In the United States, Halloween has become the sixth most profitable holiday (after Christmas, Mother's Day, Valentines Day, Easter, and Father's Day) for retailers.
So brand Halloween is strong, and marketers have a chance to use holiday insights to meet consumer needs. Some have: Comcast created a new channel called FearNet to satisfy the desires for scary-movie-lovers. Other brands have met the needs of the costume-craving and –confused, such as recently Captain Morgans Costumes and last year Burger King Masks.
For the most part, companies leave that to the candy-makers like M&M’s and fantasy-creators like Disney.
As story-tellers, it seems an opportunity exists to use holidays and this one in particular to extend (and test) a brand’s elasticity and complexity, possibly making some sweet mullah in the process. Most importantly, it is a time to show your personality and bring your culture out.
Hey, people do it. Just look at the Today’s Show, to see the link between traditional entertainment company/brand to entertainer/person/brand. Hosts Matt Lauer and Al Roker were Pirates of The Caribbean characters and Meredith Viera was the Little Mermaid. While Anne Curry was Cher and Natalie Morales was Madonna.
They also highlight some observations about the importance of individual expression within a safe community. There’s no denying individuals take the opportunity to extend and voice their brands. Sometimes it’s just being the hot you Playboy bunnies. But notice the ease and necessity of doing it in a group (i.e., girl scout troops, Wayne & Garth, female firefighting squads, Reno 911 officers, etc.) There are more examples of women than men, but in addition to wanting strengthen and security in numbers more, I believe it’s also a testament to them having their shite together.
In any case, a great costume can be judged on a number of criteria, but are almost always a great conversation piece. Hits this year, from my perspective, include: Kim Jong Il (based on relevancy and amazing hair and glasses), Hulk Hogan (also a larger than life character that’s has cultural relevance – new show Hogan Knows Best – and performance - the guy really “sold” it), Shots (depth, variety, detail, creativity for the buttery nipple, purple hooter, and other 7 ladies), and Papa Smurf (dedication – full blue body paint – and detail – could not be confused with a member of the Blue Man Group).
But whether you (and your crew) are (is) the most original or most obvious, the holiday is, inherently (read as: has been commercialized/crafted to be), a social lubricant.
Halloween provides brands an opportunity for both transformation and interesting discussion. It’s a chance to have fun and not take itself too seriously, to pay tribute to and shape culture, to join the conversation. I believe it’s worth thinking about what opportunities other holidays provide.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Halloween and brands
Ad Agency Deathwatch: Google Rising
Imagine you're Volvo's top US advertising executive, responsible for an ad budget of around $100 million (€78.59m; £52.72m). And you want to talk to an expert with new media savvy and empathy with a prime customer target group.
Who do you talk to? A creative boutique? An online hotshop? One of the specialist new media scions of Omnicom, WPP, Interpublic, Publicis and Havas?
None of these if you're Volvo's Linda Gangeri, who like those seeking Ralph Waldo Emerson's "better mousetrap", made "a beaten path to the door" of . . . Google.
Impressed by the Californian search titan's recent ingestion of YouTube Gangeri cold-shouldered Madison Avenue's finest in the belief that she might find the "better mousetrap" at Google.
Volvo, whose image is more usually associated with the comfortable bourgeoisie, will next year launch a new model targeting the hip, twenty-something crowd - Googlers personified.
Jetting-in from the West Coast to Google's recently opened New York offices, Gangeri told the Googlistas: "This is a target we've never reached before and one you cannot reach via traditional marketing messages - they reject it. We look to you and challenge you, with Google being more of that young, targeted mind-set."
Patrick Keane, Google's director of product marketing, was in no mood to disagree with such dollar-dripping enthusiasm. Unable to believe his luck, he took up Gangieri's refrain.
"There's probably a false assumption in the marketplace that Google is a bunch of machines in Mountain View [California] and we don't have relationships like you might see at Conde Nast up the street or at ABC television," Keane responded.
Elsewhere, however, there was less enthusiasm. Timothy Hanlon who, as svp of Publicis Groupe's Denuo new-media consulting division, bestrides the gap between old and new media, assessed the Google incursion.
"They're trying to take the DNA of search marketing and apply it to other kinds of advertising," he said, adding that the larger dollar-pot in traditional "brand-marketing budgets" is a natural target for Google.
While Jason Clement, associate director of search engine marketing at Aegis Group's Carat Fusion, was in counter attack mode: "The scariest thing about Google is they don't know what they don't know.
