by Next Wave Team | Feb 5, 2006 | Advertising, Design, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Future of TV
When you take two old school media companies, throw them into a partnership to pilot a sinking ship, and then throw a self-indulgent brand name on top- with an uninspired logo- you can start counting the days. Never mind that television as we know it will die off to IPTV faster than Henry Ford made buggy whips obsolete.
CBS and Warner Brothers decided to pull the plug on UPN and the WB networks and combine the cream into the lamely named CW television network. To demonstrate how lame the ideation on this name project was:
The CBS chief explained that the name of the new net is an amalgamation of the first initials of CBS and Warner Bros. “We couldn’t call it the WC for obvious reasons,” Moonves joked. (Brandweek)
The true joke is that most of their target audience wouldn’t even know what a “Water Closet” is.
Naming a brand isn’t something to joke about- much less use as little creative thought as what must have went into this project- even the mark is so off target as to be embarrassing. Can you see kids wearing this logo?
Let’s look at the success of MTV as a brand reaching the youth market for starters, or Virgin. The days of call signs and station numbers meaning anything are long over, the key is brand voice and image. If this new network has any hopes of building an audience/community, they should hurry back to the drawing board.
I wonder if CBS chief Moonves has any idea that CW stands for “Country Western” or for even better yet “continuous wave” radio- using morse code- yet another buggy whip.
There are tons of branding agencies out there, including The Next Wave- my advice is hire one quickly and kill this brand, before it kills itself.
What do you think?
other links: MSNBC: CBS, Warner Brothers forming a new TV network
by Next Wave Team | Jan 28, 2006 | Advertising, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Guerrilla Campaigns, Marketing & the Web, Web strategy
Maybe you should reconsider using them. After all, if they are in charge of your marketing- and people searching for your business end up at your competitor’s site, they aren’t doing a very good job for you, are they?
Every month, our web stats show the same thing- lots of people looking for our competition and ending up here. There is a reason for that- yes, we’re smart.
We understand that people searching for answers on the web don’t always know what they are looking for- at least until they’ve found it. Sometimes they just can’t get the right terms in the search box- or know what will get them the right answer.
That’s why content always beats pretty pictures.
It’s probably what got you here reading this.
So, if you were searching for Graphica in Dayton OH, or Buchanan and Associates in Columbus, or Sunrise Advertising in Cincinnati, the question is are you still sure they were who you were searching for?
Here are 134 agency search phrases that brought people here in Jan 2006 instead of to the agency they thought they wanted:
1-earth
1-earth dayton
ad ventures
ad ventures dayton
associates buchanan ohio
axis media and marketing dayton ohio
axis media dayton ohio
axis tricom miami
b/r/c marketing in dayton ohio
bagby & company
bagby branding
barefoot advertising
barefoot advertising cincinnati
barefoot advertising inc. cincinnati
barefoot design in cincinnati ohio
bingdesign
bluedog advertising dayton ohio
buchanan & associates advertising
buchanan & associates advertising and marketing
buchanan & associates and advertising
buchanan & associates and ohio
buchanan & associates columbus ohio
buchanan & associates dublin oh
buchanan & associates ohio
buchanan and associates
buchanan and associates advertising
buchanan and associates columbus
buchanan and associates design
buchanan and associates dublin oh
buchanan and associates dublin ohio
buchanan and associates ohio
buchanan associates
buchanan associates columbus advertising
buchanan associates columbus ohio public relations
buchanan associates columbus public relations
buchanan associates google
catalyst creative group dayton oh
centerville ohio eastpoint
cloonan and associates
cloonan associates
cloonan dayton ohio
conrad phillips vutech
conrad phillips vutech in columbus ohio
creative department sycamore street design cincinnati
crispin porter columbus oh
frank phillips advertising agency ohio toledo
gee jeffrey & partners. cincinnati
gee jeffrey and partners ad agency
gjp ad agency
gjp advertising agency
graphic impact
graphic impact dayton
graphic impact kettering ohio
graphica dayton
graphica dayton oh
graphica dayton ohio
graphica design dayton ohio
graphica miamisburg ohio
graphica ohio
hafenbrack dayton ohio
krienik & assoc
libby perszyk kathman - lpk inc. cincinnati oh 45202
lightborne inc. cincinnati ohio\
lpk cincinnati
lpk design cincinnati
lunne marketing
lunne marketing dayton oh
