What can we learn about consuming pop culture from the TED ‘Ads Worth Spreading’ list?

TED just released “Ads Worth Spreading” (here’s the full list) as part of a big week for ’em (the 30th Anniversary of TED is right now in Vancouver). There are no trophies for winning, and ultimately you need to fall… Continue Reading

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The median age of a TV viewer is now 54. Has advertising basically become a junk science?

I'm a white male, age 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are. — Homer J Simpson (@homersquotes) February 7, 2011 Amen, Homer. We were all taught to believe that the central idea of… Continue Reading

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Page views, time spent, clicks, uniques, and shares: does anyone really know how best to measure an online audience?

It feels like people have been saying this for years, although it probably hasn’t really been that long: essentially, the media game is changing. Here’s an article from today via The Atlantic, noting that outbound links off of Facebook went from 62… Continue Reading

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Is Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods or soccer ultimately responsible for the best NIKE ad of all-time?

NIKE isn’t an official sponsor of the next two grand-scale global sporting events — the Winter Olympics, starting tonight, or the World Cup, starting this summer — but it’s really hard to talk about sports and marketing without talking about… Continue Reading

About 45 Northwestern Kellogg MBA students will be analyzing Super Bowl ads tomorrow night (yay ADPLAN framework)

That M&Ms “Anything for Love” ad was one of the big winners of last year’s Super Bowl — along with, you know, the Baltimore Ravens — when a bunch of Northwestern MBA students get together and evaluate the ads on… Continue Reading

Scarlett Johansson, Daniel Defense, and how the banned Super Bowl ad culture seems to work

The above ad features ScarJo hawking SodaStream. It was targeted as a Super Bowl ad — considering it features a highly-paid movie actress — but was banned from airing by FOX, who’s televising the game. Go ahead and watch the… Continue Reading