Darren Herman

American Apparel - Second Life

As many of you know, I am an active Second Life'r under the name Jay Prevost and tend to follow all the businesses starting in/around the virtual world.  While reading my RSS feeds this morning, Mark Wallace alluded to American Apparel opening a virtual store on a private island within Second Life.

Aimee Weber designed the store and the products within possibly with other artists.  The clothing within the store are for sale and are priced higher than other in-world clothing but are still reasonable.

I personally think that this is a good move for American Apparel.  The reason for this is that the clothing that they make fit extremely well with Second Life.  When Levi's went into There.com (another virtual worl) a few years ago (2 years?), they were worried with the texture and color of their jeans.  The brand American Apparel is simple in this respect as their clothing is ultra-plain.  No intricate details and no crazy pantone colors - all very simple.  I think that the brand will portray well within the virtual world and will be adopted.

I'll be keeping my eyes open for the store opening.

Tags:  Second Life, American Apparel

What Do Those Ad Dollars Buy?

For those of you who were tuned into American Idol this past week (and throughout the whole season), you weren't the only people spending time with the show.  Advertisers across the US embraced the show with top dollar advertising - but why?

The numbers are in.... 35.4 million people saw the finale of "Idol" according to Nielsen Media Research.  During the last half hour of "Idol" when Hicks' victory was announced over Katharine McPhee, just under 43 million people were tuned in, Nielsen said.

As for the "Idol" finales, this was the second most watched behind only 2003's competition.

According to Nielsen, ABC's two-hour "Lost" finale averaged 17.6 million viewers but after "Idol" ended, the numbers jumped to 19.3 million during the final half-hour.

Avenue A | Razorfish Publisher Summit

I'm currently on my way out to Las Vegas to the Avenue A | Razorfish publisher summit.  This year, IGA Worldwide Inc., was given the title of "Breakthru Company of 2006."  Not only does this account for in-game advertising, but this accounts for all media.  I'll be meeting with lots of friends within the industry and hope to report from Vegas.

AA-RF puts out a great report called the Digital Media Outlook.  I'd recommend to read it if you are someone who is involved in the media/interactive industry.  You can download it here.

Apologies if posting is "light" but I'll be back on Sunday evening.

Forrester Research: Emerging Channels

According to a new report issued by Forrester Research marketers are experimenting with emerging channels:

* 50 percent use or plan to use blogs or social networks
* 47 percent use or plan to use RSS
* 43 percent go or have gone mobile
* 28 percent are doing or plan on doing advergaming or in-game ads

Get A Mac Campaign

Apple Computer has started its new TV campaign entitled, "Get A Mac."  The ads are witty and powerful, yet they come across in a very funny and clean tone.  The messaging in the ads are to show the world that Macs are better - and the six ads that make up the campaign focus on Viruses, Restarting, Better, iLife, Network, and WSJ.

According to MacInsider.com, this is the first time since June of 2002 that Apple is highlighting Mac advantages since the company announced the "Switch" series.  I am a big fan of these ads... as a Mac user and evangelist, I agree with the messaging.  However, Apple has made some bold statements about "restarting" and "crashing"... the Apple OS is not perfect.  All in all, they are well done, very simple, and get the message across without any clutter or confusion.  Looks like the ads were made in the same way that their iMac colorful ads were made with the white background.

Apple has posted the six advertisements on their website in four differnet viewing sizes and qualities.

Peer Network Research

I came across PeerMind™ this afternoon as I was doing some research as to which games are currently being pirated across the world. PeerMind is a service by Nareos that shows detailed reports, online chart data and provides custom research based on 24/7 monitoring of major peer-to-peer networks.

The research that they are currently showing on their website provides information for music, movies, games, software and ringtones. They currently are monitoring eDonkey2000 and Gnutella with Bittorrent and FastTrack coming online soon.

For example, this week, The Sims 2 has been downloaded 208,522 times compared to 395,975 last week. That’s quite a bit of downloading…. Illegally.  I am also excited to see the music charts. This allows me to see which bands are being downloaded all over the world (though, I’d imagine they’ve got this broken down by geographic regions somewhere) and will allow me to play virtual A&R and find new talent.

Tags: peermind, market research

The Future of Media Is In Our Hands...

Just look around grade schools, college campuses, and the park... the majority of under 27 year olds are consuming media in some format or another.  Some people are playing their PSP, text messaging on their RAZR, listening to their nano, or checking their RSS feeds... but nevertheless, their paying attention to your brand and your message.

Today in Advertising Age's MediaWorks column, Abbey Klaassen talks about how the opening message from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association show was about the under-30 crowd.

"We've been looking at a group called millennials, which are people ages 8 to 27," said Anne Sweeney, president of Disney Television Group. "In this group 40% go home at night after work and school and use between five and eight different technologies. Then you have 40% of baby boomers who go home at night and watch TV. That's what's directing so many of our efforts in technology and content, especially as we look at our brands going forward and how they're going to be used going forward."

Article: http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=108570

Worst Product Placement....

I was watching the "Loop" on Fox 5 tonight (8:30pm) and "Outlook Express" was the main product integration into the television show.  How many times have you said, "Have you checked your Outlook Express" in the office? 

Toronto Ads

Was in Toronto, Ontario for the iSummit this past week.  Had a great time and met some wonderful people from some cool companies such as Mike D'Amato from Youthography (thanks for the cheese cake!).  The folks who were on my panel were great as well - talking about the future of Interactive advertising (McLaren McCann, Corus Entertainment, and Starcom Mediavest).

I was walking around downtown Toronto and saw some fantastic billboards... glad I had my camera!  Take a peak..

The Sopranos

As expected, it looks like a continuation of brand placement within the Sopranos.  In the first episode of the season, we've seen plot integrations and product placements within the highly anticipated one hour HBO show.  To quote a USA Today article from 2002, "We're not a network that accepts advertising. And product placement is a form of advertising," explains HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson. Adds Ilene Landress, executive producer of HBO: "We could pay for the whole show that way. But we don't."

David Yurman (unexpected), Porsche, and Georgio Armani were integrated into the plot (did I miss any?).  As for product placements, we saw Nestle, Fed Ex, Cingular, Philipps, Corvette, and a few other minor ones.

The creators of the HBO shows do accept free use of cars and other goods. It cuts costs and adds realism. The days of TV characters drinking generic "beer" are over. Sopranos creator David Chase and his team of writers frequently write brand names into scripts to add reality to the show.

Looking forward to the next show to see which brands are exclusive (category) and which are one show deals.  It's interesting to see that Nissan pulled out of the Sopranos at least for the first episode as last season, they had the Xtera extremely integrated.

Tags: Sopranos, HBO, Product Placement, Plot Integration, and TV