Call It “Funny or Buy”
It’s not just comedy that acclaimed website Funny or Die is engaged in. It’s funny business too. Via the Wall Street Journal: What’s So Funny? Marketing Comedy Website Funny or Die Makes a Business Out...
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Do Not Track? Do Not Make Us Laugh
Despite all the hoopla in D.C. about protecting consumer online privacy, there’s this from the Wall Street Journal: Online Tracking Ramps Up Popularity of User-Tailored Advertising Fuels Data Gathering...
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Mac Users Sent Into Orbitz
Online tracking gets more and more sophisticated every day. From the Wall Street Journal: On Orbitz, Mac Users Steered to Pricier Hotels Orbitz Worldwide Inc. has found that people who use Apple Inc.’s...
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Drew Pinsky Did Stealth Doctoring for Glaxo
This past week the U.S. Justice Department reached a “$3 billion criminal and civil settlement with Glaxo over illegal drug marketing and other matters,” the Wall Street Journal reported. ‘Dr. Drew’...
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Smartads Imitate Smartphones
The whole concept behind stealth marketing is to have your ads masquerade as something else. In the latest case, the Wall Street Journal reports, it’s social media campaigns mimic Smartphone pix. Why...
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State of the Cuisinart Marketing: How to Blur the Line Between Advertising...
Once upon a time, there was a bright line between advertising and editorial content/entertainment. As in, here’s where the news content stops and the advertising starts; or here’s where the...
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The Sneak in Review (Social Shopping Edition)
This week’s trifecta: Shopping, Apping, Voting. The Internet Is Not Your Girlfriend Big Wall Street Journal takeout on The Shopping Social Network: Connection is the new name of the fashion e-commerce...
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An Email from Facebook? That Can’t Be Good (III)
All this week the hardtracking staff has been on Facebook like Brown on Williamson. And here’s more fallout from The Grate Facebook Email that changes the site from a sort-of democracy to a flatout...
View ArticleThe End of Anonymity?
The Wall Street Journal is so serious about covering the explosion in online data tracking, the paper has even outed itself. From the WSJ’s Weekend Edition: They Know What You’re Shopping For ‘You’re...
View ArticleData-Mining Kids: Internet Players Are Agile, Mobile, and Hostile
That’s what legendary Texas Longhorns coach Darrell Royal said he wanted his players to be – except he pronounced it a-gile, mo-bile, and hos-tile. But that’s what the Federal Trade Commission does not...
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The Problem with (Literally) Dead Blogging
The hardtracking staff has – in another venue – initiated the concept of Dead Blogging: Actually waiting for something to be over before writing about it. But this weekend’s Wall Street Journal...
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Gilbert and Sullivan’s Wilde Ride
From our Annals of History desk In the late 19th Century, W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan were entertainment superstars, having written such boffo light operas as H.M.S. Pinafore and Pirates of...
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For All You Know, Facebook Owns Your First-Born Child
The New York Times reports that “despite how much we say we value our privacy — and we do, again and again — we tend to act inconsistently,” which is the Times-nice way of saying stupidly. To half-wit:...
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Two Views of the Washington Post’s Sponsored Views
The Washington Post has gone native (advertising). From the Wall Street Journal: Washington Post Opens Online Opinion Pages to Sponsored Content The Washington Post said on Wednesday that it would...
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Oh, What an Untangled Web We’ll Weave?
The Internet, we’re told, wants information to be free. It also wants information to be free of government regulation. And so far it largely has been, thanks to promises of self-policing by web...
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Flash Flood of Data-Mining at The Weather Channel
Your bad hair day is good news for The Weather Channel. From the Wall Street Journal: Weather Channel Now Also Forecasts What You’ll Buy Company’s Data Helps Fine-Tune When and Where Advertisers Should...
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State of the Cuisinart Marketing #Umpteen: Everyone Jump in the Branded...
Once upon a time (about three months ago), branded content – read: ads in sheep’s clothing – was pretty much the exclusive province of online publishers from BuzzFeed to Gawker to TheAtlantic.com. That...
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Our 2013 ‘State of the Cuisinart Marketing’ Address
Recipe for marketing in the 21st Century: Ingredients 1 part news 1 part entertainment 1 part advertising Directions Combine in blender. Hit puree. Serves: Everyone but the Jurassic types who think...
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Wall Street Journal Makes ‘Faustian Pact’ with Native Advertising
Apparently there’s no resisting the allure of native advertising these days. The latest converts to ads in sheep’s clothing? USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. The latter’s surrender is the more...
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Twitter Goes Native (Advertising). New York Says Its Standardized English...
One by one, the media outlets you know and love are falling prey to stealth marketing. Call the roll: The New York Times. The Wall Street Journal. NBC’s The Tonight Show. The Washington Post. And etc....
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