I’ve spent plenty of time blogging about Budget’s groundbreaking blog-only Up Your Budget campaign that ran last fall. The attention was well-deserved, if for no other reason than the historical significance of the campaign, as well as its spectacular results. But there’s another reason to sing the praises of Budget’s campaign. And we see it everyday. Many advertisers portray their customers as idiots. The examples come to our mind early and often. Maybe it’s the guy that gets stuck/locked in an air vent chasing a credit card bill. Or maybe it’s the father that tells his family to call him on their cell phones, then realizes that no one in the family actually has a cell phone. Kodak engaging in assvertising? The fat idiot in the Capital One commercials that never can figure out that ‘the answer’s always NO’? Hell even this year’s Advertising Week used this compelling visual argument for why you should attend the event. Budget’s Up Your Budget campaign was so significant because it totally reversed this trend. Budget made their customers partners in spreading their message. Basically, they told bloggers “Here’s what we are doing, here’s why we think you should care. If you agree that what we are doing is interesting, please help spread our message”. What Budget did, in a year where many companies told their customers that they were too stupid to realize that they thought of them as idiots, was tell their customers that they looked at them as equals. And furthermore, were going to trust them to help spread their message for their company. As Adrants recently posted “If people feel they are being talked down to or made to look dumb, they’ll think you (marketer, agency) are dumb too.” And in this case, the exact opposite is true. Budget is looking very smart right now.

Amazon has created a service called ‘Amazon Connect’ that lets authors create a pseudo-blog with the idea being that readers can interact ‘directly’ with their favorite authors. The new service, which was covered in yesterday’s New York Times (reg required), is explained as being ‘one-way communication’ from the authors to the readers, but some savvy authors are already pointing readers to their personal blogs or websites. So far Amazon has 12 authors in the service, but that number will likely expand in the future. Here is Meg Wolitzer’s Amazon blog, one of the writers included in the beta for this service.

The newest commercial in the ‘Easy Button’ series from Staples will debut on Sunday, which will also mark the launch of Staples’ ‘This is Your Year’ marketing campaign. The spot, created by McCann-Erickson and entitled ‘Button to Button’, will debut on cable and network TV on Jan 1st, 2006, according to the company’s press release. Also, Staples will make available for download on Sunday your own ‘Easy Button’ that will install on your desktop, and will take you directly to Staples’ website. Customers will also begin receving emails next week with a link to download their own Easy Button. You can view the latest Staples commercial on Sunday, as well as all the commercials in the ‘Easy Button’ series at Staples’ website, here. Thanks to Meredith at Alan Taylor Communications for bringing this to our attention.

Steve Hall at AdRants gives a sort of ‘year in review’ post (including an interesting recap of the evolution of AdRants) where he mentions several prominent advertising blogs, and he was kind enough to include Beyond Madison Avenue on his list. I started to thank him with a comment to his post, but remembered that all bloggers love the links (which is why I’m writing this), so I decided to return the favor. Thanks again Steve. Of course we are pretty excited about the future of BMA and think it’s a pretty interesting read, but it’s always nice to get the attention of possibly the industry’s most influential blog.

The New York Times has an article today on how many musicians, and especially independent labels, are bypassing the big-label system and instead using the internet to get their music out. Very timely, since this is exactly what I was blogging about last week. “But no factor is more significant than the Internet, which has shaken up industry sales patterns and, perhaps more important, upended the traditional hierarchy of outlets that can promote music. Buzz about an underground act can spread like a virus, allowing a band to capture national acclaim before it even has a recording contract, as was the case this year with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, an indie rock band.” “It’s no longer about a big behemoth beaming something at a mass audience. It’s about a mass of niche audiences picking and selecting what they want at any given time.” - Rhapsody’s Tim Quirk Welcome to the digital age.

