Better Late Than Never

I learned a lot from blogging all semester.
I learned that there are people out there who really read blogs and care about what people have to say. The best feeling was to have someone that I didn’t know, out of the blue, write a comment on my blog, thanking me for posting about something that I felt was so arbitrary. I must admit that when we first began this project I was not so enthusiastic. The prospect of having to write in a blog twice a week seemed like torture. But I enjoyed writing about international advertising, and on some weeks, what I thought was international advertising. It made me more aware of the industry and it made me become an active member of the blogging world. Greatest moment number two: when greg verdino mentioned me and the class on his blog. Professor gregson hyped him up so much in class, it just was so exciting to see that he even noticed us. After a few weeks I started to become more interested in my colleges blogs. Checking up on them, even adding one to my google reader (he’s my good friend and knew I had done that =] ). And then I began to become more enthusiastic about promoting my blog. I added a counter and started to comment on other blogs, hoping that those writers would return the favor. But after a few weeks of seldom action I stopped looking forward to blogging, and being adventurous, hunting down other peoples blogs. I did find some that will be forever in my Google Reader, and I did learn some neat tricks on the way.

I'm not too sure if I'll keep blogging.

GREEN is the new Black

Consumers are going green for new organic products. When I walk into the Wegmans' produce section there is a huge crowd around the organic vegetable section. Granted we are in Ithaca, which means that these people have been eating organic since the 70s. But this kind of consumer behavior is being duplicated all over the world. About five years ago, there was a boom in interest over fair trade products, especially in Latin America, which just keeps growing. Starbucks has a few fair trade blends, and Ben and Jerry's has fair trade ice cream. However, most fair trade products come from smaller manufacturers and more private distributors.

Also, globally (and you can really see this in the US) there is growth in established natural good stores. Global marketers are going to have to start pitching to the consumers natural side. Mintel, a global supplier of consumer, media and market research located in Chicago, has done research on the rising market change and is predicting a list of consumer packaged goods categories that will see "a big shift in the spectrum toward green."

Mintel predicts that the bottled water is going to have to under go a major face-lift in order to get their sales back up. Consumers are instead buying filters for their faucets, like Brita and Pur, and using reusable Nalgene like bottles to bring when traveling. They also predict that product labeling will become more user-friendly and ingredient labels will be formatted more like a recipe.

[MediaPostPublications]

The right ad. The right audience. The right time.

The goal for every advertiser or marketer. Coming up with the perfect ad for the audience you're looking for, and placing it correctly results in tons of views and/or ratings. It takes teams of creatives and account managers to come up with the concept, based on thorough research of the audience and media. The perfect ad campaign does not develop over night. However, a new concept has arrived, Hyper Targeting by MySpace. Its regarded by MySpace as "The World's Largest Ad Targeting Platform," enabling marketers, on a massive scale, to communicate user groups based on shared interests in profiles. Hyper Targeting launched its first phase in July. In this phase marketers can buy advertising the specifically targets interest groups based on 10 categories, such as sports, travel, movies, etc.
Phase two is under way right now. Marketers can now target profiles more specifically, with over 100 categories to choose from. For example, phase one meant that marketers could target film fans. In Phase two marketers can now target myspace members who are into horror films

“Our mission with HyperTargeting by MySpace was to build an ad platform that translates our massive amounts of self expressed user data into highly-targeted, interest-based segments, enabling us to better serve the exact right ad to the right person at the right time,”

Michael Barrett, Chief Revenue Officer for Fox Interactive Media.

It's a Small World After All

With all the advancements in technology these days, advertisers try to stay on top of it all while attempting to stay ahead of the curve. Ever since the invention of the internet and the boom of cellular dievices and features has opened up so many media for advertisers to utilize in their campaigns.
An article in MediaWeek describes the way new developments in technology are happening all over the world, but that "advertising innovation isn't always keeping up with technology."
In Bangkok's Skytrain public transport system, similar to many public transit systems in the US, commuters are bombarded by flashy images on video billdoards, most much larger than typical US movie theater screens. In South Korea, their cellular phone and satellite technology is so advanced that mobile phone users can be underground in a shopping mall and still view about 30 TV channels on their mobile handsets. Verizon, in the United States, is beginnging to make similar advancements in their VCAST mobile television serivce. Technology is advancing so quickly that countries think they're more advanced but don't realize how fast a good idea radiates throughout the world.

The world IS becoming smaller.

