Tag Archives: Marketing and Advertising

February 16, 2011 · 2:15 pm

There’s No Free Lunch

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One of the big discussions in which I find myself engaged with clients and others concerns monetization. More specifically, how the heck can any of us pay for all the cool content and technology we offer to our consumers. If you’re web-savvy enough to be reading this blog you’ve probably encountered this argument in one form or another even if indirectly. You know what I mean: free, ad-supported content vs. subscription content vs. “free-mium”, which seems more to be about services than content but is still a valid model for that space too.  So where do you stand? Continue reading →

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February 7, 2011 · 11:28 am

That Fine Line

There are a lot of great quotes that came from the Spinal Tap film but one I find myself using over and over is “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.”  I thought of that last night as I watched the Super Bowl and all the very expensive commercials.  I also thought about the famous David Ogilvy quote – “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything.”  Given that many of these ads would make me the moron in question, here’s a reminder to any of us who do marketing – and if you’re in business, that’s pretty much all of us. Continue reading →

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February 1, 2011 · 3:05 pm

Grafitti

When we were strolling around the magnificent ruins of Pompeii, what surprised me the most was the amount of graffiti.  No, not from knuckleheads with cans of spray paint.  This stuff had been there for thousands of years.  While I’m sure my amusement all this time later wasn’t quite the reaction all those years ago, some of the notes served a valuable purpose such as communicating lost pets or stolen articles.  Sort of a wall-based Craigslist.

If you’ve been to New York, you know that no newly erected wall can go for more than 10 minutes without writing or ads on it.  Turns out the same thing is true about the web and, in fact, we encourage it.  I think that’s too bad. Continue reading →

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