Copyright may be exactly right for newspaper copy

I don’t know copyright law in detail. Being a writer, editor and occasional photographer, I assume first that everything is not for use until I confirm that it is.

One of the latest proposals to save print journalism, however, seems to have good legs in existing copyright law. A story in Editor and Publisher suggests extending copyright law to offer newspapers protection for the content they generate for a set period online—say, 24 hours.

Newspapers invest a lot of money in newsgathering. Reporters track down the news—sometimes that means paying a reporter to sit through four days of city meetings to hear a conversation on Day 5 that turns into a big story. Editors vet the facts and make sure the story is complete and well-rounded. Copy editors check that work for grammar and accuracy—verifying every phone number, looking up every address. A slot checks the copy editor’s work. A proofreader checks the finished page, as does the original editor. Photographers illustrate. Designers organize and present. Even if you don’t include the cost of printing and distribution, there’s a heavy price for trustworthy news.

Newspapers recoup this investment by selling advertising to run alongside that vetted-and-thus-valuable news. Just as with magazines, the cost of a subscription doesn’t cover it. But if other sites are swiping newspapers’ content online, there’s no way for newspapers to recoup the investment with advertising, either. They lose their go-to status for the work they produced.

It makes sense to let them protect it for a time. They gathered the news, they should reap the rewards. It’s counter to a popular movement that suggests all work should be freely shared, but if that model kills off the creator of the work, then is that a successful model?

Other materials are protected in this way. Consider the issue in context of movies that are only available in theaters first before going to DVD. Or songs on the radio that pay their creators a royalty every time they air. Shouldn’t there be similar protection for journalism, something that acknowledges its value and compensates its creator? Much as I love what I do, I don’t often work for free. What say you?

--Julianne W.

Build loyalty with brand integration

In the world of marketing, it’s important to localize your brand and integrate it into the community. This not only builds loyalty among your customers, but also keeps your product top-of-mind.
The integration could be in the form of a sponsorship, such as partnering with a nonprofit like the local Susan G. Komen affiliate. Or it could be in the form of a cross-promotion, in which you align your brand with a property in the community.

Our agency orchestrated a cross-promotion for a SUBWAY® client in western Massachusetts with the Boston Red Sox, one of the hottest properties in the region. During the months of July and August, hundreds of SUBWAY® restaurants in the New England area will be selling co-branded collectable cups, and sandwich artists will be wearing co-branded T-shirts.

While the Red Sox alignment is significant for the New England SUBWAY® restaurants, cross-promotions can certainly be done on any level. Smaller scale examples include partnering with a local zoo, art museum or minor league baseball team, depending on your target audience.

With economic times being tough, it’s important to continue building relationships with your customers. Integrating your brand into your consumers lives, into things that are important to them, will strengthen their perception of your brand and ultimately their loyalty.

Is there a product that you’ve developed affection for, in part because of its involvement in the community or environmental or health issues?

--Kara W.

Jammin’ with Jelli

Traditional radio will never be the same. On June 28, CBS Radio is launching a 100 percent user-controlled radio program on KITS-FM, out of San Francisco. Listeners will be able to take over the airwaves via a web service called Jelli, whose motto is “No Suits. No DJs. No Kidding.”

Every song that airs on the station between 10 p.m. and midnight on Sundays will have been chosen and voted upon by listeners. Anything goes, as long as enough people agree. Not only can you vote for your favorite song to be played on the air, but you can also vote for a song to be taken off the air. All this happens in real time.

What will this mean for the radio station’s ratings? With the format fluctuating from country to rap to adult contemporary, will the station be able to keep a loyal audience? Will people enjoy listening to Eminem, followed by Miley Cyrus, followed by Lyle Lovett? (Granted, Lyle Lovett probably would not make it on Jelli’s playlist, but that’s another story).

It’s an interesting experiment that may shed light on listener profiles, but personally, I would rather use Pandora or Slacker, which allow you to customize your own personal radio station on the web. These services allow you to expand your horizons without having to endure formats that are on the opposite end of your own musical spectrum. Radio would truly be revolutionized if we could figure out how to transfer these custom stations to live radio.

--Tessa G.

At heaven’s door with a giant check?