In the article Javier Rodríguez Zapatero, Yahoo's vp of sales for Europe, predicts that in Europe mobile advertising will be huge in a few years. Advertisers need to take clues from the guys in Asia. One of Japan's main mobile carriers places wallpaper ads on the handset homepages, reaching 10 million subscribers each day. Solutions like these are picked up by people all over the world and used in different places. It won't be long before Europe picks up on the mobil advertising being done, creating the boost predicted.

When you think you know everything....

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

While browsing AdAge on my long thanksgiving break at home I found an article posted by Carol Philips, a marketing professor at the University of Notre Dame and founder for brand strategy consulting firm, Brrand Amplitude. The article was titled, "Millennials: Clued in or Clueless?", and I figured my professor, Kim Gregson, and the other student in my Audience Research class would find this very interesting.

Philips has a lot of insight into the minds of the Millennials, the term she uses to describe the college student of today, a very important market right now, and "will become even more improtant as they graduate, start jobs, marry and establish households." She says that many of the students in her classes did not realize, they might seem clued into the media-saturated environment they live in but are tuned out to the ingenious ways marketers influence them.

Check out Carol Philips "Top 10 Things College Students Don't Know About Marketing"

Some of Philips' top 10 I don't agree with. Number 4 is "Facebook is an advertising supported, commercial service". In our class we have discussed the commercialization of Facebook and the numerous ways of promotion that can be done through the network. Some of us college students are actually in on these things she mentions. Yea! The tone of the article I actually found a bit condisending. Yes we might say that we get our news from the Daily Show, but we're also browsing CNN.com while we kill time between classes.

Food for the "Info Hungry"

Have I tempted you to learn more about international advertising and marketing?
Here are some great sources:

International Advertising Association, IAA
The IAA is a global network of members from 76 countries, who all share information about issues, changes and practices in the industry.

American Advertising Federation, AAF
"Unifying Voice of Advertising"
The federation has national members from the industry as well as clubs open to students looking to join the advertising industry.

"The COLORS, Dude! The COLOURS!"

Sony's launch of their new brand of hi-def technology, BRAVIA, in the summer of 2005, needed to be hot and show the features of the LCD television. That's why they chose Fallon, a London based advertising industry, to launch their international campaign. Through the images and music in the commercials, Sony was able to target the variety of markets that were viewing the adverts. Here are a few from the campaign



This was the ad that launched the campaign. Shot in the streets of San Fracisco, 250,000 REAL bouncy-balls leaped down the sloping streets of the city. This colorful whirl-wind of color emphasized the slogan, "Colour, like no other". Sony uses the spelling "colour" to keep their brand internationally flexible. The music in the ad was Heartbeats, written by Swedish duo The Knife and performed by José González, a popular track on the UK charts.



"Paint", I saw for the first time at the Advertising Women of New York conference on October 27th. It was shot by English director, Jonathon Glazer, named MTV director of the year in 1997. The commercial was shot at a Glasgow, Scotland tower block, covered in 70,000 litres of paint with the help of over 1400 separate explosions, with a 10 day production period.



This commercial gives the viewer an even warmer feeling than watching 250,000 bouncy-balls launched down San Francisco. The same amount of fun is used in "Play Do", a claymation video of bunnies taking over a square in New York City. You can't help but smile when you watch the video. Music: She's A Rainbow - Rolling Stones

In my opinion, the latest commercial, "Pyramids", really rounds off Sony's international campaign. Unlike all the others, this video is rumored to have some computer generated images.

[Note: for a behind the scenes look at most of the adverts, go to youtube or the official BRAVIA web site.

NEWS FLASH!

THIS JUST IN:

There's a new smartphone on the market. AT&T Inc (NYSE:T)and Motorola (NYSE:MOT)announce that the new MOTO Q 9h global will be available exclusively to AT&T customers. Outside the U.S., AT&T customers can use the MOTO Q global in more than 135 countries to access e-mail and other data applications and to browse the Web, and they can make or receive phone calls in more than 190 countries — the largest international wireless footprint of any U.S. carrier.

This does seem like a good deal but if this Q acts like all the other ones on the market, the battery life is going to be horrible and the internet might be slower than other smart phones on the market. There aren't many review out right now. Keep your eye out for them within the next month.

