An onslaught of hidden ads: "
Toyota Motor Corp. has asked at least three major magazine companies to explore product integration - that's product placement to you and me - of its cars into magazine editorial pages. Say hello to another indicator of changing media mores.
There's no sign that Hearst Magazines, Meredith, and Advance Publications, the parent of Condé Nast Publications, are going along with what would be a major breach of the traditional wall between magazine editorial and advertising units.
Still, it's a time, says Deborah Wahl Meyer, vice-president for marketing at Lexus, in which 'ideas can cross between advertising and editorial. It doesn't always need to have the 'advertorial' note on top.' Indeed, when Toyota came calling at each publisher, its execs talked up a favorite marketing coup: this year's multimillion-dollar deal that put its vehicles on reality-TV show The Contender.
Toyota's notions aren't universally welcomed. 'We'll sell our mothers, but this doesn't work,' says a mystified magazine executive who attended one presentation and, fearing a major advertiser's wrath, insisted on anonymity. 'I can't sell you an article. I don't even know how to price it.'
Elsewhere, such concerns faded long ago. For a fee, companies can place brands in songs, plays, movies, books (remember Fay Weldon's The Bulgari Connection?) -- and, of course, television. (BUSINESSWEEK)"
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Subliminal Persuasion
In an age when the college demographic is no longer easily reached via television, radio, or newspapers -- as TiVo, satellite radio, iPods, and the Internet crowd out the traditional advertising venues -- a microindustry of campus marketing has emerged. Niche firms have sprung to act as recruiters of students, who then market products on campus for companies such as Microsoft, JetBlue Airways, The Cartoon Network, and Victoria's Secret.
I'm hearing that some local TV stations are doing live shots from a Disney '
Are you watching the free advertisement for Virgin Atlantic? The 
"Tomorrow's Los Angeles Times has a front page article on 
"Is this the smell of victory for the shopping mall chains?
Online sites are generating new revenue by steering readers to advertisements when they click on certain words. But when keywords are embedded in the text of news articles, the sites are generating questions as well. Two months after forbes.com ended an experiment with such keyword ads, citing unease among its reporters, The New York Post is considering adopting the practice for its site.
"CNet's Declan McCullagh breaks it down one time like they used to in 1984, when men were women, and the gradual erosion of anonymity was just an ironically distant rumbling. It seems Congress has endorsed a 'standardized, electronically readable driver's license' initiative that would effectively end up being a Federal-level ID card. That's bad, I've been told, because such a technology will eventually have something to do with fiery demons taking our jobs as local grocery clerks or something like that. Honestly, as long as they wear flame-retardant aprons, I'm fine with it.