February 27, 2006

Do you ever get the feeling that luxury magazines wouldn't exist if it weren't for ads for watches? And do you ever feel that if there were no Geico or Ditech ads, there would be very little advertising on television? How do we stop the madness?

Novel Non-Traditional Media

I'd love to start a collection of novel non-traditional media. Please, please, please pass along ideas you've seen or imagined.

My most recent sighting was ads on taxi hubcaps in Houston. The ads covered the entire hubcap and didn't spin...so they were eye-catching and readable. The happened to be about a basketball tournament, so they were the shape of a basketball and joggled back and forth just enough to catch your eye but not too much, so you could easily read them.

Very cool.

Great Moments in Television

Many are now preserved and disseminated on the web where they are viewed by many more people than originally watched them on TV.

The classic example is Jon Stewart giving Tucker Carlson a piece of his mind on Crossfire. A few hundred thousand viewers saw it as it played. But 3.5 million caught it on the web.

A small audience watched Isaac Mizrahi's laying on of hands with Scarlett Johannson on one of those Red Carpets. But 358,000 saw it later on the web.

Hardly anyone needs to be told to spread the word on these and other tasty tidbits that find themselves to the web.

Consider this:

If 25 people tell 25 people and the process is repeated five times. the number equals approximately the population of the United States.

One more iteration, and the number equals appoximately the population of the world.

Looking for Men in All the Right Places

Heineken is launching a new "Premium Light" beer and wants to reach men ages 25-49. Their campaign will have a major web advertising component, as well as its own site. But, even though the web plays the lead role in the $50 million launch, Heineken will complement that effort with TV, radio, print, outdoor, promotions, and a Hispanic-focused initiative.

Traditional media are always going to play a key role in any comprehensive campaign. In fact, Michelle Evans shared some strong stats with us today. Ad spending in '06 is estimated to be divided up by television (at 43.7%), magazines (20.5%), newspapers (19.9%), radio (7.5%), Internet (6.0%), and outdoor (2.4%).

And spending increases for the year are estimated at Hispanic Network TV (up 10.4%), Internet (up 9.1%), Cable TV (up 8.4%), Outdoor (up 7.2%), Network TV (up 4.5%) Newspapers (up 4.3%), and Radio (up 3.6%).

What you see is a strong across-the-board increase, and that's reflective of the multi-media approach needed to get your message across.