Official Tarp Sponsor of the Boston Red Sox

I was watching the Red Sox game last night with a few friends, and when we were done laughing at Youk for throwing his batting helmet at the pitcher while charging the mound after getting hit by a pitch, there was a rain delay and the tarp came out.

I don't know if I've just never noticed before (and I don't know why I was at all surprised knowing the team's history of odd sponsorships) but there it was - the Bob's Stores logo:



That got me thinking of other sponsorships around Fenway, and I remembered I had seats on the Right Field Bud Deck when I went to a game in June:




And that led me to continue finding other interesting Red Sox sponsorships. During my search in the depths of the interwebs, I found this funny blog post from Surviving Grady, which I'm posting here for your amusement:

So, having been kicked out of every other bar in town, I found myself strolling into a 99 Restaurant the other day, and saw a sign on the door proudly proclaiming that the 99 is, in fact, "The Official Family Restaurant of the Boston Red Sox." Just a few days earlier, while fetching one of my kids a Hoodsie cup, I saw that Hoodsies have also achieved lofty "official" status, being the "Official Ice Cream of the Boston Red Sox." So it got me thinking. Am I, as a fan, doing enough to live the "official" Red Sox lifestyle? And could I go through an entire day utilizing only those officially sanctioned-by-the-Red-Sox products?

I'm happy to report that I'm almost there. I spend most of my free time sleeping on a couch procured through Jordan's Furniture, the Official Furniture Store of the Boston Red Sox ("Julian Tavarez buys all his bedding and harnesses here" would have been a great Sunday-circular headline, IMO.). I'm often found drunk in local alleys in my Schilling jersey from Bob's Stores, the Official Apparel Store of the Boston Red Sox. And this blog gets typed up on a desk brought to me through the good folks at W.B. Mason, Official Office Supplies Supplier to the Boston Red Sox. If I can round the day out with a couple meals at the 99, getting my blood alcohol content checked by the good docs at Beth Israel (Official Hospital of the Boston Red Sox), taking a business trip on The Official Airline of the Boston Red Sox, snapping some photos for this silly-ass blog with my Nikon (Official Camera of the Boston Red Sox), making some hefty withdrawals from the Official Bank of the Boston Red Sox, experiencing only music that is channeled to me via products bought through the Red Sox' Official Sound Partner, and limiting my noshing to Official Snack Foods of the Boston Red Sox, then I could do it even better.

(Courtesy of Youtube, Boston.com, & Surviving Grady)

Size DOES Matter When it Comes to Newspapers

But it may surprise you to find out that smaller may be better...

As I touched on in a previous post, smaller community newspapers are continuing to flourish even in these tough times for the industry.

The AP reports that the hyperlocal focus of these daily and weekly papers makes them an asset to the communities they serve:

CNN is not coming to my town to cover the news and there aren't a whole lot of bloggers here either," said Robert M. Williams Jr., The Times' editor and publisher. "Community newspapers are still a great investment because we provide something you can't get anywhere else."

The scarcity of other media in small- and medium-sized cities has helped shield hundreds of newspapers from the upheaval that's causing dailies in big cities to shrink in size and scope as their print circulations and advertising sales decline.

Less competition means the print editions and Web sites of smaller newspapers remain the focal points for finding out what's happening in their coverage areas.

In contrast, large newspapers carry more national news, as well as local, and have many competitors, including Web sites and television and radio stations. They report much of the news the day before printed newspapers reach homes and newsstands. Large newspapers' Web sites also provide the news for free a day ahead of print editions.

And the larger the paper, the higher the operating costs. While the major players have had huge staff layoffs, fought with the unions, and stopped printing on certain days of the week, the small papers don't have many of those concerns simply due to their size.

That's not to say that community papers don't face challenges - the changing marketplace has affected everyone across the board.

"It would be wrong to assume there is some sort of bubble over our market," said Chris Doyle, president and publisher of the Naples Daily News, a daily newspaper in southwestern Florida with a circulation averaging about 64,000 during the six months ending in March. "We are becoming leaner, more scrappy and more aggressive than ever before."

