Archive for January, 2012
RIM’s Twitter Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong #BeBold
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/rims-twitter-campaign-goes-horribly-wrong-bebold-2012-1
RIM’s latest marketing campaign is based around a squad of cartoon characters called the Bold Team, accompanied by the #BeBold hashtag on Twitter. It wasn’t a good idea.
Why? Because the campaign is blowing up in RIM’s face. Spectacularly.
The vague hashtag, plus the cheesiness of the cartoon characters, prompted the masses to hijack #BeBold. So now, just one week after McDonald’s reminded marketers everywhere how NOT to do a Twitter campaign, RIM makes the same mistake. It’s getting ripped on by its own hashtag (via Gizmodo).
Take a look at what people are tweeting. It entirely consists of folks railing on either the cartoon, or the company as a whole:
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See Also:
- McDonald’s Immediately Follows Its Epic #McDStories Fail With Another Twitter Campaign
- This Burrito Joint Got Robbed, And Now It’s Trying To Catch The Thieves By Posting The Surveillance Video On Facebook
- H&M Is Getting Slammed For Allegedly Copying An Artist’s Design On A Bunch Of Its Own Products
Not Enough Data To Explain Why Doctors Are Leaving Medicare
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/medicare-2012-1
The government is having a hard time conducting a full review of physicians who have opted out of medicare, according to a memo released last week by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The evaluation sought to answer what type of physicians opted out, whether the number of physicians opting out increased or decreased over time, and why the physicians chose to opt out.
According to deputy inspector general Stuart Wright, the evaluation was not completed because Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) and legacy carriers do not maintain sufficient data.
While CMS provided the Office of Inspector General (OIG) with 7,900 providers ranging from 1998 to March 2011, only one out of 10 MACs and one of six legacy carriers provided OIG with all data elements required by CMS. Consequently, the OIG claimed it could not sample opted out physicians and interview them.
The memo implied that the number of physicians opting out will increase in the future, considering “the potential for legislated decreases in Medicare reimbursement for physician services. ” It briefly references a 2011 August report published by the Texas Medical Association, which reported that 50 percent of Texas physicians are considering dropping out of Medicare program altogether.
This trend is nothing new. TMA has released another report in March 2011 that showed that 34 percent of Texas doctors are not accepting new Medicare patients or have limited the number of doctors. Similarly, a report by AARP released in February 2010 surveyed 413 Idaho physicians and found that 17 percent have completely closed their practices to new Medicare patients.
The Physicians’ Foundation has published numerous reports on the topic. A 2008 survey reported that 12 percent of physicians have closed their practices to Medicare patients and the 2010 survey reported that 52.2 percent of physicians said that health reform would cause them to “close or significantly restrict their practices to Medicare patients.”
Now See: Why doctors are loosing money >
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- P&G To Lay Off 1,600 After Discovering It’s Free To Advertise On Facebook
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the whole story, regardless of where you jump in
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/30/follow-the-saga-engadget/
Over the years, stories have become more than just single bursts of information. These days, there’s as much drama in the consumer technology world as there is sports, politics or your average episode of Days of our Lives. Take SOPA, for example. We’d be remiss of our duties here if we simply reported on what it was, without ever following up on protests, delays, judgments and other vitally important developments. In fact, it’s tough to think of too many stories covered today that don’t correspond with some sort of saga — even the departure of RIM’s co-CEOs represents just a single slice of a far larger tale. For those that follow this stuff 24/7, jumping in at any point in the story is no issue; piecing together the past with the present is second nature. But if you’re actually working during the day, hopping aimlessly into an ongoing saga mid-stream can be downright disorienting. Painful, even. We’ve been working hard to come up with an unobtrusive solution, and we think we’ve found it.
We’ve actually had our Follow The Saga functionality since January of last year — we quietly debuted it with the launch of Verizon’s iPhone 4 — but today’s iteration is far more interactive. We’ve been testing these out over the past few weeks, and today we’re happy to officially introduce them. If you see the badge shown after the break in any post that pops up here at Engadget, just give it a click to be taken to the full saga, and scroll up and down to see related stories before and after the one you happen to ! be looki ng at. We’re hoping it’ll be particularly helpful to those who happen to stumble upon a saga somewhere in the middle, but want to get caught up on what happened prior and where we stand now. As with everything we do, we’ll be continually tweaking and evolving the tool in the months ahead. Enjoy!
