This week Facebook is trying out a new ad format that attempts to bring social networking to video placements.

New placements began appearing on the site touting the DreamWorks movie Tropic Thunder. The ads, running on the right side of the page, feature a click-to-play trailer. When users watch the video, they are then presented with a commenting option, similar to those that appear within the site’s News Feed.

I love to comment especially about films so I hope the film companies can take the heat.

Comments are featured from others in a user’s network. In this way, a user can see what his or her friends think about a movie or product.

A Facebook spokesman said the ads are a test of new formats the site is undertaking following a redesign this month.

Facebook has struggled to craft an ad system that fits its environment, where users often come to exchange information with friends. Banner ads on the site are known to get very low click-through rates, and they often compete with many other items on the page for attention.

The site is not the first to experiment with ad comments. Weblogs tried a system called Focus Ads in 2005 that would display user comments on ad messages.

Facebook’s first attempt at crafting a unique ad system mostly fell flat. Its Beacon program, which beamed certain user activities from advertiser sites, was scaled back due to privacy complaints. The site still runs Social Ads that features endorsements of a user’s network.

The new ad test follows a site redesign that changed ad placements from the left side of the page to the right column. The shift was part of a much larger site redesign that the company says will improve the user experience by making the venue less cluttered and emphasizing feeds from a user’s friend activities.

Sam & Dave had the hit, but Soul Man Isaac Hayes was the real article. Hayes, who died Sunday at his home near Memphis, 10 days short of his 66th birthday, was one of soul music’s top songwriters in the ’60s, a groundbreaking R&B icon in the ’70s and a much-loved TV star in recent years.

one more shot…”Hot Buttered Soul”

Martin Sorrel has always been a great supporter of our business here and I always respect his opinion that is why I wanted to post this article from ADWEEK. His observations about China and the Olympics are sure worth noting.

For executives like Martin Sorrell, China’s future is now.

“What we saw Friday night confirmed that perception has become reality,” Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group — parent of media buyer GroupM — said of the opening ceremony. “People all over the world watching television who’ve been in denial about China’s rapid growth now finally see it’s for real.”

Sorrell, whose GroupM is the largest media buyer for Olympics host broadcaster China Central Television, said Monday that he believes the Beijing Games are a watershed event for world consumers’ view of China and for revenue at CCTV.

CCTV ad revenue growth in 2008 is up 30 percent because of what Mark Patterson, GroupM’s CEO Asia Pacific, calls “the Olympic effect.” “That’s double China’s market-wide growth,” he said.

Through a tight relationship with CCTV, Patterson said that GroupM is able to predict that the lone Olympics broadcaster in China — where it has a near-total reach to nearly 1.3 billion people — will earn Olympics-related advertising revenue of $50-60 million, given that it paid a “modest market rate for a sole bidder.”

CCTV has not disclosed what it paid the International Olympic Committee for the right to broadcast the Games.

By contrast, U.S. rights-holder NBC has said it paid $894 million for the right to broadcast the Games. Although NBC has sold more than $1 billion in advertising, the GE-owned network has been supporting a team that swelled to about 3,000 people here last week since long before for the 17-day event began.

WPP, which commands 15 percent of the Chinese market, also saw 30 percent growth over the last year. Clients include multinationals Ford, Unilever and Procter & Gamble and rising Chinese giants Lenovo, Haier and Mengniu, which make computers, refrigerators and yogurt, respectively.

The Chinese advertising opportunity is only going to continue growing, Sorrell said. For example, WPP values state-run China Mobile as the fifth-most-valuable brand in the world thanks to its 600 million subscribers, a group roughly twice the size of the population of the U.S.

“Just think of the mobile ads market,” he said.

In contrast with that optimism, Chinese stocks on Monday fell 5 percent to their lowest level since December 2006 on what analysts said were market concerns of a post-Olympics economic slowdown.

CCTV-2 economics anchor and host Rui Chenggang also expressed a dissenting view of Sorrell’s optimism on the sidelines of a closed-door panel discussion organized by the Yale School of Management. Rui called China Mobile and the Bank of China, just two giant state-owned enterprises “world-sized, but not world-class, businesses.”

“It’s only a matter of time,” said Sorrell.

Baby boomers and Gen Xers declared mass marketing dead long ago. We live in a world of fragmented media surrounded by cynical consumers who can spot and block an ad message from a mile away. But what Gen Xers and boomers may not realize is that the unabashed embrace of select brands by millennials, from technology to beverages to fashion, has made this decade a true golden era of marketing for those who know what they’re doing. And when it comes to marketing, the Barack Obama campaign knows what it’s doing.

