The Big Fat Marketing Blog

It drives me crazy, all this money spent on advertising and marketing with little or no regard given to accountability. Is a brand important? Yes. Is measurability important today? Yes. So there has to be a happy medium, right?

If done correctly, that’s where you and this Blog fit in. It’s about a dialog that deals with what I deem “Strategically Creative” advertising and marketing. Sure great work gets noticed, but it also gets results – measurable results that can be tracked back. I’d consider Dell, Amazon and Omaha Steaks to fall into the category I’m referring to; and Verizon, Budweiser/Miller, Coke/Pepsi falling into the brand camp. Harry and David, Oreck and Bose are more on the traditional direct marketing side in my cranium.

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For years, mail volume has been falling off in the U.S. and it shows no signs of abating. The standard explanation is that this oldest of communications is being supplanted by the electronic.

Well in the rest of the world, it ain’t necessarily so, says the Universal Postal Union.

For one thing, the United Nations agency reported on World Post Day on Oct. 9 that with 6.5 billion items delivered last year, domestic parcel volumes were up 7.9% over what they were just five years before. [The UPU concedes that e-commerce may have had something to do with this].

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Party Pieces, a U.K. cataloger (sorry, “cataloguer”) and Web merchant selling party goods earlier this year launched First Birthdays. The party decorations and tableware spin-off title is aimed at, well, parents throwing first birthday parties for their offspring.

What’s significant about that, other than it’s an extremely narrow niche? Founder Carole Middleton’s daughter Kate managed, producing the new brand’s catalogues and Website.

And the point is?

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Here and there around the Web…

Ready for Prime Time… The Associated Press reports on Barack Obama’s 30-minute buy of evening commercial time on CBS and NBC on Oct. 29.

…And Ready for ‘Not Ready for Prime Time’ Say what you will about Sarah Palin, but apparently, she understands the marketing value of having a sense of humor. Cnn.com reports on how Saturday Night Live may have the VP hopeful on at some point to turn the tables on Tina Fey.

Beyond geeksville Over at ZDNet, blogger Steve O’Hear talks about how social news site Digg can expand beyond its “geeky roots” and increase its ad revenue.

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