August 2008

Grant Robertson reports on an unexpected consequence of the YouTube Age: fake but plausible commercials as well as brand endorsements with messages at odds with those brands' core values. In Created, he tells us about Häagen-Dazs' viral attempt to save the bees. And in Noted, Dave Michaels reports on Sears' new online boutiques for teens.

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Most marketers would agree the mobile space is worth consideration. What they might disagree on is where it's going. As mentioned, mobile ad spending is on the rise, as are mobile search and display advertising, albeit to a lesser degree. But what else does this burgeoning industry have in store for us, and what might we see emerging in the months and years to come?

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Media in Canada reports on a new Globe and Mail deal with uber-printer Transcontinental that will let the paper reproduce full colour on any page.



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The rollout of Beacon, which we told you about a few months ago, hasn't been entirely smooth.

But Facebook isn't standing still. Instead, it's exploring new ad formats that, management hopes, will better capitalize on users' desire to connect, and not necessarily be marketed to.

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On Friday, Globe advertising reporter Jennifer Wells gave us her take on ads that ran during Canadian coverage of the Games.

South of the border, Slate's Josh Levin does the same for commercials shown during NBC's coverage. Like Wells, he finds many efforts wanting, but he does find some nice things to say about McDonalds', Visa's and Nike's.





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Jennifer Wells surveys the best Canadian commercials aired during the Olympics, critiques a new ad for Coca-Cola and reports on a guerrilla promotion for Fido.

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The use of in-store digital ad screens that target customers based on where they are, what they touch or what time of day it is growing. And the marketers behind them are thinking big.



YCD Multimedia, a company that provides Dunkin' Donuts with its digital ad screens "is in the midst of deploying facial-recognition technologies that can classify people into certain demographic groups by identifying their approximate age and their sex."

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Interbrand-creation Brandchannel.com has just announced the winners of its fourth annual Brandcameo awards.

"A total of 52 films were No. 1 during their respective weeks at the U.S .box office during the period of January 2007 through June 2008. Several films reigned for more than one week.

"In these..., [we] spotted 1,251 brands. This works out to approximately 24.1 discernable brands per film, completely average for the millennium."

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Creativity's recent round table on the state of ad production is a long read but a good read for anyone with skin in the game.

The sister publication to Advertising Age brings together some of the industry's top players to uncover how "the duties of the production company and the producer--on both the 'traditional' and interactive side--have become more demanding and diverse."

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With the dog days of summer upon us, it's hard to believe that September is just around the corner. Maybe you're still in post-vacation mode: relaxed and refreshed. Or you have waited until now to take your days off for celebrating the waning weeks of summer 2008, catching up on Olympic fever. In either case, it makes a good deal of sense to set some goals for the fall, when the business mindset returns with a vengeance. It's a period where reputations can be made or broken before Christmas rears its snow-covered head.

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Jennifer Wells profiles Montreal-based agency Sid Lee and, in Created, commends a new Weston Bakeries ad that depicts winsome young Canadians preparing for the 2010 Games.

Meanwhile, in Noted, Wells reports on the reunion of aHarrod & Mirlin founders Brian Harrod and Ian Mirlin.

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Last week, we told you about a BusinessWeek story that claimed some megabrands were rethinking Olympic sponsorship. This week, we bring you another BusinessWeek article--one with a decidedly more glass-half-full POV.


In Learning from the Olympics, the mag looks at the benefits of being part of the Games, particularly when a company has an innovation to flaunt.

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