Amazon Announces Drone Deliveries in Near Future

In an episode of 60 minutes, Amazon teased their plan of providing 30 minute deliveries through air drones. These bots will be able to carry any packages up to 5 pounds and have GPS systems included. They will be able to deliver items up to 10 miles from any Amazon distribution center. Although, this may be a limitation, they are continuing to expand these greatly so by the time the execution of this project happens, that may not be an issue at all. Amazon Prime Air is planned to be reality in 2015.

Although many of us believe that we would already be utilizing technologies such as this more frequently, this does bring an innovative idea to life. View the video below to see just how these bots will work:

Twitter Targets More TV Audiences

Twitter has continued to promote an advertising package that features promoted tweets along with the TV ads that are purchased. Until just recently, the promoted tweets that we added value were a great addition, and often a vital selling factor for this TV ad buys. 

Originally, targeted tweets were only offered to advertisers who had ads running on TV in order to further reach the audience on both mediums. Twitter has now introduced "TV conversation targeting" which finds the users who are tweeting about a specific show beginning, during or after it runs and sends promoted tweets to their feed. Although this new tool is currently only offered in the U.S. and the U.K, they plan to expand this to several other countries including Brazil, Canada, France and Spain soon.

This transition shows a growing partnership between Twitter and networks, due to the selling arrangements that have been made.  The networks will be paid for the sponsor's pre-roll within the promoted tweets sent from their handles. Additionally, twitter is paid for the promotion of the content. 

Personally, I feel that this new tool will be a great aspect in Twitter's advertising. TV shows are featured in such a large amount of tweets, promoted tweets shouldn't be restricted to the shows that have TV ads running. This also will give Twitter the opportunity to receive more money from the smaller TV outlets since they can profit off of shows that didn't purchase the TV advertising. 

Baileys Leaps into the Holiday Spirit

Being a dancer myself, maybe this ad appealed to me so much because of their reinvention of the Nutcracker story or because of the fantastic dancing that was involved. Either way, this Baileys ad has made me incredibly excited for the holidays.

This ad that was featured in AdWeek this week, shows their play on the famous ballet, "The Nutcracker." The Baileys ad displays the three main characters (Clara, the Prince, and the Mouse King) in a drastically more modern setting than the original ballet story. This advertisement takes place in a nightclub where the Prince and Mouse King begin to battle, until Clara steps in and take the Prince's side to defeat the Mouse King. All of this is of course done through great technical dancing and intricate costumes, which makes the ad even more intriguing.

Ending with the tagline, "Spend time with the girls this Christmas," Baileys shows how powerful women can be (that was a pretty strong kick to the Mouse King's head), but also how much fun women should be having together during the holidays. Who wouldn't want to grab a Baileys after that?

A Child's Worst Nightmare: Halloween Without Candy

In this comical yet affective commercial for Crest and Oral B, kids show their reactions to healthy candy with some not-so-typical flavors. You don't think Tofo Ghost-mellows or Artichoke Buttercups sound good? Well, neither do these kids featured in this commercial. If "poopy piñatas" doesn't describe them perfectly, I don't know what does.

"Halloween Treats Gone Wrong" (#Top5CrestOralB) was featured as Adweek's Top Commercials for the Week, with good reason. Not only could I watch these kids' reactions time and time again because they are so cute, Halloween was a great opportunity for Crest to show their vitality during this holiday.

P&G certainly lucked out with the growing popularity the advertisement received. This 30-second commercial never aired on TV, instead only trended on YouTube and Twitter. Not only did this company cut costs by reducing it from a 90-second spot to a 30-second spot, but by not needing it to even run on television was just icing on the cake (or an extra Snickers bar in your trick-or-treat bag).

"Where Do You Want To Go Eat?"

The All-Too Familiar Complicated Question

"I'm hungry." "Me too. Where do you want to go?" "I don't care. Where do you want to go?""I don't care."

Does this conversation sound too familiar? Personally, I have this conversation all too frequently with my friends and family. It seems impossible to decide what kind of food everyone is in the mood for-- nonetheless which restaurant would be the best to go to. 


The Urbanspoon application continues to be dissatisfying for me when I try to find restaurants that people actually want to go to. It doesn't sort them by any type of popularity or based on reviews. Instead, it simply gives you a list of places that are near you and in the price range that you select. This is where Google Maps steps in. Using the wiki platform, you can locate businesses on Google Maps and provide reviews and other useful information so others can view it. What a great way to spread the word of the great drink specials you found or some of the best dishes in town!

Take a look at the Jacksonville Hidden Locales Google map below to read some local reviews by a few students at the University of North Florida. 

View Jacksonville Hidden Locales - UNF students in a larger map

LG's Mobile Banner Ads Are Getting Aggressive

"LG G2 (Black)," © 2013 Fetx2002 used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en.

LG brings a new kind of creativity to mobile banner ads, as they introduce their newest advertising campaign that targets Galaxy and iPhone users. M&C Saatchi, for LG, created several banner ads that mocked the unfavorable features of the Galaxy and iPhone, then followed up with an ad for the G2 that promoted the positive alternate that these LG phones provide.

For example, owners of the Galaxy phone may see "Waiting for your GALAXY to catch up?" followed by a message that LG phones have a 20% faster processor.

The other banner ads are shown below:

This campaign is on the right track to bring the innovation that banner ads need in this continuously evolving type of media. Banner ads have a reputation for remaining static in this industry by not cutting through the online advertising inventory. However, the creativity that is shown in this campaign could bring a greater popularity to banner advertisements.