[AT&T Press Release]

Go places with the new craze: Smartphones

If you are planning on going global with your corporation or just partnering with an international business, supplier, company (etc.), you're going to need a way of communicating with them besides email, fax, snail mail:

Top phones for International Communication:
[Phone Scoop][apc magazine]

1. iPhone[Apple (AAPL)]: This new phone from Mac has been in the market for a while and still has buzz going on around it. I'm sure everyone knows everything there is to know about this phone. The iPhone is now selling for $399, as opposed to its original listing at $599. The phone has many pros and great software features including iPod, Safari, youtube, Google Maps, and widgets that supply weather etc. This phone is great for International travel. The Global SIM card can only be from AT&T but thats the only downfall if your looking to get a SIM card from a different network. One big con which seems to be generally haunting Apple in general is the battery life. My three year old Powerbook barely lasts an hour, I have to dim the screen to make it to two hours. Reviews about the iPhone generally say that the battery life seems to barely last three hours which is difficult if your traveling and need to use it for its various features, especially the internet. Additionally, ITS PHONE!! Only having three hours of batter life is absurd.

NOTE: when looking for a smartphone that you can use for your international communications and management you'll probably be looking at many PDAs. Just remember that it was designed as a PDA before a phone. So if its the phone part that you are looking for DON'T BUT ONE!

2. Audiovox PPC 4100/SP230 [AT&T (T)]: This is the first GSM PDA phone from Audiovox. Its mainly PDA with a phone function the dials previous calls and your speed dials. Better if you're preference of communicating is email.



3.Blackberry 8830 "World Edition" [Verizon (VZ)]: The new phone from Blackberry was launched by Verizon oh May 14th was the first Global CDMA/GSM BlackBerry. Verizon also announced the availability of the Global Blackberry service, with quick email and effortless internet connection. Verizon Wireless’ new Global BlackBerry service allows customers to place and receive voice calls from more than 150 countries and send and receive e-mails in the United States, Canada and more than 60 countries worldwide. This goes for any Verizon wireless users. What a great deal. Check it out at Verizon and Blackberry's Research in Motion.

the branding of small town america

In our audience research class we are doing a project in which groups were assigned on of the new 7th Wonders of the World. Our assignment is to come up with a media plan and analysis for our destination. This is very appropriate for the new age of marketing. When you sit down to watch just a half hour of television you can possibly see five different commericials for locations in the United States and around the world, mainly on food channels or "Discovery channel" sorts. Countries and destinations are considered products, which need to be marketed to tourists. In many countries the tourism industry is the main supply income to the eonomy because of the money that is brought in when tourists come for their goods and services.

Countries, and mostly states (after all I live in the US..i've seen plenty of I <3 NY commercials) have their own tourist boards that come up with campaigns to promote their destination in any season. In Ithaca, NY the DownTown partnership came up with a publicity stunt, to challenge a little town in Wisconsin to the title of "Birth Place of the Sundae." It attracted national coverage and brought in many tourists to the now annual sundae festival. Other locations do similar things to get (no pun intended) on the map. The most sucessful publicity event that a city could have is the Winter/Summer Olympics.

The 2008 Summer Olympics are being held in Bejing. I can only imagine the boost that this is going to give China's economy. But for the non-Olympic locations, theres always the option of hiring a spokesperson for your location or a catchy slogan (like: ST LOUIS...is with in reach - not one of the more creative ones, but at least they try).

Destination slogans: amazing or just plain horrible...you decide:

Let's Talk COLORADO
UTAH Life Elevated
NEW JERSEY Great destinations in any direction

Go Green Go

Environmental activists and politicians have been talking about global warming since the early 1980s, but no one paid notice to them. We couldn't feel the changing in the temperatures, so to us it wasn't happening.

The term "global warming" refers to a phase of climactic change that the earth is going through. This change is mainly due to human interference, primarily the emission of greenhouse gases, throwing off the cycles of the Earths climate.

Today is October 9th, in Ithaca, NY, and the high temperature for today was 80 degrees F. That is 20 degrees higher than the average high for Ithaca. This is the first year that students at Ithaca College are actually starting to really wonder (and are worried) about global warming. The companies of the world have also become more aware of the climate issue, trying to do all they can to help. From the international fashion industry to GE to Ithaca College, everyone is seeing green.

Companies have a corporate social responsibility and a responsibility to their consumers. Just saying your company is "green" does not mean anything. Branding experts have a hard time of pin-pointing what exactly is green marketing. A company can be accused of greenwashing. "Consumers appear to be wary of companies who label their products as being 'green,' or environmentally friendly," said Market Research Company Ipsos Reid. [GreenBiz] Securing guidlines for green marketing would be better for the consumer and better for advertisers. Is just going organic enough to say that you are green. What about the entire production of the product. Is it eco-friendly, fuel efficient, biodegradable, natural and organic?

