• Canadian Consumers See Dark Clouds with Silver Linings
• Media and Ad Outlook Brighter in Canada than U.S., PWC Report

From an advertising standpoint, international advertisers are stepping up their creativity.  From beer advertisers to BlackBerry, Sun Chips to Dentyne gum, innovation abounds.  Here are just a few examples, read more at the links below.

• To promote the “World’s Most Expensive BlackBerry,” encrusted with 4,459 brilliant cut diamonds, flower designers Blue and Blooms used a gold ink that was applied to red rose petals.
  
• Dutch beer company, Grolsch, believes that everyone, no matter when or where, should have a cool beer within reach.   To make this possible, the brand launched the Cool Hotlines and traversed the Netherlands trading warm beers for cold Grolsch ones. After a call to the hotline, consumers could expect a visit from a small moped with a refrigerator sidecar that would deliver cold beer to wherever they were.
  
• Taxi, Sun Chips Win Big at 2010 Marketing Awards
• Consumers Get Mouth to Mouth in New Dentyne Campaign
• Canadian Ads Take Over the New Yorker
• Amsterdam Abandons the 30-Second Spot
• Busted Bobbleheads Deliver Safety Message for Labatt

Finally, unless you’ve lived under a rock for the last two months, you know that the World Cup has taken center stage around the world.  While soccer is still growing in popularity in the US, it’s interesting to know how other countries around the world react to the World Cup.  In Brazil, the country practically shuts down – businesses and schools are closed and elective surgery put off so people can be in front of a TV.  But no country seems to take their love further than South Korea – Home Plus, a retailer, is reporting a 168% increase n sales of adult diapers.

• World Cup Hurts Productivity, Boosts Adult Diaper Sales
• Carling Scrambles to Include Latest World Cup Scores in U.K. Spots

Inception inspired ad for Shaun White Skateboarding.  Really well done.

GE’s incredible interactive program centers on hospitals first then more.  This is what other brands should shoot for.

If Adidas made a camera this should be it.

Some great outdoor work.  And fun too.

Little Melting Men make a point about global warming.

Frank Miller goes Gucci.

Groupon kills it with Gap.  Is this the new way?  For now it seems, it is.

Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop is genius.  Here is some of his work, also genius.

This seems like a waste of money to me.  Lady Java.  Not a ton of imagination.

Flash mobs want you to boycott Target.  I didn’t think Target could do any wrong.  But they can.

Zubi.  A site that you must see.

I think Joaquin Phoenix’s movie will be great.  Or at least different.  

Puma glorifies the lifestyle athlete.

Chat Roulette is scary anyways.  Now even more scary.  

A great website to explore.  Watch out for oil.

Rolling Stone thanks the big fat record execs.  Long live rock and roll.

Avoiding the idea generation trap.  Good advice.

My interview on whohub.  It doesn’t make me special — you can have one too.  Let me know.  I will read it.

See you next time.

While planning for the 2009 Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open PGA tournament, we were asked to find ways to explain to the Las Vegas market that we had a solid field of top-tier players while reminding them to come out and buy tickets. We showcased the field online, made a few call-outs in print but the icing on the cake was our digital out-of-home campaign. We worked with Clear Channel Outdoor and the PGA Tour to connect the online data feeds from the PGA website to Clear Channel’s database. This connection allowed us to show a live leaderboard from the tournament throughout the digital boards utilized throughout the Las Vegas valley for our campaign. Every time our message displayed on-board, it theoretically could have been different. On Wednesday, before the tournament started, they held a celebrity pro-am. Throughout the Pro-Am, we used the same functionality, allowing consumers in the market to start getting excited about the event and everything it has to offer.

This is one simple example of creating a custom execution within an existing medium. It is important to understand the functionality of mediums and the technology that powers them. It may provide you insight into thoughts and ideas that the vendor may not have considered, creating yet another “first-ever” execution in this “old” medium or elsewhere. Moving forward, what will R&R Partners’ next out-of-the-box outdoor execution be? Is the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority going to utilize live Twitter feeds showcasing consumer thoughts on Vegas in our feeder markets (these can be filtered of course)? I challenge any and all who read this to take your next idea or campaign to the next level. Whether you plan and buy media, or help create content for us to place, bring an idea to the table that will help our clients win in ways that we imagined!

