Archive for November 15th, 2007

ONE THING SEEMS CLEAR: THE Ohio Art Co.–maker of the childhood staple Etch A Sketch–has a potential Jared Fogle on its hands, and should find a way to link with him, if it hasn’t already. Fogle, of course, is the man who lost 100 pounds after just three months on a diet that included Subway sandwiches for lunch and dinner and lots of walking.
Subway got wind of Fogle’s jaw-dropping feat due to news coverage, and after tracking him down, the somewhat reserved but charming Midwesterner became the subject of a long-running TV campaign. The simple moniker “Jared the Subway guy” took on national recognition.

Etch a Sketch marketers have a guy who could easily follow a similar trajectory: George Vlosich III.

So far, he’s given them a great deal of free publicity, so perhaps Ohio Art feels it’s got the ultimate viral campaign and has no need to spend a dime.

But who knows what a coordinated, well-strategized campaign could do for the 47-year-old toy. The family-controlled Ohio Art last month promoted Martin L. Kilgallon III, part of the family, to senior vice president with oversight over marketing.

If he hasn’t, he should dial Vlosich–an art director by day in Cleveland–and if need be, even with the credit crunch, borrow what it takes to get a Jared-like effort up and running. Ohio Art posted a 5% jump in net sales for the first half of the year. On the surface, the $9.4 million intake seems modest, but at about $12.95 a toy (the company does sell other brands), that would come out to some 726,000 Etch A Sketches.

If Fogle’s diet was jaw-dropping, so is Vlosich’s ability using the white knobs and gray board. He’s a Rembrandt within the red perimeter. He’s done presidents and sports stars, LeBron James is a recent creation. His drawings can take up to 80 hours to complete and he charges up to $10,000 a shot.

From a marketing standpoint, Vlosich’s appeal and potential benefit would be like Fogle’s: Sales through aspiration. It’s unlikely, of course, that everyone–maybe not anyone–could match his stunning talent, just like it’s tough to believe a couple Subway six-inchers and a walk each day can lead to prodigious weight loss.

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ONE OF THE MOST BASIC marketing questions about an emerging platform is whether anyone really is advertising there yet. Mobile marketing companies love to drop big brand name partners on me as if the two companies were best buds going way back. It is more likely that the high profile advertisers sloshed a few drops of R&D money the marketer’s way when it was “testing mobile.” If you crack open a cell phone and actively fish around for signs of these biggies, they are not always easy to find. More often than not, a display ad on mobile content is a come-on for more mobile content, “free ringtones” and screensavers. Sometimes the mobile platform looks like a flea market where the sellers are also the most important buyers of other people’s stuff. Mobile publishers sell inventory to other mobile publishers, so that it seems like the whole eco-system is just selling crappy ringtones to one another.

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Anyone who’s spent even a little time rocking out to Guitar Hero III has likely noticed the game’s heavy-handed approach to product placement, with stages littered with cans of Red Bull and billboards hocking everything from Axe Body Spray to Pontiac. The whole thing feels oppressive and graceless as even the game’s underground rock venues are reduced to feeling like props to corporate shilling. And things are likely to get worse before they get better, as Activision today announced that it has inked a deal with Microsoft-owned Massive to provide in-game ads in not only Guitar Hero III, but Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground as well.

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ESPN should devote a special segment of “SportsCenter” every night to the scoreboard coming out of the network television world - the one that tallies which prime-time shows are running out of scripts for new episodes now that the writers have gone on strike.

It would be hard to find a hotter topic in the TV biz.

The vast majority of viewers, however, don’t care, and that raises a larger and more critical question about the most lucrative part of the TV game: What if an extended Read the rest of this entry »

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There’s an image war raging during the WGA strike, and the writers seem to be winning.Public sympathy sides with the scribes, as a study, released Wednesday, indicates.

And during the past few weeks, mainstream media outlets have devoted significant coverage to the strike in news stories and op-ed pieces. Slate’s Jack Shafer noted Tuesday that such coverage has been generally sympathetic.

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In-game advertising firm Massive Inc. has landed deals to represent ad inventory in two recent high-profile video game releases, including the record-setting Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, as well as the skateboarding-themed title Tony Hawk Proving Ground.

Landing ad presence in the latest Guitar Hero is a major win in the in-game advertising distribution race for the Microsoft-owned company. The title, which went on sale Oct. 28, is a breakout hit - generating $115 million in sales during its first week, a record for Activision. In the past, Massive’s list of game publishing partners was limited primarily to PC-based titles, and the company was not always able to nail down advertising agreements prior to major mainstream game releases.

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Product placement has been around just as long as the entertainment industry. Sometimes product placement is subtle and sometimes it’s not, but I’m sure we can all recognize it when we see it, especially when a product or concept doesn’t fit with the rest of whatever we’re watching.

That was pretty much the case with NBC’s Green Week, which began on Sunday, Nov. 4, and ended Saturday, Nov 10. Read the rest of this entry »

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If you’re me, in some ways these are tough times: Bike Snob Chicago, Bike Snob Austin, and the Cyclelicio.us AutoSnob are all conspiring to make me redundant. Fortunately, I’ve got something to fall back on, and that’s my fake job as a cycling consultant to Hollywood. Despite the writers’ strike, things are going well on that front. Cycling has never been more fashionable or more politically correct, so everybody wants bikes in their movies. Not only that, but the bike companies have more money to spend, and they’re spending it on product placement.

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This is pretty funny. We’ve come a long way.

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I’m in the St. Louis airport now, having spent the past day-and-a-half with the good people of Anheuser-Busch, along with a bunch of other trade magazine journalists, learning, oh, a whole bunch of things about the company’s marketing plans, and no small amount about pairing beer with food.
But it’s the little tidbits that I always enjoy.
Here are a couple:
1) Hoegaarden (one of many beers purchased by A-B in recent years) is growing in popularity in certain cities, including New York City, Boston, Denver, Seattle, San Diego and Portland (the one in Oregon), but particularly in Philadelphia, where a drink called the Dirty Hoe is gaining a following. It’s Hoegaarden — which the people at A-B pronounce who-garden, but they don’t seem to mind adjustment of the pronunciation for the sake of marketing — and framboise, a raspberry-flavored beer.

2) Some footage for the upcoming Star Trek film, being produced by “Lost” creator JJ Abrams and scheduled for release next year, will be filmed at Budweiser’s Los Angeles brewery. The brewery will play the role of Enterprise’s interior. In return for letting them film, during some bar scenes Budweiser will have product placement, with the beer in just slightly futuristic-looking glasses.

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