It’s the end of the year, so everyone is doing their ‘Best of 2005′ lists. In staying with that same theme, I’d like to give those of you that are new to BMA (and judging by our surging traffic this month, there’s a lot of you), a list of some of my favorite BMA posts. These are entries that those of you that are new to BMA might have missed, and the overall mix gives you a good idea of what you can expect to read here in the future.

• Danny’s review of the book Pick Me
• What marketing lessons a tragedy can teach us
• Chris covers a great promotion a PA grocery chain ran this fall
• True has a hilarious tale of a companies’ product being used against them
• I comment on how public perception may be shifting in favor of The King
• Bob reviews Sally Hogshead’s latest offering
• An article on how viral marketing is being used to jump start the careers of new musicians
• My first article on how Disney is cautiously marketing The Chronicles of Narnia
• Chris reminds us that the age-old marketing maxim about ‘The Four Ps’ just doesn’t cut it anymore
• My take on why many companies are reluctant to turn to blogs
• True takes colleges to task for not preparing their students to face the advertising world
• Danny begins his Tips From the Bottom series
• I tell the story behind the opening of the Georgia Aquarium, and how the futures of two cities could be determined by its success or failure
• Bob gives us a great reminder on why we should keep an open mind, creatively
• Zombie Boy rants on agencies that produce crap, and gets attacked by shadows
• My article on a new viral campaign to promote the Volvo Ocean Race (thanks again to Vanessa at Mindblossom for her help with this)

These posts will give you a good idea of our style. We’ve tried to be purposely different from the ‘1 or 2 pargraph’ posts you see on many other blogs, and thankfully it seems that most of you enjoy our format. Good news for me, since I talk too much to keep it under a page.

Here’s wishing a VERY Merry Christmas to all our readers, and my fellow writers here at BMA!

Boing Boing, the internet’s most popular and well-trafficked blog, posted a link to their monthly stats today. The stats for browser use showed that 43% use Firefox, while just 32% use IE. Steve at Micro Persuasion thinks this proves that the ‘tech savvy’ set society’s trends. I think the bigger story that these stats reveal is that the ‘blog explosion’ hasn’t happened yet. You could also call the ‘tech savvy’ to be ‘early adopters’ for blogs. I noticed that when BMA first went live, Technorati was tracking 100,000 new blogs every day, without fail. In the past few weeks, that number has slowed, and T-Rati will add about 500,000 new blogs every 8 days or so. It’s not that the popularity of blogs is waning, its that most of the ‘early adopters’ are now on board. This sets up what I’ve thought all along, that blogs will see an explosion of popularity next year. And as Boing Boing’s stats suggest, most of middle America isn’t reading their blog. If they were, they’d be logging on from AOL, and IE usage would be up around 80%, instead of 32%. And most studies done on blog readership back this up, usually the findings are that 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 Americans read blogs. This is a party that mainstream America hasn’t crashed yet. What will the blogging landscape look like when they arrive?

……but the new ‘The LeBrons’ ads for the Zoom LeBron III are owning me. You Tube has the commercials up, including Glory Days, which is my favorite. Hilarious! Now if we can get ‘Business’ LeBron in the same commerical with The King……

Apparently the Gothamist isn’t overly concerned with the plight of the adman in regards to the strike: Madison Avenue advertising agencies “grappled” with the strike - boo effing hoo Although the link appears to have been quoted incorrectly, it looks to be quoting an article on today’s AdAge website found here.

