Slate columnist Daniel Gross posted an interesting contrarian piece on Wednesday.

In it, Gross maintains that, in the U.S. at least, "many newspaper-doomsayers are conflating hope with analysis."

Certainly, things have been rougher for American newspaper publishers than they have been their Canadian counterparts. Nevertheless, headlines emanating from south of the border can colour our perceptions, so it's nice to hear someone stand up to the doom-and-gloom crowd.

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From the Guardian's Media Monkey blog: "The great and the good of the UK PR industry got a bit of their own medicine at the annual PR Week magazine awards last night. The swanky black tie affair, held at Grosvenor House on Park Lane, was infiltrated by members of airport activist group Plane Stupid. The interlopers targeted the table booked by Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic. A kerfuffle ensued during the dinner phase of the evening which reportedly resulted in five police vehicles--and as many as 20 bobbies--turning up removing the Plane Stupid members."

Read More >> Simon Houpt looks at the damage marketers cause when they toy with consumers' trust in an attempt to go viral. Such attempts not only make the public at large even more cynical about marketing, they can also backfire and seriously damage a brand. In Created, he brings us four online spots created by Simon Pure Marketing for this year's Toronto Zombie Walk. In Noted, Houpt looks into the Great Metro Voiceover Mystery. And in Quoted, he shares an anecdote from Terry O'Reilly and Mike Tennant's soon-to-be-published book, The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture.

Read More >> A KFC giveaway with lots of fine print
Marketers regard Oprah Winfrey as a rainmaker, but here's one publicity stunt where we bet the involvement of the daytime talk show queen wouldn't be welcome. On Nov. 1, KFC Canada is promoting its new boneless chicken fillet with a two-hour, 250,000-piece giveaway. Back in May, when Oprah helped spread the word about a similar KFC promotion in the U.S., thousands of consumers went home empty-handed after stores ran out of its new grilled chicken meal. Just for fun, we'd like to see a Canadian celebrity try to gin up that sort of frenzy. George Stroumboulopoulos, the gauntlet has been thrown.

Read More >> "Marketers are discovering more and more ways they might potentially leverage Twitter to make money, even as the microblogging site appears to be doing its best to ignore--and in some cases, outright discourage--them."



So writes MarketingVox.com in a piece about Twitter CEO Evan Williams' presentation at this year's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

Read More >> The editors of Mediaweek recently published their media outlook for 2010.

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Simon Houpt looks at barcode advertising. While still in its infancy, the technology has been adopted by a number of big-name marketers, among them Labatt, Sears and Best Buy. In Created, he brings us a witty campaign for "fledgling wireless company" Wind Mobile. In Noted, Houpt reports on a new trend--one in which marketers promote a faux-brand from a category other than their own. Finally, in Quoted, Houpt writes about Metro Inc.'s first TV ad since taking over Dominion.

Read More >> ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WERE ADS and there were scams, and never the twain did meet. But with the industry being embarrassed over a handful of notorious scam ads--creatively edgy spots made to grab industry attention without being seen by the public, such as the ad supposedly made in the name of the World Wildlife Fund that used Sept. 11 imagery--awards shows have come down hard. This week, the Cannes Lions declared a ban on the practice but then said it wouldn't necessarily ban agencies that do it. Way to take a stand, Cannes!

Read More >> Because it's Friday, something fun.

A joint commission between the U.K.'s Foundation for Art and Creative Technology and the Liverpool City Council for BBC Big Screen Liverpool, Hand From Above is an interactive public-space installation.

According to artist Chris O'Shea's website, the work "encourages us to question our normal routine when we often find ourselves rushing from one destination to another."



Read More >> As a certified language fuddy duddy, I'm irked whenever I hear a newly launched online video described as "viral."

To my mind, a video (or a microsite or a widget or whatever) isn't viral until it spreads. Its creators may hope it goes viral but, to a certain extent, that's out of their hands.



After it's released into the digital ecosphere, a marketing effort might infect consumers' enthusiasm so much that they tell five friends about it, who in turn tell five friends, and so on. If it does, those responsible for the effort have a bona fide viral hit on their hands. If it doesn't, then carefully their thought-out program is just that: a carefully thought-out program.

Eric Swayne is someone who gets it. In opinion piece that showed up Tuesday on AdAge.com, Swayne argues that the best viral marketing isn't viral marketing at all--it's meme marketing.

Read More >> In case you missed it, Media in Canada has a quick summary of the Canadian Newspaper Association's 2009 Extra Award winners.

Among the well-deserved shout-outs: Cossette Toronto earned Best of Show and two golds, Vancouver's Rethink scored 12 awards along with two Certificates of Excellence, and Quebec City's Lg2 walked away with seven Extras.

For more, see the full Media in Canada article. To view all the winning entries, visit the CNA Extra website.

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Simon Houpt looks at the new guidelines for bloggers and other social-media mavens passed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. In Created, Houpt brings us a would-be viral for Wonderful Pistachios that stars Levi Johnston, whom you might remember as the guy who almost became Sarah Palin's son-in-law. Houpt also notes the increased use of the glockenspiel in TV ads. And in Quoted, he writes about "an independent comedy out next week about four ad types--the agency VP, the junior account exec, the copywriter and the art director--who have to work together with their nervous client to survive when their plane crash lands in northern Ontario.

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