For those who want to take Internet privacy matters into their own hands, there is a new service called Bynamite that aggregates information advertisers have collected about you in an easily managed personal profile. In addition, the site allows you to delete or add interests and send updated preferences back to ad networks and opt out of networks that don’t provide users with control of their interests. Bynamite purports to represent the consumer without profiting from information sent back to ad networks, and it operates via a program you download that automatically attaches to your browser.

What sets Bynamite apart from many privacy watchdogs is that the service generally embraces hyper-targeted advertising and has no qualms with sites like Google, Facebook, and Amazon that collect a wealth of information on its users. Rather Bynamite seeks to educate consumers on how advertisers view them and empower users to tap into the potential monetary value of their personal information. Read More »

I took advantage of a summer vacation to read Vernor Vinge’s Rainbow’s End.  Rainbow’s End recently won the Hugo Award for science fiction literature.  Like any good hard SciFi book, this one portrays a not-too-distant future where technology has fundamentally transformed the human experience.  The 2025 Southern California dramatized in Rainbow’s End features pervasive connectivity sub-vocally accessed through smart contact lenses resulting in a world of augmented reality.   The main plot revolves around Alzheimer’s patients who have been “cured” after many years in a vegetative state.  The book portrays the challenges these previously successful people face now that they lack the literacies required to command the new technology that runs the modern world.  It’s a good read and if you are into the genre, I highly recommend it.

But the really interesting feature in the novel was the skills that allowed certain characters to thrive in the highly complex, connected, real-time world.  The most capable characters had mastered the art of massive collaboration.   Read More »

This week the advertising industry descended upon the French coastal city of Cannes for the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival. For a complete list of winners, click here, or check out what caught our attention by clicking on the slideshow below. Note: To see commentary expand the slideshow to full screen and click on “Show Info” in the upper right hand corner.

One of the challenges of working in digital media is feeling like a blind man. You can hear, smell, taste the changes happening around you–but it always feels like you’re missing part of the equation; where is this going, what is happening next, what is at the horizon line? That’s how most of us who are honest about it feel anyway. It took a visit from Chris Anderson, Editor of Wired magazine to the Lab to discuss his latest book to provide some comfort.

In the same way that his first book, “The Long Tail” helped many business people as well as digerati marketers grasp the power of the niche market that developed as a result of the incredible thing we call the Internet, his second book, “Free” aims to help us all understand evolving economic models, since many of the items in our bag of tricks don’t seem to be working the way they used to. Read More »

What scares you? What keeps you up at night, and nags at the back of your consciousness? There are a couple of things that frighten me. Being likened to the comedian Carrot  Top is one of them. The other is finding that I have stopped learning.

Can you imagine it? Waking up one day to discover that your capacity for taking in new knowledge has ended. That everything you are going to learn has already happened and that your brain, now filled to capacity, was blinking the “hard drive full” message across your retinas over and over again. It can happen. I have experienced it.

One of the things that happens when you are the custodian of a large marketing budget is that suddenly everyone wants to meet with you. If you allowed every new vendor to come in a pitch, you could spend your entire day watching Power Point slides. Want to know what waterboarding feels like? Just follow the media director of a major brand around a marketing conference and watch the vendors surround them like flood waters. Read More »

My answer to the question of what makes a great marketer is simple: Being a great listener. Yeah, that’s right, listening.

The answer is simple because marketing is simple. If you know what your customers really want and give it to them, magic happens. Easy, right?

Most businesses start off as great listeners. Bernie and Arthur, two leaders I was fortunate to work for when I first joined Home Depot knew how to listen to customers. Their entire business was built around listening. Read More »

A new report by Initiative finds that shifts in the economic climate have created permanent shifts in consumer behavior. The report “Game Changer” provides marketers with insight on how brands can take advantage of changing values in their products and messaging.  Some of the key findings included:

-Massive decline in trust of “establishment”  (Further proof of what we’ve known for awhile, that consumers are trusting each other and online communities more than ever)

-Qualities such as “reliable,” “open” and “honest” are now valued more than “well-known” or “established”

-The Internet has become an “essential form of technology” for 75 percent of consumers surveyed, with mobile in second at 56 percent (interesting here was the 40 percent who said they are most likely to maintain spending on the Internet compared with other forms of technology and communication)  Read More »

Hey, it is Earth Day! Happy Earth Day!

If you are wondering how to celebrate this big old planet of ours that we’re all a little (or a lot) concerned about, check out the IPG Lab’s article on Ad Age’s Good Works blog: Is Going Green a Strategic Imperative? Written by Lab Staff Associate, Alicia Walter, the article examines some of the confusion, challenges and rewards of developing a Green or Sustainable marketing strategy for brands…AND agencies. See which agencies are leading the way, and why it’s driving new business. Read More.

April 1, 2009–The frontier of emerging media has finally made its way to Madison Avenue: Jetpacks. After decades of science fiction fantasy and military experimentation, jetpacks have become a reliable transportation alternative and now, a bleeding-edge advertising medium. While the WSJ lists 30 second flight times and 1,300° exhaust blasts as challenges to this medium, advertisers should not be deterred.

The superior combination of sight, sound and motion that is a jet propelled human will unquestionably make a lasting impression with target audiences.

As user adoption of jetpacks spikes and price points fall to the $100,000 level – this market is ripe for advertising investment. Quaker has been an early pioneer of this burgeoning media channel; recently launching the first ever jetpack advertising initiative for Quaker Oats oatmeal. Read More »

Asthon Kutcher is up to it again with a new web series airing on Facebook’s FunSpace application. The app comes complete with an “On Demand” interface with access to Funspace’s other channels (Kutcher’s Katalyst HQ series currently owns the main stage) and  the ability to forward to all your facebook friends and of course, commenting.

Unique to Katalyst Media’s play here is the first Facebook video series. Like Seth MacFarlane, the innovation is present in the sponsorship or brand integration with the video content and delivery method.  The mandate from their first sponsor, Cheetos, was to  target 18-35 year olds just out of college or getting into the real world; and to develop content that would entertain rather than interrupt.   Read More »