Selling and Advertising Articles

youtube Shifts Policy, Starts Paying One-Hit-Wonders.
The online video Web site recently announced that users who create just one viral video are eligible for advertising partnerships with the company. Now, those behind the videos that become the next big thing on YouTube can cash in on their 15 minutes of fame.

This is news because while the YouTube Partners program has existed for a while, it was previously mainly for people with lots of high-quality videos — filmmakers, comedians, how-to gurus — people who were regularly producing entertaining content that drove traffic and therefore advertising dollars to YouTube. Early stars and YouTube royalty like Lisa Donovan (Lisa Nova) and Michael Buckley have been members since early on, receiving shared revenue from the ads on their videos. According to an article that appeared in the New York Times last December the top YouTube Partners do quite well, making comfortable six figure incomes by regularly producing videos for the site.more

Art in Motion.
Though they don”t distribute fliers or advertise Catalogue, the small event is often well-attended, sometimes drawing as many as 80 people.

‘Even if five people show up, if we enjoy doing it - and we do - then we”re going to keep doing it,’ said VanderKamp. Both he and Saphire stressed that it”s the collaboration and the putting the show together that makes Catalogue interesting for them and for the people who come.

This past July, the artist Alicia Purdy made a gigantic kaleidoscope that projected live images on the wall. Mojitos were made from mint grown in Purdy”s garden. There was a DJ. Another show featured Brooklyn bassist Ari Folman-Cohen, who, Saphire says, is not just a talented musician, but an epic storyteller. Folman-Cohen told a story and played bass while pre-recorded video was projected on the wall behind him.more

Mobile Advertising Firm AdMob Acquires AdWhirl.
AdMob announced this week that it has acquired fellow mobile advertising technology firm AdWhirl for an undisclosed sum. San Mateo, Calif.-based AdMob said the deal will allow it to offer iPhone application developers an open-source mediation solution. Menlo Park, Calif.-based AdWhirl offers a service that can aggregate ads from various mobile ad networks.

Related Links: http://snipurl.com/rgmqt (AdMob blog)

http://snipurl.com/rgn2c (VentureBeat)

http://www.adwhirl.com

.more

Law Firm Marketing Agency CEPAC.com Launches Redesigned Website.
Cepac, a lawyer marketing ad agency that specializes in traditional advertising strategies that include TV production, media buying and planning, print, direct mail, search engine optimization and website design, has also developed proprietary internet marketing products called Smart News Technology. This online newsroom product affords law firms with the facility to release articles, firm announcements and press releases directly to the Internet through their own private label newsroom that is seamlessly integrated into their firm”s website. Every release syndicated through the newsroom is given the best possible chance for pickup on the web because of the search engine optimization feature incorporated into the Smart News Technology. Once released the article travels like lightning across a vast array of newswire partners including Google news.more

The Revolution in Germany.
This fact is something that Merkel would never advertise. But it helps explain why, despite her unimpressive record, she has remained immensely popular, with an approval rating of 61 percent-and it is the reason the Christian Democrats will most probably walk away with the election in September and deliver Merkel a second term.

To understand just how much Merkel-who only joined the party in 1990 at the age of 36-has changed the CDU, it is useful to look back a few decades to the period immediately after World War II, when the party emerged in West Germany as a mishmash of Weimar-era conservatives, politically minded Roman Catholics, nationalists of different stripes, ethnic Germans expelled from the East, and more than a few ex-Nazis hoping to improve their fortunes. The Federal Republic”s first chancellor, Adenauer, was an authoritarian, Catholic Rhinelander who relied on potent anticommunism and philo-Americanism to consolidate the party as well as the young West German state.more

Public rejects Murdoch view of BBC, says ICM poll.
Asked to pick from a range of ways of funding the BBC, including the licence fee, a subscription service and selling advertising, more people back the licence fee than any alternative.

But supporters remain in the minority. The fee is backed by 43%, against 24% who think advertising should foot the bill and 30% who think people should pay to subscribe if they want to see BBC programmes. In 2004, only 31% backed the licence fee, 12 points lower than today.

In other areas, opinions are contradictory. Most people - 81% - think the BBC should stay impartial in return for its right to raise money.

But there is also public support for Murdoch”s call for the easing of tight restrictions on what broadcasters can say: 61% agree the BBC and other broadcasters should be free to hold political positions, against 37% who disagree.more

Lawsuit challenges tobacco advertising rules.
Several tobacco companies filed a lawsuit yesterday claiming that a host of new advertising restrictions — including a requirement that tobacco products must have larger, graphic warning labels covering half of the packaging — violates constitutional rights of commercial free speech.

Among the companies that filed the lawsuit were the nation”s second and third largest cigarette makers, Winston-Salem, N.C.-based R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Greensboro, N.C.-based Lorillard Tobacco Co.

Two smaller companies and a tobacco retailer in Kentucky also joined the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Bowling Green, Ky.

Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc. and its tobacco subsidiaries, including cigarette maker Philip Morris USA, are not plaintiffs in the lawsuit.more

Chains Use iPhone Apps To Drive Business to Stores.
Dunkin” Run was a joint collaboration between Dunkin” Donuts and its advertising and digital agencies of record, Hill Holliday and Studiocom, respectively. Thomas Spicer, Managing Director of Studiocom says that the application ’simplifies and expands upon existing consumer behaviors, making it easier and more convenient for groups to interact and order, whether they are at home, work or on the go.’

Order at Pizza Hut: This whimsical application received over 100,000 downloads within the first two weeks of going live. The application is divided into pizza, wings and pastas. The pizza ordering section allows consumers to virtually build their own pizza by choosing a type of crust in the scroll wheel, ‘pinching’ to select size, and dragging-and-dropping toppings onto the pizza, all with visual confirmation.more

Now you see it, now you don”t.
I would like the Advertising Standards Authority to take this seriously, and would encourage people to complain about the images they see.’

There could be signs that excessive retouching may be going out of fashion anyway. Katie Grand, editor of the style magazine Love, says she is tired of seeing overly manipulated images. ‘There used to be a time when retouching would mean removing a pimple, but now all manner of things can be done,’ she says. ‘When I was at Pop [magazine] I found it interesting but now I feel bored with this idea of beauty that has become more like a painting than a photograph. When we started Love I wanted to remind people of real photography and a representation of people that was much more honest.’

.more

Local ad firms win University of Baltimore, University of Maryland.
The University of Baltimore, meanwhile, has tapped Idfive to revamp its Web site and develop an advertising campaign to attract new students. The school will spend $4 million during the next five years.

While other industries scale back advertising, colleges are still buying ads to woo job seekers who head back to school to gain new skills.

.more