Marketing and media news

• AdAge’s Pete Blackshaw shares 5 great things about the new Twitter interface [AdAge]
• Chris Brogan gives tips on how to make sure your blogger pitch gets read [Chris Brogan]
• Disney incorporating user-generated content into its new advertising creative [Adweek]
• The Twitter-inspired CBS TV show “$#*! My Dad Says” has a DVR problem – the devices don’t recognize the characters at the beginning of the show’s title [NYT]
• After a controversial redesign, visits to Digg.com are sharply down [Hitwise Intelligence] Read More »

Marketing and media news

• In the course of denying that his company is building a mobile phone, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg talks to TechCrunch about mobile strategy [TechCrunch]
• Speaking of Facebook, they have high hopes for Credits, their virtual currency [NYT]
• According to a new study, teens engage in a disproportionate amount of word-of-mouth promotion [Adweek]
• Reviewing the Roku, a set-top box that streams music, video and other content [MacWorld]
• Public broadcasting is making a play toward baby boomers [NYT]
• MySpace is displaying some ‘intrusive’ advertising in support of the new movie The Social Network [Adweek] Read More »

MLC’s research has established that one way B2B companies differentiate themselves in areas other than price is by insight marketing: creating content that conveys credible and provocative insight into the customers’ world, and demonstrates how the your unique differentiators ultimately solve a customer’s business objectives.

If content is king, how do you get your customers to stay tuned in? After all, this is an era of fragmented attention: we have thousands of media outlets and advertisers vying for our eyes, especially on the web. Every week, dozens of interesting business books are published, and for busy executives, to-read stacks get higher and higher. For years, content producers have been told to go with the flow: assume your audience’s attention span is close to zero, and make your content snappy enough to be read quickly. Read More »

Marketing and media news

• Tough to summarize this long HBR piece, but its a fascinating look at how General Electric grew its marketing function after a few decades of relegating marketers to sales support or communications [Harvard Business Review]
• Wal-Mart is planning smaller, urban stores [USA Today]
• Beauty brand L’Oreal appoints its first CEO [AdAge]
• Research in Motion, creators of the Blackberry, will release an iPad competitor as early as next week [WSJ]
• Can Chinese brands compete on the world stage? Not without fixing a few issues, according to a new report [Adweek] Read More »

Marketing and media news

• Consumer tracking software, such as Flash cookies, has a number of online shoppers up in arms – and contemplating litigation [NYT]
• Social proof in action: an influential network of mommy bloggers is working with P&G to implement a social seal of approval [Adweek]
• Pepsi’s ‘Refresh’ project now has more votes than the last US presidential election [Mashable]
• Technology vendors are taking advantage of some of the unique properties of web video to offer platform-specific advertising tools [WSJ]
• Comparing the media plans of Audi and BMW [AdAge] Read More »

It’s a slow news day today – back next week with much more!

Marketing and media news

• Sales of Microsoft’s new Halo title, Halo: Reach, hit $200m on its first day [Reuters]
• Your top 3 global brands: Coca-Cola, IBM, and Microsoft [Adweek]
• McDonald’s Foursquare day promotion had some outsized ROI: $1000 spent, 33% increase in foot traffic [Econsultancy]
• Most big brands don’t do too much with Groupon and other social couponing sites, but in case you do, be aware – their brands are taking a bit of a hit [TechCrunch]
• Some emerging details on Google’s “social layer” [TechCrunch]

Across the last six weeks, Wide Angle has shared a variety of perspectives on marketing planning. As (hopefully!) the season draws to a close for most of our members, let’s take a step back and look at the ground we’ve covered:

As planning season got started, Anna shared thoughts on how to justify spend increases in a down economy, courtesy of Pat LaPointe of Marketing NPV. The takeaway here? Squeeze every drop from your current spend, make your priorities clear, and actively manage risk. Your CFO will thank you! Read More »

This week, the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project released a report examining mobile app adaption among American adults. Apps, just as a refresher, are third-party programs that can be installed on smartphones; typically, they are sold or offered for download in platform-specific stores like Apple’s App Store and the Android Marketplace.

With many marketers looking at developing apps for their brands, it’s worth a look at just how consumers are interacting with them.

Here are 10 of the more interesting nuggets from Pew’s report: Read More »

Marketing and media news

• The Television Bureau of Advertising is changing its focus, providing a resource for local marketers [NYT]
• Diaspora, a Facebook competitor, has been released [TechCrunch]
• Carrefour undergoing strategy shift, will focus on high-quality private labels, seeks to become the “IKEA of groceries” [WSJ]
• Analyzing the responses to hacked e-mail accounts: what do they say about trust in advertising? [AdAge] Read More »

Marketing and media news

• Twitter launched a site redesign yesterday that it hopes will compete with third-party applications [NYT]
• Fast Company looks at how the new Twitter compares with some prominent apps [Fast Company]
• High fructose corn syrup, the often-maligned sweetener, is looking for a new name [WSJ]
• A major newspaper group is offering an attractive guarantee to advertisers: if a print campaign doesn’t result in 10% higher sales volume, the last ad in the campaign is free [NYT] Read More »