Time magazine's website this week, detailing everything families from around the world consume in a week, and their weekly food expenses. From a family of six in Chad preparing soup from bags of grain for $1.23 a week, to developed nations like Japan and the United States, spending upwards of $300+ a week, it is visually interesting to get a peek inside the world's cupboards.

The photo essay can be found here: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519,00.html

It is also kind of cool, from a marketing perspective, to play 'find the American brands' in almost every photo. In the photo of a Kuwaiti family (8 people for about $220 a week), I picked out the brand logos for Lipton, Ritz, Kelloggs Corn Flakes and Heinz. In Beijing (4 people for about $155 a week), there's KFC. In Poland (5 people for about $150 a week), there's M&Ms, Coca-Cola and Pedigree dog food and Whiskas cat food for the family pets. These brands are all so normalizing.

I'll leave the rest of the photos be for your own Where's Waldo pleasure.

Posted by Allison at 2:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)