DSA Online | New Media Updates

In an effort to promote team spirit and the opportunity to get to know each other when we’re not working in a volunteer capacity, the NABS west ambassadors got together last night to bowl a few frames at the Commodore lanes. I especially appreciated it since my hearing disability makes it difficult for me to be overly social in loud situations. Also, most people will repeat something 2 times before getting upset. Add alcohol to the mix and most people won’t repeat themselves more than twice. It was good to see everyone out and I’m glad that bowling was picked. I find it’s a great equalizer as no one looks particularly sexy in those shoes and there is only so much style you can use when you’re throwing a heavy ball down a polished wooden lane.

I am inspired to try and come up with a good idea for fundraising this holiday season. If last year is any indication, it’s likely that companies will still be a little shy about corporate giving or benevolent contributions. I am pretty versed at food and clothing drives and I personally give to the David Suzuki Foundation every year for my holiday gifts, but I would like to try and help NABS this holiday as I know that many people lost their jobs this year. I am really trying to come up with something innovative and exciting to get the industry involved, so if you have any ideas on how to fundraise for the National Advertising Benevolent Society I would welcome your comments.

Today, Alexander and I attended the IAB Canada Roadshow. You may remember from previous posts my dissatisfaction after having attended the past few roadshows. I’m a big fan of the IAB in Canada and rather than sitting in my office chair grumbling like an old man, I decided to contact them prior to this year’s workshop.  Specifically, I was frustrated with the lack of local content and I was annoyed that some of the advertised topics never made it into the presentation. I was immediately contacted by the IAB Canada president Paula Gignac asking me to be more specific about my concerns. She also pushed back that she believed that the conference was still very much of value and that I was too harsh. I will admit to being a little harsh on the conference as there are still people in the industry that are only interested in “online” in very general sense. At the same time, I wanted to see the conference grow; the industry has changed so much in the past 2 years with new opportunities and more dollars being spent in this medium. I also had been to the Toronto Mixx conference this year, so I saw what the big smoke was getting to see and wanted some of that pizzazz to trickle down into the local presentations. So I continued to push and received a promise that she would ask her presenters and research partners to get a little more focused this year.

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EDIT (Nov 1): Global has since relaunched their channel online and I now can watch Dollhouse (and Bones). http://www.globaltv.com/ I wanted to make sure that I gave props to them for updating and getting the new shows up. Also, they have (since last year) started to edit the volume so that ads are the same volume as the shows, which is an appreciated fix. However, the ad annoyance factor has increased from last year. Now you watch an ad at the start and at the end which queues up between other shows. This means even if you don’t finish the first video, you still have to watch 2 30s (average) ads back to back before the next clip (even if the next clip is a 30s behind the scenes video).  I’m also still a little peeved that they stated that full seasons would remain online for missed episode viewing, and that is not the case. Still, having them up at all is a vast improvement.

I’m sitting at my laptop tonight, wanting to watch the season premier of Dollhouse and Global hasn’t put it up online. I’m frustrated to pieces as I watch people twitter & Facebook in the US about how great it was. Some of you may recall my post earlier this summer at the Global launch. Not only did they say that season one was then available, but they said that they were going to continue the product online based on it’s US success.  Tonight, when I left the Global TV site to search for a link to the program (maybe it was broken on the Globaltv site), I found an article from the Gazette (CanWest digital newspaper) stating that Dollhouse would NOT be available online this season. Further searching found no other local source to my coveted program.

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How the internet can help and hurt marketing decisions.

I remember where I was when I got “the article”. “How Teenagers Consume Media” hit my desk when a friend in the ad community sent it my attention for my opinion. My first reaction? Oh, we’re in for a headache. It was my foolish hope that the community (both publishers and agencies) would help smooth over this faulty, improperly (in this case, meaning not) cited and biased report; however, within days I was watching the local media pick up the story and perpetuate the problem. Why is it that the local industry, that has access to and demands relevant research reporting would fly into such a tizzy over an international report (UK) written by a young bank intern with no credible experience, a limited sample size and a biased methodology?
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