Psst… want to see it in action? Have a look under the body of this SOPA post to see how we got to where we are today.
Continue reading Introducing ‘Follow The Saga’: the whole story, regardless of where you jump in
Introducing ‘Follow The Saga’: the whole story, regardless of where you jump in originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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EMV in, magnetic strips out
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/31/mastercard-reveals-roadmap-for-our-electronic-payment-future-em/
It’s been over fifteen years since MasterCard, Visa and Europay developed EMV technology to make your credit cards more secure, but it has yet to really catch on here in the US. However, MasterCard has created a master plan to help usher in the EMV era and sound the death knell for the magnetic strip. Why? The EMV infrastructure is far more fraud-resistant because each transaction is authenticated dynamically using cryptographic algorithms and a user-specific PIN. That’s why MasterCard plans to help build out the EMV POS infrastructure by April of next year and have its secure e-payment system functioning at ATMs, online and with its myriad mobile payment options as well. For now, the nuts and bolts of how the credit card firm plans to bring its plan to fruition are few, but more details will be forthcoming, and there’s a bit more info at the source and PR below.
! MasterCard reveals roadmap for our electronic payment future: EMV in, magnetic strips out originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5880812/the-new-blackberry-ad-campaign-is-proof-rim-has-entirely-lost-it
Say hello to The Bold Team. Sadly, this animated foursome is RIM’s attempt to capture the youth market. They urge the younger generation to “Be Bold”. Something tells me it won’t work.
This pink and purple mess looks a bit like an advertising executive just vomited his late-night cocktail onto a page and presented it to RIM. “That’ll do,” he probably thought. “They’re shafted anyway.”
The Bold Team are “bravely stepping out of 2011 and into 2012 filled with unlimited possibilities”. If you care to know more about RIM’s answer to the Power Rangers, there are four of them. You want a quick run through their biographies? Sure, there’s:
GoGo Girl, The Achiever: “Saving the day with a brilliant strategy”
Justin Steele, The Advocate: “Always ready to stick up for his friends”
Trudy Foreal, The Authentic: “Not afraid to call it as she sees it”.
Max Stone, The Adventurer: “Able to jump out of a plane…”
Presumably Max Stone is inspired by the RIM employees who got drunk on that plane.
A company which is shedding customers quicker than the Costa Concordia lost passengers, seeing its stock price fall week-on-week, and drafting in replacement CEOs, you’d expect to put some effort into advertising. Obviously not. RIM is completely out of touch. [Mobile Syrup via Pocket Lint]
The Super Bowl Is More Important Than Just About Anything To Americans
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/super-bowl-2012-1
The Super Bowl is really important to Americans.
The year’s most highly-anticipated sporting event is so important, in fact, that 15 percent of adults would miss the birth of their own child to attend a Super Bowl game featuring their favorite NFL team, according to a recent survey by CouponCabin.com (via The Week).
Apparently funerals and weddings also become back-burner commitments when Super Bowl Sunday rolls around: Nineteen percent of participants said they would miss the funeral of a loved one to watch their team play and 20 percent said they would miss the wedding of a close family member.
Don’t Miss: The Best Quartbacks To Never Win A Super Bowl >
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See Also:
- Why The Obama Recovery Has Been Much More Impressive Than Reagan’s
- INFOGRAPHIC: Carbs Are Killing You
- Think Facebook’s $100 Billion Valuation Is Nuts? Read This
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5880483/its-illegal-to-talk-about-the-super-bowl
Ever have the joy of describing the winning touchdown of the big game to that one friend who missed out on the broadcast? According to the NFL, such descriptions are a violation of copyright. Listen closely right before the commercials and you will find yourself being told that not only are unauthorized reproductions a no-no, but so are “…descriptions and accounts of the game.” What?? Apparently talking about something is akin to stealing it in the eyes of some broadcasters. Fortunately, according to the folks at publicdomainsherpa.com, media owners exaggerate copyright claims all the time, and alas, “facts aren’t copyrightable.” The gods of common sense prevail.
