August 22, 2008 at 10:25 pm · Filed under Advertising and Media
About a week and a half ago Bell launched a new brand campaign.
New logo, new spots, everything. Everybody I know is talking about it.
People in the agency are interested in it in large part because it was ‘conceived’ by Alpha Zulu Kilo, Zach Mroueh’s new shop. My non-ad friends are just talking about it because it’s new and they’ve noticed - in large part thanks to all the mainstream press.
I like the logo (which some people are saying is an updated version of their 1977 logo), love the simple renaming of their services (Sympatico becomes Bell Internet, Express Vu becomes Bell TV, etc), but am not sure what the ‘er’ thing means. I’m not sure about the TV spots either (though I don’t really know much about TV). They feel lukewarm but they’re unoffensive especially when compared to the recently dumped Frank and Gordan spots - that is, my dad probably won’t be offended enough to cancel his TV service.
I hope it works for them. It’s a good logo and the strategy seems to reflect simplicity, which is always better than complicated when it comes to the traditionally complex-seeming services Bell offers.
August 18, 2008 at 8:51 pm · Filed under Personal
Turns out I’m not a great blogger. Here’s why: the busier I get at work, the less I find time to blog - and honestly, the less I want to. When I’m away from the computer, all I want to do is stay away and get fresh air or a pint or whatever.
I’ve been nuts busy for the last month, so I’ve left poor Crafted Content to wallow with Ashton Kutcher headlines at the top of the page.
Sucks.
But recently one of my favourite blog networks, GigaOm, launched a new blog called GigaOmDaily, a blog concept clearly modeled after Twitter. It’s basically a feed of quick ‘news’. Short posts. No analysis. Just stuff worth knowing - from 30,000 ft.
It’s an interesting concept, and maybe a better model for what I’m trying to do here.
Gonna give it a try. Hopefully rather than ignoring CC all together ’cause I can’t stand to post anything that feels incomplete, I’ll be more compelled to post even short bits when I come across them.
Rock on.
July 12, 2008 at 6:27 pm · Filed under Advertising and Media
Screenwriter John August has a guest post on his blog written by Todd Sklar, an indie filmmaker who has tried and succeeded with an alternative strategy to promote his low budget feature, Box Elder.
The gist is this: He and several of his cast and crew toured from city to city with the film for 3 months, promoting his screenings in advance of each stop with grassroots marketing and social media. They split ticket revenue 50/50 with the theatres they screened in along the way, and at the last 11 screenings they sold DVDs.
They ended up selling 9,600 tickets, 800+ DVDs and profiting $11K. Little tiny money for a lot of hard work, but it’s an interesting read (as is most of the material published on JohnAugust.com).
Check it out.
The Box Elder trailer is embedded below.
July 1, 2008 at 1:35 pm · Filed under Advertising and Media, Interactive Strategy
The agency world let out a collective sigh of relief today as Google (and to a lesser degree of importance, Yahoo) announced that they’re now able to index Flash websites.
We’ve been moving Mighty away from doing ‘all Flash all the time’ for a while, and while we’re getting along just fine in terms of building in other technologies, it’s simply a challenge to recreate the richness of a Flash experience in a non-Flash site.
This is good news for us, our clients and the people that use the sites we make.
June 30, 2008 at 12:14 pm · Filed under Advertising and Media, Video
There have been rumors floating around the blogs for a while about “Family Guy” creator, Seth MacFarlane, working on an animated web series called “Cavalcade”. While that alone is nothing new - Who in Hollywood isn’t creating a web series? - what makes this story uniquely interesting is the rumored distribution method, Google AdSense.
The NYT has an article that vaguely outlines the plan:
Google will syndicate the program using its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlane’s target audience, typically young men. Instead of placing a static ad on a Web page, Google will place a “Cavalcade” video clip.
This is certainly a story to keep an eye on for a couple of reasons:
- AdSense is arguably the most effective and wide-reaching online ad network on the web, which puts it in good position to be an extremely powerful distribution channel for original content. This could very well be the beginning of a new and more effective distribution and monitization method for original video content creators.
- It may force/allow us to reconsider the current banner/text ad model - imagine these placements offering content of value to their audience instead of simply “Buy Now!” type direct response messages. Some brands, including one of the biggies I spent a lot of time working on in my day job, have sponsorship driven advertising strategies that work well for them. Currently, however, the sponsorship model is largely an offline, real world strategy, not fully applied to online (tech and early adopter type brands aside). Could this be the beginning of new online sponsorship model for the rest of us?
When a couple of 400 lb gorillas get together, there’s no telling what their love child will look like, but you can always bet that they’re hoping it’s bigger and badder than each of them individually.
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