SOURCE: Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source

I ran across a piece from David Pasternack today that makes the following point:

Despite the mythology that big ad agencies are populated exclusively with people who can’t even figure out how to open their email messages, the truth is more complicated. The main reason that more ad dollars aren’t flowing into digital is that digital is too hard to buy. If you wanted to reach a million people 10 years ago, you could execute this buy in less than 10 minutes with one phone call. To reach the same million people today, you’d have to have a team in place, which would have to spend a week planning, constructing and executing such a digital campaign.

I inherently disagree with the simplification model. I don’t see how agencies would want digital to be easier to buy. The easier it is to buy, the easier it is for clients to buy and bypass the agency.  He goes on to say:

Every form of “traditional” media, including print, radio, TV and outdoor, has an agency discount associated with it. Agencies make a significant share of their earnings from the spread between wholesale and retail media prices — except with Google and the other search engines. When buying this kind of media, agencies pay retail, even if they’re buying millions of clicks a month. So at the end of the month they’re faced with a truly rotten choice: either present their clients with a very high bill (retail price plus media management fee) or a bill without a markup (which means they’re going out of pocket running the search campaign).

It’s the not 15% model that’s outdated, in my opinion, but the traditional agency model. Or more accurately stated, agencies will begin to move full-circle into the role of buyers of ever-complicated digital campaigns. Access to the minutia, and the resulting tweakability, is the very reason digital advertising offers so much promise. Eliminate the tweakability, and you might as well buy something else.

It’s not up Google to simplify for the agencies, it’s up to the agencies to simplify for the client. And therein lies the value for the next generation of agencies.

SOURCE: iMedia Connection: Follow the money: inside the Publicis/Google deal

Marathon Office Interiors launched a new website today. The site features a great-looking intro page with fading two-stage javascript rollovers and a unique javascript navigation system.

The site offers links to the dozens of manufacturers Marathon represents, a complete catalog of pre-owned furniture and a showcase of client and showroom photo galleries. What’s more, Marathon has complete control of the content through a customized content management system that couldn’t be easier to use.

As Frank would tell you, “It’s magical!”

See more at: Office Furniture and Commercial Interior Design

This has been around for years, but with all the campaign promises, it bears repeating…

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Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: more…

This song makes you want a Macbook Air. No doubt about it - Apple knows how to pick ‘em.

Welders at the core (and brilliant welders, at that), the guys at HRI developed a unique protective suit system that allows them to work in up to 1800 degrees. Why? So they can fix problems with equipment in refineries, power plants and other such environments without having to shut the plant down.

more…

Every year, millions of people rush to prepare income tax returns at the last minute, then stand in line until midnight at the post office. Really, there’s no need for that.

Grab your W-2 and bank statements before you lose them and head to Tax-Quick. Drop it all on the desk and they’ll prepare your return while you wait, e-File it for free and you’ll have your refund in a week.

Check it out: Tax Return Preparation

The Mid-Missouri Advertising Federation presented the local ADDY Awards on Feb. 8 at the Courtyard by Marriott.

This year’s winners will have the chance at gaining a spot in regional and national competitions within the American Advertising Federation.

SOURCE: Columbia Business Times - 2007 ADDY Awards

This is disgusting, even sickening. In this video policers pull over a woman whom they admit has violated no laws or ordinances and demand she state her name and present her papers.

When she refuses, the forcibly pull her from her car, place her under arrest and spend hours searching through her private belongings. What’s worse, when they find a “Pocket Constitution” and other literature concerning citizen’s rights, they accuse her of being a part of a cult and state that “she don’t believe in our laws”.

I submit that is you, officer, who do not believe in our laws. You are disgrace to the millions of fine men and women who serve and protect to secure our rights, not to take them away.

SOURCE: YouTube - TYRANNICAL POLICE STATE

Emergency alert system experts at Purple Tree Technologies believe lives could have been saved in the wake of last week’s weather-related emergencies and series of shootings in public buildings and schools. [full article]

SOURCE: www.foxbusiness.com