P&G To Lay Off 1,600 After Discovering It’s Free To Advertise On Facebook (PG)
Reality appears to have finally arrived at Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest marketer, whose $10 billion annual ad budget has hurt the company’s margins.
P&G said it would lay off 1,600 staffers, including marketers, as part of a cost-cutting exercise. More interestingly, CEO Robert McDonald finally seems to have woken up to the fact that he cannot keep increasing P&G’s ad budget forever, regardless of what happens to its sales.
He told Wall Street analysts that he would have to “moderate” his ad budget because Facebook and Google can be “more efficient” than the traditional media that usually eats the lion’s share of P&G’s ad budget.
This is coming from the man who increased P&G’s adspend by a staggering 24 percent over the two years through October 2011, even though sales rose only 6 percent in the same period.
Note that P&G’s revenues were up 4 percent to $22 billion in the quarter but the company’s costs for sales, general and administrative work were flat.
P&G’s staggering ad budget has become a bit of an issue among analysts. On the call, McDonald and his crew were asked about ad costs three different times! . McDonald eventually said:
As we’ve said historically, the 9% to 11% range [for advertising as a percentage of sales] has been what we have spent. Actually, I believe that over time, we will see the increase in the cost of advertising moderate. There are just so many different media available today and we’re quickly moving more and more of our businesses into digital. And in that space, there are lots of different avenues available.
In the digital space, with things like Facebook and Google and others, we find that the return on investment of the advertising, when properly designed, when the big idea is there, can be much more efficient. One example is our Old Spice campaign, where we had 1.8 billion free impressions and there are many other examples I can cite from all over the world. So while there may be pressure on advertising, particularly in the United States, for example, during the year of a presidential election, there are mitigating factors like the plethora of media available.
P&G’s Old Spice campaign is a textbook example of what the entire company should be doing. The problem is that the entire company isn’t doing it. Check out Mr. Clean’s Twitter stream, for instance. Oh, right—he doesn’t have one.
McDonald’s recent discovery that digital media is free comes after the long-delayed launch of Tide Pods, now scheduled for a month from now but with only a limited supply. It was originally planned for July 2011. The ad budget for that campaign is estimated at $150 million and will come from agency Saatchi & Saatchi.
The problem is that while P&G has struggled to get a single U.S. pod out the factory door, several of its competitors have already launched competing laundry pod products.
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See Also:
- Deutsche Bank: More Layoffs Planned at MDC Partners’ Ad Agencies
- Here Are The Ads You Will See On Super Bowl Sunday
- YES! David Lynch Premieres Second Strange Commercial For His Coffee Company
VB+P Graphs
Source: http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/vbp-graphs-super-bowl-and-the-digital-water-cooler_b28619
Super Bowl: The only day in America where TV viewers actually want to watch commercials. This year’s NFL championship, pitting the New York Giants against the New England Patriots, is in a sense a “rematch” of the 2008 edition of the big game. Due to this unfortunate match-up (blame Billy Cundiff and Kyle Williams for their failures), it’s possible that TV ratings could actually be lower than last year’s game. This would clearly be a total bummer for advertisers who spent $3.5 million for a 30-second spot. But, on the bright side, maybe people will be talking more about the ads than the actual game at the water cooler the next day, right?
Of course, the veritable “water cooler” has evolved in the digital age. The folks at Venables Bell & Partners have decided to provide a handy infographic that maps the who, where and how of post-game advertising conversation. Out of the bevy of stats they’ve given us, a few stand out. For example, “Almost one in five (19%) Americans searched for ads before the game in 2011, about double (11%) who did in 2010. Of that group, 48% searched for ads on Facebook, putting the site just ahead of popular video sharing site YouTube, brand sites, and media sources as the lead destination to find ads.” In other words, Facebook is becoming a more popular video search engine than YouTube, a fact than is no doubt pissing off the powers that be at Google.
Also, “Americans are almost as likely to ‘like’ a brand on Facebook that advertises during the Super Bowl (20%) as they are to ‘like’ a team (29%), with 23% of young adults likely to ‘like’ a brand.” Not a bad way to measure social media ROI compared to TV ROI, is it? Well, at least it’s somewhat “believable.” Check out a full-size image after the jump.
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Digital Consigliere
Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.
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