Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Agencies, Mobile Media, Index of Economic Freedom, IT, MSFT, Excel Error Again
Why do businesses use the ad agencies they do? The latest poll explains. I'll never forget the time our company (when I had a real job) selected an agency and then the account execs came in... and knew nothing about us. Gee, the presentation went well when they pitched the job...
http://www.btobonline.com/article.cms?articleId=30402
BtoB also asked marketers to name their No. 1 criterion in selecting an ad agency partner, in current or past searches. The overwhelming response was understanding the client's business (cited by 64.7% of respondents), followed by good chemistry with the agency (17.9%) and outstanding creative (15.0%). Only 2.4% of marketers said price was the No. 1 criterion in selecting an agency partner. B-to-b marketers that have conducted ad agency reviews in the past year agree it's critical that a potential agency partner understand their business and the b-to-b environment overall.
Good article about how technology has changed advertising
http://www.entrepreneur.com/advertising/adcolumnistroyhwilliams/article170166.html
Mobile media had already started to gain steam before the iPhone was introduced by Apple. A site, perooz.com, is already on the case.
http://www.perooz.com/index.html
The annual Index of Economic Freedom has been published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. For anyone needing snapshot data and insights into the inner dynamics of world economies (including black market activities), this report is an essential resource, and we strongly recommend it. The report is available as an interactive web site, a PDF download, or as a hard copy purchase.
The top ten countries, and their scores (100 is best) are:
Hong Kong 89.3
Singapore 85.7
Australia 82.7
United States 82
New Zealand 81.6
United Kingdom 81.6
Ireland 81.3
Luxembourg 79.3
Switzerland 79.1
Canada 78.7
According to the report:
The average economic freedom score is 60.6 percent, the second highest level since the Index began in 1995 and down by 0.3 percentage point from last year. Each region has experienced an increase in economic freedom during the past decade... Economic freedom is strongly related to good economic performance. The world's freest countries have twice the average per capita income of the second quintile of countries and over five times the average income of the fifth quintile of countries. The freest economies also have lower rates of unemployment and lower inflation. These relationships hold across each quintile, meaning that every quintile of less free economies has worse average rates of inflation and unemployment than the preceding quintile has....Among specific economies during the past year, the scores of 65 countries are now higher, and the scores of 92 countries are worse. The variation in freedom among all of these countries declined again for the sixth year in a row...
The report ranks economies based on measures of ten factors: business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, freedom from government, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption, labor freedom.
Download http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/downloads.cfm
Steve Duncan of the blog Lornitropia has a great post about technology, business, and our industry... and mentions yours truly.
http://www.lornitropia.net/archives/2007/01/16/the-business-suppression-unit/
One of the most reliable and impeccably honest co-workers I know is having problems with their computer. It turns out that MSFT's software for verifying whether or not Windows is legitimate or not keeps saying that it a counterfeit copy is being run. It's an HP computer, purchased factory sealed from HP. It turns out that the detection software has an error rate of more than 40%, based on MSFT's own tracking data.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=142
Speaking of Microsoft I have re-posted that Excel file that miscalculates a basic formula... unless you open it it Quattro Pro, Lotus 1-2-3, or OpenOffice Calc.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=5A42D5EA243D9A31
http://www.btobonline.com/article.cms?articleId=30402
BtoB also asked marketers to name their No. 1 criterion in selecting an ad agency partner, in current or past searches. The overwhelming response was understanding the client's business (cited by 64.7% of respondents), followed by good chemistry with the agency (17.9%) and outstanding creative (15.0%). Only 2.4% of marketers said price was the No. 1 criterion in selecting an agency partner. B-to-b marketers that have conducted ad agency reviews in the past year agree it's critical that a potential agency partner understand their business and the b-to-b environment overall.
Good article about how technology has changed advertising
http://www.entrepreneur.com/advertising/adcolumnistroyhwilliams/article170166.html
Mobile media had already started to gain steam before the iPhone was introduced by Apple. A site, perooz.com, is already on the case.
http://www.perooz.com/index.html
The annual Index of Economic Freedom has been published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. For anyone needing snapshot data and insights into the inner dynamics of world economies (including black market activities), this report is an essential resource, and we strongly recommend it. The report is available as an interactive web site, a PDF download, or as a hard copy purchase.
The top ten countries, and their scores (100 is best) are:
Hong Kong 89.3
Singapore 85.7
Australia 82.7
United States 82
New Zealand 81.6
United Kingdom 81.6
Ireland 81.3
Luxembourg 79.3
Switzerland 79.1
Canada 78.7
According to the report:
The average economic freedom score is 60.6 percent, the second highest level since the Index began in 1995 and down by 0.3 percentage point from last year. Each region has experienced an increase in economic freedom during the past decade... Economic freedom is strongly related to good economic performance. The world's freest countries have twice the average per capita income of the second quintile of countries and over five times the average income of the fifth quintile of countries. The freest economies also have lower rates of unemployment and lower inflation. These relationships hold across each quintile, meaning that every quintile of less free economies has worse average rates of inflation and unemployment than the preceding quintile has....Among specific economies during the past year, the scores of 65 countries are now higher, and the scores of 92 countries are worse. The variation in freedom among all of these countries declined again for the sixth year in a row...
The report ranks economies based on measures of ten factors: business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, freedom from government, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption, labor freedom.
Download http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/downloads.cfm
Steve Duncan of the blog Lornitropia has a great post about technology, business, and our industry... and mentions yours truly.
http://www.lornitropia.net/archives/2007/01/16/the-business-suppression-unit/
One of the most reliable and impeccably honest co-workers I know is having problems with their computer. It turns out that MSFT's software for verifying whether or not Windows is legitimate or not keeps saying that it a counterfeit copy is being run. It's an HP computer, purchased factory sealed from HP. It turns out that the detection software has an error rate of more than 40%, based on MSFT's own tracking data.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=142
Speaking of Microsoft I have re-posted that Excel file that miscalculates a basic formula... unless you open it it Quattro Pro, Lotus 1-2-3, or OpenOffice Calc.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=5A42D5EA243D9A31