"There's a difference between a Harvard [graduate] mathematician and someone who's been selling ads for twenty years. The mathematician is smarter, but if you want Coca-Cola's dollars, the guy selling billboards for twenty years is the one you want."
Surveying the upcoming Battle Royal, observers of the media scene predict that few prisoners will be taken.
via WARC and Washington Post
Monday, October 30, 2006
Event: U of M Professor discusses the social web
For us locals, the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association is sponsoring a chat about the ever-changing nature of the internet, social media and all of the buzzwords we love to ponder and eschew. 7 p.m., Thursday over on the St. Paul campus.
"No longer is the Internet merely for sharing facts and figures; increasingly it’s for creating connections with people. The hundreds of social networks springing up all over the Internet are changing how people keep friends, find jobs, enjoy hobbies and even choose life partners. What is the social web? How did it happen? And why is it so important?"
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Industry: Analyzing CNN "Actual News" Content
Reprint from Daily Kos which critiques the level of "actual news" featured on websites after you take out ads.
Let's take a look at their home page (from yesterday's "above the fold" CNN home page):
CNN HOME PAGE
Okay, now let's find all of the advertising, including cross-selling and up-selling to other CNN shows and services. Here's what we get:
CNN Advertising
And now lets find all of the dog-bites-man sensationalism, gossip, trivia, and other non-news.
CNN Sensationalism
And now the actual news... wait for it...
CNN Actual News
That is the SUM TOTAL of actual news presented on the above-the-fold CNN home page.
This is what their home page would look like if it was presented with just news:
Pop Faith: ATMs for Jesus
LA Times reports: In bids for relevance, Pastor Marty Baker, of Stevens Creek Community Church, makes sermons available as podcasts, regularly plays Aerosmith's "Dream On", and discusses the spiritual wages of lunching at Hooters. He has also installed ATMs in the church lobby.
Kiosk giving has gradually gained acceptance among his upper-middle-class flock. The three kiosks are expected to take in between $200,000 and $240,000 this year — about 15% of the church's total donations.
At church services, Baker said, the next few years could be comparable to another upheaval centuries ago, when offerings of grain and animals were replaced with what was then the newfangled medium of money.
"I'll bet that caused a stir, too," he said, chuckling.
See previous link about God's credit acceptance networks, as well as other Faith Web 2.0 movements
Industry: 25 Stickiest (Brands on the Web)
Internet users at home and work visited the top 25 parent companies and stickiest brands for September. Nielsen//NetRatings tracked the brands with the highest number of unique visits and time spent on their sites.
Nielsen//NetRatings uses a sampling methodology through its MegaPanel of Internet users.
via clickz
Saturday, October 28, 2006
New account planning entry on Wikipedia
Someone, perhaps a reader, has just recently written a lengthy and fairly comprehensive definition of planning. It includes a number of different sections and links to us (thanks!).
What it needs now is a present/future perspective about where the discipline is heading. Anyone up for contributing?
Conscious Consumption: (Product)RED Rising
The (Product)RED train just keeps on a chuggin' since last time we checked */
**/
***
iPod Nano Red, MySpace Red, Flickr Red
Gap Red has lined up the requisite list of celebs for its ad campaign: Chris Rock, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Garner, Penelope Cruz, Steven Spielberg, Don Cheadle, and Mary J. Blige. 
While I have obtained no empirical data, Amex Red seems to be gaining in popularity and sentiment.
Politics 2.0: Google Election Maps
Google is offering a mashup that combines its popular Google Earth mapping program with information about the U.S. congressional races coming up in two weeks.
The Google Earth 2006 election resource tool, unveiled early Monday, indicates the country's 436 congressional districts with stars on the popular 3D map of the country. Clicking on a star pops open a bubble window that has information on the candidates in that race.
The window also includes links to news, images and Web search results on candidates, as well as to information on where and how to vote and campaign finance reform.
"Our hope is that young people using Google Earth will…make better, informed choices," said John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Google Maps.
The project was the brainchild of two members of the Google Earth team who created it during the 20 percent time allotted each week for engineers to work on special projects of their own design, Hanke said.
via CNet
AKI COMMENT: Try a slightly easier interface at Washington Post, as you will likely need to download Google Earth applications onto your computer to use.
And did anybody else notice the 20% WORKTIME COMMITMENT TO INNOVATION POLICY at Google? More on that later...
"Don't Panic": Ecological Debt
Global ecosystems face collapse due to societal "Ecological Debts"
Current global consumption levels could result in a large-scale ecosystem collapse by the middle of the century, environmental group WWF has warned.