• Spot radio pacing 18% higher in Q3 2010 than Q3 2009
  • July 13%, August 16%, and September jumping 28%
  • Retail – 23.2% increase; auto-39%, telecom-11.3%, consumer products-56.9%
  • 85 of the top 100 markets are pacing ahead of last year
  • An August-October political rush is expected to tighten avails further
     
• Remainder of 2010 – Projected to Be Busy for Spot Radio
  • Back-to-School
  • Fall Premieres
  • Political
  • Holiday 

Traditional Radio Is Not Dead               

• Radio reached 91.4% of Americans 12+ this year, up from 90.2% last year
  • 220 million 12+ listeners tuned in to radio each week, or about 93.1% of Americans 12+ (RADAR report)

Country Remains Top Music Format

• Country radio consists of 2,300 stations across the country
• Listeners are equally balanced between men and women, and across age groups with equal parts 25-34’s, 35-44’s, and 45-54’s
• County is more than twice the size of the next music format, adult contemporary

News/Talk is the MOST Popular Format

• Talk Radio edged past Country as the most popular format in December 2008
• News/Talk captures nearly half of all Public radio listening and remains the most-listened-to public radio format in the nation, with 12 more stations adopting the format in 2009

Additional Links

http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/entry/52213/spot-radio-pacing-18-higher-in-q3/

http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/entry/52644/country-remains-top-music-format/

http://www.radiostreamingnews.com/2010/07/newstalk-remains-most-listened-to.html

Google Wave waves goodbye. In a blog post last week, Google announced that it will no longer continue to develop Google Wave as a standalone product, citing low user adoption. Instead, Google will utilize some of Wave’s functionality in other projects and maintain some features as open-source code. The ill-fated online collaboration tool was extraordinarily innovative, however many users were at a loss for trying to find practical uses for the technology and how to integrate it into everyday life. This blogger was an early adopter of Wave and an outspoken supporter, however even I found the tool to be worthless when majority of my social contacts were not Wavers themselves. Google Wave had a lot of potential, but with so many existing technologies that allow users to share and collaborate already ingrained into our normal web habits (like email and social networks), there was never a strong enough need for Wave. Further, Wave was not an easy tool to adopt quickly: many users faced a large learning curve in understanding Wave’s functionality, and limited Wave invites at its launch presented a barrier to entry that may have stunted adoption from the onset.

Warm and friendly wins in social. Researchers from Relational Capital Group have studied the science behind making brands more people-friendly and offers strategic insight for social media. Chris Malone writes in a recent Ad Age article about  his team’s psychological study in perception and brand loyalty, and offers three actionable customer service strategies for social media. For more tips on how to connect with your audience in a warm and friendly manner, also check out 5 Ways to Build Your Blog’s Voice from ProBlogger.

MySpace just won’t die. One month after its profile redesign, MySpace is rolling out a new homepage to provide users with more utility and better access to MySpace’s best features. The former social media giant is focused on growing its user network, which includes luring back users that haven’t signed in for years, and specifically targeting 13-34 year olds. The homepage redesign is available to some users in beta, and will be rolling out across all users by August 16. The most important addition to the homepage is the new MySpace Stream, which functions much like the Facebook News Feed providing a feed of friends’ activities, media content, and events. Screenshots are available from Mashable.

Social Media: Strategy

What Are Social Media Good For? Putting a Face to a Brand - AdAge

5 Ways to Build Your Blog’s Voice - ProBlogger

What Facebook Questions Means for Marketers - Ignite

Looking Online to Verify Word-of-Mouth Recommendations - Brandweek

Hot or Not: E-mail Marketing vs. Social-Media Marketing - AdAge

Social Media: Consumer Electronics

RIM’s rumored ‘BlackPad’ tablet due in November? - Yahoo! News

The Dell Streak Shows The CE World How To Be Relevant In An iDevice World - CrunchGear

Social Media: Location-Based Services

HOW TO: Visualize All Your Foursquare Check-ins - Mashable

Facebook’s Foursquare competitor is imminent - cnet

Groupon + Foursquare = GroupTabs, Group Deals for Check-Ins - RWW

Digital Advertising

Google Rolls Location-Based Mobile Display Ads - Brandweek

Facebook, AOL quietly talking online ad hookup - New York Post

Twitter API to Get Ads Inserted, Revenue to be Shared With Developers - RWW

Internet Trends

MySpace to revamp site in aim to simplify - Yahoo! News

MySpace Launches a Revamped User Homepage [EXCLUSIVE] - Mashable

74% of Social Media Users Expect Cries for Help to Be Answered Within an Hour - RWW

Google & Verizon Propose Enforceable Net Neutrality - RWW

RIP Google Wave - Mashable

Twitter Still Grew 109 Percent In June, Fueled By Global Visitors – TechCrunch

Rachelle Maisner is an Interactive Producer for R&R Partners, and writes about social media at FiveFeetOfDynamite.com.