Mr. Obama’s brand management, unprecedented in presidential politics, shows pitch-perfect understanding of the keys to appealing to the youngest voters.

Perhaps inevitably, among the first apps introduced for Apple’s new iPhone — the latest success from another millennial mass marketer — was an Obama “Countdown to Change” calendar that ticks off the seconds until Election Day.

So what’s the appeal to the under-30 set? True, the youth vote traditionally skews Democratic, but the difference this year is that Mr. Obama has actually motivated turnout. His success, it seems, is a result of both product and the branding behind it. The qualities he projects — a cool, smooth aura, the communal values of hope and unity, his teeming crowds and his campaign’s seamless graphics — are the essence of appealing to millennials.

“Millennials want someone smart, funny and with a slight edge,” observes Allison Mooney, who tracks youth trends for Fleishman-Hillard’s Next Great Thing. Mr. Obama’s occasional prickly moments, as when he dismissed Mr. McCain’s recent ad comparing him to Paris Hilton — “Is this the best you can do?” — shows them he gets it. “Obama’s kind of mellow. He doesn’t have polarizing views.”

Activate will be working on a 3G mobile execution of the promotion for Tropic Thunder in Japan.

It was spectacular. I believe hosting the Olympics will have a positive effect on China in the future.

The visual identity for the Global Summit for Ecology was created by international branding and design firm Brandimage Desgrippes & Laga. The group’s Hong Kong office, where the group hosts its Asia regional design center, performed the design work. The Hong Kong design team imagined a planet “filled with life”, using vivid colors and animal images to herald the messages of diversity and hope.

Brandimage, the largest independent design firm in the world, was created in June 2008, from the combination of Desgrippes Gobé Group and Laga, both leading design firms in Europe and Asia, and North America, respectively. The group has annual turnover of US$ 60 million and 300 employees on 3 continents in 9 cities – New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Paris, Brussels, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The summit will be held in November at Waseda University in November.

Sorry this is such a long post but Sex in the City will launch in Japan next week and the marketers have really taken full advantage of the hype of the film to sell their brands and new products so I had to write about it.

From Manolo Blahnik high heels to designer dresses, the materialism of the characters in television’s “Sex and the City” has made the movie version a marketing dream that some companies are paying for dearly and at least one is getting for free.

The film about the glamorous lives of writer Carrie, publicist Samantha, lawyer Miranda and curator Charlotte, whose friendships, loves and fashion sense in Manhattan captivated millions of viewers during six seasons on HBO, opens in theaters worldwide this month.

Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo became household names thanks to Carrie’s love of designer shoes. Now some corporations are hoping her influence will reach beyond fashion and that fans will covet products ranging from luxury cars to designer handbags. In Japan designer brands do very well in fact the luxury brands usually have leading sales in their Tokyo outlets.

New Line Cinema has reportedly dubbed it “the Super Bowl for women” in reference to the U.S. football championship that sees companies pay millions of dollars for television ads.

The movie has “promotional partnerships” with at least eight companies whose products appear in the film. Vogue magazine is the leader in promotion for the Japan launch.

Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Carrie and produced the movie, said it could not have been made without these deals.

“It’s a huge part of making a movie now, it’s a huge part of financing and marketing in foreign territories and it would have been impossible, unfortunately, for us to make this movie without some partnerships,” Parker told reporters.

“The challenge is … when is product distracting and when does it fit into a story? Fortuitously, these women are material people,” she said. The ad at the top of my blog is a good example. the Carrie Mac book is in the show and is an integral part of her character and the plot.

TOUTING LINKS TO FILM

Parker said the partnerships often do not involve companies paying to have their products in the film. Instead, businesses spend heavily to promote their ties to the movie.

While Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte travel in New York’s signature yellow cabs, Carrie’s love interest, “Mr. Big,” cruises around in a black Mercedes-Benz.

Meanwhile, Samantha is living on the U.S. West Coast and drives a white Mercedes-Benz SUV that is unavailable in the United States until January.

Steve Cannon of Mercedes-Benz said the company does not pay for product placement but has its own media campaign promoting its involvement in the film and the product used.

“Given the built-in fan base, it’s pretty certain regardless of what the initial reviews say that it’s going to be a solid success,” Cannon said. “We decided that this was one of these projects we would spend extra money activating.”

Japan shows the TV series on satellite and it is the number one rental DVD is shops across the country. The young women demographic here aspires to the NYC lifestyle and Parker certainly is a great poster girls for their fashion tastes.

The designer handbag-renting Web site, Bag Borrow or Steal, was approached by New Line to be a partner after it was written into the story by writer/director Michael Patrick King.

“It was really a Cinderella story for us,” said Jodi Watson of the bag rental firm. “It’s instant credibility for our concept and our brand.”

