Politics and Government
Small Business Groups Press for Quick Healthcare Reform Small business advocacy groups are joining together to press President-elect Barack Obama into making healthcare reform a top priority.
Democratic Gains Increase Chances of Union Card-Check Bill Passage A bill at the top of organized labor's agenda, the Card-Check Bill, now has a much better chance at passage with President-elect Obama bound for the White House and larger Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill.
Economics and Labor Issues
By Charles M Cooper · November 11 2008
small business brief, small business, Advertising, obama
There are many advertising pitfalls, but few are worse than advertising in a venue that is getting a great deal of negative attention. After all, how well would your ad be received if it appears on a site that really ticks people off? It wouldn’t be pretty, that’s for sure, and it isn’t pretty for the advertisers who paid a lot of money to be seen on NBC’s online Olympic coverage website, www.NBCOlympics.com.
Now, let’s be fair. NBC has the exclusive coverage rights and that is worth enough for them to want to defend it. Unfortunately, they have made some bonehead decisions that have led to a whole raft of resentment and a cottage industry in getting around NBC to be able to enjoy Olympic coverage online.
Pushing TV Coverage
Let’s begin with the fact that NBC’s website is the only place on the Web where you can legally watch the big show. However, since NBC is also te...
By Charles M Cooper · August 18 2008
small business, Advertising, olympics, nbc
The formula was easy: Find something the populace just loves and advertise it like crazy in a way that will generate a great deal of interest, have a huge opening ceremony, try to make amends. With that, the 2004 documentary, Czech Dream, by filmmakers, Filip Remunda and Vit Klusak, put a spotlight on a consumer culture that yearns for the next hypermarket (the Czech version of our big-box retailers), and the sheer power of advertising. You see, Czech Dream, the store they were promoting, never existed. It was all a hoax.
The Rationale
“We were also loosely inspired by a happening by the theatre personality Petr Lorenc, who in 1997 distributed without paying a fee several hundred advertising posters for his fictitious hypermarket Gigadiga. The opening ceremony took place in an empty meadow, where Petr had placed a banner saying ‘Better to take a walk in the woods instead,’” said Remunda and Klusak. “Gigadiga opened at a time...
By Charles M Cooper · August 13 2008
small business, Advertising, hypermarket, czech dream
Did you know that the average American is exposed to about 3000 ads a day? This seems like an outrageous statistic, but advertisements are pretty much unavoidable these days. This is especially the case since online marketing is now in the picture. How many times have you gone on a website and just ignored all of the ads that popped up? I bet you don’t even realize you are doing this. This is why there is so much that goes along with online marketing. As a business owner trying to advertise your company, you need to have something that is going to stand out from the rest. This is especially the case for small businesses. Online marketing is a lot of work, more than one would imagine.
First, you must determine who you are going to target. Are you going to target nationally or locally? What type of people does your business relate to? Then, you must find places on the Internet where you can put your ads. Most of the time this costs money, so figuring out how mu...
By Lauren Calomino · July 30 2008
Advertising, online advertising, small business marketing, small business online marketing
Let’s face it; to survive you have to market your business. That means reaching the right audience, those who have an interest in the kind of products you are selling and making the pitch. That is pretty self-evident as far as it goes. We have word of mouth, ads on traditional mass media outlets such as TV, radio and print; and now there is Internet marketing, with its search engine optimization, pay-per-action ads and social marketing, that reaches people not just across town but around the world. The technology used to reach these potential customers is powerful, flexible and becoming more useful and expansive each day.
However, technology moves a great deal faster than either law or ethics. This has been the case, for example, with physics (nuclear technology), and biology (cloning, stem cell research), and it is certainly the case with Internet technology, especially when it comes to the subject of targeted advertising and its effects on privacy.
H...
By Charles M Cooper · June 26 2008
marketing, target marketing, target, Advertising
