Hasta La Creative!

After AsianWeek had announced it was releasing its last issue today, another magazine has announced that it will be closing down next week. PG Magazine, a print and Web publication featuring pictures contributed by amateur and professional photographers, is likewise shutting down.

Similar to the reasoning behind AsianWeek, the financial turmoil has been identified as the culprit. In recent months, the future and status of most publications have been raised in light of the new mode of delivering information through the web and adding the economic crisis to the mix was just too much for publications we are all familiar with. Who could be next?

(Source) AFP

Kids are sure to be relieved that favorite cartoon characters SpongeBob Square Pants and Dora the Explorer will continue to grace their TV sets as a last minute deal regarding the fees for the airing of these popular shows was finally settled. There was a dispute over fees for the airing of some shows by Viacom and Time Warner and a potential blackout would have resulted if not for the last-minute deal that happened earlier this morning.

Among the shows that would have been affected included:

1. SpongeBob SquarePants
2. Dora the Explorer
3. The Colbert Report
4. The Daily Show
5. MTV
6. Nickelodeon
7. Comedy Central

The impasse would have meant Viacom’s channels would be cut off to 13 million subscribers, said Alex Dudley, a Time Warner Cable vice president. The nation’s second-largest cable operator primarily serves people in the Carolinas, New York, Ohio, Southern California and Texas.

Time Warner chief executive Glenn Britt had earlier called Viacom’s demand for a 12 percent increase in fees – an extra $39 million on top of the estimated $300 million it pays Viacom annually – extortion and outrageous given the recession.

(Source) Charlotte Observer

A lot of gimmicks have been done by Facebook and its partners but this one has to be acknowledged. When you add the Kraft Application to your Facebook account, you automatically direct Kraft to feed 6 meals to hungry families. The same scenario happens when you successfully refer a friend to add the Kraft application. How is that for great advertising strategy that is bound to gain the nod of most people who look highly on acts of charity eh?

The consumer-goods giant earlier this month hooked up with social marketing company SocialVibe to release a cause-related Facebook application. The twist: Kraft donates six meals to hungry families through the Feeding America charity for each friend users convince to add the application.

It seems like an act of goodwill and something that can really entice any Facebook user to check out. Besides, if you have nothing better to give, why not help families in need? Better yet, entice your friends. Your effort is sure to spread to the others and perhaps we can help feed people who are growing hungry this holiday season. Not a bad cause!

(Source) AdWeek

General Motors has pulled out and this makes the promotional opportunities to capture a larger target market better for car companies that have stuck it out as far as the NFL advertising tactics are concerned. Hyundai for one has been serious about it all and will be officially unveiling its Hyundai Genesis Coupe at the upcoming Super Bowl.

The title of both commercials is “The Epic Lap.” Shot at Road Atlanta, the racetrack didn’t do much damage to the car. The company says the Genesis only needed a new set of tires after three days of filming.

So while GM is trying to recover from its tracks, other companies like Hyundai are on the offensive. Will their investment pay dividends?

(Source) Kicking Tires

When you are looked upon as an established singer or lead vocalist, chances are people would be pretty much expecting the best rendering ballads today. But the funny thing is that some of the best stars we see in the music industry may not even be making it big due to their voice but more on how they are marketed and look.

It is really surprising. Imagine big names like David Lee Roth and Bob Dylan tagged as bad singers and mainly lip-synch to carry their way to fame and fortune? Now that is something that they have to give credit to their promotions manager. In most shows, you would notice that lip-synching is common and hence, much of them are practicing singing along with music rather than actually rendering it.

There are two kinds of bad singers in the world: the ones who kid themselves into thinking they’re good (Kanye) and the ones who try too hard — all the time. These are the Mariahs, Beyonces, and Christinas (although Ms. Aguilera is learning; her Nina Simone tribute on the Grammy nomination show this month was remarkably restrained). These performers wring the last bit of life out of every note. Just because you can sing every octave perceptible to the human ear doesn’t mean you have to. These singers don’t know when to hold back.

(Source) Yahoo Music

If you want a good business, the best people to solicit proper direction other than your usually reliable management team would be the people endorsing your product. In this case, the world of social marketing would do well to serve the demands of their visitors, the main reason why websites are getting good hits and rankings.

Two sites come into mind. Urbanbaby.com and Facebook. Of the two, Facebook has somewhat recovered from its earlier blunder of releasing new tools to allow members to track other user’s actions on the site. A year later, Facebook introduced a service that let retailers announce a user’s activities on their websites as a form of advertising. But since then, they have redesigned and unveiled a new approach, making them one of the popular social networking sites known to man today.

On the other hand, Urbanbaby.com took a turn for the worst, mainly focusing on the advertising binge which led to their downfall. While they tried to recover from it, new sites like YouBeMom.com took over their niche.

So if you want a good tip, “Do Not Upset Your Users”. That makes all the difference in business particularly in the cyber world.

(Source) AFP

Christmas is over and a lot of retailers have more stocks which are being offered for sale at practically a steal. Imagine 50% off on their items? Their reason? To get back their capital.

Now this is something I believe would be up for debate. If you reveal the price of your items and can afford to sell them at crazy price drops, how can you declare that you just want to get back your initial investment from them? In fact, if you can go that low, it means you may have already enjoyed a profit from it, and the stocks left are just about the ones to help you break-even.

Of course the issue is different if you really had low sales, a familiar fixture for most people in the world today. But if you find yourself among the vendors who have been selling like crazy today, it is really doubtful that any of them encountered losses.

Surely it is a matter of preliminary costing to which forecasts should have been made to level supply and demand before doing business. It is a common mistake especially for businesses in the retail size.

Apple has not disclosed any new gadget in its line of iPhones or iPods and yet we are hearing about an iPhone Nano (yes you read it right, iPhone Nano and not iPod Nano) that is now available in the market. It is obviously a revolutionary way of trying to market something using the Apple trademark, even making use of authentic Apple boxes with some etchings to get the people excited.

One thing to note, it is made in China. So before you go out and look for these things, rest assured they are not from Apple. They are cloned phones with some features that only cloning professional can think of.

And the real thing? Wait a while. Apple has not announced anything about their real iPhone Nano and from the looks of it, gadget freaks just have to wait a bit tad longer.

Made-in-China is carrying an advertisement from Shenzhen Sentai Technology for the Mini Phone 3G. And, yes, that is white out covering the “i” ahead of the word “phone” in the image to the right—nothing says truth in advertising like white out.

(Source) Blorge

Nike has known to be a modest investor in ads as far as its shoe and apparel line is concerned and it seems that is now shifting its focus on interactive advertising aimed at women mainly for the winter season. The ad is similar to interactive advertising used by other companies in showcasing the different product choices.

In this case, Nike ads let a consumer rollover a woman to see all of the sportswear products worn throughout a video.

the challenge of the campaign was how to show a wide variety of products in one rich-media execution. The way they tackled this was to create the interactive video featuring a woman running, walking and exercising in various environments representing different aspects of winter weather to the tune of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan’s version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

(Source) DMNews