So if you're looking to market your products or business in newspapers, go where the readers are:

Rather than filling their pages with material that is readily available on the Internet, smaller newspapers focus on the politics, business, sports, crime and community affairs occurring in narrowly defined geographic areas — a county, a town or, in some cases, even a few neighborhood blocks.

"If it walks, talks or spits on the concrete in our area, we cover it," said John D. Montgomery Jr., editor and publisher of The Purcell Register in Oklahoma.

(Courtesy of the Associated Press)

Interactive Travelers Insurance Wall Ads

After returning from an out-of-town family vacation on Tuesday, we passed some pretty cool interactive wall ads for Travelers in the airport terminal. Not the first time I've seen them, but definitely still worth sharing.

True to form, my 7- and 10-year old cousins and I waved our arms and jumped around like lunatics while our parents stood there saying "Huh, I didn't realize those pictures moved."

Click Here to check out how it looks in person!


(Courtesy of Monster Media)

Shark Week, Long John Silver's, & Hammerheads

So Long John Silver's is promoting it's new fish tacos by buying up a ton of ads on the Shark Week microsite at Discovery.com.

According to the article in MediaWeek:

“Long John Silver’s partnership with Discovery.com is a unique opportunity to organically marry two brands with strong commitments to quality,” said LJS senior marketing director John Villanueva, by way of announcing the deal. “It’s a playful, creative fit.”

Sure, it's a cute move, but honestly? Fast food fish has always given me the jibblies...

Fun side note, the Shark Week website has a quiz that will tell you what type of shark you are. Here's what I got:

You're like a... Hammerhead Shark!

You may be goofy, but don’t think other sea creatures aren’t aware of you! You like to swim in large schools, and your sleek and slender figure lets you get up to speeds of 25 mph. You are normally calm unless provoked, and you usually feed around dusk. You like to live in tropical climates with warm waters, and most of your litters have up to 25 little sharks!

Hey, what a coinkidink! I DO usually feed around dusk...



(Courtesy of MediaWeek and Discovery Channel)

Quote of the Day - David Ogilvy

Because I'm a self-proclaimed nerd, I really enjoy the "Quote of the Day" application on my homepage. Here's a relevant one from today, from "The Father of Advertising," David Ogilvy:

Political advertising ought to be stopped. It's the only really dishonest kind of advertising that's left.

For more on Ogilvy and his influence on advertising, visit this website. I particularly enjoy the Ogilvyisms...

Moonfruit's Twitter Push Provides Cautionary Tale

NEW YORK Marketers looking to leverage Twitter beware: the company will only let you rig the system so much, as one brand recently discovered.

Moonfruit, a U.K.-based company that offers free Web site building tools, saw a great opportunity to raise brand awareness on Twitter. The company last week kicked off a sweepstakes, giving away 10 MacBook Pro computers to Twitter users that include the #moonfruit tag in their tweets. (The sweepstakes ended on July 7.)

The campaign worked, maybe too well. The hashtag #moonfruit was Twitter's top trending topic for several days, with more than 250 tweets a minute. According to the site builder, at its peak Moonfruit represented 2.5 percent of all Twitter traffic, beating topics like Michael Jackson, Iran and Wimbledon. Twitters also created posters and a Moonfruit song, which helped shape the campaign, said Wendy Tan White, Moonfruit's founder.

Then it was suddenly over. Late last Friday, Moonfruit dropped from the top of the trends list and never returned. According to the company's stats, however, Moonfruit was still emerging above other trending topics. White said Twitter seems to have removed Moonfruit from the trend's list. Twitter could not be reached for comment at press time. But according to Moonfruit's blog, "the campaign sets a dangerous precedent and could have implications for how Twitter is used and abused by marketers . . . it's certainly their right to protect their network and technology investment." What left Moonfruit puzzled is why it was censored without explanation.

Ben McConnell, co-founder of the Society for Word of Mouth (an educational network for word of mouth efforts) and co-writer of the Church of the Customer blog, said Twitter might have been annoyed by the attention Moonfruit was consuming, or simply tired of the topic. "There's not a big basket of marketing campaigns successfully launched via Twitter because, people being people, there's a natural resistance to being a receptacle for marketing messages," McConnell added. "Plus, there's no formula for creating consistent viral success."