As the U.S. economy continues to see “green-shoots,” this same trend is happening among the magazine industry. According to Media Industry Newsletter, monthly magazines saw total ad pages grow 7.9 percent in June and 4.9 percent in the second quarter of 2010 compared to the same periods last year. Although these are modest increases, this marks the first quarter of positive growth after nine consecutive quarters of drops. 

Early indicators show that Q3 will continue this trend, as July paging is up and the all-important September fall fashion issues are seeing growth as well. Although there has been positive news recently, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, print ad spending in U.S. consumer magazines is set to decline again in 2010, 2011 and 2012 before finally rebounding in 2013 and 2014. I guess only time will tell.

Industry Updates

Over the last three months, there have been many changes to the magazine space, including Gourmet’s revival , rate base cuts to Meredith’s Ladies’ Home Journal and Traditional Home , USPS announced a potential rate hike of 8 percent  and new publications in the works from Condé Nast. Magazine publishers continue to explore the emerging digital space and have embraced not only the iPad, but are also planning to sell subscriptions on Facebook. 

Innovation

Finally, the following are some new innovative programs/opportunities in the print space:

Bon Appétit, Kraft Create Corner Takeover Ads

New Belgium Fat Tire Ale “Inserts’” Fans In Print Ad

“Us Weekly” Rents Runway

Additional Articles: 

Ad Spending

Monthly Mags Ad Pages Up 5% For Q2 

Magazine is well red – Celebrity glossy OK! racks up $175M in losses

Glimmer of Hope as Monthlies See Ad Pages Heat Up in July

September Fashion Mags on the Upswing

‘Glamour’ Improves September Ad Pages 57%

Magazine Ad Pages Rise in 2Q, Food, Sports Spike

Magazine Print Ad Revenue Will Ebb Until 2013, Outlook Says 

Industry Updates

Magazines’ Pitch to Marketers: Our Ads Will Work — We Promise

New Yorker Plans One Price for Access Across Digital Platforms

Magazines to Sell Subscriptions Within Facebook’s News Feed

25% of Subs Come from Web

Meredith Acquires Mobile Marketer Hyperfactory

Magazine Shutdowns Slow Drastically

Facebook has announced that it has officially reached 500 million active, registered users. That’s roughly the total population of the European Union. To celebrate, Facebook has launched its own app called Facebook Stories.  Facebook is inviting everyone to share their own personal Facebook story with the world, aiming to capture hundreds of thousands of personal experiences, lessons learned, reunions and revelations. Read more about it here on The Facebook Blog.

Filmmakers are working on a Facebook story of a different kind: a full-length feature film called The Social Network. Mashable rounded up what the founders think of the flick, reporting that Mark Zuckerberg had shared some negative comments about the movie at the recent D8 Conference.

The big news on the Twitter front is a possible new feature called Tweet Media. Twitter hasn’t released any notices about the feature, but a mysterious new privacy setting found by some users has caused speculation. It is suspected that by opting in to Tweet Media, users will be able to post and view photos and videos within the Twitter stream. The addition of multimedia within Twitter will force advertisers to change their Twitter content strategies in a big way.

Ford made news this week by revealing the new 2011 Ford Explorer on Facebook, before revealing it anywhere else. The Ford Explorer Facebook page, sporting over 50,000 fans, includes tons of multimedia content surrounding the Explorer, including a sweepstakes. Check it out at www.facebook.com/FordExplorer.

iPhone users rejoiced with news this week that the U.S. Copyright Office has made iPhone jailbreaking legal. What this means is that tech-savvy iPhone users can legally hack their phones to buy and use apps that are not sold within Apple’s iTunes App Store. Users should note that though jailbreaking is now legal, performing such a hack will void your Apple warranty. Also, jailbreaking is not the same as unlocking the iPhone, which is a hack to allow the iPhone to work with other carriers outside of AT&T.

Tweet Media

Twitter Begins Testing Inline Photos And Videos On Its Website - TechCrunch

5 Big Questions About Twitter’s Move to Multimedia - RWW

Twitter to Show Photos and Videos in the Stream [UPDATED] - Mashable

Social Media: Strategy

Bearhug Brings a Social Approach to Customer Service Management - Mashable

How to be the Life of the Social Media Party - ProBlogger

Old Spice Campaign Smells Like a Sales Success, Too - BrandWeek

5 Reasons Why Ford Continues to Kick Butt - ClickZ

Social Media: Consumer Electronics

Flipboard Launches as the iPad’s Social Media Magazine - Mashable

Amazon Customers Now Order $1 Billion of Products Per Year via Mobile - Mashable

Federal Government Rules in Favor of iPhone “Jailbreaking” - DMW

Jailbreaking iPhone apps is now legal - CNNMoney

Social Media: Location-Based

Inside Street Food’s Social Media Revolution [VIDEO] - Mashable

Brightkite Takes Branded Badges to the Next Level - Mashable

Go On Your Own “Eat Pray Love” Journey With SCVNGR - Mashable

Foursquare Reaches 100 Million Checkins - Mashable

Digital Advertising

Majority of Consumers Use Social Networks to Inform Buying Decisions, Says Study - RWW

