The Puma Index: Direct Sexponse

The latest and greatest in lead capture -- The Puma Index. To showcase Puma Bodywear, your choice of female or male model will take off their shirt if the market goes down. So if you lose your shirt, so do they.

While attention-grabbing digital pieces like this have existed before, this requires your email address before getting in. This helps make it less hit-and-run advertising-like and more substantial acquisition leading. Will be paying attention to what they do with my address and see if it was worth it.

Notes from the OMMA Panel on Social Media Creative

The panel I was on at the OMMA Global Conference as part of Advertising Week was interesting, though it felt like we didn't really tackle the topic: "Best 2009 Creative Social Media Campaigns." Wonder if we disappointed the audience.

Hosted by Greg Christian from SamnLori recruiterswe covered a little bit of work and each chimed in about challenges facing creative development in social media and what agencies and clients need to do in the space to succeed this year.

Cathy Taylor from MediaPost was in the audience, and afterwards, she wrote an article about things she heard throughout the day, including what I spoke about for creating nimble creative teams for social media.

Advertising Week 2009

This week is Advertising Week; if anyone had any sense, they'd rebrand it Marketing Week. But advertising is more glamorous so we'll let it own the week (just as it's hijacked brand ;-)).

Tuesday, I'm on an OMMA panel at the Marriott Marquis called "Best 2009 Creative Campaigns in Social Media" if you're attending. Come and cheer or jeer. Probably will mention Skittles.com, as most would expect.

3 Years: Remembering mach

of course we remember.

the wisdom. the laughter. the warmth. the trouble-making.

it's absolutely crucial we do.

for ourselves, for those we'll teach and guide.

the impression he made in so many of us was deep and indelible. (even if it was in lowercase ;-0

mach, we miss you.

<from his school. from his company.>

Minding the Snore in the NY Press

Last year's sleep test experience just got published in The New York Press's 8 Million Stories column, "Minding the Snore."

Please go read, rate and comment it.

Email Jacking Lessons from Mom

My mother taught me how to "email jack" — using a form letter created by an organization one does not agree with and changing the pre-purposed content to something more amenable to your views and then sending it on. This one was a form letter from an AFA Action Alert to complain to the AAA that they had recognized gay couples as, get this, real married couples in their coverage. I simply edited the pre-filled in text to thank the AAA for recognizing gay couples as real married couples in their coverage.

Now I'm on the listserv for AFA Action Alerts which are amusing and creepy. The next one I saw was anti-health care.

Digital pays Direct back

New piece just published in AdAge's CMO Strategy column, "How Digital Marketing Can Help Reinvent Direct Marketing." It talks about digital as good apprentice who has grown up, while direct is a bit stuck in one-to-one of a perfected past. Provides some lessons which we're going to apply at OgilvyOne to direct marketing and unstuck it for the modern era.

I had submitted it with a more provocative title from Bryan: Digital has learned so much from direct. It's time to pay it back.