Third Thursday Memo – September 2010

About Today's Third Thursday Message:

From our favourite advertising wizard, a Monday Morning Memo by Roy H. Williamson reminds us (again) how important the web and social media has become for our businesses.

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We're Getting Mall-ed Again
The Web Follows the Pattern of Brick and Mortar
“Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule. And it’s the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen). The fact that it’s easier for companies to make money on these platforms only cements the trend.”
- Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff, Wired, Aug. 17, 2010

Anderson and Wolff are talking about app-driven* destinations like Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, the New York Times, Netflix streaming videos and virtually anything that appears on an iPad or an iPhone.

Not only is Facebook more than just another Web site, but with 500 million users it’s “the largest Web site there has ever been, so large that it is not a Web site at all.”
- Yuri Milner, the investor that bought 10 percent of Facebook
 
Today’s top 10 Web sites account for about 75 percent of all US pageviews**. This leaves just 25 percent of pageviews to be the web traffic coveted by websites number 11 through 80 million***.

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Third Thursday Memo – July 2010

About this month's Third Thursday Message:

How to get your suppliers to pay for your advertising, Print Advertising Best Practices, and how to choose (and where to get) images that will give you the response you want in your advertising...

How to Advertise for (almost) Free

Co-op Advertising Definition: Advertisements by retailers that include specific mention of manufacturers, who—in turn—repay the retailer for all or a portion of the cost of the advertisement!

Co-op Advertising is a cost-effective way for manufacturers, retailers or distributors to reach their market.

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Print Advertising Best Practices

Here are some best practices to keep in mind when doing print advertising.

Set a single objective for the ad. Are you featuring a new product or service? Driving traffic to your website? Looking for a response to an offer? Having a clear objective and message is vitally important.

A laundry list of everything you have to offer is not a good tactic. It gives the customer nothing to focus on or get excited about.

Your headline should clearly define your chosen objective. Your ad's headline is the first thing that gets read. That, along with your image/visual, is what draws them to read your ad or story.

Choose a strong image. A cluttered image weakens your ad. Your image needs to be strong and professional and must also tie in with the body copy and headline. (See examples of strong visuals from our advertisers below.)

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Third Thursday Memo – June 2010

About Today's Third Thursday Message:

From our favourite advertising wizard a Monday Morning Memo by Roy H. Williamson comes 2010: Changing of the Guard, specifically in relation to the world wide web and the changes it brings to promoting your business.

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2010: The Changing of the Guard:

Change happens more slowly than people believe.

When change looms obvious and inevitable, we assume it to be imminent. But obvious, inevitable changes in business usually take from 7 to 12 years. 2010 will be the 7th year of certain inevitable changes introduced by the world wide web.

1. Google has replaced the Yellow Pages
but most advertisers haven’t figured this out yet so the Yellow Pages continue to make money on the momentum of previous years.

Momentum is a magical thing. It keeps an empty freight train hurtling forward even when its engines have run out of fuel.

The Yellow Pages are an empty freight train.

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Third Thursday Memo – May 2010

About Today's Third Thursday Memo:

The 20/60/20 rule abounds in life. It says that for almost any given thing 20% will be positive, 20% negative, and 60% will be neutral. This can apply for employees in a company, with 20% strong performers, 60% average, and 20% weak performers. This rule also plays out in pricing and your customers. We have an article on a experiment conducted by sociologists that you will find very interesting.

Give Meat, Not Cheese

Also from our favourite advertising wizard a Monday Morning Memo by Roy H. Williamson the importance of finding the meat of your message in any advertising or promoting that you do.

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20/60/20 Rule:

Sociologists conducted an experiment at a department store to test the 20/60/20 rule. They placed three stoves side-by-side. On each machine a tag was placed for customers to take to the cash register to complete their purchase. Hidden cameras where set up to record the action.

After one month the sociologists gathered the tags to check their results. Each of the stoves was exactly the same --- the only difference was the price of each stove. One was priced low, one was priced mid-range, and the third was priced expensive.

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