Advertising network Kanoodle will now pay webmasters for planting a cookie on a visitor's computer without ever showing an advertisement. Sites placing a cookie classifying a user's browsing habits into one of 7,500 contextual ad categories. Publishers in the program will be paid 5% of the revenue earned when an advertisement served on the Kanoodle network is triggered by a cookie generated on the publisher's site. Kanoodle advertisements are an integrated option for TypePad Pro users. Bloggers could profit from distributing cookies on their own personal weblogs for later monetization on a TypePad Pro site with advertising or other blogs…
Yesterday I attended the San Francisco auto show to geek out over the latest cars. A few companies stood out in their marketing efforts to connect their brands with passive customers. Chrysler had special photo zones around popular cars such as the Dodge Viper, a Chrysler 300 Dubs Edition with gull-wing doors, and the Chrysler Phaeton concept car. The company setup special floor mats as photo zones and attendees lined up to have their picture taken. Chrysler representatives handed special cards to everyone they photographed with a URL and access code to retrieve their digital photograph the next day. Subaru…
Napster UK has a sexy new commercial online to promote its music subscription service (NSFW). The commercial shows a 30 second peep show that abruptly ends as the stripper is about to remove her bra. The ad ends with "Leave you wanting more?" and links to a free trial subscription. Clever. A link to a free download for the commercial's musical track would have been a perfect ending. Tags: advertising, napster, commercials…
I created a sample product blog to demonstrate how a corporation might engage a potential market in advance of a product launch. I chose iRobot Corporation and their latest product, Scooba the floor washing robot. I created a blog named Scooba Clean to show what a product blog might look like in the six months before the product is released. Corporate marketing teams are often a bit afraid to enter the world of corporate blogging. They read reports of mobs of bloggers attacking CBS or Kryptonite and fear for the lives of their brands in the wild frontier that…
Bain & Company recently surveyed 362 firms and found that 80 percent believed they provided exceptional customer service while only 8 percent of their customers agreed with the firm's perceptions. Their findings are summarized in "Tuning In to the Voice of Your Customer" in the October issue of Harvard Management Update. Bain found "the ultimate test of any company's delivery lies in what customers tell others. The best companies find ways to tune in to customers' voices every day." I found the article very in-tune with blogging and customer engagement, promoting not only high profit customers but also high profits…
Advertising networks are becoming web hosts in an attempt to provide a fulfillment destination for click advertising. Bringing more businesses online provides a destination for online advertisements from small businesses such as plumbers and restaurants creating new destinations for local searches. Microsoft and Yahoo! already offer free hosting for businesses and other advertising dependent businesses such as Google, Amazon, or eBay are likely not far behind. What if every pizzeria in town had a website? Local searches suddenly become more interesting, with multiple pizzerias competing for your next purchase with a text advertisement on large search networks. Yahoo! offers a…
Dave Garr, a Silicon Valley marketing geek, decided to create a special website to propose to his girlfriend Elizabeth last week. The site parodies eHarmony and uses Web 2.0 engagement synergy technologies such as embedded video and a guide to dating milestones using Google Maps. The couple created a TypePad blog to allow friends and family to follow their wedding and honeymoon planning. I like the use of Google Maps to illustrate date locations and points of personal interest. The engagement process was heavily documented for friends and family who can follow along step-by-step and see pictures and video of…
A few months ago Sony closed down part of San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood to film a commercial with over 250,000 superballs bouncing down the hill.
Jordan Weisman, Sean Stewart, and Jim Stewartson 4orty2wo Entertainment are speaking tonight at the San Francisco International Game Developers Association about alternate reality games and I Love Bees, highly successful marketing campaign created for the launch of Halo 2.
You know it is going to be a good day when you receive an e-mail from Guinness inviting you to an all you can drink party to learn more about your favorite beer and give feedback.
Ben Edelman read through the 63-page EULA for Gator and found some pretty interesting clauses. You agree that you will not use, or encourage others to use, any unauthorized means for the removal of the GAIN AdServer, or any GAIN-Supported Software from a computer. Ad-Aware and Spybot are of course not on the approved list. Gator displays advertisements on a computers with its software installed. These advertisements are triggered by the sites you browse, often showing a competitive offering for e-commerce sites. Like spam, the way to make companies like Claria (makers of Gator) go away is to simply not…
Thomas Mucha of Business 2.0 takes a look at weblogs as a marketing tool. Some good quotes from Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems and David Sifry of Technorati. Technorati reports there are about 5,000 serious corporate blogs. Some good quotes. "[T]he blog is about competitive advantage." -Jonathan Schwartz "It's the same risk as giving someone a telephone." -Jonathan Schwartz on whether blogging poses a corporate risk "Bloggers were talking about Kryptonite's lock problems a week before the story hit the mainstream media. If Kryptonite had been paying attention to the blogosphere, they could have reacted sooner and smarter." -David Sifry…
New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is exploring selling naming rights to its subway stations, bus lines, bridges and tunnels. Mayor Bloomberg has also proposed selling naming rights to the city's parks. What's in a name?…
New York Times: "A code of conduct adopted in 1990 by the American Medical Association suggests that doctors should not accept any gift worth more than $100, but the guidelines are widely ignored."…
Kapust-Allen Enterprises is looking for college students interested in wearing a different temporary tattoo on their head every week. "The average student will earn $150 per week."…