lunne marketing group
market 2 performance dayton
mcdougall marketing communications
mcdougall marketing service
mckinney silver viral
merkley and partners bad
method columbus ohio advertising firms
neo communications
northlich
novinity
novinity columbus ohio
novinity inc
pelican advertising cincinnati
penny ohlman
powers agency in cincinnati ohio
real art design
real art design dayton
real art design group
real art design group dayton ohio
resource interactive
sabatino ad agency dayton ohio
sabatino and day
sabatino day
salon tv spots
selke & associates
selke and associates
stephens advertising
stephens advertising dayton
stephens advertising inc kettering ohio
stephens advertising kettering ohio
sunrise advertising
sunrise advertising cincinnati
tdh mktg. & communications dayton
ten united 375 north front st
ten united advertising ohio
tenunited columbus
the concept company
the creative department ad agency cincinnati sycamore street
the rivets advertising
turner marketing 137 n. main street dayton oh
turner marketing and ohio
turner marketing dayton
turner marketing dayton ohio
turner marketing inc. dayton ohio
visual marketing associates
vutech and associates columbus ohio
wch marketing communications dayton oh
weber geiger & kalat
weber geiger kalat dayton
website for wch marketing communications dayton oh
willow creative group
willow creative group cincinnati
willow creative group in cincinnati
wilson advertising dayton ohio
wilson advertising ohio
wilson advertising ohio blog
wilson advertising ohio dayton
wilson agency advertising miamisburg ohio
wilsonadv
www.behrdesign
www.tdh marketing & communications inc.com
yeck yes t-shirt
young isaac advertising columbus ohio
ze design
ze design dayton ohio
zero base advertising columbus ohio
If you still feel you need to work with any of the above- the contact information you are seeking is here:
Agencies that aren’t The Next Wave.
Place a bet- we can help you build a better site than they can.
What do you think?
For a free consultation on how to cruise to the top of search- call us, 937.228.4433
We’re called The Next Wave for a reason.
by Next Wave Team | Jan 26, 2006 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Guerrilla Campaigns
We won’t know if we’ve won silver or gold (the infamous head) until Feb 11 2006, but we’ve at least won bronze for 2 of the 3 entries we submitted this year.
We still haven’t hung the awards from 2003 or 2004 since we’ve run out of wall space in the bathroom, so we’ve cut down on entries this year.
Typically about 90% of what we enter gets in- and most of it wins silver (the gold is a best of category).
This year the Zen Windows direct mail ad is in the running- as is our guerrilla campaign at the ad club “guerrilla marketing” seminar.
You can see the work by following these two links:
Zen Windows: http://thenextwave.biz/zenwin-ad.html
Guerrilla: http://thenextwave.biz/tnw/index.php?s=guerrilla+seminar
what do you think?
by Next Wave Team | Jan 24, 2006 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Future of TV, Marketing & the Web, Web strategy
Steven Soderbergh is my new hero. By releasing his new movie “Bubble” simultaneously in theaters, on DVD and on HDNet he’s about to change the way content producers control their product forever.
The movie theater chains are boycotting the film and calling him the anti-Christ. Ad agencies that do “movie marketing” are probably crying about their lost revenue from staged release dates, and TV network execs are probably scared to death- that maybe, they won’t have jobs if this keeps up.
Welcome to content distribution 2.0, where the middle-men are about to be cut out as hard as Wal-Mart cuts costs of distribution. Does this spell the end of movie theaters? Probably not- teenagers will always need someplace to go watch a flick away from the kids- and date night just isn’t the same at home- no matter how big your plasma tv is. But what it does do, is give people the option to see what they want, when they want it, how they want it- and that’s the future of all content.
As IBM says- it’s an on-demand world, and consumers are a demanding lot. The only thing truly missing from Soderbergh’s distribution revolution is online delivery. Right now, some cable companies will offer VOD services that will deliver “Bubble”- but a true multi-pronged attack would also allow downloads to your computer- at higher resolution than the iTunes store.
What the current distribution network doesn’t realize is that not everyone is within a 30 minute drive of a movie theater in this country. How many times have they teased the entire country with releasing a movie in only NYC and LA and making the rest of the country wait. Consider this payback time from those of us in the flyover states.
What Soderbergh is doing is delivering content to the people- making it as easy to access as this post- and that, makes him my hero.