She said the company did not pay to be included in the movie. But it has spent more money to tout its connection to the movie than it has on any other promotional campaign

‘FEMALE FANTASY’

Does product placement really work?

“There’s quite a bit of research that suggests it works in different ways and for different reasons,” said S. Shyam Sundar, director of the Media Effects Research Lab at Penn State University.

Elayne Rapping, professor of American Studies at The State University of New York in Buffalo, New York, said “Sex and the City” tapped into some women’s dreams.

“The selling of lifestyles and clothes was a major factor in the success of that show,” she said. “It’s very much a female fantasy of what working women wish they had, but we all know we don’t have.”

Some unlikely companies found themselves unexpectedly caught up in “Sex and the City.”

In one scene, Carrie and Miranda eat lunch in a park with paper bags from British sandwich chain Pret A Manger placed on their laps in what appears to be an obvious case of product placement. But that was not the case.

Sacha Turner, the company’s New York business development manager, said Parker regularly buys lunch from Pret and had requested the sandwiches for the scene simply because she likes them.

“We donated it,” Turner said. “It’s fantastic advertising for us, but we were just really (pleased) that she had requested us.”

Customers are every company’s most valuable asset. What attracts new customers and retains loyal current ones is the customer experience that a company provides for its customers.

To succeed today, companies must manage the customer experience at every “touch-point”, whether it’s in the store, face-to-face, through advertising, on the web, or through innovative products and services. Creating the right customer experience spurs growth, increases revenues, and can transform the image of your company and its brands. This experience is key in any industry, whether selling to mass consumers or B2B buyers.

The following points provide an introduction to some of the key principles and concepts related to customer experiences including:

Brands as Experiences

In the 1990s, branding arose as a crucial new business task for building and sustaining competitive advantage. Brands were seen as identifiers for customers that signify ownership and guarantee quality. We call this “BRAND=ID.” When brands are seen as identifiers, brand equity is based on customers’ awareness and knowledge of the brand. Strategy focuses on building brand associations before purchase.

But times have changed. Customers today seek out brands that deliver experiences that appeal to customers’ senses, heart, and mind. For customers today, brands are, first and foremost, providers of experiences.

When brands are seen as experience providers, equity is measured in their sensory stimulation, emotional bonding, and lifestyle value.

Strategy focuses on creating and enhancing experiences for customers before, during, and after purchase. To build and sustain a great brand, companies need to ensure an integrated customer experience that is delivered through communications, products, service, personnel, and every customer contact.

Sense, Feel, Think, Act, Relate

Experiences involve our entire living being-our senses, feelings, intellect, bodies, and how we relate to other people.

Activate helps managers to create a wide variety of impactful experiences for customers via marketing campaigns that reach any of five distinct “Strategic Experiential Modules”: SENSE, FEEL, THINK, ACT, or RELATE.

Many marketing campaigns that we create combine one or more SEM’s, and the most successful ones combine all five to create “holistic” experiences. “Holistic” marketing combines sense, feel, think, act, and relate to connect to customers in a broad variety of ways.

Experience Providers

The customer experience happens at many different touch points. Every time a customer interacts with a company, this interaction shapes their perception of the company’s products and brands.

To create great experiences for customers, companies have at their disposal a range of different experience providers.

At Activate we help you to integrate the experience provided at each experience provider into a consistent customer experience.

I thought that since the world was coming to Beijing for the Olympics it might be interesting to introduce people to Chinese brands that will someday be exported to the world from China.

Has anyone heard of this high powered brand? Lenovo is the largest Chinese PC manufacturer, and the third largest in the world, providing products to more than 160 countries around the world.

In 2005, it completed the acquisition of IBM’s PC business and by the end of 2006, more than 60% of Lenovo’s turnover came from markets outside Great China.

The company is focusing more on transactions with individual and SME customers, and this transformation is paying back in the U.S. market where it showed profitability in first quarter of 2007.

Though Lenovo faces declining margins for the whole PC industry and fierce competition from HP, Dell, and Acer, the
brand managed to grow its value by almost 60% this year.

We attribute this growth to a huge investment in marketing and branding activities,including replacing IBM to become
the only Chinese official global partner of the 2008 Olympic Games. As one of the most successful brands in China,
Lenovo carries high expectations from Chinese people and can do more to more clearly assert its brand differentiation.

Lenovo has also announced a brand new laptop, seemingly, in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Straying from their usual business themed thin black notebooks, Lenovo has went with red plus spiral motifs around the Thinkpad. Though internal specifications are not present yet, inside information hints that this notebook will sport a 12.1-inch XGA display and Intel’s L2400 Core 2 Duo.