The group's biannual Living Planet Report said the natural world was being degraded "at a rate unprecedented in human history".
Terrestrial species had declined by 31% between 1970-2003, the findings showed.
It warned that if demand continued at the current rate, two planets would be needed to meet global demand by 2050.
The nations that were shown to have the largest "ecological footprints" were the United Arab Emirates, the United States and Finland.
Paul King, WWF director of campaigns, said the world was running up a "serious ecological debt".
"It is time to make some vital choices to enable people to enjoy a one planet lifestyle," he said.
The findings echo a study published earlier this month that said the world went into "ecological debt" on 9 October this year.
By 2050 accumulated ecological debt may be irreversible
The study by UK-based think-tank New Economics Foundation (Nef) was based on the Ecological Footprint data compiled by the Global Footprint Network, which also provided the figures for this latest report from the WWF.
Read more on proposed 'Pollution Penance' tactical alternatives to pay down our individual and collective Eco Debts here and here
via BBC, ABC News, and WWF
Friday, October 27, 2006
AAAA CREATIVE SUMMIT-MINNEAPOLIS
Friday, November 10, 2006
The AAAA's Creative Summit
An advertiplay in 3 acts
@ The new Guthrie Theater, 818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis
November 10th, 12:30 - 4 p.m.
Act I: Joe Dowling, Artistic Director, Guthrie Theater
Act II: Pat Fallon and Fred Senn, Chairman and Founding Partner, Fallon Worldwide
Act III: David Droga, Founder and Creative Director, Droga5
www.06creativesummit.com
Second Life Traffic Soars
MarketingVox reports on new Hitwise research that shows traffic to the virtual world site skyrocketing in the past few weeks amidst growing media attention and significant interest from the corporate world. Interesting to note, over the past month or so, the percentage of visitors to the site in the 55+ age range has jumped, from around 6% to 15%, while the 18-24 crowd seemed to fade, dropping about 7%, from 33% of visitors to 26%.
From the article:
The share of U.S. Internet searches for "second life" last week (ended Oct. 21) shot up 73 percent from the previous week, and visits to Second Life more than doubled from the two weeks ended Oct. 7 to the two weeks ended Oct. 21, according to a Hitwise blog post. Year over year, visits to SecondLife.com were up 219 percent (week ended Oct. 21, 2006 compared with week ended Oct. 22, 2005).
For the four week period ended Sept. 23, about 32.7 percent of visitors to SecondLife.com were between the ages of 18 and 24, and only 5.6 percent were over 55. Nearly a month later, for the four weeks ended Oct. 21, those over 55 constituted 15.1 percent of Second Life visitors, whereas visitors in the 18-24 group decreased seven percentage points, to 25.7 percent.
"It will be interesting to see how many of these older visitors become players in Second Life - right now the appeal of Second Life skews to those under 45. An older, and potentially more moneyed, player set in Second Life could attract a different caliber of advertisers to the game," writes LeeAnn Prescott, Hitwise research director, in her blog.via MarketingVox
Cashless Society: NYC Mobile Trial
Been awhile since any updates on the mythical Mobile Cashless Society. Save for the occasional "technology, wow" stories on CNN or MSNBC trumpeting the coming Star Trek-future, I've been rather disappointed by America's slooow pace of adoption of innovations such as the Phone Wallet.
It's been three months since the MTA, Citi and Mastercard unveiled the contactless payment system in NYC.
The system has been in limited trial (presumably successfully), and now they have unveiled the next part: The NYC Mobile Trial. If you have a Citbank Mastercard with Paypass - and a Cingular account - you may be able to sign up and use your cellphone to pay your fare.
Tap your NFC (Near Field Communication) enabled mobile phone on the payment reader located on the front of the turnstiles. The contactless-enabled turnstiles will have a payment reader featuring the green subway trial symbol. These turnstiles also feature a “Turnstile. Turbostyle.” Label at about eye level and a subway trial symbol banner across the top of the turnstile.
If you're in NYC, sign up here.
AKI COMMENT: You know where I stand on this: "'bout time" and "gimme mine!". Further, the sooner that contactless merges with ubiquitous tech like phones and gadgets we already carry in our pockets, the sooner the behaviour can be adopted. Noone needs additional and separate key fob gadgets for cash, gas, tolls, etc... Now if we can only get this stuff into our clothing we'll be really fluid.
via Gothamist and ePayment News
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Politics 2.0: Google Bomb
MediaPost reports: A coalition of Democratic-leaning bloggers are planning an en masse search engine optimization campaign, in the form of "Google bombs," in hopes of highlighting negative stories about GOP candidates. The bloggers plan to manipulate the search engine's results via blog posts that link the candidates' names to unflattering articles.