Sponsored Ads Filter into Instagram

      Just as I thought I was safe from overbearing advertisements when I use Instagram, I'm forced to think again. This week, a sample sponsored ad popped up in my feed as Instagram announced they will be incorporating these ads as a part of their new sponsored look. They will be presented just as other photos look, with the availability for users to like and comment, except these ads will include a "sponsored" tag. Plans for sponsored videos are already on the way as well, according to Ad Week.

So far, Instagram has several advertising partners on board with this launch including Michael Kors, Burberry, Levi's, PayPal, Macy's, Ben & Jerry's, General Electric and Starwood.

With these network having a value of $1 billion when it was bought last year, the fact that an advertising component was added should not come as a surprise. This is just one more outlet for consumers to be swallowed by the advertising clutter. 

My Instagram by Emily Ruffing is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

How Marketers Are Making Healthy Foods More Appealing to Children

Marketers now need to make fruits and vegetables “cool” for children, as if doing something good for your body isn’t enough for youngsters these days. Although I may be appalled at the implications that makes about our culture, I do see some hope in the stress that has been applied to food companies and brands like Disney and Nickelodeon to drop the junk food advertisements marketed towards children. According to this article in Advertising Age, marketers now use “packaging gimmicks and tie-ins with children’s media properties” to win kids over with healthier foods. If that is what it takes to get kids to eat healthier let’s give it a try.

Sure, giants in the marketplace (Walmart, Target, Disney) are capitalizing on the healthy foods for children movement, but at the same time there are small companies that are jumping at the opportunity, too. These smaller companies selling goods like prepackaged olives and freeze dried fruit have small advertising budgets. They typically do small print and radio ads and focus on in-store events. This has proven to be successful enough to get their products in major retailers. This seems to be a good sign for the future health of our young people.

We do not know much of an effect this movement has had towards increased marketing of healthy foods to children. There have not been statistics published on marketing healthy foods towards children and Disney will not release their figures on their sales of branded food. Nonetheless, the preliminary success in popularity with kid-friendly fruits and veggies is refreshing. I’m glad to see Mickey Mouse doing good with the weight and power of his smiling face. That is what I call social responsibility. 

How Effectively Are You Targeting Your Consumers?

Behind The Glory of Real-Time Marketing

For years, advertisers have researched ways to not only target a certain audience, but reach a particular customer at a particular time and place. Real-time marketing (RTM) provides consumers the most appropriate offer for the given customer sales opportunity based on their interaction through website clicks or verbal contact. Sounds great, doesn't it? Why wouldn't consumers want to receive offers or view ads for the brands they were clearly already interested in?

The problem with this type of marketing lies a bit deeper. Instead of brands wanting to connect with people, this approach forces brands to publish at them. In the primary years of social media website's popularity, they once provided an online community for consumers to interact with each other. Communication and brand recommendations were significantly more sincere than what they have become today. Since advertisers are now more focused on gaining likes and shares without a comprehensive business strategy, the idea of engaging with consumers is progressively diminishing. 

RTM is appealing to so many advertisers because of its timeliness and relevancy to consumers. However, this is only beneficial and effective if used in relation to connecting and interacting with your audience. 

Advertisers Break the Bank During Finale of 'Breaking Bad'

Tonight, the record-breaking television series, "Breaking Bad," has millions of people anxiously awaiting the extended 75-minute finale. Not as widely exposed are the price tags on the advertisement spots during this episode. AMC sought between $300,000 to $400,000 for a 30-second ad, according to article in Advertising Age. This cost is comparable to spots during much more popular shows such as "American Idol" and "Modern Family." This shows just how successful this series has become in recent months. 

Although a $400,000 spot is significantly less than the some of the most costly shows on broadcast TV, where spots could cost up to $900,000 for an ad, before the recent popularity increase the advertisements during "Breaking Bad" would have never been expected to have that high of a price tag.

The final half of its fifth season of the series premiered in August, since then their viewership has also doubled from the first season. This recent popularity of the series can be linked to Netflix and other digital streaming platforms where audiences can watch the shows on their own time and catch up on any episodes they missed when it is most convenient for them.

Since the series has gained most of their viewership from Netflix or Hulu, where advertisements are eliminated or significantly reduced, it seems unfathomable to me that advertisers are willing to pay these high costs. However, it doesn't seem that was much an issue since all commercial time was quickly sold out, according to media buyers and an AMC spokesperson.

Motorola Gives Apple A Run For It's Money

     It's no secret that Apple not only released the new iOS 7 operating system last week but also two new phones, the 5s and the 5c. Yet, despite these releases, one of Apple's direct competitors stole the spotlight. A commercial in Motorola's 'Lazy Phone' campaign received more than 19 million views, over Apple's 12 million views of their 5s and 5c television commercials.

      Since the loss of Steve Jobs, Apple has been criticized for many missteps that they have taken. Many people felt that the continued success of this company relied heavily on the release of the iPhone 5s and 5c. Competitors of Apple proved to adapt their technology with new changes in innovative ways to attract more consumers. Contrastingly, Apple plateaued with their phones. Small changes were made to the iPhones, however, in order to remain as successful as it once was, the new iPhones needed to capture the consumers' attention.

     With several novel advancements that Apple made to the 5s model, such as the fingerprint scanner to unlock the phone and the enhancements made to the camera, sales proved that many consumers were impressed by the new model. However, that doesn't mean that Motorola and other competitors aren't up for the challenge to win these consumers over.

Watch Motorola's lastest televsion commercial in their 'Lazy Phone' campaign below.