Better Than The Tax Incentive?

Surprise, Wal-Mart is back to advertising low prices. It's good to clarify that because everyone was starting to think of the world's biggest retailer as a fashion house. Or some provider of high-end what-ever's. What I thought was interesting, though, was that by shopping and saving at Wal-Mart could save families (or individuals, too, I guess) up to $700 a year. For many, that's more money than they received as part of the governments economic stimulus package. I wonder how far a buck could be stretched if a person's economic stimulus check was spent only at Wal-Mart.

Back From The Dead

Not that anyone every really noticed that I posted to this site. Or that I had been on a nearly year long hiatus (except my friend Chad who actually read this stuff and said he missed it.True, Chad? Or just feeling sorry for me?). But I am going to give it another go and see if I can get a little more traction personally and, perhaps, with others in the wide world of the web.

Granted, this is some what of a shuffling step forward toward my grand ambitions of shouting into the wind and actually being heard but it's a step nonetheless. So off I go. I would welcome any company at all.

A Moment Of Honest Contemplation...

I don't presume to believe that there is anyone out there waiting for me to post my next post. I don't even pretend that there are that many people interested in reading my old posts. Or that I matter that much to anyone but my family and friends (who won't read my blog because they don't care about what I write about). But I can speak truthfully that, when I began this blog of mine, I had every intention of keeping it fresh and adding content on a regular basis.

Believe it or not, I had planned to add a post daily. I thought that I had that much to share and that it would be so easy to spend a little bit of time every day and express my views, thoughts and ideas. But I was mistaken. As it turns out, my posts have been about as frequent as a bar mitzvah invitations for the president of Iran.

I want to say it's because I am focusing on quality not quantity but that would only be part of the answer. Or I could kid myself into thinking that it's because I am too busy but that's not only part of it, too. But the real reason I dropped off so fast is this: my fragile ego.

I wrote posts that I thought were intelligent, insightful, relevant and well researched. I put in what I believed were clever images and even a little humor. In short, I was proud of my efforts and was sure that others would enjoy reading them as much as I had enjoyed writing them. My posts would serve as catalysts for a thoughtful dialog about things like business, marketing, communications or even society.

But that, it turns out, is not the case (or not yet, at least). The painful truth is, I don't know if anyone at all reads what I write. If anyone does, none of them add to it (OK, so a couple of people have). And I think this is the case for many, if not most, blogs; people put them up and they put stuff on them for themselves. Maybe they want to be part of the next, newest, greatest thing. Maybe they hope that their blog will become "hot" like so many (or few) others.

Or maybe they think that it's important to be a voice whether you get heard or not. And I guess that might be the best thing about this medium: it is a forum for any and all who want to make the effort. And I, for one, have reconciled my delusional aspirations with that fact and pledge to make more of an effort and throw my voice on the wind and see if it lands on any ears. Or eyes.

"Industry Executives" Are So Smart

Amazingly provocative. The big brains of media have gotten together and some exciting, insightful, brilliant thinking has emerged: people will ignore or avoid advertising that isn't relevant. In this case, we are talking about people who watch TV. Of course, I am simplifying this because most normal-brained people couldn't comprehend what it takes, intellectually, to come to such amazing conclusion. But a pack of "industry executives" at the Digital Hollywood conference managed to figure it out.

Not surprisingly, "all agreed on the demise of traditional TV ads." And that TiVo, with it's fast-forwarding capabilities "represents a huge problem for traditional TV advertising."

Some other gems:

"... right message in the right content. Google's business was founded on that."

"... "I don't think a brand marketer can establish a deep connection" when the viewer is fast-forwarding.

"... television," is "increasingly delivered digitally."

"... user-generated content is proving much harder to monetize than "premium" or professional content on the Web."

Amazingly, I was able to get all of this intellectual capital from one story covering this obviously monumental conference. Imagine how much wisdom was dispensed over three days...it boggles the mind. Unless you are one of these sharp "industry executives" who are starting to sound more like the ubiquitous guy, as in, "my washing machine's broken...better call the guy." No, my friends, this type of heavy mental lifting is definitely better left to the professionals.