One of the biggest obstacles most businesses face is accurately defining their target market. But as important as that is, it’s also vital to know what unique qualities they possess. In fact, it can save your business, as one New England museum found out. In 2002, Fuller Museum of Art in Brockton, Mass. was in trouble. Competition from other regional museums had dwindled the attendance for their shows down to 50, a level that wouldn’t sustain the museum. Like so many businesses that realize they are in trouble, the Fuller Museum decided it was time to see what was working for their competition. “As we started looking at (other) museums in New England, the lightbulb went on to find a niche.”, says Gretchen Keyworth. In trying to decide which niche would work best for Fuller, the staff discovered that whenever local museums hosted a craft show, their attendance spiked. So in a bold move, Fuller shirked their image as an ordinary gallery, to become one of only 6 museums in the nation that focus on contemporary craft, and the only museum doing so in New England. “In the world of art, craft was a somewhat neglected space,” says Andrew Maydoney, who sits on Fuller’s board. “We saw that as a great opportunity for us. We were making a focused effort on that space.” Fuller’s research uncovered that the people of Brockton had a long history of embracing the crafts and working with their hands. With that in mind, the Fuller Museum of Art created a new tagline for itself, “Let the art touch you.” Additionally, the museum renamed itself the Fuller Craft Museum. Results? Just 3 years after only drawing 50 people per show, the Fuller Craft Museum is enjoying 1,000+ attendance for their current shows. Donations have also increased dramatically for the museum. Prior to initiating their rebranding strategy, a successful event would generate around $18,000 in cash and artwork donations. This past summer, a similar event netted over $100,000 in cash and artwork. In today’s competitive business world, it’s not enough to simply know what demo your target market is, you actually have to know WHO they are and what they are passionate about. The businesses that make the effort to learn all they can about their customers, reap the rewards.

According to this press release, Mozilla is giving wannabe Peter Jacksons their chance at making a 30-second commerical for Mozilla’s Firefox browser. While there is no mention of what goodies are up for grabs, the press release promises that the prizes will be ‘great’. You can get more information here, and the winning ads will be considered for inclusion in Mozilla’s global marketing campaign for Firefox.

For the first time, the Advertising Standards Authority has banned a viral ad. The new viral for the video game Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, entitled ‘Blood on the carpet’ showed a fight in a boardroom escalating to one man getting his heart ripped out of his chest, and another being decapitated. (Prudes) The ASA has warned Maverick Media, who produced the spot to not ‘repeat the approach’ in the future. But as The Spunker asks, how do you ban a viral? And won’t ‘banning’ it make it that much more popular? Thanks to David for the link to the ‘banned’ viral.

Crunch Notes has a scathing rant about a guy that has apparently been stealing their posts, changing a sentence or 2, and republishing it as original work. Sadly, this seems to be a growing trend. While most guys aren’t as bold as the one that stole Crunch Notes’ content, I think the bigger problem is blogs that take a post, reword it a bit, and pass it off as their own work. However, if you are going to take something someone else writes and reword it just enough to pass it off as your own work, at least give a link back to the source. I mean when only 2 blogs have posted about a subject, Blog A 4 days ago, and yours 2 hours later, it’s a good bet you probably saw Blog A’s post and reposted it on your blog. When this happens repeatedly, it becomes obvious, and that’s when people start to catch on. A simple Technorati search is usually all it takes. I spent most of the morning checking out other industry blogs and what was sad to me, it was usually the bigger blogs that were apparently culling their stories from the smaller ones, with usually no link back to the source. Just take a second and acknowledge where you got the story from, that’s really all it takes.

Google has completed its deal to buy a 5 percent stake in AOL, and both Google and Time-Warner stocks are trading higher today on the news. In the deal, Google will continue to provide its search engine to AOL, but will work with AOL to eventually provide video search, and incorporate AOL’s premium video service into Google. Additionally, AOL will receive a $300 million ‘advertising credit’ with Google as part of the deal. Eventually, the companies want to create an AOL Marketplace where AOL can sell search advertising directly to their customers.

