Advertising

One would think that the Corn Refiners Association would be busy enough right now that they could sit back and relax, but instead they are starting a big marketing campaign to beat back the Michael Pollans, Daniel Imhoffs and Richard Johnsons of the world who complain that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is making us fat. They are taking it to the public with a big new $30 million ad campaign, saying that t...

Jonasrisen at the always interesting Greenline does a wonderful job of collecting the most obvious and awful greenwashing ads in the architectural press, starting with the most egregious of them all, the hippie ad for LG Eden countertops. He writes:

"Advertising has an especially important role in presenting the idea of sustainability. Used properly, it can educate and activate the public to make the better decision for themselves and the world around them. Used ineffectively, advertising can ...

Screenvision and Verizon Wireless are getting together later this month to test an audience survey technology together, in 10 US cities. The idea is to encourage movie-goers to text message votes about their favorite music to the screen, where they'll see the results tallied (amidst the rolling series of pre-show advertisements.)News of the deal is here and here.If you're at a theater that's showing pre-show ads, I suppose it can't hurt to have more to do than just sitting there passively...though I do worry that this will make it seem OK to be text-messaging *during* the movie.

The big-money investments in social networking sites like Facebook are based on the notion that it will be possible to spin users' networks of friends into gold. But as a Google co-founder admitted today, no one has yet perfected it.One open question has been the strength of the connection between our online relationships and our online interests and buying behaviour.

Jaman, the Silicon Valley movie marketplace geared to indie content, is introducing ad-supported streaming this week. That adds a second revenue stream to Jaman's business model, which was originally built atop selling downloads and rentals of films.I don't think this is a surrender, indicating that downloads and rentals aren't working for Jaman, but it has undoubtedly been a challenge for the site to get visitors to hand over their credit card information... and ad-supported streaming makes it easier to simply start watching a movie that looks half-way interesting. Jaman will offer 100 ad-supported titles to start with.Here's the TechCrunch coverage ... and the official press release.

A creative way to cover a building for renovation...

(Thanks, Rafael)

The UK-based Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is a body that regulates truthfulness in advertising. We’ve already seen the authority step in to a number of disputes regarding sustainability claims – including banning a deceptive Lexus ad; a greenwashing campaign for conventional cotton, and claims from Ryanair that aviation accounted for only 2% of global greenhouse emissions. But it’s not just corporations that the ASA has on their toes – it also ...

Best Green-Ass Ads, Number 1

The Green Movement needs to compete for consumer attention. Funny, eye-catching ads open the door for change. As an inspiration, we bring you the five best ads featuring buttocks, mostly naked buttocks, to sell the environmental cause. Top ranked: Greenpeace's You Are My Sunshine Ad for energy efficient lightbulbs. File under: "Only the British..."...

When Statefarm came out with an ad that demeaned cyclists, the outrage from readers at Streetsblog, Grist and ourselves was such that the company

People who invest in digital media and Internet video content have one belief: that creatives are gonna find a way to produce really compelling content that attracts big audiences much more cheaply than the studios. When you've attracted a big audience, advertising dollars will follow. That has been the thinking behind Vuguru, 60Frames, MyDamnChannel, FunnyOrDie, and now, EQAL, a micro-studio formed by the guys behind the lonelygirl15 series and KateModern.EQAL just raised $5 million from Spark Capital in Boston; Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape; and Ron Conway, one of the original investors behind Google. Here's the Wall Street Journal coverage ... the NewTeeVee story ....

Phorm is an open advertising exchange and proprietary ad serving technology that "uses anonymised ISP data to deliver the right ad to the right person at the right time and the right number of times i.e. it gives consumers advertising that's tailored to their interests with irrelevant ads replaced in the process." Got it? And they go on to say, that the technology behind it takes consumer privacy protection to a new level by not storing any personally identifiable information, IP addresses or information on user browsing behaviour. Maybe this could be the first contender to the Google AdSense monopoly. Maybe not.

10 days ago, i was in Ghent for the festival The Game is Up! at the Vooruit. Artists who study the relationship between art and consumerism were invited to perform, and present their work to explore this year's theme: Art for Sale.

In a previous post I wrote about Live Drive, a project that had a camera mounted to a scalextric car that you could drive around a model town & see the video stream live, created for a Honda advertising campaign.

This time Tokyo based Semitransparent Design have created another live virtual environment for Lupin the 3rd. Lupin III is a popular character in Japan, having anime tv series and movies, about a gang of thieves who steal treasure and escape from the law (watch video).

Last night's sold-out MITX panel, 'Internet Video: What's Next?', was a lot of fun... and a full house despite dire warnings of impending precipitation. (Which always get Bostonians agitated.)

In the audience was a big contingent of video folks from the Globe, at least one exec from Visible Measures, video analyst Will Richmond, blogger and consultant Cesar Brea, and lots of folks from PermissionTV, one of the event's sponsors.

I won't try for a comprehensive re-cap here, but we talked about three areas: how is viewing behavior changing on the Web; how are videos made and distributed, and how are they monetized and measured.

The previously noted Shoreditch Decapitator released a video today documenting his decapitation of a Motorola newspaper ad featuring Beckham. It all goes down in less than three hours.

[also posted over here]

Wow - does this finally mean I can pick up a copy of iD or Vogue and not pull a muscle?!?

Article Here