Past political Google bombs have included linking the biography pages for President George W. Bush and former President Jimmy Carter to the phrase "miserable failure," and the John Kerry senatorial Web site to the word "Waffles" during the 2004 Presidential campaigns. A Google search on the name "George Allen"--a Republican U.S. Senator from Virginia running to retain his seat--now returns his official Senate page as the top organic result. But if some bloggers have their way, the top result will instead be "New 'N Word' Woe For George Allen," a CBS News article from September, highlighting the Senator's alleged use of a racial slur.
But, although "bombing" has worked in the past, Google says it has recently tweaked its algorithms to prevent people from bombing. "We make changes to the algorithms to make the searches better," a spokesman said. "Invariably, this does take care of some of these attempts at Google bombing which are not true organic results."
This election cycle's Google bombing is being masterminded by Chris Bowers, author of the popular liberal blog MyDD.com. On Tuesday, Bowers posted the code for 52 links to news articles and Wikipedia entries detailing scandals that Republican candidates and incumbents for the Senate and House have been involved in. Bowers on Tuesday asked that blog authors post the links in their own blogs with the candidate's name as the link text--thus creating inbound links on those articles, and driving up the page rank for those pages and raising them in Google's natural search results. 
On Wednesday night, Bowers advised blog authors to add the new "bombing" links to their blog templates, which would retroactively add them to every post they have ever made, creating still more inbound links to the negative articles.
Bowers also is planning a paid search campaign to complement the Google bombing, but declined to discuss the details of the keyword buy. On his blog, Bowers stated: "I don't want to tip off right-wingers."
via MediaPost
Politics 2.0: Video the Vote
Video the Vote seeks to report disenfranchisement in real time through the use of everyday citizens with cameras. Essentially, they're taking citizen journalism to a mass level by getting everyone in on one particular story (as opposed to many people in on many different stories). It will be interesting to see the response - both from participants eager to root out problems and from authorities who are supposed to be preventing the problems in the first place. Also of interest: how will multiple citizen journalists shape the story? While there is still a set point of view to the piece, the influence of many reporters could alter the story. 
Wonder if this trend will continue; more stories featuring multiple vantage points could be really cool, but will a unified POV still be necessary for truly compelling stories?
Check out Video the Vote's YouTube video below:
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Web 2.0: Bush Says He Uses “the Google.”
Think Progress has uploaded a clip from a CNBC interview in which President George Bush describes his use of search engine Google. 
Transcript:
HOST: I’m curious, have you ever googled anybody? Do you use Google?
BUSH: Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see — I’ve forgot the name of the program — but you get the satellite, and you can — like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes.
AKI COMMENT: Sigh...
Web 2.0: Ask A Ninja "Matures"
Ad Age interview about new media maturity of the guys from AskANinja.com
Only a year ago, Los Angeles-based improv artists Douglas Saline and Kent Nichols were out of work and nearly destitute. After fruitlessly trying to sell a ninja movie script to Hollywood, the duo decided to produce a snippet of content themselves, offer it directly to consumers for download and see what happens. Today, they run an expanding media property selling ad space at $50 CPM to companies such as Sony and Warner Bros. 
Today, the venture has become much more than a simple podcast. Messrs. Saline and Nichols have together produced 47 four-minute "Ask a Ninja" podcast episodes that average 200,000 U.S. downloads a week. Askaninja.com, where fans can watch video versions of the Ninja, pose questions and buy branded Ninja gear, has 3 million visits a month. And Ninja has been quoted on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives regarding the net neutrality issue and delivered an official movie review on NPR.
According to podcast advertising rep firm Podtrac, and 57% of the audience is between ages 19 and 34 and 83% is male.
via AdAge
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
User-Created: Inspiring a Car Culture Within Second Life
Dubbed Morotari Island, Pontiac plans to issue out "parcels of land around Motorati Island to Second Life entrepreneurs and artists who wish to create their own projects devoted to car culture." Users who want to get in on the bid can go to the islands Morotari life website (still under construction), to pitch their ideas in hopes of getting a piece of the land on which to lay out their creations.
