Business and Advertising

Web users under the microscope.
Now digital publishers are refining their pitch, selling the behaviour of their online audiences as the next frontier in advertising.

In coming months Ninemsn, Fairfax Digital, News Digital Media and Google will push into the controversial area of behavioural targeting.

Rather than create an environment to attract a certain demographic that can then be sold to advertisers, behavioural targeting pushes ads at internet users based on pages they view, the search terms they use and personal details handed over when registering for web services.

Rather than assuming a reader is interested in the ad, online publishers will be able to serve up commercial messages when readers are at their most receptive. A little piece of coding, known as a cookie, is picked up and stored by a user”s browser, allowing publishers to group internet users together by interest and then sell them on to advertisers.more

St. Landry advertising for post.
OPELOUSAS - The St. Landry Parish School Board voted unanimously Wednesday to advertise for a supervisor of transportation. The special meeting was called after Superintendent Michael Nassif unsuccessfully attempted to get the matter discussed at last week’s regular meeting. Board attorney Gerard Caswell said at that meeting it would take a unanimous vote to place the transportation supervisor’s issue on the agenda. But the vote failed 9-2. At last week’s meeting, some board members questioned the need to make the position a supervisory one because student transportation routing had been done previously by a pair of coordinators. Also questioned by board members was the need to fill the transportation supervisor’s role so quickly, before the issue could be discussed by a Personnel Committee.more

Business retention and expansion professionals:.
Ed Chesnut: A Milton-Freewater resident who attended Pacific University and Oregon State University, he has worked in numerous fields, including advertising, technical writing and photography; manufacturing metal, paper and plastics; and general business management, both for a local business owner and an independent operating company within a large corporate structure. He owns and operates his own small business, manufacturing and marketing control-stick grips for small aircraft. A Milton-Freewater City Council member, he is also a member of Rotary, the Milton-Freewater Area Chamber of Commerce and a board member for the Walla Walla Basin Watershed Council. He previously served on the Umatilla County Budget Committee, Milton-Freewater”s Budget Committee and the city”s Planning Commission.Kenneth Dean: After graduating from San Jose State College, he spent a decade in various sales positions for three Fortune 500 companies before dedicating the next 18 years to transforming failing divisions in major corporations, such as Kraft Foods, Conrail, Willamette Industries and Adia Personnel.more

ABU Games proves traditional advertising still works.
Bill Greenway, manager of the store, attributes much of their success to radio advertising. ABU Games has produced a series of ad spots featuring Greenway and other store personnel in spoofs on various video games, cartoons, television shows, and viral YouTube videos. The ads, which tap into current youth culture, play only on FM 100.3 ‘The X’, which targets the key teen demographic.

Considering that adults as well as teens often cite the ads, they must be working. Greenway clearly enjoys making the ads as silly as he can, but never strays from hitting the key points: product and location. One ad, a spoof of a popular Dragonball Z YouTube Poop, is little more than the store’s address being repeated over and over. Stupid? Yes. Effective? Evidently. The store was making a profit within six months, and business has steadily increased ever since.more

Next New Networks Names Denise Garcia Head of Advertising Sales.
Garcia brings extensive advertising, new media and market research experience to Next New Networks, joining from video advertising network Vibrant Media where she was senior vice president of corporate strategy and research. Prior to Vibrant Media, Garcia served as vice president, Internet equity research at AG Edwards & Sons and Internet analyst at W.R. Hambrecht + Co. Additionally, she specialized in researching advertising innovations and trends as vice president of advertising and media with renowned research firm Gartner Inc.

Before joining Gartner, Garcia developed advertising and sales strategies for International Data Group (IDG) and CMP Media”s print and online media properties. She also launched Industry Standard magazine as the publication”s first online advertising salesperson and launched Red Herring magazine as part of the print advertising sales team.more

Strong Banks, Big Problem?.
Plus: when spending on advertising may improve, why Fiat (FIA.MI) is getting tough on Chrysler, and what economic reports to watch for in the week ahead.

We would love to hear what you think about the show or what topics you would like us to cover in future weeks. Please fill out the comments section below.

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Cover up that may ensure survival.
South African-born Andrew Field has developed an easy-to-install advertising unit that pulls down over the shop shutter, covering it entirely. The PVC hoarding, which is made in Birmingham, can host any sort of imaginative advertising campaign and the great thing is that they not only look far better than dirty steel panels and the graffiti they attract, but the installation and maintenance is free and the shopkeeper or landlord gets to keep between 25pc and 40pc of the advertising revenue. This could help to keep them in business.

Mr Field”s company, Streetskins, is still at an early stage. He says he has signed contracts with 35 sites in London and has hoardings up on eight. But Mr Field, 29, is hoping that Regus, the temporary office provider, and three local councils could provide his big break.more

“Pitchmen” celebrates advertising as entertainment.
Perhaps consumers are weary and wary of having their psychometrics used against them, angry at advertising”s insinuation into every facet of their consciousness until even their digital humanity on Facebook and Twitter is co-opted by hungry marketers. Perhaps consumers want to reward Mays for his refreshing lack of guile. An honest pitch deserves an honest sale, doesn”t it?

Or it could be Americans simply like to buy a lot of useful junk. A $19.95 chamois and PedEggs might be the recession-era methadone for cash-strapped shopaholics.

‘Pitchmen,’ featuring Mays and fellow TV yell-and-seller Anthony Sullivan (he of Swivel Sweeper fame), will follow the pair as they evaluate new products and make short-form infomercials for them. Among the products Mays and Sullivan will ballyhoo are the Impact Gel shoe inserts and the Tool Band-it magnetized armband that holds tools while you work.more

Movie ads in newspapers: Going, going gone?.
But it turns out that the ‘Dragonball’ marketing strategy is just another part of a shiftaway from print advertising.While studios, many of which have remained fairly loyal to print advertising, have been running smaller movie ads in recent years, Fox has made a bolder break with tradition, releasing four movies this year alone where the studio hasrun minimal newspaperads or, inthe case of’Dragonball’ and ‘Street Fighter,’ released in late February, no ads at all. Even ‘Taken,’ the genre thriller that opened on Super Bowl weekend and became one of the year”s biggest box-office hits, only received full-sized newspaper ads in New York and Los Angeles. Ina host of othercities around the country, there were no print ads at all.

This is, of course, part of a much bigger trend, with newspaper industry analysts saying that print advertising, already in its worst slump since the Depression, has continued to decline as much as 25% to 30% in the first quarter of 2009.more

OGM tops them all.
THE Jamaica Observer yesterday presented advertising agency OGM Integrated Communications Limited with the newspaper company”s Top Billing award for placing the highest volume of advertisements last year.

The award was presented at the Observer”s annual Advertising, Billing & Sales Awards at the Hilton Hotel in New Kingston.

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