Ads—The Best and Worst of '07

Some of the best (and least expensive) were web-based viral ads. Have a look!

McCain's Cross

Here at The Hanger, we know a little bit about direct mail and television spots. And elections tend to utilize both. A lot.

I was intrigued to see one seasoned political observer describe a recent John McCain mailer as "the best piece of direct mail I've ever seen." It's a Christmas-related mailing that features a cross in the story it tells.

Read about it here.

See a piece of it here.

And there is a television spot that features the story here.

I have to agree. It's good stuff.

High Def Disk Costs Drop

Did you buy a Blu-Ray or

HD-DVD player for Christmas?

If not, good! According to one report, high-definition disk player prices are falling and next year should approach $200.

Read all about the good news here.

Meanwhile, if you're still deciding which to buy (although there are dual-standard players emerging), read this.

Gaining Altitude

You may have read recently that next year, American Airlines will offer broadband Internet service on some of their international routes as a test. The cost to use it?

Free.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

Hopefully, it will go well for them and prayerfully, I look forward to the day that wireless Internet finds its way onboard when I'm traveling.

It's just another sign that now is the time to get your programming ready for deployment outside of the "box" of conventional radio and TV and treat the Internet as not just another outlet... but a suite of outlets.

Now, how will we get folks to find our awesome Internet-distributed wares?

That's for another posting. Keep watching.

Multitasking Makes Us Dumber?

A number of studies have shown that attempting to multitask reduces performance to that of a person with a much lower IQ.

That's the topic of this interesting blog post over at MarketingProfs.

An excerpt:
There is a lot of excitement about staying up-to-date and making personal connections with new media tools and applications (think: Facebook, Twitter etc). However, in our attempt to multi-task and keep up to speed on everything we deem relevant, there’s a potential dark side—the dumbing down of our brains.

Based on Jon's post below about broadband in cars. . .does this mean that we're about to have even more stupid drivers on the road?

High Speed Car Action!

As part of my relentless pursuit of broadcasting knowledge (and being an ex-radio engineer) I subscribe to a number of television and radio engineering publications and e-newsletters. One recent edition of Radio World's "News Bytes" contained two juicy tidbits: The FCC's approval of broadband on commercial flights and some radio engineer's thoughts about the inevitability of broadband in the car.

Leave it to the engineers to throw a little cold water on my excitement about the latter. In any event, over in a special corner of the Hangar, we've been tinkering with ideas to get to folks we serve ready for that glorious day when the internet is served up fresh and fast in your car. And until that later glorious day when your car will drive itself, the spoken word will continue to be king.

Radio as we know it will have an important place for years to come, but the ability to access your favorite programmer -- on demand -- will change the way commuters consume audio as they drive.

The shift continues.

The Other "W"

Last night I received my first Christmas present. My daughter Michelle (undoubtedly in an effort to thank me for surviving her wedding this past July) treated me to a Michael W. Smith concert at Dallas' marvelous venue, the Meyerson Symphony Center complete with a full orchestra.

First of all, I'm a Christmas junkie (I start thinking about it on July 4th). Second of all, the music of "W" has filled our home every Christmas season. With the release of his recent CD, "It's a Wonderful Christmas." I now own all three of his Christmas CD's.

Now, I've never met Michael, we get nothing from the sale of his music and I have no real reason to talk about this in the Hangar -- other than this, his most recent CD, is absolutely wonderful and worth having (and, like me, he turned 50 this past year, so let's just call this a Happy 50th shout-out from H|S).

If you like Christmas, then give it a listen.

Merry Christmas to all!

Rupert Murdoch Gets Religion (Company)

Apparently Murdoch's News Corp. has just acquired the web site BeliefNet.com for an unspecified sum "in the tens of millions" of dollars.

If you've never visited, you should know that BeliefNet isn't a Christian-oriented site. It's "spirituality" oriented. Nevertheless, it's additional evidence that big media recognizes that the faith marketplace is big business.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

"Fox Entertainment plans to use the site to promote religious and spiritual content such as films from Fox Faith as well as books from News Corp.'s HarperCollins book-publishing arm, according to Dan Fawcett, president of the Fox Digital Media arm of Fox Entertainment."

It is rumored that Murdoch had originally wanted to buy "The Hanger" until he learned how infrequently Jon posts.

Whole WSJ story here. (subscription may be required.)