The River

The personal professional blog of Pamela Parker -- musings on marketing, advertising, media and technology.

Pamela Parker

Televison’s Future

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The ANA’s Bob Liodice posts on the future of marketing on TV. My favorite bit:

* Finally – and what I am most excited and interested in — is the technology enabling more consumer targeting. I believe this trend will continue to accelerate and proliferate. Whether it’s the targeting technology offered by companies like Visible World or the addressable alternatives available through set-top box management, marketers will gain increased ability to zero-in on their core consumers, bringing greater efficiency and effectiveness to their marketing planning and execution. Of course it is incumbent upon marketers to collect consumer information in a fair manner that takes into account legitimate personal privacy concerns.

The Office

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We are recording (ReplayTV-ing?) the debut of the American version of The Office tonight. Already watched a sneak preview on Myspace.com. (It’s the first time Michael and I have sat down together to watch full-screen video on the laptop in the living room. I’d imagine it won’t be the last.)

We loved the British original and have hopes (though not high hopes) that the American version captures something of the magic of the original. Mostly, we just loved and miss The Office so much (2 seasons and a special and it was done), that we’re willing to give the NBC version a try, if only to get a taste of that Office sensibility.

P.S. And for those of you who haven’t seen the original, BBC America is, coincidentally, starting the first season again on March 26 at noon.

The Ad Biz, Yesterday and Today

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Ken Auletta covers the state of advertising in a New Yorker piece called The New Pitch: Do ads still work?.

Some tidbits:

  • “When we introduced Scope, in the mid-sixties, we were able with television advertising in the first four weeks of the ad campaign to reach more than ninety per cent of U.S. television households ten times.” — Roy Bostock, the former chairman and C.E.O. of the MacManus Group.

  • “I believe today’s marketing model is broken. We’re applying antiquated thinking and work systems to a new world of possibilities.” — Jim Stengel, the global-marketing officer for Procter & Gamble, speaking at last year’s meeting of the American Association of Advertising Agencies.

    About Apple’s iPod launch:

    According to the advertising-tracking firm of TNS Media Intelligence, Apple spent twenty-four and a half million dollars to launch the device, and forty-five and a half million dollars between January and September of 2004. (By contrast, Roy Bostock says that to reach the same number of consumers as Scope did when it was introduced would cost at least two hundred million dollars in the first year.) Apple’s expenditures were relatively modest, and surprisingly traditional: only two hundred and six thousand dollars went for Web ads, and ninety per cent of last year’s total went for television, with the broadcast networks receiving twenty-five million dollars and cable just under eighteen million. Yet the real reason that the iPod has more or less cornered the digital music-player market is far simpler: the product was brilliantly conceived and executed. Word-of-mouth and promotion did the rest.

    Still shocking in a way that the main “alternative” focus of the piece was about product placement, rather than about interactive advertising.

    Also from the mag: selling in 1938.

    • Publishers/Topix

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    ClickZ’s Kevin Newcomb got some details of potential ad integrations between the investing publishers (Gannett, Knight-Ridder, and Tribune Co.) and Topix.net, which he lays out in a story today. Shameless self-promotion, I know, but just wanted to highlight the ad stuff, which I haven’t seen elsewhere.