I ran across the new Nike Commercial from overseas today. To be honest, the idea is really good. A soccer player who can chest bump any size object. Whether its a ball, football player, truck, or wrecking ball. The only thing the commercial lacks is realistic appeal. I swear the guy in the video looks like the worst actor I’ve ever seen. Moreover, everytime he’s hit with an object (besides the truck impailment) the camera cuts away. What is Nike doing with all of their marketing budget in foreign direct investments?

By pleasing a journalist you please not only yourself but your accrediation as a PR (public relations) person. After numerous email pitches and press releases I’ve finally had enough. Stalking or tackling a journalist, where online or off, will never win you points. For all your business marketing and public relations people out there looking to get your latest press release or story publicized follow these basic guidelines;

1. Never follow up on your pitch. It’s just annoying and will land you straight in my spam box. Sending a press release in is fine. I get plenty everyday. But what I hate is when I am thinking about using one and someone sends me a follow up like this, “I was just inquiring if you had a chance to look over the PR I sent you earlier today?” Grr…

2. Contact is not for aliens. When you submit a press release you need to be from our planet. Add a little humanity to your pitch and your press release.

3. Next time you want to send in a joke of a press release hold your breathe, count to 10, then to 20, and so on until you Read the rest of this entry »

News Corp. President Peter Chrnin announced that their company will be producing original episodes of the Fox TV Series The Simpsons for cell phones. The President also mentioned they will be, kind words, “marketing the hell out of it!” Chernin made the announcement at a wireless industry convention yesterday. As The Simpsons approach their 18th season many critics have been speculating on the future and/or cancellation of the hit Fox TV Series.

Chernin hopes News Corp’s investment in mobile video producer Jamba will help bring back the comedy heart that made The Simpsons so successful.Â� News Corp. will be buying majority control of Jamba with a $188 million dollar agreement to start selling clips, original episodes, and ring tones. Chernin did not offer “many details” concerning the original and mobile only episodes. Simpson’s producer James L. Brooks commented that the “details were still being worked out.” However, an interesting note is that Brooks did mention that the new episodes will not be the typical 22 minute running time of current episodes.

Moose, aka, Paul Curtis is widely known in Britian as being a graffiti artist by cleaning dirt from sidewalks and tunnels. Companies are starting to even pay him to sculpt dirt advertisements. Moose told NPR news that he got the idea “when he saw that people had written their names with their fingers on dirty walls in his hometown of Leeds.” The artists tools? A shoe brush, water and a lil’ elbow grease. The police officers in Britian have no idea whether to arrest him or to applaud him for cleaning up the streets.

Started in Dublin, Adwalker, recently opened their offices in New York. The company uses their salesforce by dressing them up in high-teach, Internet-enabled Adwalker computers with a video touch screen and portable printer attachment. The salesforce walks around with these contraptions in public target market areas such as the mall or movie theatre in an attempt to gather a crowd. The salespersons chest beams their marketing message in techno-color lights. These Cyborg Salesmen deliver both involvement with their touch pads and also record a qualitative response from their audiences. Unlike wearing a television attached to their chest, these walking cyborg salesmen actually deliver an attraction tool. The touch pad delivers games and special offers in response to giving away valuable contact information.

Television stations such as NBC and Telemundo have started using the device and integrating contests attached to the device. “There was a remarkable willingness to provide contact information and visit our special web site as part of the contest” said Frank Radice, senior V.P. for the NBC network.

Have you ever made a hotel reservation online and when you made it to your destination point your room was not reserved or you were stuck with a room you did not reserve? Well the “roaming gnome” of Travelocity has been there to help over the past few months. It was called “The New Travelocity Guarantee - You’ll Never Roam Alone.”

Now, Hotels.com wants to assure you that they’ll be by your side in case of such an event. Sure, the ad is good and it reassures a sense of understanding and that they’ll take good care of you. A memorable television ad is great but it would be better if their competitor had not already did something similar. It would also work better if Hotels.com used their little “lobby guy” in the ads. I mean come on, Travelocity has a GNOME!

Not suprised at this one bit. There’s a new social networking site called MyStack whose member base consists of High School athletes only. MyStack was created by teen athlete magazine Stack. Just like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, and other social networking sites you can upload a profile, pictures, information, and videos about yourself. The site’s niche is that it’s reserved exclusively for them. One of the main attractions of the portal is that High School atheletes can also connect with college recruiters. The look of the site reminds me more of a MySpace clone rip off and YouTube’s home page. The site already has targeted (very) advertisements from Eastbay which sells athelete apparel and Stack Magazine subscriptions.

In the United Kingdom, Kellog’s Cereal is running an advertisement that shows a man riding home atop a dog. The ad is pretty funny and no one can argue the man is small enough to ride the massive dog. However, it was reported by the Advertising Standards Authority that at least 100 people do not find it amusing and have filed complaints. What’s even more amusing is the man is not actually riding the dog! It’s completely computer generated and obvious at that. So to all the hippies and PETA members, take a second or two and read up on computer animation.

ABC’s broadband Player will be filled with new and old shows when it comes out on September 23. The ABC network and its’ affilate announced the launch will be set and ready to go for local stations to benefit this time around. The agreement allows local television stations broadcasting ABC and affiliate networks shows will be able to directly benefit through local ad sales, local station branding, and more.

The fuel between television markters and DVR advertisement skippers has just been spilt….again. This new patented invention from Colin Davis allows for full frame, still images to be placed on screen while a person fast forwards through the ads. Despite the almost desperate attempts of television advertisers, DVR and ad skipping is growing momentum across the board. Companies such as KFC have even tried to put coupons in their commercials as an added incentive to watch. Colin Davies System basically will show a single still frame while a person fast forwards through commercials. That still image will be the advertisement. Innovative or the death of television advertising?

High School newspapers now have their own advertising network appropriately titled the High School National Ad Network. The new network provides advertisers an easy and realiable means of engaging with teens besides MySpace. Senior Project Director, Diana Mitsu Klos, commented that the new Ad Network will enable advertisers to properly and effectively target young students through their schools newspapers.

Like MySpace, the young person produced content of a High School newspaper creates a sense of community and eager buyers. The Ad Network’s rate card is highly competitve and 75% of every dollar goes back to support the schools. School demographics can be targeted by state, race, gender, and zip code. There are a total of 325 papers in 45 states which now belong to the network. I like to joke about advertising critics who are always looking for a new way to influence teenagers. This is just the latest example of that and a problem that still needs to be fixed.