Media Tonic

In case you missed our educative post about the impending 28 square metres LED screen in the Murray Street Mall and its resulting advertising opportunities, you can now download a three slide PowerPoint* that fills in the pixels.

We think there are opportunities here for retailers especially, given the ability to hinge advertising messages to highly topical events and synchronise with daily or weekly promotions. “Last hours: world ends soon”.

Research by the Digital Signage Association in 2009 found that over 40% of 1200 industry respondents believed Retail had the most to gain from digital signage.

53% of respondents were expecting to spend more on digital signage.

*PowerPoint is a trademark of Microsoft Inc.

Apparently they exist, though we have no experience of them. Clients From Hell.

“Can you call Google and ask them when the website will show up in the search results?”

“Can we pay for the logo in instalments, or even better can I pay you in salad?”

“Make sure it’s not too edgy, not too flashy, not too much detail, not classical/traditional, not too complex, exciting, but not all over all over the place, efficient but fun, clean, fresh, modern, up beat, contemporary, high readability, smooth, shapeless, timeless, not outdated, but simple.”

“That looks really nice, we love it…could you also ditch the graphics and just put the letters inside an oval? That’d be great” See? This is how we got our logo.

Via.
Image from Veer’s 2007 “Activity book” catalog.

Twenty20′s Big Bash rated its pants off in January (307,000 viewers, a best ever – 18.5% up on the 2009 final) and Subscription TV continued to rise at the expense of Free To Air stations.

Traditionally a strong period for STV, January was up 10% and FTA down 2%. In subscription homes, STV stations accounted for 64% of viewing. Overall, between 6AM and midnight, STV leads individual FTA networks with 26% of metro viewing. Source: OzTAM.

For a small price you can have the booty of your dreams… How can you argue with that?

I know we risk lowering the tone again, but this is simply to say you can keep your social media campaigns; here is some great old-fashioned direct marketing. Everything about this campaign is wonderful: the product concept, the name, the execution…

Now shipping in the tens of billions *punches own head*; why didn’t I think of this? Why? Why? Come to think of it, why didn’t Playtex think of this?

The Grammy Awards promotion site, We’re All Fans is a pretty spectacular example of interactive web video. It’s sucking in YouTube videos in real time uploaded by fans of particular nominated artists. Mostly this is teen girls singing in their bedrooms – at least the seventy or so we looked at were.

Gorgeous use of Flash. Worth a look.
Source.

WA Today is warning motorists to expect disruptions on the Mitchell Freeway for the next five weeks as the Public Transport Authority upgrades railway safety barriers. “1.5km of lane closures and reduced speed limits between Hutton Street and Karrinyup Road from January 16th”.

Not a bad thing entirely as it means people spending more time listening to traffic reports on the radio. The Australian Traffic Network: there’s a product. Call Dave or Mark while you’re stuck in traffic. 9388 7844.

The Mitchell Freeway was originally going to be called the Yanchep Freeway but was named after a former premier Sir James Mitchell, or “Moo-Cow Mitchell” as he was referred to by The West Australian following his campaign for soldier settlement in the south-west. He was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Western Australia in 1933 and served without drawing a salary in deference to the hardships ordinary people were facing during the depression. In 1948 he was appointed the first Australian-born Governor of Western Australia, 119 years after the establishment of the colony.

Marshall McLuhan said “historians and archaeologists will discover that the advertisements of our time are the richest and most faithful reflections that any society ever made of its entire range of activities.”

Via ResearchBuzz, over 100,000 old print ads searchable by category, keyword or even colour. Asian people weren’t as tall in those days. You can also buy prints of the ads quite cheaply.

Santa with a gramophone! Remmington’s new Punched-Card Collating Reproducer! And who can forget… Why did YOU change to Camels, Patrice Munsel? (“Because they agree with my throat”).

So much history to be proud of…