Hasta La Creative!

Consumer research tends to reward safe ideas because it takes time and cultural support for consumers to adopt truly new products. But this is not the way to build real winners.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Microsoft is taking a page from Consumer Marketing 101: offering search users cash-back rebates.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Since Big Brown galloped across the finish line at the Kentucky Derby, the horse — and UPS, who's company that's been riding it for all it's worth — have reaped an estimated $4 million in free publicity.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Despite American society's continuing obsession with health and healthful eating, fast food remains its closeted paramour, according to "Fast Food Nation 2008: A Consumer Perspective on the Fast Food Industry," a study by the Chicago-based Research Inter-national USA.

BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) — As Bridge Worldwide CEO Jay Woffington and Chief Marketing Strategist Bob Gilbreath see it, the idea is to make the marketing the cause, with intrinsic value to consumers so it pulls them in rather than be thrust upon them where they can least avoid it.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — American Airlines is reducing capacity as much as 12% and laying off thousands — moves The Wall Street Journal characterized as "drastic steps" that "many view as a greater threat to U.S. airlines than the industry crisis triggered by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." Yet those shifts were all but lost in the media coverage and PR backlash generated by a third move it's making: instituting a first-checked-bag fee of $15 each way.

MUMBAI – Shyam Shanker, president of Publicis Groupe’s consolidated media buying operation India Media Exchange (IMX), has stepped down one year after the unit was formed.

(TrendHunter.com) A production company named Action Figure filmed its employees being punched in the face in slow motion to the rhythm of Robyn’s Be Mine song.

“The disturbing thing is that no one questioned it w…

(TrendHunter.com) What a brilliant use of technology to create unique art! Erik Nordenankar devised a genius plan to create the Biggest Drawing In The World by tracking the movement of a GPS briefcase traveling the glo…

From the head of Zues Jones comes some thought provoking material regarding the web as a less than perfect storytelling medium.

There’s no doubt that online advertising is generally pretty dire, but then the Web isn’t really a great medium for delivering traditional advertising. But even more importantly it’s absolutely the wrong medium if all you want to do is tell stories.

The web isn’t just a communications medium, it is a medium for interacting with people. Storytelling is inherently one-way, in fact, the main use for stories in the history of humans has been to teach. Using the Web for teaching and one-way dissemination of information are a waste its talents.

As a writer who is attracted to the web like a moth to flame, I find this insightful and useful. In this format, I think of myself as a writer first and a conversationalist second. And that may be limiting what AdPulp can become, so I need to pause and consider what it all means.

Last week, Rob Walker puzzled what is so special about a service that gets people “talking” in micro-bursts.

I just can’t get worked up about Twitter either way. Why do people have such extreme reactions to it?

According to the theory above, people come to the web to talk, not read, view or listen passively. People want to engage by creating stories with others, as they would in real life. When one tells a story in real life, other people add to it in real time (which can be annoying to the storyteller). Twitter mirrors this, whereas a blog is more traditional in its storytelling structure. On a blog a writer offers something, then comments come in, but it’s not a conversation just like email is not a conversation. IM and Twitter are conversations; thus, the excitement around them.