Advertising Age – Apple Chomps Into Forbidden Fruit: Ads

As we’ve said- the biggest news with the video iPod wasn’t watching movies- it was that Apple began selling TV shows on the iTunes store (sans commercials) for $1.99 ea. These were shows you could have seen for free the previous night.

Now- Apple has started to show ads on the store interface. Is this setting the stage for ad supported content? Will the ads be targeted to the customer- one can only assume so.

This is the end of the Network, the end of Cable- and the birth of IPTV. Are you paying attention?

I’ve said I’ll watch a whole bunch of spots to see the Sopranos for free- or pay $5 a show to see it in HD without having to get HBO-

What do you think?

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Advertising, Change the world, Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of TV, Marketing & the Web, Web strategy

Google SketchUp (free) SUD

We here at The Next Wave are firm believers in Open Source software- and while this isn’t exactly open source- Google SketchUP works with the Google API’s for Google Earth- and allows you to do some really cool things in a free software package.

We have Sketchup pro in the office and use it for 3d Visualization- and think that it’s the cats pajamas. When Google bought Sketchup a month or so ago we were really happy for the people at Sketchup who have worked so hard to make a great product.

So- all of you amateur home designers- you now have a way to design your new house- for free.

Enjoy!

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Change the world, Everything you want to know about advertising

If there is one reason Apple is Apple and Microsoft is Microsoft- it’s that Apple understands “Less is more” when it comes to design.

This YouTube video says it all.

Enjoy- When Microsoft designs the iPod package

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Design, Everything you want to know about advertising

The results are in for the American Advertising Federation’s Fifth District student ad competition- and the winner is the University of Kentucky. These students will get to go to San Francisco in June for the National competition and square off against teams from across the country. The client, Postal Vault, of Dallas Texas, was the first “small client” in the history of the competition and they gave the students a taste of a real world, with changes halfway through the assignment and some odd requests in the brief. As in all things advertising, the campaign presentations ran from the bad to the very good.
I’m in a position to know- I was selected to be the client representative on the panel.
The competition is still going on in some districts, so I will limit myself to say that reviewing the planbooks and presentations by 9 teams is a lot of work- but very rewarding. Often times in advertising we search out young talent to give us a fresh perspective on our business- and while I saw some incredible talent today- there is much to be said for the wisdom that comes from years of experience.
Watch this space in the near future for a tip sheet for building effective planbooks for this competition- and for making an effective presentation. For now, I just want to say it was an honor to be a judge, and that the process served as a reminder of how and why I love this business. If you ever get the call to be a judge on one of these competitions- I highly recommend it- even if it will mean missing sleep and a day or two of work.
Not only will you be giving something back- you’ll walk away with a creative battery recharge that will surprise and delight you.
Congratulations to all the teams- I hope this was a good introduction to our amazing field.

David Esrati

Joining me in the judging were:

Michael Gersin, CRMC
Greater Media Detoit

Lou Es Greene
L2 Marketing Research, Ltd.

Matthew Oates
Greater Lafayette Health Services

Daniel Schlegel
Schlegel Creative Resources

The other winning schools:
2nd. place Western Kentucky University
3rd place Ohio University
4th place Youngstown State

John Carroll University, Marshall University, Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Murray State University and Xavier University were the other participants.

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Advertising, Careers in Advertising, Change the world, Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of advertising

Fish Bubbles

Imitation is supposed to be the most sincere type of flattery- how ever; “Next Wave Marketing” in San Diego probably should be hiring us to sell their Fish Bubbles wall mounted aquariums.

How did we find out about this? Well, a small retail shop had the name of the product- and the name of the company (our name, by the way- since 1988) and our site was all she could find. We own the search category for “Next Wave Marketing • Innovation”- trust me.

As to Fish Bubble aquariums- we’ll probably own that category too, thanks to our really smart website talents. They are small, wall mounted, acrylic aquariums. Instead of paying for Google keywords to drive traffic to their site- they could just trust us to build a site that works. That’s why we’re The Next Wave- and they aren’t.

 Print This Post |
Posted in: Advertising, Everything you want to know about advertising, Guerrilla campaigns, Marketing & the Web, Web strategy