Ed McMahon has passed away after a long and successful career as an actor, sidekick to Johnny Carson and pitchman extraordinaire.

I remember him most clearly as the guy with the giant check. As a kid, I was mesmerized by those American Family Publishers TV spots in which he shows up at someone’s door and changes their life with a huge payoff. I never really knew how much the award was—I was a kid, so a dollar was big money—but I knew it must have been a lot. I mean, did you see the size of the check?

Those spots could be considered the precursor to reality TV, particularly the brand of before-and-after TV to which I am addicted: “What Not to Wear,” “Flip This House” and their counterparts. They make viewers imagine the possibilities. If ordinary Dick and plain Jane can have a fantastic haircut or a gorgeous kitchen in just a half-hour, maybe so could I. And if someone who looks like my next-door neighbor can win an enormous, new-house-new-car-new-life check, maybe so could I. I just need to enter the sweepstakes!

It was a great campaign that took advantage of TV’s visual nature: the oversized cardboard check in hand, the pause outside the door, the jumping and screaming and crying. And it made Ed McMahon a super-good-guy in my memory. Really, could there be a better way to make a living than selling hopes and dreams?


--Julianne W.

Employers, recruiters send wrong message with social media tactics

It’s certainly an employer’s right to research prospective hires’ social media profiles before giving them the job. However, the city of Bozeman, Montana, took things a little too far when it asked applicants for their user names and passwords. That’s a little like asking applicants to provide not only a mailing address, but the keys to their house as well.

This isn’t the first time social media has been used to peer into candidates’ personal lives. One NFL franchise, for example, created a fake female Facebook profile and friended potential draft picks, hoping they’d connect with “her” so the franchise could get a closer look at their profiles. What’s worse? Honestly displaying yourself at your worst or lying to uncover the truth?

So how can responsible employers do their due diligence without being underhanded? Why not simply create a profile and ask applicants to connect? Candidates with the good sense to delete anything questionable would still be in the mix, and those who don’t would understandably be left out. If you think this gives applicants too much of a chance to hide the unflattering stuff, you might be right—but check your own profile before you throw the first stone. More importantly, in the social media world, as our personal and professional lives increasingly intersect, employers—not just job seekers—will have to adapt. Isn’t it better to give people an honest second chance than to begin a relationship with a lack of trust?

--Anthony J.

Don’t discount the simple

We’re all speeding to capture the potential of social media’s tools. Some amazing possibilities surface that apply and test applications for the technologies.

Churches in Jackson, Mich.; Seattle, Wash.; New York City; and Charlotte, N.C., have explored Twittering in church and now are designing select, if not all, services for worshipers who embrace the new technology. It’s a far cry from being asked to silence your cell phones and pagers!

And almost daily, you can find reports of the business community applying new advertising and marketing strategies that embrace these emerging tools.

But I learned this weekend that it’s important that we don’t forget the obvious and seemingly simple marketing tactics that have proven themselves time after time.

While helping our son look for a new home, we encountered a number of yard signs alongside traditional “Open House” signs. They pointed out the $8,000 in economic stimulus money available to first-time home buyers. The offer has been available for months, but a sign to remind open-house visitors when they enter a for property is a very simple yet effective tool.

Were we aware? Yes. Had we forgotten about the money? Yes. Did the first property with the sign make a difference? Absolutely. Every visitor to that home—and several others, was met with an important message.

In retrospect, the traffic volume at the homes with these signs was greater than those without. What appears to have made a difference was a simple, common yard sign.

--Mike B.

DTV Switch Goes Without a Hitch

As of last Friday, television stations across the country dropped their analog signal, switching exclusively to digital TV. More than 900 stations waited in anticipation for the switch to take place, expecting a plethora of problems. For the most part, there were no major glitches. FCC Chairman Michael Copps declared the transition a success. “For TV broadcasting, it was a final farewell to the Dinosaur Age and the dawn of the Digital Age,” Copps said.

All TV stations in Fort Wayne made the switch with very few issues. The stations received a handful of calls from viewers with reception problems, most of which were resolved by having the viewer re-scan the airwaves for the digital frequency.

--Tessa G.

