July 27, 2004
Corporate Creativity - Diesel & Zoo York
• Diesel recently initiated a street art project in which artists are encouraged to design a blank outdoor wall in designated areas in Milan, Genoa, Florence, and Rome. Other cultural activities that Diesel is sponsoring include talent support for emerging fashion designers, an international music contest, and an on-line flash film festival.
• In Melbourne, clothing companies such as Zoo York, Etnies, World Industries, Eckô, and Mooks are giving out stencils and stickers with their product in the hope that their consumers will give them free advertising by placing them around town. According to our local reporters there, these efforts are paying off, as there has been a significant presence around town.
Posted by richard ting at July 27, 2004, 01:12 AM
July 23, 2004
Jazzanova set on Fourteenlocks
Posted by richard ting at July 23, 2004, 12:41 PM
Online Gaming Explosion Creates New Opportunities For Advertisers
by Ross Fadner
In only a few years, online gaming has grown to an 800 million dollar industry, according to new Yankee Group figures. The nascent industry already commands 450 to 550 million in advertising dollars, and industry professionals seem to think that the online gaming market is now fertile ground for advertising growth.
"The Internet has created a whole new marketplace for gaming," notes Yankee Group Analyst Michael Goodman. He says that the types of game players have evolved just as the online game offerings have evolved.
The average online gamer is no longer an adolescent male. So-called casual games, for example, which are simple card or puzzle games, attract a predominantly female audience over the age of 45.
The expansion of online gaming to a broader audience will result in new opportunities for marketers, says the Yankee Group's Goodman. With these platforms, he says, "you already have the critical component: connectivity," which he notes carries two significant benefits for advertisers.
Posted by richard ting at July 23, 2004, 06:03 AM
July 15, 2004
Big Brands Advocate Integrated Marketing Approach
by Tobi Elkin
Two of the biggest consumer packaged goods marketers urged agencies and marketers to deploy consumer-centric integrated marketing approaches, experiment with new media, and develop holistic marketing platforms that will enable them to execute a single idea across all media. Tim Kopp, section manager, Beauty Care Division, Procter & Gamble, told Ad:Tech-Chicago attendees that it doesn't take a big budget to test and experiment with emerging media including the Web, digital video recorders, and wireless. "You need to be constantly in touch with your consumer beyond the occasional focus group ... You have to look for new ways to connect with consumers," Kopp said Tuesday during the Ad:Tech panel "Big Brands...Big Thinking."
Posted by richard ting at July 15, 2004, 12:36 PM
Livewire: MP3 Blogs Serve Rare Songs, Dusty Grooves
LONDON (Reuters) - A new genre of Web sites that offer an eclectic mix of free music downloads may not be strictly legit, but the sites' creators say they're doing the beleaguered record industry a favor.
Named for the MP3 music format and the popular self-published Web sites known as blogs, they are part online mixtape, part diary, and part music magazine. The tunes are drawn from remixes, forgotten genres and out-of-print albums, usually accompanied by detailed descriptions and reviews. "Most of the artists that I cover are pretty obscure, and I like to help them get a bit of publicity and grassroots support," said Matthew Perpetua, a DJ, freelance writer and creator of Fluxblog (http://newflux.blogspot.com/), one of the oldest MP3 blogs.
Posted by richard ting at July 15, 2004, 11:52 AM
Online file swapping endures
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Despite entertainment industry attempts to curb online song and movie swapping with lawsuits and education campaigns, more people than ever are using peer-to-peer services. BigChampagne, which tracks Internet file sharing, says 8.3 million people were online at any one time in June using unauthorized services like Kazaa and eDonkey - up 19% from 6.8 million in June 2003. The majority of files being traded were music, BigChampagne says. Porn videos and images were the second-biggest category. Since September, the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) has filed 3,500 lawsuits against music sharers who uploaded songs to the Internet. It has settled about 600 of them for fines ranging from $2,000 to $15,000.
Phil Leigh, senior analyst at research firm Inside Digital Media, says the findings are the strongest evidence to date that the lawsuits aren't scaring people away from so-called P2P programs. "Many just don't think they'll be caught," he says. And users have become savvier about adjusting software so they can't be traced. RIAA (news - web sites) President Cary Sherman says the rise of legitimate alternatives such as Apple's iTunes Music Store shows the success of the litigation. ITunes was poised over the weekend to reach 100 million songs sold.
BigChampagne says 1 billion songs were available for free trading in June. That compares with 820 million a year ago. But Sherman says many song files now are "spoofs" the industry adds to the system to make life harder for swappers: a screeching sound effect instead of a Top 10 single, for instance.
After the initial wave of lawsuits, research firms released studies suggesting people were spending less time on the peer-to-peer services. "What people say and what they do are two different things," says BigChampagne CEO Eric Garland. "People were not willing to be forthright and admit to something that might get them sued. The fact is, peer-to-peer usage is much more widespread than it was a year ago."
Savvy file traders are spending less time at Kazaa, the top peer-to-peer service. A haven for adware, spyware and potential viruses, Kazaa's usage dropped from a peak of 5.6 million active users in October to 3.8 million in June, says BigChampagne. Users have migrated to two other unauthorized services, Israel-based iMesh and eDonkey in New York, which have less spyware and faster downloads, Leigh says.
Leigh says the only way the industry will put a dent in the peer-to-peer services is for the legitimate alternatives to become more user-friendly. Songs purchased at iTunes can play easily only on iPods, while songs at Sony's Connect service work only with Sony products. "Until they fix those speed bumps and fill the holes in their catalogs - there are still too many missing songs - people are going to stick with the free services," Leigh says.