Ford Makes New Friends The Right Way, Revealing Explorer On Facebook - MediaPost

Kelley Blue Book Goes Social For Stickers – MediaPost

Twitter Sees Sizable Ad Business - MediaPost

Internet Trends

Why QR Codes Are Poised to Hit the Mainstream - Mashable

YouTube Looks to Compete in Music Discovery - Mashable

StumbleUpon: The Silent Social Media Success Story - RWW

Ask Launches Social Network To Link Search With Answers - MediaPost

Rachelle Maisner is an Interactive Producer for R&R Partners, and writes about social media at FiveFeetOfDynamite.com.

Maybe this story resonates with me because of how strongly I believe in solid research. Polling is a vital strategic tool when utilized correctly, and I am certainly not against polling political races. My issue is with these snapshot in time polls published in the paper, sometimes with super-sketchy sample sizes, complete with conclusive sounding statements from the pollster, which are then reported mindlessly by the media as fact.

Do these polls get it right from time to time? Sure. After all, a stopped watch is right twice a day. Is there a high level of accuracy when all of these polls are averaged and outliers are weaned out, ala Nate Silver? You betcha.

But I believe it is no less than harmful to our democracy for reporters to mindlessly report the results of any given poll as an absolute fact, and then use those polls as the basis for actual hard news stories. Every poll taken has a margin of error, usually in the 4% to 5% range. Plus, you can easily twist the result you get depending on how you ask the question, or even how you qualify the sample of people you’re polling. (Are you polling likely voters or everyone? And how do you determine who a likely voter is? Are you using real people or machines to make your calls? Are you calling cell phones? Are you using bilingual surveys?)

The majority of media outlets do not weigh these variables; they simply report the results they get as fact. After all, this is math people! And that provides the valuable service of letting us unwashed masses know who is (maybe) winning and losing at that moment, which is important to know because…?

Here at R&R Partners, we have a first-class research team, led by our Vice President of Research Todd Gillins. After bouncing this blog-post off of some folks to ask them if it was too much of a rant and too light on thought-leadership, they pretty much universally replied “yes”…on both counts. But they were only really concerned about the thought-leadership part. So I cornered Todd, whose knowledge of this stuff dwarfs my own. I asked him if he could provide a little context. Todd?:

Even though many attempt to develop, conduct and analyze research, it is a specialty that not everyone is qualified to do. Maybe at first glance, most think they can ask a series of questions and then report the findings… seems simple enough. But understanding the science and art behind the numbers is not that straightforward. I would venture to say that most who may exhibit the symptoms of heart disease would not self-diagnose this serious health challenge, but rather they’d seek the expertise and advice of a qualified health professional. While definitely not as serious as heart disease, the ability to conduct surveys should be left to those who have immersed themselves in research techniques and understand the nuances and implications associated with studying a sample of the population. Journalists and the media are better suited at reporting the facts. And qualified research professionals are better suited to provide the insights that will assist the writer in developing a story. As with any industry there are those who are striving to provide the best work possible and those whose primary goal is only to increase their wealth. The old consumer cliché “buyer beware” should also be applied to those seeking to understand consumer opinions through research—find a reputable and credible research partner that has a proven history of providing solid and accurate research findings.Of course, he’s right. And as we see from what happened to the Daily Kos and subsequent stories that were based at least in part on their supposedly fraudulent polling, from time to time there is a complete abdication of journalistic responsibility. It is my humble opinion that we would all be better served if the Fourth Estate would focus on the actual issues that surround any given campaign, and not on the horserace.

R&R Partners has an office in Washington and our foundation is in government affairs work, so along with our agency’s Twitter feed (@rrpartners), we have launched a new Twitter stream specifically to talk about everything in the political realm — regardless of whether you lean left or right, bleed red or blue, or watch Fox News or MSNBC, Bill Maher or Glenn Beck – whatever your political views, follow us at @rrpartnersgov and keep up with all things politics.

We will be live tweeting from two political blogger conferences in Las Vegas over the next few days as part of our kickoff, one progressive and one conservative. We’ll also be live tweeting from a political consultant regional strategy conference in Sacramento, and obviously, we’ll have lots coming from our crew on Capitol Hill. Follow us and spread the word.