Check out this article about advertisers’ creative attempts to keep print ads alive. And a bit on how the web has changed the way the industry thinks about print ads.

Just earlier today, I saw an online ad for anti-wrinkle cream. I got to drag a bottle over a woman’s face and watch every imperfection disappear. With online ads engaging viewers in a whole new way, I can see why it’s hard for print ads to keep up.

Have you seen any great ads in your magazines lately?

I know I’m looking forward to hearing some new tunes when I open my next issue of Eurowoman.

Most people (above a certain age) will recognize Dylan’s iconic 1965 video Subterranean Homesick Blues. To promote the release of Dylan’s greatest hits, the cue card sequence has been adapted so users can generate their own messages and send them to friends. Try it - it’s very neatly done.

So, will it work? My gut feeling is no. The average Dylan fan is around my dad’s age – and not computer savvy enough to send messages to friends through a pop video, however old the video is. No doubt the greatest hits album is aimed at new fans and people who simply want some Dylan in their collection, so the target audience for the ad campaign is not die-hard Dylan fans. But still, I’m not convinced. There are plenty of artists out there whose videos would be ripped by the million - but we’re looking at another generation.

By the way, I found out about this at MediaSoon – a great place to find out how the advertising industry is using new media and adapting old.

A new site from The Nielsen Company could mark the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the public and movie, TV and music producers. The social network site gives users the chance to comment on, review and rate entertainment. The site then collates the reviews and general media buzz to produce star ratings for the shows, films and songs.

There’s nothing new here, until you look a little deeper. The beauty of Hey! Nielsen is its promise to unite the public with decision-makers in the companies that produce entertainment.

The Hey! Nielsen website claims:

“…the exclusive access and power of Nielsen means that your opinions not only reach millions of people via the web, but may also reach the media moguls who decide what goes on the air and on the web. The more heat your postings generate, the greater the chance your opinions will land on the most influential inboxes in the biz…”

The site is supported by Nielsen’s sister sites Billboard.com, HollywoodReporter.com, and BlogPulse.com, some of the most influential sites in the industry. So there’s a good chance that users’ opinions will be read by powerful people.

Could this collatable SMO approach be beneficial for other industries? Sure, few things create as much public interest as entertainment. But imagine having such a simple, one-stop barometer for consumer goods. Apple might have benefitted from this kind of feedback before locking down the iPhone (which led to numerous bad reviews, like this one from Gizmodo). Or in other industries, from paint coatings to switch manufacturing, a tool for collating public opinion could give producers insight into what people want, like, dislike and need – like easy to manage focus groups – enabling them to create the right products to suit their customers.

Sound neat, huh?

While working on our recent WordSpin article “Can SMO help you grow?”, I thought a lot about the reasons for and against using social media to promote business.

Much has already been posted about this – concerns over secrecy, consistency, control. But another factor that might prevent a company from jumping on the social media bandwagon could also be – understandably – employee resources. It takes time, energy and planning to create and maintain all this stuff!

But here’s an argument to consider: starting a blog or forum – or simply producing more reader-friendly, useful, link-worthy web content – could actually be a great way to motivate employees both in and outside of your communications department (and as Aaron has already argued, an important factor in recruiting new people). It can be an easy outlet for having a little more fun at work. Happier employees = more motivated employees = more stimulated, productive and satisfied employees. A priceless side benefit of using a new tool to boost your brand.

As long as you don’t get too carried away – you shouldn’t expect your employees to blog around the clock – it could be a win-win.

In my last post I touched on recruitment, arguing that companies hoping to recruit the brightest and best needed to move with the times and embrace the world of social media.

I was a bit pressed for time and didn’t add in much in the way of references so I thought I’d try and make amends by pointing you in the direction of this post from Silicon  Valley PR professional, Brian Solis.

The premise of his argument?

‘We’re witnessing the shift from B2B and B2C to P2P (peer to peer) marketing - or better described as conversations between people, and not companies doing their best impression of adults in the Peanuts cartoons as they talk to audiences in a monotone, robotic, insincere voice. . .’

Have a read of his post, Conversational Marketing Versus Market Conversations.

Recruitment . . . it’s needless to say that this is a vitally important issue for many companies.

But I guess I just said it anyway, so what does that tell us? Maybe that it’s so important that one has to resort to repetition to ram home the point. Who knows? Perhaps.

Moving swiftly on . . . recently I’ve been holding seminars with customers to discuss the potential business value of social media.

Denmark - and for that matter Europe in general - is really lagging behind the States in this area.

There, many companies are busy experimenting and finding real value with some or all of the many social media tools - blogging, video, micro-blogging, wikis, forums, networking sites etc.

As with many trends that originate across the Atlantic, the trickle-down effect is slow. But this one is rapidly gaining momentum.