See this c-net article
by Next Wave Team | Jan 2, 2006 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Marketing & the Web, Retail, Web strategy
In my parents’ day, doctors didn’t advertise. They didn’t need to. If you just moved into a town, you’d ask your neighbor, the Realtor or a co-worker whom to use for a general practitioner and that was that. If you needed a specialist, the GP would refer you. This was before “Managed care” and specialists for everything. Before direct to the consumer drug ads that told us to “ask our doctor” about problems we didn’t know we had (or could have). And it was before doctors had to invest in new and expensive technology that needed to be paid for by “customers” – instead of patients.
Some doctors have adapted to the new market economy, specializing and differentiating their service, branding it and building a business that proactively positions their business in the minds of consumers so when the time comes- they are likely to get the call. Others have let their affiliated hospitals take over the responsibility of bringing patients to them through negotiated provider status with health insurance companies. What was once a class of independent entrepreneurs who sold their many years of education and considerable skill for a deserved premium have now become mere cogs in a multi-billion dollar machine called the “Health Care Industry.”
What was once a high touch service is now delivered with assembly line style treatment with interchangeable personnel.
As physicians have felt the squeeze placed on them by the insurance industry, the provider groups and of course the threat of considerable legal threats should anything go wrong, they have been forced to become businessmen first and doctors second. Some have given up on high-risk specialties, others have focused on certain profitable segments of the market- doing only elective surgeries that are paid for without the interference of insurers. Others have left the mainstream, creating boutique practices that either self-insure or are just plain old cash on delivery of services.
Some areas that seem to be getting the most attention: plastic surgery, laser hair removal, sports medicine and bariatric (weight loss) surgery.
Already one area has become a wasteland- Lasik eye surgery. With ophthalmologists advertising $299 an eye and spending hundreds of thousands to promote the low price- they have effectively barred others from entering the arena by sucking the margin out.
As someone who already has a phobia about anything touching my eyes, the idea of some low budget operation scares the living daylights out of me, but then again- I can still see without my glasses.
There have been “canned” ad campaigns available from “specialty” agencies that will provide a look and feel in a protected area for each specialization. Chiropractors have been buying into these campaigns for years. Other options include becoming part of yet another network- where ad buys are pooled across many physicians- these are mostly being coordinated by the manufacturers of specialized medical equipment. Buy our laser bone-o-scope and we will advertise for you to drive demand for the bone-o-scopopy that they didn’t know they needed.
Even though doctors are highly educated and mostly computer literate, many have opted for generic templated websites provided by companies who promise to provide a one-size-fits-all portal for their practice. While a doctor may feel good knowing that if someone comes to their practice website and wants to look up what gout is- they will get an answer- this isn’t anything that will drive people to their practice or build a relationship with the physician. It may save the doctor from having to do anything to manage “their” website- but it doesn’t do what a site can do best- which is build a relationship.
In this new day of medical marketing- the patient choices between physicians has become complex and maddening. With the ability to search online- and to access huge databases of doctors that are available through the patients insurance coverage- the question becomes who is right for me? Who can I feel comfortable with- and this is where most medical marketing solutions have gone terribly wrong. Instead of focusing on presenting the physician as a person- they’ve been relegated to bystander by these generic template sites or campaigns from the “specialists.”
To break out of the mold- and to truly reap the benefits of medical office marketing what is needed is more personal, informal one-to-one plain talk that gives the patient confidence that not only do you know your medicine, but that you have the people skills that make the difference between you and your competition.
What do you think?
by Next Wave Team | Dec 29, 2005 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Guerrilla Campaigns, Marketing & the Web, Web strategy
Mid-summer we got a call from a young, bright, PhD candidate who was looking for how to differentiate himself from his classmates when he graduates.
While most ad agencies would send most students on their way- we appreciated his gumption- and sat down to plan a strategy.
In our first bit of research we did a simple google of his name: 9800 results- all for a movie actor from the 50’s. Our first suggestion was to change your name and the second was to start a blog using WordPress- and build a site with his thoughts and ideas- to build a body of work for prospective employers to read and become acquainted with this ambitious young man. See awilum.com.
Just 4 months later, Charles Halton, biblical scholar and PhD candidate is now in the top five of the search results on google. This showcases how search engines value fresh content over static unchanging content. If your website has no active or freshly generated content, it doesn’t matter how many keywords you have, you can slip to the more agile upstart who has adopted the new force on the web.
Congratulation Charles Halton.
If you are interested in how to build your online presence, consider taking one of our blogosopher.com sessions to learn how to do the same for your business.
What do you think?