In offering advice to other marketers launching similar campaigns via Twitter, White said it's important to "keep on your toes" as things can change very rapidly. "The difference between this and a normal campaign is that it is an ongoing conversation," said White. "This means messages can evolve over the period, but it also means you have to stay on top of it and react fast."

There is another lesson to be learned here for marketers. "The Moonfruit story is a great example of money versus gold," said McConnell. "Give away money and people will question your motives or yawn in boredom. Give away gold, in this case MacBook Pros, and they'll line up for blocks."

(courtesy of adweek)

Iran Blocks Opposition Party Newspaper

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran's government was accused of blocking publication of a reformist party's newspaper Wednesday to prevent it publishing a letter from a presidential candidate questioning the legitimacy of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory in last month's election.

Meanwhile, questions surrounded an announcement in government-run Iranian media that Ahmadinejad canceled a planned trip to Libya on Wednesday for undisclosed reasons.

In the letter due to be printed in the Etemed Melli party newspaper, Mehdi Karrubi vowed to "stand by the people and the revolution, until the end of my life," describing the actions of the government over the June 12 vote as "the foundation for the annulment of the elections."

"I will not recognize the legitimacy of the government which has resulted from this process," the 72-year-old cleric and former parliamentary speaker wrote.

Karrubi's letter was instead published on the Etemed Melli Web site. The party said Iran's Ministry of Culture and its Attorney General prevented the publication of its newspaper because it carried the letter.

Read the rest of the article here.



(courtesy of CNN.com)

Paid Search 101 Rap

Check it out! The basics of Search Engine Marketing laid out in a 2-minute rap:

(courtesy of Mo Serious and Youtube)

Ninja vs. Penguin and Alien vs. Predator

On the lighter side of things, check out Ninja vs. Penguin for some awesome creative work and fun commentary.

Loved finding this older series of ads for Alien vs. Predator, mostly because it reminds me of the last time I watched the movie with my dad and he felt the need to explain all of the intricacies of the plotline even after I told him I had already seen the movie. Sigh.

Anycrap, they're pretty amusing:

(courtesy of Ninja vs. Penguin)

Jon & Kate Plus Ad Dollars?

The Discovery Communications family of networks has been cashing in lately on ad sales due to diverse and popular programming like Deadliest Catch on Discovery and Jon & Kate Plus 8 on TLC.

As you may have noticed in a previous post, I'm a big J&KP8 fan. In my own life it's always been a "family first" mentality, so I always appreciated their commitment to the kids and keeping the family together. With Jon & Kate's recent marital troubles, though, the increased press has put a huge strain on the family.

That's not to say the show itself has suffered - in fact, the season 5 premiere in May was the most-watched program on TLC....ever.

Even with record-breaking numbers, it's still unclear whether the show will return for additional seasons. While I'd miss the weekly episodes and seeing the adorable kids grow up, it's important they do what's best for them right now. Whether it's continuing the show, ending the marriage, only filming a couple times a year for some one-hour specials, etc., I don't really care as long as they pull through and make it work for their family.

With that said, imagine my extreme distaste when I read the following comment from Joe Abruzzese in the June 15 edition of Broadcasting & Cable Magazine:

As for the publicity surrounding Jon & Kate, the Discovery reality show about a couple with eight children—the couple's marriage problems are all over the tabloids—he is sanguine about the benefits of such exposure.

“The good thing is, we've got great sampling; it will be a disappointment if they don't come back,” he says. “The fear is, what's the show going to be? That's on everyone's mind. It may not be the show it was. We need to find out what the show will become and sell its value.”

Excuse me? I thought the fear was that a family would be torn apart by the constant media scrutiny and end up suffering in the long-term. While Discovery is obviously happy that the current media exposure is allowing them to rake in the advertising dollars, I don't think it's fair for Mr. Abruzzese to be so openly blasé when he's talking about real people's lives here. Sure, it may help business, but remember that in the end these people aren't TV show characters and their lives are affected by everything that goes on around them.

I don't know, I guess I'm not old and jaded enough by the advertising business to understand Mr. Abruzzese's point of view. Actually, I kind of hope I never do.




(Courtesy of broadcastingcable.com and hollywoodinsider.ew.com)