When a company wants to make their building green The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Green Building Rating System (LEED) created by the U.S. Green Building Council. The amount of points achieved will determine which level of LEED® certification the project is awarded. There are 69 possible points and four certification levels. Corporations should have the same type of cirtification process when going green. This would get rid of consumer scepticism, build the brands trustful image and strengthen brand loyalty. Beyond all these questions as to what is "green marketing" there are many benefits to it.

Here are the top five reasons to GO GREEN:

1. You will receive attention and business from the environmentally concerned consumer
Consumers are recentrly concerned with their carbon footprint in the environment. One thing that consumers do to decrease their impact is buying products that they know have a smaller impact on the environment than other products.

2. You will create positive public awareness towards your brand
If you are doing something positive for the world, the world will have a positive view of you

3. The impact that your company singularly has on the environment will be dramatically reduced

4. You will save your company money in the long run
By investing in making your production process more friendly to the environment and more fuel efficient, you will save your company money on energy and other utilities, as well as decrease its negative impact on the environment. Its a Win-Win.

5. You will be making the world a better place to live in!

For more GO GREEN marketing information, data and tips, go to Yankelovich

[GE green commercials]

Happy 55th Cannes Lions!!

The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival is the primary global meeting of all people in the advertising industry interested in creative communications. The first Cannes Lions was held in 1954, inspired by the International Film Festival. Cannes became the Lions permanent home in 1984. The festival has grown tremendously since then. At the 2007 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival there were 9,000 registered delegates from 85 countries. They participated in competitions, attended 45 seminars and 20 workshops. This is a great opportunity for all levels of professions in the creative sect of advertising. Whether you have been in the industry for years or just starting out, the workshops and seminars they offer seem to cover a wide-range of topics. Last years workshops focused on the booming digital age of advertising, from web technique sessions to revising and revolutionizing print advertising to a presentation on Latin Americans creativity in marketing. And I am certain that every delegate who attends the festival can definitely find a seminar or two that peaks their interest. There is a huge variety of topics, ranging from digital vs traditional agencies to ambient media.

But the number one thing that gets me more excited then just dreaming about being in IDEA CITY this summer, is the fact that they are now have a students program that allows university students to come and experience the festival. I am definitely applying!

[Metropotam]

Industry Issue: Lost In Translation

One important thing to know about advertising in an international market is that you must be sensitive to others cultures, and languages. Most advertisers who market over seas, or who just market to the large (and growing) Hispanic market in the United States, will over look this fine detail. This has been a topic of discussion in a few media classes that I have taken at Ithaca College. One famous example was the "Got Milk" campaign.

The "Got Milk" campaign is a national canpaign in the United States done by Gooby Silverstein & Partners, to entice people to start purchasing and drinking milk again. When they translated the slogan into Spanish they realized that the literal traslation meant "Are You Lactating?" NOT "Got Milk". They than did the smart thing and hired Siboney USA, a spanish-language advertising agency, to do an adaptation of the campaign. This is a very common occurance in the advertising industry. Companies try to traslate their own campaigns without the help of professionals in the foreign market. According to a survey done by TransPerfect Traslations Inc. in 2003, "of 513 people surveyed, 57% said they had spotted advertising that was incorrectly translated from English into other languages. [article: Lost In Translation The Wall Street Journal Europe - September 19,2003}

TransPerfect Translations Inc. is a service with the mission "to provide the highest quality language services to leading businesses worldwide." It is agencies like these that save companies from running into trouble while expanding to other cultures, like the Coca-Cola co. when it first came out in the 1920s.

Coke expanded to a global proportion in the 1920s. In China, shopkeepers who sold the product tried to find characters that translated the brand name. The literal translation turned out to be something along the lines of "female horse stuffed with wax" [Lost In Translation].

Companies and marketers just aren't allocating enough money and time to foreign campaigns. They spend as little time as possible on translating the copy. It isn't enough to just translate. Companies now need to adapt campaigns to the foreign culture or they might be at risk of loosing an entire demographic.

I now make a call to action, for marketers and advertisers to stop being lazy!! And start paying attention to the cultures of their demographics and to start catering to those people.

iPhone travels across the pond

Apple has chosen O2, the leading wireless carrier in the UK, to offer the iPhone to UK customers. Their website posted a press release on Sept 18th but information about the deal for over a week. The race to carry the iPhone was a global competition between four of the top carriers in Europe, O2, T Mobile (Germany), Orange (France), Vodaphone, and O2 (who ultimately "won").
It seems that O2 will be sharing much of its revenue from selling the iPhones as part of their contract with Apple. According to an article from the Guardian O2 will be sharing 40% of its revenue with Apple. Wowza!!!
Despite this, other carriers are still vying for a bite of the Apple. T-Mobile is rumored to have signed a contract with Apple to make the iPhone available in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary and Croatia. (CNN Money) This has yet to be confirmed but I believe that the iPhone's availability in the UK has laid the ground work for new expansion of Apple's product in all of Europe.

