VC Wear: Your Mom Is Not A Valid Test Market

Posted: February 20th, 2008 | Author: vlad | Filed under: Picture/photo | 2 Comments »


I have no idea if this is legit or not, but the concept and the sample shirts are hilarious. 

Venture Capital Wear » Your Mom Is Not A Valid Test Market

(via Jeff Nolan


Kanye West To Make Montreal Debut in May

Posted: February 15th, 2008 | Author: vlad | Filed under: Quote | No Comments »

Montreal Gazette:

Kanye West - fresh off his four-Grammy night on Sunday - will perform his first-ever Montreal concert in May, it was announced Wednesday.

oh god oh god oh god I’m so going. Go get the torrent of Kanye’s performance with Daft Punk at the Grammies!


Monocle Podcast

Posted: February 13th, 2008 | Author: vlad | Filed under: Video | Tags: | No Comments »

Monocle Magazine Monocle, the best new magazine in recent history, also has a video podcast. You can subscribe right here. The editor, Tyler Brûlé, also produced a TV show “Counter Culture” — a BBC series on consumerism in various cultures. The Japan and Russia episodes are particularly interesting.


Starcom: Clicks Are Dead to Us (For Branding)

Posted: February 13th, 2008 | Author: vlad | Filed under: Quote, Random | No Comments »

Starcom’s press release on “heavy clickers” is heavily discussed today.

The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000.

What is usually neglected in the commentary is the most important conclusion: clicks are not a good measure of brand-building campaigns to begin with. And they’ve never been considered as such, anywhere outside of direct response objectives.

The real question is whether this 6% of online population clicks on punch-the-monkey and win-an-ipod ads, which constitute the majority of display advertising online, or are they represented across the whole display ad spectrum? Were torrent sites considered on the same level as WSJ or NYT? And how is the demographic composition different for search engine ad clickers?


What Do TV Viewers Do During Commercial Breaks?

Posted: February 6th, 2008 | Author: vlad | Filed under: Link | No Comments »

BIGresearch latest Simultaneous Media Survey
MediaPost - Three Fourths of Consumers Channel Surf or Chat During TV Commercials

Same thing as you. They channel surf and otherwise try to avoid ads, unless those ads are guaranteed to be entertaining (such as during SuperBowl).

(Curtesy of lapie) 


Ars Technica’s Verdict on MacBook Air

Posted: February 4th, 2008 | Author: vlad | Filed under: Quote | No Comments »

The biggest iPod of all

Thin is in: Ars Technica reviews the MacBook Air: Page 7


State of Microsoft’s Advertising Union

Posted: February 4th, 2008 | Author: vlad | Filed under: Link | No Comments »

MediaPost Publications - Microsoft’s Brian McAndrews On The Eve Of The Yahoo Offer - 02/01/2008

The kind of thing Microsoft should publish more of. To this day AQNT is the best stock I’ve ever held on to.

 


comScore Releases US Internet Year 2007 in Review

Posted: February 1st, 2008 | Author: vlad | Filed under: Picture/photo | No Comments »


Somewhat different from the Compete.com movers report, and not as granular, but worth taking a look at.

comScore Releases US Internet Year in Review - MarketingVOX


Microsoft and Yahoo, At Last

Posted: February 1st, 2008 | Author: vlad | Filed under: Quote | Tags: | No Comments »

Almost feel dirty to be writing about this given the volume of news coverage the news generated (the most eloquent likely here by Paul Kedrosky), but this is clearly a good thing for everyone except Microsoft and Yahoo.

As with any merger, this means at least a year of inactivity, inertia, lack of innovation, and ultimately loss of revenue. Those who have gone through larger mergers know what it’s like. The list of those who will profit from it includes Google, of course, but also dozens of other companies that will fill the vacuum in advertising platforms that exists even now. PubMatic, Adchemy, OpenAds, AdBrite and many others will all have a good run. Keep in mind that Microsoft hasn’t even been able to make anything good out of aQuantive almost a year after that deal has finalized.