Aussies’ Favorite Brands

… From Google to Vegemite

Australians Google any and everything. They’re glued to their Nokias, chuck a chicken on the barbie, indulge with Tim Tams and everyone has the hots for Hugh. Breast cancer has the strongest pull on their heartstrings, while Apple and Wii keep Australians constantly amused.

These are among the top brands in Australia according to the 2009 Brand Asset Valuator (BAV), a study conducted by George Patterson Y&R every three years. The latest BAV study examined 1,200 brands covering 139 different categories. More than 4,000 Australian consumers were surveyed online as part the WPP agency’s database of consumer perceptions of brands.

Faces of Facebook – Steve Rubel

Digital Communications…

I spend a lot of time gazing into a crystal ball that I know is going to be cloudy half the time. Lately I have been pondering Facebook’s future.

Facebook is clearly on a roll and is knocking on Google’s door as the biggest site on the web. Will it continue to dominate or see its lead slip? Here are two potential outcomes.

The Google Scenario: In the more rosy picture, Facebook remains the disrupter. It transforms how we use the web.

Just as search changed our expectations that everything we want to know is accessible if we Google it, Facebook is the inverse. If information is important, it will find us through our friends and their friends and so on. We don’t have to Google it.

Rocker’s Music Video

… Helps Unemployed Find Jobs

Ryan Star knows a thing or two about being unemployed — but what he didn’t know was that he’d create a new model for music marketing.

The rangy rocker is working on an album release, has a reality TV show under his belt and just wrapped up about a half-year gig as the opening act for “American Idol’s” David Cook, but the memory of being without a job is still fresh. “I’ve been there, living on girlfriend’s couches,” said Mr. Star, munching on a green apple while sprawled across a chair in a living room of another sort — a lounge area in the office of his label, Atlantic Records. “I know what it is like to be down and have nothing and now I can reach out a hand to help.”

Digital Advertising

Digital Advertising!

Oct. 27 marks the 15th anniversary of the industry’s first banner display ads, which appeared on Hotwired.com. To the many of you reading this who weren’t in the business back then, that’s not a typo; I’m not referring to www.HotWire.com, the travel site, but HotWired — the first commercial digital magazine on the web and the offshoot of Wired magazine.

For us, it started with a speech. It was May 1994, and Ed Artzt, the chairman of P&G at the time, made his landmark speech at the 4A’s meeting in White Sulphur Springs, WV calling for marketers and their agencies to dive headlong into the “new media” revolution or be left behind.

My boss and mentor Bob Schmetterer, president of Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer (MVBMS), a unit of Euro RSCG, was in that audience and he was totally energized by Artzt’s challenge. It’s important to note that our largest account at the time was MCI, which employed Vinton Cerf — the “Father of the Internet” — as VP-data services.

Vote for Ad Age’s 2009 Marketer of the Year

The Candidates: Amazon, Hyundai, Lego, McDonald’s, Walmart

Each year, Ad Age awards one top marketer judged to outperform the rest. The past two years, we left the choice up to senior marketing executives, but this year, dear reader, we are turning this important decision over to you.

Ad Age’s editors and reporters have done the spadework, narrowing the list of choices to five marketers we deemed most adept at navigating what — to understate — has been a tough year. The selection will be interesting, since each of these companies handles its brand in different ways and each suggests a different way ahead for the art and science of marketing in a time of great flux. It’s up to you to tell us which you think has been most successful in 2009, worthy of joining recent Ad Age winners such as the Obama campaign (2008), Apple (2007) and Toyota (2006). Voting ends Wednesday, Oct. 21, and the victor will be announced in the Nov. 9 issue.

Google Lures Local Advertisers

by Subverting Its Own Search Policies

Google is experimenting with its deepest foray into local advertising and along the way is branching out from one of its most cherished philosophies of search advertising: the keyword auction.

In a bid to get more local advertisers to buy search ads, starting this week Google is trying out a new type of search ad and pricing system in the San Francisco and San Diego markets.

Rather than ask businesses to set up a campaign and bid for keywords, they’re offering local advertisers (or non-advertisers) a search ad for a flat fee. The fee is set by Google and based on the average that similar businesses are paying for a given keyword in that market.