I think this is a good example of marketers realizing they need to be a part of the conversation in the world of new media and not try to take it over. Compared with other corporations that have simply set up shop within SL to operate as they would in the real-world, GM seems to have put more thought into what a brand may need to do to in order to truly integrate itself into this type of new media/virtual world atmosphere. Allowing residents to incorporate Pontiac as part of their own user-created projects provides for a much different level of interaction than simply seeing a billboard on the street or a sky-scraper on the horizon. Enhancing and facilitating a consumer experience rather than creating and controlling it for them. I like it.
From the article:
"Our mission is to work with the Second Life community to create a place for car lovers that doesn't exist today," said Mark-Hans Richer, marketing director at Pontiac. "However, our approach isn't to be a 'me too, marketer' and simply have a presence in the space. Rather, we want to empower the car community in Second Life and develop with them in a unique and meaningful manner. We aren't completely creating the experience -- the Second Life users are. We're just providing the inspiration."
In addition to the community based projects, Pontiac will create its own presence on the island. Plans are in development to build a futuristic Pontiac "dealership," selling customizable versions of the newly introduced Pontiac Solstice GXP. Owners can then test their new purchases on a high- performance test track, fully modify them and even showcase them in a public gallery. The Pontiac Garage music stage in New York City's Times Square will be replicated in this space and act as a venue for live music performances by real artists in the form of their Second Life avatars.
"Our hope is to unleash the community's passion for cars," said Tor Myhren, executive vice president, executive creative director at Leo BurnettDetroit. "We envision weekly competitive driving events, drive-in theaters playing car related films, machinima film studios, car-themed fashion shows, live concerts, drive-in restaurants, you name it. If an idea relates to any aspect of car culture, we intend to give the community the means to make it happen."
via Reuters
Monday, October 23, 2006
Starbucks: Premium Blend Culture
NY Times analyzes Starbuck's ever-evolving brand of "Premium Blend Culture"
Culture: Brief Breakbeat History
18 minute video explaining the history of the 'Amen Break', known in drum&bass and electronic circles as "the world's most famous drum beat"...uhm, in line behind Lyn Collin's 'Think', and James Brown's 'Funky Drummer', but anyways, i digress...
Beta vs VHS: Round 2 for the Digital World
A new BusinessWeek report discusses the latest battle in video players fighting for high-tech, digital savvy consumers. DVD seems to be the popular choice in video media formats for the moment, but others are creepin up. From this article, seems to me compatibility issues may still hinder wider acceptance of these new technologies. And let's not forget the (up to) $1000 price tag on these next-gen players. I'll need to check these out in person, and maybe its the skeptic in me but I don't think the tech is that overwhelming to justify a total switch and repurchase of the many DVD's I have on one of these new formats. After all, I'm still plotting on when to buy my first plasma-screen TV. Baby steps.
Article via BWonline:
The resolution on DVD players is light-years behind what the latest crop of high-definition televisions can do. The next-generation video formats, Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD, have 5 to 10 times the capacity of old DVDs. Ready to switch? Here's the catch: Blu-ray won't work in HD-DVD players and vice versa. Manufacturers have hinted that future players could show both, but for now you'll have to choose sides.
CONTENT
Four of the seven major Hollywood studios support the Blu-ray format exclusively, while only one, Universal, has taken HD-DVD's side. (Warner Bros (TWX ). and Paramount work with both.) Blu-ray discs hold a maximum of 50 gigabytes, HD-DVD,just 30 gigabytes. Advantage: Blu-ray.
PRICE
Blu-ray players hitting the market, such as Sony's (SNE ) BDP-S1 ($999), are twice as expensive as entry-level HD-DVD models. (All prices are suggested retail except where otherwise noted.) The only Toshiba model with 1080p output, which all the Blu-ray players have, is also priced at $999, however. Toshiba says it will be cheaper to manufacture HD-DVDs than Blu-ray discs, but Blu-ray folks dispute that. Advantage: HD-DVD.
HEAD START
When a new technology first hits the market, you can be sure it will have bugs. Case in point: Samsung's BD-P1000 ($750 from online discounters), which shipped with a bad chip that marred its image quality. (Samsung says it is fixing the problem.) Meanwhile, HD-DVD champion Toshiba (TOJBF ) is already unveiling its second round of players, the HD-A2 ($499) and HD-XA2 ($999, available in December), sporting sleeker profiles, faster startup times, and better remote controls. Advantage: HD-DVD.
