Super Bowl Ads

Ninety minutes before kickoff and it's a good time to look at sites featuring Super Bowl ads! Advertisers must be thrilled with the coverage of their advertising plans. More exposure, more attention, more discussion, more bang for their ad bucks. Here are just a few of the sites I've checked:

• Superbowl-Ads - Vote for favorites, see last year's winners, retrospective of earlier years' ads.
• YouTube - More voting for favorite ads - "done YouTube style" according to the site.
• CBS Sports 2007 Super Bowl Ads - Quarter by quarter and advertiser by advertiser, posted for posterity.
• MSNBC ad showdown - Bracket-style, vote for ads and see which comes out the overall winner.
• Adland's spoiler - Advance info (?) and archives about Super Bowl ads, spoilers and all.

Giants or Patriots? Heart says Giants, head says Patriots.

Nostalgia for Old Stores and Malls

Remember the way stores and shopping centers used to look? They're b-a-c-k and will live forever, at least on the Internet--sometimes in black and white, sometimes in glorious color. Here are a few sites to browse:

• History of the Shopping Center follows the evolution from European shopping plazas to today's lifestyle shopping centers.
• Wikipedia's entry on the Shopping Mall goes back to early bazaars and also covers contemporary issues like vertical malls, dead malls, and legalities.
• Pleasant Family Shopping shows photos of supermarkets and stores from the past 50 years, with links to other blogs and sites with more photos and nostalgia.
  

Buzz Only Kills a Useless Product Faster

Three INSEAD professors say that building a lot of buzz can hurt adoption and market size when a product is "perceived as 'useless.'" Read the whole article here. Bottom line, according to the profs:

"When you have a new product that is not useful, then negative word of mouth spreads quickly and leads to that product dying quickly.”

The point for marketers, therefore, is to generate buzz that reflects not just how new a product is but also how useful it is.

Getting Mushy over Store Ads

Recent JC Penney commercials are intriguing and moving, thanks to the interesting songs/lyrics and the focus on people, not products. Here's what Bob Garfield of Advertising Age thinks, including a look at the "Calendar" commercial featuring "So Say I" by Forever Thursday. I replayed this commercial 7 times and enjoyed it every single time, thanks to the wonderful music.

The store's new slogan, "Every Day Matters," goes to the heart of the matter (pun intended). People do care about products and brands, but they care more about their own lives. Penney's marketing reflects that priority, showing that it understands what's important to its customers (me included). And I like that the commercials aren't gussied up with voice-overs, dialogue, product plugs, etc., which lets me enjoy a few seconds of people enjoying their lives before the Penney logo shows up at the end. Watch for the diamonds, by the way, slid in subtly.

DIY Ringtones

Check out Mobile17.com, where you can turn any MP3 file into a ringtone for your cell phone--for free. SmartMoney magazine mentioned it in the February issue, also noting that the service can be slow if many people are using the site at that time. However, making a donation to the company will send your ringtone conversion to the top of the list.

I don't know about the legal issues here, but remembering that people used to record all kinds of messages for their answering machines, I guess ringtones are the next level in phone personalization.

Marketing Resolutions for 2008

New year's resolutions for marketing:

1. Know and honor thy customers. Without customers, no product can ever be successful. Customers aren't a distraction or a nuisance--they're what keeps every business in business.
   
2. Know and check up on thy suppliers. Mattel is only one of a number of marketers that ran into trouble because of what suppliers did or didn't do.
3. Know and nurture thy channels. Amazon has helped make the Flip camcorder (top right) a success by featuring it on the home page. Can Amazon make its Kindle reader a success too? Only time will tell.
4. Know thy pricing limitations. No wonder DVDs are selling so well: It's much cheaper for a family to buy the latest Disney movie (even at full price) than to see it at a first-run theater (don't even think about buying that over-priced popcorn and soda). And because it's cheap and easy to download only the best songs from iTunes, CD sales should continue to plummet in 2008.
5. Know and honor thy brand. The Hannah Montana franchise is strong because it stars wholesome Miley Cyrus but what will happen to Zoey 101 as long as Jamie Lyn Spears stays in the tabloid headlines?

Finally, like Frodo, reconcile yourself to change. It's the least we can expect from 2008. Happy new year to all.

The Future of Catalogs

My mailbox was full of catalogs this holiday season, including some from firms I haven't done business with in more than a decade. Is the Web killing off catalogs? Business Week looked at that issue in November and then examined the opt-out situation in December.

The Direct Marketing Association offers its Mail Preference Service, which allows consumers to specify which catalogs they prefer not to receive. But (and it's a big but) consumers have to include a credit card number to (1) verify their identity and (2) pay DMA $1 for the service. The association assures consumers that it uses "secure payment transaction processing to protect your credit card information."

So does the DMA think someone might maliciously decide to submit my name to be removed from the mailing list of a catalog I absolutely love? Or is this a way to make it more difficult for me to keep my mailbox clear of catalog clutter?

The DMA told Business Week that it will soon eliminate the $1 fee. But what about the requirement of submitting a credit card number? Sounds like a lot of unnecessary paperwork to discourage consumers from opting out. Ironically, the catalog companies are the real losers, since they spend time and money printing and mailing catalogs to too many people who just dump them in the recycle bin. Is that the future of catalogs?

Go Green with a ch-ch-ch-Chia Pet

Hard to believe, but new Chia Pets are introduced every year. Take a look at the latest crop (pun intended) on the site of maker Joseph Enterprises. From Shrek and Donkey to Bart and Homer Simpson, Chias are ready for your holiday gag gift-giving. Go green with ch-ch-ch-Chia!

Smithsonian Magazine recently covered Joe Pedott's marketing prowess in making Chia Pet the iconic brand it is today. Pedott is also responsible for making the Clapper a big hit. Who knew?

Troops of Bothers

Here's part of the packaging from a "Military Play Set--Soldier Heroism" made in China and imported by a company in California. Just below the word "soldier" is an interesting title: "Troops of Bothers." So that's what these toys are? Actually, they were cheapo plastic military trucks, cars, boats with fall-off wheels.

Flipping over the Flip

Just 1" deep, smaller than most digital cameras (at 2 1/8" x 4"), the Flip video device is handy and easy to use. Who needs a bulky, complicated camcorder when you can flip over the Flip? I put it on a tiny tripod to take unattended vids of important occasions like young family members trimming the tree. (Nobody even notices it's there--but I know because the red light shows that it's recording up to 60 mins worth of memories.)

To transfer video to my PC, I just flip out the built-in USB connector and let the included software walk me through the process. I can even grab snapshots from video segments or edit and bring segments together to make a movie. What could be handier?

Read about it on The Flip site. Worth checking out!