Madison Ave Insights

Category Archives: Advertising

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Spring Fashion Series Part 2: Men’s Fashion

Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Social Media

Men’s fashion has evolved over the years to incorporate more styles and fashion forward items.  Other men’s-only retailers offer customers the option of designing their own custom dress shirts, providing choices of size, pattern, collar type, buttons, cuff link style, monogram options, and other features.  The custom tailored concept is very popular among men, young… Continue Reading

A Conversation With Verizon’s Jerry Karnick On The FTC’s Updated Dot Com Disclosure Guidelines

Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Mobile, Technology

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently released updated Dot Com Disclosure guidelines to fast forward to the present day and catch up with the technology consumers use more and more frequently – including smartphones, tablets, and social media. I previously gave you an overview of what the updated guidance means and how marketers need to… Continue Reading

Spring Fashion Series: Retail Growth in the Digital Age

Posted in Advertising, Digital, Marketing, Social Media

In this post I will examine the growth of retail store sales.  Sales at brick-and-mortar retail stores constitute 90% of all retail sales in the United States.  And many major retailers have found that their digital consumer engagement and investments made toward boosting their online presence has actually resulted in increased in-store visits.  In fact,… Continue Reading

FTC Updates Dot Com Disclosure Guidelines to Catch Up with New Technology

Posted in Advertising, Digital, Mobile

I talk here on Madison Ave Insights all of the time about the importance of mobile and social media for advertisers.  Technology is always changing, and with new technology comes a set of new challenges for industry groups, brands, and regulators.  In light of the rise of smartphones, tablets, and social media, the Federal Trade… Continue Reading

Trade Shows in the Digital Age: A Discussion with Sony Computer Entertainment

Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Technology

Consumer Electronics Show. South by Southwest. Auto shows. Comic-Con. E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). Multiple industries rely on annual trade shows to unveil new products and interact with not just the trade, but with consumers. It’s something like a professional show-and-tell, with major brands and companies offering new product demonstrations and announcing their latest innovations that… Continue Reading

Understanding the FTC’s Expansion of COPPA: A Conversation with the Director of the Children’s Advertising Review Unit

Posted in Advertising, Digital, Marketing, Mobile

Surrounding a breakfast seminar, which was held at Davis & Gilbert today entitled, “Complying with the FTC’s Final Amendments to its COPPA Rule: What You Need to Know,” I thought a great post would be to examine that very topic.  In addition, I had the chance to speak to Wayne Keeley Director of the Children’s… Continue Reading

ANA Advertising Law & Public Policy Conference: What Increased Legislation and Regulation Mean for Ad Land

Posted in Advertising, Legislation, Regulatory

2013 is already proving to be another turbulent year for Washington D.C., and many of us can’t help but keep watching with bated breath for the latest action or debate to come out of it.  And there’s no question that the regulatory and enforcement environment today is heightened across all industry sectors, even while Congress… Continue Reading

Brand Mascots Come to Life on Social Media

Posted in Advertising, Digital, Marketing, Media, Social Media

A few weeks ago, Chester Cheetah, the beloved “spokescat” for Cheetos, joined Twitter as @ChesterCheetah with a campaign to reach 50K followers.  And when he does, “a family gets a kitten.”  Chester Cheetah is just the latest of many brand mascots that have taken social media by storm in recent years.  Furthermore, digital media is… Continue Reading

What Does Sequestration Mean for Ad Land?

Posted in Advertising, Marketing

On Friday the latest doomsday threat out of Washington became a reality as automatic federal budget cuts, known as sequestration, went into effect. What effect that will have, we can’t be sure. The latest round of debates between Congress and the White House was full of rhetoric and classic “we said, they said” as politicians… Continue Reading

POM Wonderful

Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Media

Guess what? When it comes to the claims you make in your advertising, substantiation matters – a lot. The FTC’s recent Final Order against POM Wonderful (POM) in which it found nearly 40 claims made by POM about its pomegranate juice products to be false and misleading based on the absence of proper substantiation, should… Continue Reading

FTC Amends COPPA to Strengthen Children’s Privacy Protections

Posted in Advertising, Digital, Marketing, Mobile

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ended 2012 with a bang by adopting final amendments to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). For those of us who work in children’s advertising, these long awaited amendments came as no surprise. The final amendment, which goes into effect on July 1, 2013, came only weeks after the… Continue Reading

Toasting to the New Year

Posted in Advertising, Marketing

Ah, December 31st.  Each year, the ball drops in Times Square, and people count down excitedly from ten as they plan their resolutions for the New Year, and clink champagne flutes to toast to the year ahead.  New Year’s Eve is all about glitz and glamour, from the sparkle of the Times Square crystal ball… Continue Reading

2012: A Retrospective

Posted in Advertising, Marketing

It’s hard to believe 2012 is coming to an end. It was a big year for us here, with the launch of Madison Ave Insights in October, and a notable one for the advertising industry. As always, agencies tried to top the year before with bigger and better creative, regulatory agencies stepped up oversight and… Continue Reading

‘Tis the Season for Giving

Posted in Advertising, Marketing

During the holiday season, helping others is on many people’s minds.  We see more charitable branding and increased advertising to encourage people to give – to capture the true spirit of the holidays.  Right after the shopping whirlwind of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we celebrated “Giving Tuesday” with the hashtag #GivingTuesday trending on Twitter…. Continue Reading

2012 Holiday Shopping Season: Significant Changes in Only Five Years

Posted in Advertising, Digital, Mobile

2012 is projected to be a big holiday shopping season, with consumer spending expected to return to near pre-recession levels.  The National Retail Federation’s 2012 consumer holiday spending survey forecasts that the country’s holiday spending will rise 4.1% to about $586 billion – the most optimistic forecast since the recession.  But a lot has changed… Continue Reading

Are Mobile Payment Apps the Next Big Thing?

Posted in Advertising, Digital, Mobile, Privacy

Cash and credit and debit cards are certainly dominant in the payment space today.  Some think change will never happen, but they are dead wrong.  Mobile payment is in its infancy, but the benefits are clear:  simplicity, convenience, relevance, and targeted offers and rewards.  No more wallets with multiple cards, just one device.  And this… Continue Reading

Settling the Argument: Regulation and Disclosure in the Digital World

Posted in Advertising, Digital, Regulatory

We are in a “perfect storm” fueled by big data, technological change, media transformation (especially mobile), and global competition.  The conventional model of linear digestion of media followed by the linear transaction process is disappearing.  With digital media, consumers have multiple sites and screens open at the same time.  This year the number of Internet… Continue Reading

Choices, Choices: Do Consumers Really Know What They Want?

Posted in Advertising, Digital, Marketing

Increased mobility and access to information with digital media and mobile gives consumers real power to shape the marketplace.  Yet consumers can be fickle and easily distracted, to say the least. With so many options and constant change, the question for advertisers is:  how do we determine what reasonable consumer behavior and perceptions are when… Continue Reading