Common Cents Marketing

On sunny days I sometimes walk down the street and get a flatbread at Dunkin’ Donuts for lunch. My egg white with turkey sausage is $1 off right now, thanks to their coupon booklet, and iced tea is free—not in the same visit, of course.

Another coupon in the booklet promotes five Munchkins for 99 cents. I never buy doughnut holes—I usually go all or nothing. But for a buck, I decided, I could have a wee bite of doughnut and share the rest. I chose five Munchkins and gave my coupon to the cashier … who noted that I saved a whole penny off the regular price.

I would agree that a penny saved is a penny earned, but it’s not a particularly large cost savings. This coupon’s value was less for me and more for the retailer, who prompted me to think about and buy doughnut holes. Talk about reframing a message—this one just needed to be framed by a dotted line.

--Julianne W.

Dude! You’re getting some ROI!

According to a post on Mashable, Dell recently determined that their efforts on Twitter have generated $2 million in sales. This proves two things:

1. The impact of social media can be measured.
2. Social media can generate sales.

Now, here’s the catch: In order to calculate the ROI of your marketing efforts, you first have to create unique messages and channels (landing pages, Twitter handles, etc.), so you can pinpoint where your leads/sales come from. Dell had to know, for example, that these sales were at least primarily influenced by their Twitter presence and not other media exposures. You also have to measure—a step that a lot of markers miss. It’s harder than just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks, but it’s worth the extra effort (and, depending on the stuff you’re throwing, it’s a lot less messy).

Social media doesn’t make marketing any easier, but it can help make the results a little better. If anyone doubts that, tell them about the two million reasons why Dell now believes it’s true.

--Anthony J.

Not how long it took...

From this day forward, I will no longer measure edit sessions in time increments. They will be measured in amount of food consumed. So instead of finishing up a two-day edit, I'm wrapping up a session that took the following:

One salad
4 pieces of Some Guy's pizza
One bag of Lay's original chips
37 peanut M&M’s
4 Coke Zeros
One Egg McMuffin
3 large fountain Cokes
One brownie
3 bottles of water

The spot is now rendering. The word “render” has been said 22 times. “Processing” has been voiced an additional 17 times. So until next time, have a handful of trail mix, and I'll see you in the edit suite.

--Matt G.

Can Competitive Advertising Help Your Business?

As an ad agency that represents Subway restaurant franchisees, we have watched competitor after competitor jump on the $5 bandwagon. It’s everywhere, from Pizza Hut’s $5 calzone to Arby’s $5 meal deals.

But the competition’s marketing dollars seem to have assisted in keeping the $5 price point top-of-mind, almost solidifying the value of five dollars.

Starbucks’ CMO, Terry Davenport, is hoping to experience a similar effect from the surge in competitive coffee marketing, specifically from McCafe. While Starbucks wants to remain a premium brand, focused on environmental and social issues, McDonald’s advertising is educating the general public about lattes, mochas and cappuccinos.

Check out this interview with Ad Age and Mr. Davenport in which he elaborates on this topic.


--Kara W.

TAB Launches New “Eyes On” Ratings

The Traffic Audit Bureau is fine-tuning the way it measures ratings for out-of-home advertising. The new “Eyes On” measurement will add information from mailed surveys about destinations and interviews with drivers who keep weeklong travel logs to driver and pedestrian traffic counts.

The data will be analyzed to provide a “visibility adjustment” for each billboard, which will let advertisers know not only how many cars drove by the billboard, but how many people noticed the ad and remembered it. Outdoor companies will no longer be able to get away with billboard signs with compromised visibility, whether too far from the side of the road or half-covered by overgrown trees. Furthermore, unlike any other medium, the quality of outdoor creative will have an impact on the measurement, as it will affect the number of people who notice and remember the message.

This new system will also provide demographic information, such as gender, age, race and income level. It will answer the question of “how many,” as well as ”who,” “what,” “how often” and “where.”
This richness of quantification will allow advertisers to more precisely understand their audience and make better decisions about billboard locations.


--Tessa G.

Wheelie cool

The Indiana Criminal Justice Institute’s Traffic Safety Division has an important but challenging mission: to reduce death, injury, property damage and the economic costs associated with traffic crashes on Indiana highways.

