This quarter Strategy + Business spotlights the restructuring of media and marketing industries in their Field Guide for the New Marketer cover package (registration required). Booze Allen Hamilton consultants focus on “engagement media” as the core disruptive change to upend the marketing world as we know it. The guide also carries a primer on the anatomy of the 21^st century marketing professional that’s a worthy read. If you don’t sense the extreme changes occuring in our business consider this anonymous quote from an US auto company CMO: “Two years ago 10 percent of my advertising budget had an online component. Today it’s 30 percent. Two years from now it will be 50.”

Technorati Tags: social media, marketing, media, public relations, advertising

A lot of attention is being given to an old video of a crazed drive through the streets of Paris . In August 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a steady-cam to the bumper of a Ferrari and had a professional Formula 1 racer drive at an insane speed through the heart of Paris. Legend has it the driver reaches nearly 140 MPH in some stretches while running red lights, nearly hitting pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up one-way streets. People are talking up and spreading the video not so much for the content itself, which in parts is pretty funny, but for story behind it taking place as described.

Technorati Tags: Contagious Media

Virgin has a seriously weird viral ad called Super Buff Grandma out on the web. It’s purpose – selling a new line of “super buff” mobile phones. Check it out through Viral Miester. Funny stuff.

Technorati Tags: Contagious Media, Viral Marketing

Corey Stringer writes in today’s Detroit Free Press about the auto industry’s use of contagious media tactics. As with other sectors auto companies are dedicating more marketing dollars to appeal to consumers via the Internet with nontraditional and often controversial clips.  Stringer labels these as viral ads, which would leave you to believe that ad agencies are taking the lead role is establishing this media format (enter Crispin Porter).  But BK ’s antics could also be viewed as online media stunts that drive press coverage and buzz through the web. If you look at it from that perspective shouldn’t PR people have a greater focus on this game?

Technorati Tags: PR, Social Marketing, Buzz, Contagious Media, Viral Marketing

Jaffe posted yesterday on the BK Crying Game film. According to Ad Age, this has been one of the most viral clips ever shown on Heavy.com, with over 4.1 million downloads since November 1st. Beyond talking about the role BK and CPB may have played in its creation, he makes a great point about “the 99.9% of us that don’t understand or get it,” that related to content spread on the web. What we do know, as Carls Jr. and more recently Napster show, sex is still the #1 sell.

Technorati Tags: PR, Social Marketing, Buzz, Contagious Media