Get in the LOOP: ProductionPoint

News Flash:
I just stumbled upon this amazing free networking web page for companies who are in the entertainment industry. ProductionPoint is an international production consultant that has contributed to more than 1,000 productions in over 70 countries. Wow!! I think their slogan is genius: source. network. promote. Simple and to the point, clients don't need to be confused or bewildered by a complicated slogan and mission statement.

The productionpoint web site includes an internal search engine, making it easy to navigate the site, QPOINT, their forum for industry questions, WORLD UPDATE, which contains industry news from all over the world and one can filter by region as well, and P.O.V., discussion boards for the Advertising and Entertainment Industry.

I can see this website becoming the FACEBOOK of the entertainment industry. Its a state-of-the-art international resource for networking between the people of the Advertising industry and the international production scene. Membership is free. However, to receive a Preferred Listing status or to advertise on various pages, there are monthly fees. Check out ProductionPoint to network within the worldwide Advertising and Entertainment industries.

Industry Profile: BBDO

Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (better known at BBDO) is one of the largest names in global marketing/branding/advertising, and one of three large agencys in Omnicom. They have 287 offices in 77 countries around the world. I wanted to fill you in on this monster agency that has its foot WAY IN THE DOOR of global marketing and advertising.

BBDO has its regional headquarters in New York, but they have any branches to their network. Each branch is specific to a location or a type of advertising (ex. BBDO Russia or AtmosphereBBDO).

The organization of specialties within the entire BBDO agency is very impressive. As an Integrated Marketing Communications major in the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College, in Ithaca, NY, I am intrigued by a large agency that can keep itself so organized and controlled internally. With such a large international network, I believe that integrated marketing communicationsis key to keeping all aspects of your company afloat.

Here is an interview with John Osborn courtesy of youtube.com

Analysis: Assumptions about audiences

In the article from Marketing Daily, Marketing to Single Women, Adreienne W Fawcett discusses the common misconceptions that marketers have about single women. She compares information from a Draft FCB survey of 500 advertising and marketing professionals in the U.S. to recent statistics. The conclusion that I have drawn from her observations is that marketers have just been stereotyping single women and don't bother to do the proper research that they would do for any other audience.

According to Fawcett's report, "marketing execs think single women are less educated, more adventuresome and richer than statistics indicate. They also are off the mark on the ethnicity of this market."

This makes me question, where do people in this industry get their audience information from? Is it all bullshit?

The other article I read with Portrait of the New Media Consumer by Peter Lauria. The article discusses the new consumer, 18 to 35 year olds who are media multitaskers, working on the computer doing research while texting on their phone and having the TV on in the background. I am that "media multitaker". I can be on the computer IMing, working on a paper, listening to music or a podcast, and talking on the phone.

Lauria sites two specific studies in his article, one done by Ball State University on "concurrent media exposure" and a Kaiser Family Foundation study on media multitasking among American youth. An interesting bit from the Ball State University is that most of the study's respondents "have been so exposed to media and are so adept at processing it that they didn't even realize how frequesntly then engage in concurrent mediea use." The study also found that 18 to 24 years olds spend more minutes a day interacting with media then any other group.

i'll POD your CAST

In this age of technology, everyone wants their opinion to be out there. Through blogs, vlogs and podcasts you can pretty much hear anyones opinion on any topic you would like.

I listened to Marketing Edge by Albert Maruggi. I would've have rather had it writtten, so that I could browse through it to actually find what I was interested in. Podcasts are great for traveling, putting them on your ipod and listening on the train or in the car. Blogs are more convinient to receive information, you can refer back to them, find the specific passage. When you want to refer back to a podcast you have to go and listen to the whole thing again. Not a fan of these podcast things. Not a fan!

How Interesting.....

Welcome to IntrAda Place. The domain for all things international related to advertising. It is important for all businesses, big or small, to have their eye on the international demographic and to keep up to date with whats going on over there. Its also important for companies who are planning to go global to understand the styles and regulations of advertising in the countries it will be marketing.

My job is to keep you up to date on all of that, as well as educate you on somethings about the international industry of advertising.

I leave you with this hilarious commericial: