September 27, 2005

Nikki, you're right. Why do "green" products need to look so frumpy? Answer is, they don't. The manufacturers, I think, go for safe styles and colors because they figure the market is limited so go conservative. That's so wrong. Look at the VW Beetle. Don't you just love seeing a lemon yellow one or that delicious green color they have? Aren't they so much more eye-catching, alluring, and enticing than the basic white, black, silver, whatever palette? I don't like all these neutral metalic colors at all. I think what's behind them is that it makes it easier for the manufacturer...like we were saying yesterday about GM...but doesn't allow for customers to celebrate their individuality. The heck with that!

Ford has gotten on the green bandwagon too. They're going to increase their global hybrid production ten fold...to approximately 250,000 units by 2010, and flexible fuel vehicles to 280,0000 annually by next year.

Toyota is also about to launch a brand of gas/electric power train.

That's just the car people. What about the rest of us? What are we doing to be green...and how are we communicating it, spreading the word - both to enhance our images and to get others to follow suit.

Web Ad Spending On the Rise

JupiterResearch predicts total spending on local online ad sales will reach $3.2 billion by the year end, a 26% increase from 2004. The report predicts the local market will total $5.3 billion by the end of the decade.

The ways in which online ad dollars are being spent are increasingly sophisticated and complex. And I'm so very grateful that we have such a smart media director (Michelle Evans) and staff that can create really powerful, effective, and measurable online ad programs for our clients.

Oh My Gosh, It's Almost Holiday Season

Well, not quite...although Natalie told us today when and where our annual holiday bash will be held.

Retailers are expecting a slow season. They'll start earlier than ever with the decorations and hoopla, in hopes of improving the season by extending it.

Personally, I think it's senseless to buck the trend, fight the prevailing sentiment. And I think that sentiment today is directed toward our fellow Americans who have been so horribly devastated, uprooted, and dislocated by Katrina and Rita.

The most satisfying kind of holiday giving would be related to those people, in my opinion. How can retailers provide us with opportunities to help out those people instead of our usual gift recipients? Certainly that would be a creative way to do corporate gifts. Instead of yet another anonymous corporate gift, I'd much rather get a card that said that in lieu of a gift to me a gift had been given to a Katrina/Rita victim.

I say that...but I don't ever get corporate gifts. Once, many years ago, I did receive a coozie (sp?) from Pam Hesse. I'll forever be grateful to her!

I'm digressing. Is age about to set in?

Point is...retailers need to be more creative this holiday season. Advertising earlier and/or more isn't going to do the trick. It's thinking-cap time.