When planning for your next fiscal year or campaign, are you shifting more dollars into digital media? If so, is your media team searching out sites/blogs/networks where your target audience is convening online OR are you replicating your print buy to online? Depending on your goals/objectives, either strategy could work for you. But, before you replicate your current print buy you’ll want to see an audience comparison. Sometimes there is an assumption that the audience demographics of readers of print publications translates to the same audience who view the content online or on mobile devices. This isn’t always the case. For instance, readers of the print edition of The New York Times and consumers of the same publication’s online content are roughly the same age (median age is 49) with the male/female split practically even, but[...]

Built by Unruly Media, Viral Spiral captures the most buzzed about online videos from the past 5 years, stemming all the way back to Dove’s infamous ‘True Beauty’ campaign. This interactive info graphic is one of the coolest we’ve seen yet. Using their technology, Unruly scans the sharing of the most popular branded videos each year, and then presents them with real time updates, displaying their actual share counts via Facebook, Twitter, and the blogosphere.

By moving your mouse over each circle, the relevant ad[...]

“Linsanity” is in full swing in New York and around the country (if you haven’t heard of him, ask Kobe Bryant, he will explain). He has already made a huge impact on the New York Knicks and the NBA beyond the court. Ratings on MSG Network for the first five games of “Linsanity” have been 87% higher compared to 20 Knicks games prior according to MSN Money. Jeremy Lin jerseys are sold out, and he is filling the seats wherever the Knicks go. Bloomberg reports that for the February 15th game against the Sacramento Kings, the average ticket price increased 26%. Clearly, Jeremy Lin is good for business (see Linfographic from infographicworld.com).

This makes “Linsanity” a huge opportunity for any consumer packaged goods company whose brand aligns well with this high energy, off-the-wall trend regardless of its specific category. Part of the appeal of Linsanity is that people are simply having fun with the trend and creating new Lin phrases. Any brand that could tap into this naming trend with a clever or amusing pun would be an instant top seller.

The following are a few of our picks for best “Linsanity” aligned branding opportunities[...]

In “Chocolates on the Pillow Aren’t Enough”, Jonathan Tisch provides suggestions for how companies can solidify strong relationships with their customer base. Tisch provides several examples for how companies have connected, or reconnected with their customers and successfully built, or revived, their brand. One example in particular that caught our attention is the section on The Rebirth of Harley-Davidson through Customer Community. The section focuses on Harley Davidson’s strategy to rebuild its brand after it faced losses for several years in the 1980s with intense competition from cheaper Japanese imports. Instead of advertising towards prospective customers[...]

While viewing all the ads during last night’s big game, viewers could be forgiven for feeling like they were only watching car ads. There were quite a few. Some were even memorable ones (our personal favorites include VW’s “The Dog Strikes Back” and Chevy’s “Apocalypse“). Automotive was again the largest industry category in terms of number of advertisers (25% in 2012 vs 24% in 2011). Yet the largest category increase actually occurred in financial services which increased its share of voice from 2% in 2011 to 10% in 2012[...]

Fact: Media consumption changes over time.

So, why does media cost tend to stay the same or increase? When planning for a campaign, it’s extremely important to take into account the number of people who actually consume a type of media (digital, print, OOH, broadcast, TV) or particular publication. When buying media, if visitors, circulation or GRPs remain consistent over the previous year, media cost would respectively stay consistent as well. But, if reach of media is declining then cost should reflect this as well[...]

In the days after the Costa Concordia disaster, we have begun to see more cruise line advertising in more mainstream media, at least anecdotally. Companies such as Norwegian Cruise Lines appear to have added special offers to their TV placements in the hopes of counteracting the disaster. It is also possible that cruise lines’ media strategies have not changed significantly after the disaster but that consumers such as us are more aware of cruise line ads, thereby actually increasing their effectiveness.[...]

In the book “Peak,” Chip Conley, Founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, presents an overview of his career focusing on the success, downturn, and revitalization that his company underwent amidst the economic downturn in the post-dot.com and post-9/11 economy. As the upscale business he worked so hard to build began to crumble, Conley referred to the writings of psychologist Abraham Maslow for inspiration. Using Maslow’s theory of the Hierarchy of Needs, Conley took the key points to stimulate an environment of self-actualization that encouraged peak experiences in order to keep his business flourishing[...]

As Luminosity looks towards the new year and starts our annual goal setting process, we decided to reestablish our company values. Here are the values we decided upon for our company:[...]

ComScore reported recently that online holiday shopping increased by 15% versus last year (nearly $35.3 billion had been spent online for the 2011 holiday season) indicating consumers are becoming even more comfortable conducting business online. This is likely a result of increased consumer convenience as well as marketing strategies such as special offers, free shipping with minimum purchase, and the advent of rebate sites like ebates.com and fatwallet.com. The comScore report is based on the most current holiday season, but this trend speaks to how overall consumer shopping and spending is shifting towards e-commerce.

Does this mean all businesses should move to conduct their business transactions online?[...]