The Marketing Innovation Blog

It's no longer marketing as usual.

Archive for February, 2009

This is a good one – Trust Me

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Posted by Mike G, Griffin York & Krause Account Services

 

“This is why we got into advertising in the first place, remember? Some kids wanted to be firemen, some kids wanted to be astronauts, some kids wanted to be doctors; we always wanted to be hung-over from expensive booze that someone else paid for while everyone back in Chicago thinks we’re working. That was our dream. We dare to dream.” –Conner, Trust Me.

 

Dare to dream and dare to succeed. Meet Conner, so cool he doesn’t even have a last name. Conner is played by Tom Cavanagh on TNTs new hit series, Trust Me, partner to Mason McGuire, recently appointed creative director (Eric McCormack). This dynamic duo navigates the inter-office politics, personal relationships and of course, client demands at the fake Chicago ad agency Rothman, Greene and Mohr.

 

Mason (Eric McCormack-left) and Conner (Tom Cavanagh-right) of the new TNT hit series, Trust Me

So far so good. It seems like this show is still helping TNT live up to their own tag, “We know drama.” What might be more impressive than the show itself is the seamless integration with real brands. To date, two of the predominant brands in the show have been Arc Mobile (fake) and Dove (real). The Dove brand has played somewhat of a secondary role, but with the Arc Mobile account in review, something tells me it’s going to become one of the premiere brands in Mason’s group.

 

The Dove product placement is no coincidence in the show. It’s also no coincidence that they typically air a spot during every commercial break, and Dove has page dominant banner ads on the Trust Me section of the TNT site. To take it one step farther than just the integrations in the on-air storyline, in the coming weeks TNT will promote an online destination, bethecreativedirector.com (not yet active). At the site, viewers can “join” RGM to help produce a new Dove ad.

 

Do you have what it takes to hang with Mason and Conner at RGM? Check out the show and check out the site it’s worth a peek…trust me.

the Theater of Public Influence – Episode 09

Friday, February 20th, 2009

We’re breaking format again with installment of the Theater of Public Influence. The roundtable is off, and taking their place is Michelle Marshall, VP of Media Services with our first full-length interview show.  

Michelle sat down with veteran radio man, Charlie Dent from WXRV/92.5 “The River” to discuss current events in the radio landscape and how streaming radio, Podcasts, Sirius, YouTube and Pandora have changed radio.  We’ll also explain how Arbitron reports ratings and how the introduction of the PPM (person people meters) will change ratings as we’ve known them for 50+ years.

To listen to the podcast, click here or subscribe through iTunes.

Can’t Market These Drugs

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Over the past couple of weeks two of sports largest figures, Alex Rodriguez and Michael Phelps, saw their images crumble in the public’s eye as both stories have been unavoidable topics in the news. Phelps, easily considered the greatest swimmer of all time, was caught at a college party allegedly taking bong rips of Olympic magnitude. A-rod, who was on a juiced-out pace to surpass perhaps every single offensive baseball statistic, had to confess to taking steroids after Sports Illustrated published a report detailing that the baseball great tested positive for the banned substance in 2003. Amazing how two of sports greats got caught doing drugs just weeks apart. Neither of these events are linked; the drugs are different, the sports are different; but what makes these two events similar is that both individuals stand to lose out on a boat load of endorsement money. So what do you do when your spokesperson has a major public image problem?

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Google Latitude

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Posted by Michael, Griffin York & Krause Marketing Strategy

Google, the king of Internet search, launched another unique search application on February 4th causing a substantial amount of Internet buzz. The new application titled, Latitude, is an enhancement to Google’s already popular mobile mapping service, Google Maps. Once a member downloads the application onto their smartphone, Google then tracks the user by reading signals by nearby cell towers. Once the location of an individual is pinpointed, Google then places their profile picture onto Google Maps for all of their friends and family to see. Think of it as a human GPS machine.

In order to use the Latitude service you must be registered with Google and have an iGoogle profile. There is no cost for a profile or for the new Latitude service. There are two ways that you can use the new Latitude service, first, you can download Google Maps with Latitude to your smartphone and second, is to add the gadget to your iGoogle homepage. In order to access the service on a regular computer, a user must install Google Gears or use Google Chrome. Once you become a member of Latitude you can invite your friend to join via an email. Click Here to watch a video describing all of Google Latitude’s services. Some individuals are excited for this added functionality, some marketers see it as an application that has tremendous targeting potential and some people find the service, well creepy.

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Theater of Public Influence Ep. 08 – Super Bowl Spectacular!

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

In this episode, our panel covers all things Super Bowl.  We look at the game, the half-time show and or course, the ads.  Mike Stevens joins the panel this week and gives us a Super Bowl edition of “Player, Played-up and Played-out”.  Then we talk about all our favorite spots and pick out the big winners who didn’t log any playing time.  

For more on this episode, click here

To listen to the podcast, click here
or subscribe through iTunes.