Have you noticed the creep of articles about blogging in your newspapers? Berlingske recently launched an impressive network of 10 blogs, while more and more companies are dipping their toes into the blogging waters.

What has all this got to do with recruitment, I hear you bellow.

Well, my point is simple. The generation graduating from university live in a networked world. They are smart enough to see through glossy corporate spin. In fact they are bored of it. And it is from within this generation that you must recruit your future workforce.

These people pull the messages they want and reject anything too forcefully pushed at them.  

Marketing guru Seth Godin explains the impact of this particularly well:

“The new reality of the marketplace is that consumers have a choice. They can ignore you. They can ignore your ads, your letters, you web banners, and your salespeople. As a result, you and every other marketer face a choice: You can make something worth talking about or you can become invisible.”

For marketing and communications professionals, this means it is no longer possible to control your brand in the way you are used to.

If a new flavour of Coke is particularly terrible, that message will spread through the blogosphere, across YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, via SMSs, and instant messaging quicker than you can imagine.

This is how this generation communicate. It’s where they go for ‘buzz’ about the latest tech products, TV shows, music and pretty much everything else you can imagine.

And this generation - switched-on, in demand, web-savvy - will be researching your company, way before you can research them.

So what will they think when they look at your homepage and they see a company that is not blogging, that is not engaging with its customers in any kind of two-way conversation, that is not using video to showcase its offices and employees?

They will think that that company has not moved with the times and they will take their hard-won expertise and their first-hand knowledge of the new marketplace to a rival.

Pure and simple.

I had an interesting email last week from someone pointing me in the direction of a report showing that few ‘IT decision-makers’ placed much value in blogging as a company marketing tool.

The report notes that, without a sound business case, many Web 2.0 tools - podcasting, RSS, wikis, blogging etc - are being passed over by CIOs who don’t see the ROI materialising any time soon.

But, to me, perhaps the most revealing observation in the report comes from the firm which carried out the research, Forrester.

Their analyst G. Oliver Young notes: “Many business users still associate blogs with personal diaries, and some firms use blogs simply as a way to surface existing content, muting the effect.”

I think this indicates a telling disconnect between marketers, who are increasingly aware of the need to utilise these powerful new tools, and CIOs whose first thought is bottom line, bottom line, bottom line.

The CIOs are firefighters in this respect, the marketers are trying to build fire-proof buildings.

Moving forward, I’ll be blogging more on this, as, together with my colleagues, we hone some new media product offerings that we’ll be rolling out over time.

For now, this Wikipedia entry on corporate blogs details some of the potential benefits to companies in a really concise way.

And for those who doubt the potential of the humble blog to reinvigorate a flagging brand, here’s an interesting quote from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer who was asked what blogging had done for the so-called ‘Evil Empire’:

“I think it’s been a great way for us to communicate to our customers – and, more importantly, for our customers to communicate with us. We trust our people to represent our company. That’s what they are paid to do. If they didn’t want to be here, they wouldn’t be here. So in a sense you don’t run any more risk letting someone express themselves on a blog than you do letting them go out and see a customer on their own. It just touches more people. Hey, if people need to be trained, we can do that, but I find that blogging is just a great way to have customer communications.”

As I mentioned in a previous post, I took part in a seminar recently where, together with our design partners at Spoiled Milk, we spelt out why we think companies should embrace blogging.

Well, this morning I was delighted to see an email in my inbox from one of the attendees, Andreas Zecher from Swedish software development company Fantasy Interactive, pointing me in the direction of his company’s blog.

Andreas had written a great summary of mine and Russell’s key points and included some great pics as well.

This is a great example of the blogosphere in action… information and experiences are shared in instant, interactive ways. It’s such a powerful tool and it’s only going to get bigger.

You can read Andreas’ post here.

Eye for Image took part in a great seminar on why companies should embrace blogging this morning.

Held at the studio of our design partners Spoiled Milk, the seminar addressed two key issues - why companies should blog, and how to do it.

I had the pleasure of speaking about the former while Spoiled Milk founder Russell Quinn addressed the technical issues.

Both our presentations will soon be available as PDFs. If you would like to receive them, either leave a comment below, or email our marketing manager at nathalie.erb@eye-for-image.com

A friend of mine who is a web and graphic designer occasionally sends me amazing links.

The latest, and one I thought I would share with you, is the site of UK design consultancy Checkland Kindleysides.

It’s Flash-heavy but is still beautifully functional. The loading between sections is playful and rather soothing, and the overall design is a triumph of simplicity.

As a copywriter, I really admire their economic use of text. Everything is kept short and sweet. In this way the text serves simply to underscore the visual brilliance of the site.

I know, I know. . . we expect this kind of thing from creative agencies, but that shouldn’t stop the rest of us picking up a few lessons!