“There are amazing women musicians out there. But the industry signs acts based on marketing. It’s definitely a loop. There aren’t women out there doing well, because they haven’t been signed, so (the record) industry doesn’t sign any more, figuring they won’t do well.” - Jason Mraz The explosion of music downloads in the late 1990s cut deeply into the cash coffers of record labels. As a result, record executives decided to cut back on promoting ‘unproven’ artists, and went from focusing on talented female artists, to looking for a marketing vehicle. Out with Lilith Fair, in with Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica. So as Gen Y helps prompt a change in the country’s musical tastes, this poses a very tough question for female artists whose last name isn’t Spears or Simpson: Do they try to reinvent themselves like Jewel did, or forge forward relying on their talent to win them fans? And this isn’t a problem reserved for undiscovered artists. Some of Jewel’s contemporaries such as Sheryl Crow and Alanis have seen their album sales slide since their Lilith days. Many of today’s labels see a woman onstage with a guitar in her hands as a ‘marketing risk’. But musicians don’t have to reinvent themselves every few years simply because tastes temporarily change. A perfect example is Sarah McLachlan. Her music is basically the same today as it was in 1989 when she released her first album, Touch. Touch sold over 500,000 copies, while Afterglow, which is her fifth and latest album of new material, currently has over 2 million in sales. The best way for Jewel and other female rockers in her position to re-establish a strong bond with their fans could be, you guessed it, the internet. There are so many ways to reach out directly to fans. Artists can tap fan sites, mailing lists, MySpace, anything. Blogs are another obvious way for artists to reach their fans. Such viral efforts are already being used to launch the careers of female artists such as Missy Higgins, they could easily work for established stars. These moves are authetic, and fans will respond to any musician that reaches out to them in such a personal way. While the current music climate has put a temporary crunch on some female artists, the ultimate loser here could be the record labels themselves. As the record companies make it harder and harder for emerging and existing female artists to make a name for themselves, these musicians are looking for other outlets to promote themselves. And the risk that labels run is, once these acts find a way to circumvent the current system, will they ever return? “The major label system is broken, but I’m not crying. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.” said Carla DiSantis, editor of the magazine ROCKRGRL.

Maybe this is a double post. I don’t know. Mack is like some kind of blogging machine and it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Sprite has joined the long form web film fray with Marcus Hates His Job. Part sit-com, part ‘I feel your pain’, with not a whole lot of com and quite a bit of pain. I don’t really understand efforts like this, but I guess Coke can afford to try just about anything to see what sticks.

I’m sure you’ve all been hanging on the edges of your seats, waiting for the second installment in the tips series. So here it is… Networking is great. You meet a bunch of people who love your book and will be certain to let you know the moment they hear of anyone hiring. You grab a drink with them here and there, you start running into them at parties and realizing that you have a friend of a friend in common. That’s all fine and dandy. But learn early and learn well: when push comes to shove in this business, its EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF. Ok, so maybe that hits you as a bit of a “Debbie Downer” statement. But take a look at the most recent installment of TalentZoo’s Advisor, and you’ll understand exactly where it comes from. The reality is that the ad world is fickle. ALL of the rules are fair game, even if they contradict one another. And remember, rules were made to be broken. The simple answer is to keep watching out for #1. Be nice to everyone and don’t cross anyone. Don’t rely on someone else to get you in the door. If they can help, great. But don’t put your entire hiring prospect in the hands of someone else. Oh, and keep following the rules. All of them. And remember your thank-you notes. I almost forgot that one myself recently.

Midas Collective has launched a site for Honda’s ‘Impossible Dreams’ campaign, where you can view the widely acclaimed Honda heritage spot. Simon Thompson, head of marketing for Honda said: “This web site allows us to captivate and engage more than we ever could in a two minute ad, and is a key part of the campaign.” To coincide with launch of The Power of Dreams site, Honda has relaunched their main UK site, with new features including the ability to reserve test-drive slots at dealerships, and talk with Honda reps live, online through instant messages.

Ad Age is doing their ‘year-ending Top 10 list’ thingy this week, and yesterday they released their list of the most-viewed ads on their site during the last year. No ‘Wake Up With the King’ spots anywhere, so the list can’t be that credible. You can view all the Top 10 spots at the link above.