Some consumers who prefer Pepsi to Coke when they take a blind taste test, Mr. Lindstrom reports, prefer Coke to Pepsi when they know what they’re drinking. A recent MRI test of 67 subjects explains why. Drinking Coke more significantly increases blood flow in the medial prefrontal cortex because its ad campaigns, over the years, have so effectively associated Coke with sensations of warmth, security and childhood innocence.

Years ago, Revlon founder Charles Revson drily observed that “in the factory, we make perfume; in the store we sell hope.” Neuromarketing can now pinpoint where in our brain such hope is triggered and tell a marketer which ad campaign will send the most blood there.

{ Wall Street Journal | Continue reading }

Starbucks Corp., which built a coffee empire on its premium image, wants to convince customers that its drinks aren’t that expensive.

The company said Monday that it’s selling discounted pairings of coffee and breakfast food for $3.95, a type of promotion long used at fast-food chains. It’s the first move in an aggressive campaign to counter the widespread perception that Starbucks is the home of the $4 cup of coffee.

The Seattle-based company is training its baristas to tell customers that the average price of a Starbucks beverage is less than $3, and that 90% of Starbucks drinks cost under $4.

The move shows how premium brands are trying to reposition themselves for a prolonged economic downturn.

For Starbucks, the effort is also an attempt to fend off McDonald’s Corp., which has been taking thinly veiled jabs at Starbucks’ prices as it rolls out its own line of lattes, cappuccinos and mochas. So far, McDonald’s local advertising for the drinks has included a billboard in Seattle with the message, “Four bucks is dumb.”

{ Wall Street Journal | Continue reading }

{ Posters for Saxofunny (sound production company) | video | via directdaily }

Virgin America is suing Adrants [advertising blog]. The focus of the suit is a paragraph of editorial that was paired with a fake ad. (…)

Seriously… Virgin doesn’t have better things to do? Like, um dealing with their investors who are thinking about abandoning the airline? Talk about wasteful litigation. What does Virgin gain from this action? Adrants surely doesn’t have the cash to make a pay out worth it. The offending material is already off the live site. One could argue this is a deterrent for other sites, but the internet is still the wild, wild West. People are going to do what they like. A best, no one mocks Virgin again and that’s a long shot. At worst, a certain segment of the internet begins to think your brand is seriously lame.

{ AgencySpy | Continue reading }

Consumers prefer to watch television programs without commercials. Yet, in spite of most consumers’ extensive experience with watching television, we propose that commercial interruptions can actually improve the television‐viewing experience. Although consumers do not foresee it, their enjoyment diminishes over time. Commercial interruptions can disrupt this adaptation process and restore the intensity of consumers’ enjoyment. Six studies demonstrate that, although people preferred to avoid commercial interruptions, these interruptions actually made programs more enjoyable (study 1), regardless of the quality of the commercial (study 2)…

{ University of Chicago Press | Continue reading }

video { via copyranter }

{ Skittles, through ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day\NY, has done some truly bizarre candy advertising in the past couple of years. | Copyranter/CoilHouse | Continue reading }

We’ve made terrific progress toward building the next generation of marketing services. (…) At Enfatico we’re using the same technology that NASA uses to fine tune our marketing communications programs… and through those efforts we’re helping our clients stop waste production.

{ Enfatico’s blog }

When WPP Group landed an unprecedented deal to create one agency just to handle Dell’s massive account last year, it upended the ad business.

Enfatico, originally code named Da Vinci, promised to bring all of Dell’s advertising, marketing and public relations - spread across 800 agencies worldwide - under one roof without any of the turf wars that plagued other big shops. (…)

Detractors, who are clearly counting down the days until the deal falls apart, say Enfatico is running behind schedule and has yet to produce any advertising for Dell since it won the $4.5 billion, three-year contract.

“Enfatico has had the account for nine months,” said one veteran ad exec, who has worked on the Dell account. “The only ads they have run have been for Enfatico.”

{ NY Post }

image { Vari-Vue postcard, 1970s }

In February 2007 the Swiss-American artist Christian Marclay was installing a solo exhibition of his work in Paris when he received an e-mail message from a friend about a commercial for the Apple iPhone that had been broadcast during the Academy Awards show.

The 30-second spot featured a rapid-fire montage of clips from television shows and Hollywood films of actors and cartoon characters — including Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Dustin Hoffman and Betty Rubble — picking up the telephone and saying “Hello.” It ended with a shot of the soon-to-be-released iPhone.

Mr. Marclay tracked down the ad on YouTube and watched it.

“I was very surprised,” he said recently by phone from London. Like many in the art world he saw an uncanny resemblance between the iPhone commercial and his own 1995 video “Telephones,” which opens with a similar montage of film clips showing actors answering the phone. That seven-and-a-half-minute video, one of Mr. Marclay’s signature works, has been exhibited widely throughout Europe and the United States.

About a year before, Mr. Marclay said, Apple had approached the Paula Cooper Gallery, which represents his work in New York, about using “Telephones” in an advertisement.

“I told them I didn’t want to do it,” he said. His main concern, he said, was that “advertisers on that scale have so much power and visibility” and that “everyone would think of my video as the Apple iPhone ad.”

Mr. Marclay said he spoke with a lawyer after learning of the commercial but decided not to pursue legal action. “When people with that much power and money copy you, there’s not much you can do,” he said.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

The Streisand effect is a phenomenon on the Internet where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized.

The Streisand effect is named after a 2003 incident in which the singer Barbra Streisand attempted to use legal process to preserve her privacy, only to see the matter become far more prominent as a result.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

A brief history of ad agency economics: U.S. agency employment reached its all-time peak (207,400) in August 2000, four months before ad spending’s dot-com-bubble peak.

Media spending began to recover in May 2002, but agency employment didn’t hit its post-bubble nadir until January 2004 (164,200), a loss of 43,200 jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Employment then rebounded to an October 2007 business-cycle peak of 188,600 — recovering more than half of agencies’ job losses — two months before the start of the recession and five months before ad spending turned negative.

By October 2008, agency employment fell to 182,400, a loss of 6,200 jobs from the business-cycle staffing peak.

{ AdAge | Continue reading }

How do you see advertisement?

Jeff Koons: It’s basically the medium that defines people’s perceptions of the world, of life itself, how to interact with others. The media defines reality.

{ Journal of Contemporary Art, 1986 | Continue reading }

related { iGoogle Jeff Koons Theme }

In case you’ve forgotten, today is the twenty fifth anniversary of Apple’s iconic Super Bowl ad. Wait a minute you ask… Surely that would be next January. But no, you would be wrong… Right Steve? ‘Cos it ran one time at one o’clock in the morning on KMVT, Channel 11 in Twin Falls, Idaho. That’s right, fucking Idaho. (…) That way it would be eligible for all the award shows the next year… Which it duly proceeded to clean up.

{ AdScam | Continue reading }