Perhaps most difficult is making authority and safety seem cool. But ICJI’s new campaign, starting today on TV, radio and billboards, has an authority figure of a different variety: 2006 Moto GP champ Nicky Hayden.

Nicky’s a great spokesperson. He’s got the street credit to talk to a thrill-seeking crowd. As a motorcycle racing pro, he appeals to the nontraditional outsider. And he’s a winner, so he represents something to aspire to.

Nicky also has charisma. Watch how he delivers the last line of this TV spot. “Save a life and be aware: motorcycles are everywhere” could easily devolve into a sing-song rhyme. But Nicky says it like a friendly reminder from one cool guy to another. You wouldn’t want to cut this guy off in traffic, right?

--Julianne W.

Sci Fi Channel Steers Away From the “Geek” Demographic

I am a spelling snob, and my greatest pet peeve is the conscious misspelling of common words to make them appear more hip and cool. For example, “night” becomes “nite,” “light” becomes “lite,” etc. Somehow it has become okay to change the English language to one’s fickle delight. Imagine my frustration in this age of texting, Facebooking, and Twittering, wherein this genre of abbreviated writing is rampant.

The Sci Fi network is joining the bandwagon of language distortion. As of July 7, their name will change to SyFy in an effort to appear less geeky and appeal to a wider demographic.

According to Tim Brooks, who helped launch the Sci Fi Channel, “the name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that …” Seriously? Stereotyping and insulting your core audience is not the best marketing strategy.

The Sci Fi Channel has already tried to branch out by incorporating wrestling, original movies and reality shows in its programming. The name change is yet another step toward homogenization and the potential alienation of its most loyal viewers—the geeks. At least they know how to spell.

--Tessa G.

The Scoop On Coupons

My mom raised a coupon shopper. Back in the day, I could orchestrate an evening of visits to three grocery stores within a mile of my home, coupons sorted by store and by aisle, and save 50 to 80 percent. Being poor makes you crafty.

Now that I can afford more produce and whole foods, I’m less diligent about clipping. But when I saw that Unilever is going to test mobile coupons, well, I got a little 50-cents-off thrill.

The idea is simple. Visit Samplesaint.com and download offers to your phone. When you get to the store, the cashier scans your phone and reads your discounts, which are applied to your bill. It’s much like using a key fob at the grocery for savings at checkout, but without the store-loyalty part.

So can I please get all kinds of discounts this way? Big Brother already knows what I buy. Just make it cheap and easy. Don’t make me track down the scissors and carry around a little stack of papers or download coupons and discover I’m out of printer ink. I want all my discounts with me at all times: oil changes, dinners, dry cleaning…all of it. I’m asking to be marketed to.

Of the three budgets alluded to by Andy Murray, chief executive of in-store-marketing agency Saatchi & Saatchi X, my frustration budget might be tighter than even time or money. Call me crazy, but when you call, be sure to send those offers to my phone.

--Julianne W.

Youngest adults not twitterpated with Twitter

More evidence that social networking isn’t just for the kids: According to a new study by the Participatory Media Network and Pace University, only 22 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds use Twitter. This pales in comparison to this same group’s participation on sites such as Facebook and MySpace, where use is nearly universal.

So why aren’t more of the youngest adults twitterpated? There are several possibilities, but I think this reveals some of Twitter’s shortcomings—the fact that Twitter is more about self-promotion than the larger community, for example. And whereas Facebook gives users a bird’s-eye view of the latest news in their friends’ lives, Twitter provides just a glimpse at a time. Twitter is significantly more labor intensive, making it perhaps not worth the effort unless it’s important to have constant updates. Can you think of any friends whose news is so timely and immediate that you’ll miss something without a constant connection? Probably not many. Isn’t it easier to get an overview of what everyone is doing a couple of times a day?

I’ll admit that even though I’m on Twitter, I’m a skeptic. Some businesses--like NAKEDPizza, for example--have made great use of micro-blogging. But unless it’s a first-priority strategy, it’s hard to justify from a ROI standpoint (even if all you’re investing is time). I certainly may change my mind; after all, not too long ago, I didn’t see the need for a Twitter account . But for now, I think it’s worth listening to the 18- to 24-year-olds. Just don’t expect to hear a lot of tweets from them anytime soon.

--Anthony J.