Marketing and all things related

Our wife and our girlfriend often ask how we maintain our healthy glow. Okay, loyal readers, here is the secret. Marketing Blurb eats raisins. Not one of those little red boxes now and then, but fistfuls of raisins around the clock. Yes, they have sugar. But they also have potassium and a secret aphrodisiac. And we just learned from the Modesto Bee, that the Sun-Main girl, famous from those familiar red boxes, will soon be featured in a national ad campaign. According to the Bee:  “Sun-Maid Growers' 90-year-old brunette is still the privately held company's go-to gal but a digital version will have her carry a basket through a vineyard explaining how raisins are made.” We’re told that a watercolor painting of the model for the original Sun-Maid girl is kept in a concrete vault at company headquarters in Kingsburg, California. Okay, maybe our wife and girlfriend are jealous, but we love that maiden and her harvest. Photo Credit: Sun-Maid

You can run, but you cannot hide from advertising. Well, maybe you shouldn't run, but walk instead. If you walk, you might just enjoy a message from Reactrix of Foster City, CA. Reactirix places floor advertising—ahem--advertising messages you walk on.... Continue Reading

Marketing Blurb often reads the newspaper and watches the news at the same time. While doing so tonight, we saw a very strange commercial for the VW Jetta out of the corner of our eye, which featured a giant crane... Continue Reading

Marketing Blurb already told you we were not going to watch the Oscars. Oops—it turns out that countless others did not watch either. According to preliminary Neilsen Media Research data, only about 40% of television viewers watch the event, down... Continue Reading

Viewers tuning into the Academy Awards this weekend will see Coca-Cola launch two new products. The first is Coca-Cola Blak, a coffee-cola drink, and the other is Tab Energy, a new energy drink targeted to women. According to the Atlanta... Continue Reading

Madison Avenue already has enough to worry about. Online advertising placements are increasing while traditional media spending is flat. Consumers are so damned fragmented, it is increasing difficult to reach anyone—and if you do, does your audience pay attention? Well, get... Continue Reading

Cars.com is launching a new television campaign to drive viewers online. The commercials, intended to brand the company for a new audience, will run on ESPN, Discovery Channel, and the Food Network, reaching an estimated 170 million viewers. "We use... Continue Reading

Now you might think that buying billboard advertising is easy enough to understand. But you would be wrong, because now, the roadside staple is going high tech. A new billboard simulation program offered by Outdoor Drive Pro, will allow advertisers... Continue Reading

Marketing Blurb has already alerted readers that product placement is huge. But how big is huge these days? Well according to Media Daily News, “nearly 11 percent of all programming minutes now include some sort of brand reference, and some... Continue Reading

Marketing Blurb does not frequent many high rise office buildings. (Our clients prefer back alleys.) But if we did, we would have noticed that elevator advertising is on the rise. In fact, media network Captivate (clever name, huh?) which places... Continue Reading

With a brand name like Hanes, you cannot resist the temptation to maximize this play on words—Look who we have our Hanes on now. And so it goes for a Hanes advertising campaign featuring Kevin Bacon and Christina Applegate. The... Continue Reading

You know the Wal-Mart drill. First you enter a monster parking lot littered with shopping carts askew. Next, you are greeted by a friendly senior citizen. (Fortunately it is the sticky floor that smells bad, not the senior citizen.) Then... Continue Reading

Marketing Blurb loves glamour as much as the next pundit. But we’re usually just too busy to pay much attention to the designer fashion scene, until celebrities grab the headlines. This time it is the Olsen twins, who although they... Continue Reading

Politicians loved soccer moms, and then NASCAR dads. Well, advertisers love the NASCAR fans as well. The television audience for the sport has grow 80% over the last 15 years. The Daytona 500 kicks off the season this weekend. Last... Continue Reading

Marketing Blurb loves lingo more than rappers love bling. Today we discovered The Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required) coined the term “ad bunching.” The term describes the recent practice by advertisers to cluster or even dominate a given media... Continue Reading

Marketing Blurb alerted readers last month, that NBC was falling well short of required ad revenue to breakeven on broadcasting the Olympic Games. But the network, ever a contender, decided to go for the gold with a new record for... Continue Reading

Gee, cereal is really in the news these days. It seems kids can’t watch television anymore without some advocacy group peering over their shoulders. And the same is true for children’s websites. It seems our friends in the cereal business... Continue Reading

Marketing Blurb has bad news and worse news. First the bad news--kids are watching more television these days. Now the worse news—kids are watching more television programming intended for adults. According to a report by Magna Global, kids aged 2-11... Continue Reading

Confession time again for Marketing Blurb—we do not watch Oprah Winfrey on television. Nor do we read her magazine, or read other magazine articles about her. And, we certainly do not intend to listen to Oprah on XM Satellite Radio,... Continue Reading

Marketing Blurb likes laundry as much as the next guy (which is not especially much.) Fortunately, however, Procter & Gamble cares deeply about laundry. So much in fact, that along with their advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, P&G executives spent... Continue Reading