The Pro Shop

I’m a fan of the Olympics and I wondered what it would be like to be there as a marketer so I checked in with Janet Fletcher, the marketing director at P&G. She had arrived Feb. 9 in charge of running the P&G Family Home, a four-story conference center transformed into a branded gathering place for U.S. athletes and their families.

Janet had already scored a pair of those cute must-have red mittens sporting the white maple leaf on the palm and—overcome as people do up there with Olympic excitement—wore mostly patriotic colors.

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By now we all know that the Apple iPad will go down in history as the most revolutionary device since the opposable thumb, and the most tin-eared product name since Dr. Crapper’s brainchild.

The naming problem can be overcome if the tablet gets enough lift among the public. (Who would have given odds that everyone would want a Wii?) But the revolutionary promise could come true. Consumers are buying portability in their electronics. Recent forecasts from the Consumer Electronics Association predict that this year’s hot categories will be wireless handsets and especially smart phones (52 million to be sold globally in 2010) and, in the PC category, lightweight, stripped down netbooks (30 million units to be sold this year.) more

It’s hard to take your eyes off the scenes of devastation in Haiti, or to focus on anything beyond the truly horrific suffering: On Monday it was estimated that the death toll might reach as high as 200,000, and that three-quarters of the capital city Port-au-Prince was in need of reconstruction. Shattered infrastructure and the lack of a strong government presence are exacerbating the problems by making it difficult to get rescue teams to those who might still be alive, and needed supplies to the survivors.

But in one way, Haiti has been fortunate: When it comes to financial support, new media—and specifically mobile–have stepped up to provide swift, frictionless new ways for ordinary people to contribute cash to the recovery efforts, deploying channels resources that were not readily available even a few years ago. more

Word came this morning via the Associated Press that PepsiCo will sit on the sidelines during Super Bowl XLIV, for the first time in 23 years. During that time the company has been known for its big-budget commercials featuring big-ticket music stars from Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin to Britney Spears and Will.i.am.

(I hereby confess a lingering fondness for watching the 2008 Justin Timberlake get racked, smacked and sacked by various forms of Pepsi Stuff. That guy can take a flat screen to the forehead like nobody’s business.)



But this year Pepsi is foregoing the big game in favor of a community-based campaign, “Pepsi Refresh Project,” that will launch in January. Instead of paying out millions for seconds of air time, the company will put its resources into social programs proposed by its consumers.

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Finally someone has come to their senses.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer wants the Feds to step in to review complaints from consumers about frequent flyer programs. The biggest complaint—and there is no shortage—are from people who get ready to plan a trip only to discover, with no thanks to the preferred airline, that their miles have expired.

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So I was sitting at my desk today, gulping cold coffee and working on an item for an end-of-year/ looking-ahead feature in our upcoming issue of Chief Marketer magazine about Google’s plans to become King of All Monetizable Media. I had just written that Google’s interest in mobile marketing extends beyond search to delivering display ads of all kinds, when the news came over the wire that the company will purchase mobile ad network AdMob for $750 million in stock, regulators willing.

Hey, I should be grateful. Companies usually wait to announce acquisitions like that until print magazines have been in the mail for 24 hours. Those of us who still have print deadlines can sometimes get paranoid about brands’ uneering ability to blow our news angles once too late to do anything about it.) more