Forget Ebert: How Twitter Makes or Breaks Movie Marketing Today

Universal, Sony, Others Wrestle With How Social Media Affects Box Office

Can the so-called Twitter effect boost a movie’s box-office performance faster than any traditional form of word-of-mouth? Not yet, say many top movie marketers and researchers, but the social networking platform’s impact on a studio’s media mix and campaign management has already taken shape.

In a First, Football’s Hall of Fame Opens Doors to Marketers

Van Heusen, JC Penney Sponsor Fan Initiative in Larger Marketing Play to Reach Men

Major pro sports halls of fame tend to be largely pristine, marketer-free shrines to their respective sports, but the Pro Football Hall of Fame is breaking with that tradition in a new multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal with Van Heusen and JC Penney.

The fashion brand and retailer are partnering with the hall on a microsite housed within JC Penney’s website that intends to give fans a voice in the debate over which players ought to be enshrined in the Canton, Ohio, museum. A voice, of course, is not the same as a vote — but the fan’s choice will be promoted extensively via the NFL Network, the league’s premium-cable-TV outlet, and could influence the selection process. The microsite for the partnership incorporates social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

Hispanic Creative Advertising Awards 2009

P&G, Cine Las Americas, Comcast and Their Hispanic Agencies Lapiz, Latinworks and Grupo Gallegos Are the Biggest Winners, With Deep but Entertaining Insights Into Latino Culture

The best Hispanic advertising this year cleverly mined cultural insights into Latinos in the U.S. without resorting to stereotypes. In one of the judges’ favorite campaigns entered in Advertising Age’s Hispanic Creative Advertising Awards, Comcast’s CableLatino and Grupo Gallegos entertainingly demonstrated that if you don’t watch TV in your own language, you lose too much of the story. To drive that point home, English-language newscasts were devised with crucial information, like the photograph of an escaped killer or product shots of poisoned food brands, hidden by subtitles.

JetBlue Taps Plane Full of YouTubers to Promote New LAX Route

JetBlue will land its first jet at Los Angeles International Airport today and has packed the plane with YouTube celebrities to document the ride.

In a bid to build buzz for its new routes from New York’s JFK and Boston’s Logan International to LAX, the airline is counting on a stream of tweets and videos produced by Howcast and YouTube stars such as Kevin Nalts, Delphine Dijon, Justine Ezarik and Meghan Asha. To facilitate that, JetBlue is using its one plane with wireless internet access, BetaBlue, for the JFK-to-LAX flight.

None of the bloggers is being paid directly by JetBlue, but all got a free flight, and some are being paid by Howcast to produce how-to videos featuring JetBlue. The airline asked all the bloggers to disclose the relationship in whatever videos they produce and to keep them “family-friendly.”

“We wanted it to be transparent; we’re not trying to hide JetBlue, we just wanted them to have the space to do it in their own voice and make it interesting,” said Rachel Viega, account supervisor at MediaCom Interaction, a unit of WPP, which oversees JetBlue’s digital marketing.

JetBlue opted for a low-budget, slightly experimental media plan around the flights. The company bought outdoor and radio spots in Los Angeles to promote the new routes, as well as print ads in AMNewYork. But the airline is counting on the cast of video bloggers on the plane to seed YouTube and the Twittersphere with reports from BetaBlue.

JetBlue contracted with Howcast to produce a number of how-to videos related to air travel, including “How to Fly Coast to Coast” and “Happy Jetting with Delphine,” which will be distributed on Howcast’s network and YouTube. Howcast CEO Jason Liebman said all the videos have a “shout out” to JetBlue that discloses the connection.

JetBlue started flights into LAX on Wednesday, its third airport in the Los Angeles area; it already flies to Long Beach and Burbank. After some PR disasters last year and new competition on Los Angeles routes from Virgin America, the airline emerged with a savvy, recession-themed marketing campaign.

It has also made a habit of listening to its customers via Twitter. Its feed @JetBlue, managed by PR rep Morgan Johnston, has more than 680,000 followers. Recent tweet: “on BetaBlue with some fun folks at 28,000 feet and climbing for our JFK-LAX launch.”