GAMING
It's not all about movies. Sony's PlayStation 3 ($499, available in mid-November) will double as a Blu-ray player. Not to be outdone, Microsoft (MSFT ) is offering an add-on HD-DVD player for its Xbox console ($200, available in mid-November). If the PS3 is a hit, it will help Blu-ray. Advantage: Blu-ray.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Commercial Interruption: Vintage Kid Packaging
Dan Goodsell, co-author of the book Krazy Kids' Food (Taschen 2003), has the most excellent Flickr set of vintage products for kids. The set includes tons of candy and food you loved as a kid, but have forgotten about until now. The products are from circa 50s-80s, and include cereal boxes, candy wrappers, ice cream boxes, cartoon cells from 1960s cereal ads, etc.
via Boing Boing
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Long Tail: George Lucas Says Phooey To Theatrical Release
The current issue of Variety informs:
"George Lucas has a message for studios that are cutting their slates and shifting toward big-budget tentpoles and franchises: You've got it all wrong. The creator of "Star Wars," which stamped the template for the franchise-tentpole film, says many small films and Web distribution are the future.
And in case anyone doubts he means it, Lucasfilm is getting out of the [theatrical-release] movie biz."We don't want to make movies. We're about to get into television. As far as Lucasfilm is concerned, we've moved away from the feature film thing because it's too expensive and it's too risky.
Spending $100 million on production costs and another $100 million on P&A makes no sense, he said. "For that same $200 million, I can make 50-60 two-hour movies. That's 120 hours as opposed to two hours. In the future market, that's where it's going to land, because it's going to be all pay-per-view and downloadable."
Chris Anderson at Longtail.com adds
That's good news for the vast majority of filmmakers, who have little chance of getting box office distribution today. There's abundant supply of filmmaking talent and abundant demand for their work. The only thing standing in the way is the incredibly limited channel of theatrical release. Fewer than 150 films get distribution on 1,000 screens or more (the definition of mainstream release) each year. Meanwhile, more than 13,000 films are now submitted each year to just one independent film fest--the Tribeca Film Festival--alone. Lucas is right that box-office domination of the movie business seems a throwback to an earlier day of scarcity. Today it's getting cheaper and easier to make a movie. Why shouldn't it be cheaper and easier to distribute it, too?
Lucas further says he believes Americans are abandoning the moviegoing habit for good.
"I don't think anything's going to be a habit anymore. I think people are going to be drawn to a certain medium in their leisure time and they're going to do it because there is a desire to do it at that particular moment in time. Everything is going to be a matter of choice. I think that's going to be a huge revolution in the industry."
AKI COMMENT:
Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager Episode 1
Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager Episode 2
Chad Vader: Nite Shift Manager Episode 3
Chad Vader: Nite Shift Manager Episode 4
Culture: Footworkin' Redux
Alyson represented earlier this month with Chicago's Footworkin' and LA's Krump.
Seth represented way back in the IOI with Harlem's Chicken Noodle Soup.
But Philadelphia got that Wu Tang bidness...check it:
via CouchSessions
Friday, October 20, 2006
Inbox of Immaturity
Creatives can use it for mall OOH layouts and the rest of you for inspiration. Bi's, tri's, and even abs.
It's been a few weeks since the last IOI, so hopefully you'll enjoy and find some new ones here:
Indian Thriller
Tootie's Bong
Chicago Bears D on Offense
I-Banking Video Resume
Mike Tyson still crazy as ever
Foley oldey
Mr. T-mail
Drunk monkeys
Finally a Georgetown hoops shoutout
Industry: Internet Addiction
4% of Americans Could Have Internet Addiction
A recent Stanford University School of Medicine study appears in the October issue of CNS Spectrums: The International Journal of Neuropsychiatric Medicine, and lead author Elias Aboujaoude, MD, said it is the first large-scale, random-sample epidemiological study ever performed on the subject of Internet addiction.
Among the study’s notable findings:
•Nearly 14 percent of participants—or roughly 1 out of 8—said they find it difficult to remain away from the Web for days at a time.
•More than 12 percent often or very often stay online for longer than they intend.
•More than 12 percent have felt some urge to cut down on Web surfing.
•Almost 9 percent have at some point tried to hide their surfing habits from family, friends or others.
•More than 8 percent have attempted to escape some problem or concern in their life via the Internet.
•Just under 6 percent said personal relationships were hampered by their excessive Web surfing.
Aboujaoude compared the effects of some Web users’ compulsive surfing, posting and networking habits to those of substance abuse and impulse control disorders, and said an increasing number of Americans are seeking medical attention from doctors or others to address concerns over their Internet use, according to the release.
via BusinessWire
Seed Newsvine
