It’s Friday, which means that it’s time for another Viral Video of the Week. Hooray!

This week, I’ve selected a commercial video which has gone gangbusters. It was released only a month ago, and has seen more than ten million hits–and those are only the views on the primary YouTube upload. Wowzer.

Obviously, someone at Sony is doing something right. Not only are people watching this video, but they’re talking about it–arguing about it, even  (read the comments).  All this spells advertising gold.

Well played, Sony.

Consumers are increasingly skeptical of traditional advertising, more likely to trust peers for product recommendations and completely networked – and as the digital natives move out of the dorms and into the business world, this trend is only going to get stronger. What is the impact of these networked consumers on the marketing landscape?

E-commerce grows up. Social is the new currency.  Established companies adapt to a new reality, and new companies have surfaced in the wake of social media – entirely to capitalize on social network marketing.

This is the first article in a series exploring social network trends in online commerce and how some Seattle companies are navigating the landscape.

It is interesting to note that some of the most successful new technologies don’t actually invent anything new: peer-to-peer advertising is in fact the oldest variety around. It precedes any mass medium. New technologies, however, make peer-to-peer recommendations more efficient, faster and with a broader footprint than the cave-man version.

According to Kathy Savitt, CEO of Seattle based Lockerz, 73 percent of “Generation Z,”–those born after 1992–purchase products based on recommendations from friends. Lockerz is a member-based web community that rewards users for listening to music, watching videos, answering questions and sharing photos. They base their whole business model on peer-to-peer social networking and “word of mouth” marketing strategies. Read more…

 
Last week, Twitter finally announced the news the world had been waiting for: a revenue stream model. People were speculating for months how the social networking phenomenon would monetize itself, with hopes that there would be a profitable plan other than online advertising. Well, fanboys, you can put that dream to rest.

Read more…

Beginning with 1990s, multinational super-agencies dominated stock photography industry. Getty Images and Corbis are the leading corporations of the industry by bringing together new licensing models, digital media management tools and a comprehensive offering of creative and editorial imagery, microstock, footage and music. Therefore, it is more accurate to call it visual content industry instead of stock photography in the digital era. Both based in Seattle, Washington, Getty Images and Corbis distribute their products online and they have customers in more than 100 countries around the world; most of their sales come from outside the United States.

In order to have a better idea about the expansion of the industry, I will particularly examine the market leader Getty Images and its major acquisitions beginning with its foundation from 1995.

Read more…

Twitter is remaining secretive but rumors are circling around after the latest round of musical chairs cost Jack Dorsey his CEO chair. One thing is for sure though, Twitter means business. And they will tell us how next year – according to a recent article in Wired magazine.

There is still talk about an ad revenue model by analyzing content of tweets and running relevant advertising alongside the tweets. The real potential of that model will require the collaboration of third-party developers especially for smart phone clients unless Twitter wants to release its own client, of course. Because of the CAN-SPAM act, advertisers and your wireless carrier cannot, if you have not opted-in, send messages directly to your phone. However, if you willingly sign up and agree to the terms of use of a service that will occasionally advertise to you, then the twitter client can acquire geographic data from your smart phone and deliver location-based advertising directly to you in the form of tweets, or if you have the option enabled, as SMS.

Read more…

posted by Adriana

Sandeep Krishnamurth, professor of marketing at UW Bothel published an article (Beware: The Search Advertising Sky is falling”) on iMedia warning on the ineffectiveness of Search Advertising. He didn’t get a lot of support on his claims, in more than one comment his views were discredited with emphatic arguments. But he had a previous article where he criticized Google’s AdSense program which I had found quite poignant (See: Google AdSense report Card).

Read more…

posted by Annie

Just kidding. But did it grab your attention?

Check out the Ads of the Weird - MSNBC’s effort to gather the most eye popping advertisements both offline and online.

Enjoy!