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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As with all newer communication channels, marketers continue to question how best to leverage the mobile medium for marketing purposes. Some use it to promote contests and drum up additional entries. Others have modified their Web sites to make them mobile phone-friendly. Where strategy is concerned, however, few have a solid handle yet on which approach--or combination thereof--works best, and why. This is largely because mobile marketing encompasses a number of opportunities, each of which serves a unique purpose.

The Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) has written that there are three primary areas of mobile marketing: Browsing, content, and messaging.

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Monday's Ad Age includes What Obama Can Teach You About Millennial Marketing--a meaty little piece that tries to explain why Obama's marketing is so effective with young people but also how it could backfire with older voters. At the same time, writer Peter Feld manages to extrapolate from this example to a bigger picture that reflects subtle distinctions between connecting with Millennials and doing it with Gen Xers or Boomers.

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Grant Robertson brings us a Toronto-based agency with its roots in Winnipeg and its future in...Dubai? It's an intriguing look at what sells and what doesn't in the Middle Eastern ad world (hint: sex doesn't).

As well, David Michaels gives us his takes on Universal Pictures and NBC's trailer for The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and an Old Spice ad that features Neil Patrick Harris of Doogie Howser, M.D., fame.

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