Google’s share prices have quickly surpassed $600 per share. Not bad for a company that has been traded for only three years (August 2004) and set its opening price at $85. Since Google hasn’t done anything specifically amazing lately this rise in price indicates a general confidence in the company.

Google recently said it will begin showing YouTube clips on “thousand of other sites” and trying to capitalize on the in-video advertising.

With Internet ad spending reaching new highs and Google making a name for itself as the premier company that can help make it work for you, it’s no wonder their stock prices are going higher.

For what its worth, in the same time frame Yahoo!’s stock prices have done remarkably little.

No tags

50 Cent touted his feud with Kanye West to sell more albums in a dramatically declining environment for sales. No need to get appalled though, exploiting sensationalism is nothing new. Just ask the Beatles who enjoyed the hype of the ongoing conspiracy theory “Paul is Dead”.

In November 1966 it’s rumored (website detailing 358 clues) that Paul McCartney drove off in a rage after fighting through a song that wasn’t going the way he wanted. Not long after it’s said that he crashed his car so badly that it burst into a fire and eventually exploded, leaving few witnesses. The wreck was said to have knocked all Paul’s teeth out, burned his hair off and broke his fingers (preventing him from exiting the car). Once the Austin Healey exploded Paul was decapitated. Rumor or truth?

This eventually led to the growth of a massive urban legend that the remaining three Beatles replaced Paul with a look-a-like and left clues to tell the story without ever admitting it. A great example of that is the Beatles album “Yesterday and Today” which shows “Paul” sitting in the middle with two decapitated dolls pointing to his head. Harrison is in the background holding a doll head that has no hair and no teeth. However, there is a false set of teeth on McCartney’s arm. Coincidence or playing into the hype to help sell albums? It certainly didn’t hurt!

Before you roll your eyes at 50 Cent for using boxing-like hype to promote the sales of albums don’t forget that musicians have been doing this for a long time, whether you believe the “Paul is Dead” conspiracy or not.

No tags

The Interactive Advertising Bureau announced on Thursday (Oct. 4th) that online ad spending surpassed the $5 billion mark for the first time. HookorSink.com previously noted that this wasn’t a matter of “if” it would happen, rather “when”. Easily surpassing $5.1 billion is impressive but the fact that it hasn’t slowed down is outright incredible.

The IAB points out that the first half of 2007 totalled more than $10 billion, a 27% increase of 2006.

Two other things worth noting was the slight shift away from the large websites across the board. The advertising is getting stretched more evenly with a dip from 94% to 91% of spending done with the top 50 websites. Google Adsense anyone?

Also, the deals between advertisers and ad purchasers is shifting towards more performance based contracts, instead of CPM. Performance based deals represent 50% compared to 47% a year ago.

No tags

Advertising Age released its monthly “10 most recalled TV spots” for the month of September. Without stealing their thunder it’s worth noting the patterns of these top ten. 7 of the top 10 were food-related, two were auto and the last was for Kmart.

Seventy percent were food related? That’s a pretty good indication that America is obsessive about food. Campbells, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Subway were all represented and apparently remembered.

That’s pretty important, especially for children. A study found in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine found that children preferred food if they believed it came from McDonald’s. The study concluded that branding of foods and beverages influences young children’s taste preferences.

It’s discussion time again, please share your thoughts on food related marketing. Good/Bad/Ugly?

No tags

It was anticipated that if Microsoft could somehow rake in $170 million in the first five days after the launch of Halo 3 that it would post a profit for the quarter. The Xbox unit of Microsoft has notoriously floundered its way through the video game market, staying in the red. Until now. Microsoft didn’t make $170 million in the first five days, it needed only one.

For those of you who don’t have nine figure incomes that’s a lot of money. To put it into perspective Spiderman-3 set new records for bringing in $151 million in its first weekend. When all is said and done the total cost for creating the third movie in the Spidey series will cost nearly a half billion bucks. Halo 3 probably had a budget of $30 million (and that’s with a lot of perks for the 300 game creators locked into a Microsoft closet for 3 years). Get this, it’s profit margin is anticipated to be about 90%. That’s amazing for anyone, especially on that scale.

What remains to be seen is the impact sales of the final installment of Master Chief’s adventures will have on Xbox consoles. The first two Halo’s were played on the initial Xbox while this game requires an Xbox 360.

As an added bonus Microsoft will only have to spend about $15-20 million in marketing because companies like Pepsi and Burger King are integrating Halo into their promotions. FREE ADVERTISING!

For setting a new standard in which other games will be judged Halo 3‘s opening success gets this marketing discussion blog’s “Hook” rating.

No tags

“Hey, we got nailed for doing something like that.”

“Yeah, Google can’t get away with that quietly.”

“Who wants to say something?”

*Drawing straws*

“Sorry Brad, you got the short straw. Go get ‘em!”

In an imaginary executive meeting I imagine the big-wigs at Microsoft had a conversation similar to that when Google announced plans to buy DoubleClick. Microsoft points out that Google already dominates Search Engine marketing and the merger with DoubleClick would give it 80% market-share of banner advertising too, a clear monopoly. Isn’t it ironic that Microsoft is upset about a company having a monopoly? Brad Smith, Microsoft’s senior VP-general counsel and corporate secretary, even coined a new definition for “being Googled”.

Google saw this conviction as “ironic” as well and quickly pointed out that the figures Microsoft were using had no factual basis. Details, details. They also don’t believe it would be a monopoly because there are, indeed, other competitors and that users can change websites within a matter of seconds.

In reality it’s only monopolistic because of scale, not practice. In fact, you could probably say the same about Microsoft. If Apple had a bigger market-share Brad Smith might not have his pants wound up so tightly. Then again, if Microsoft was a monopy it would seem that Google is becoming one too. Just like a referee, even if you call the game poorly just call it consistently for both teams.

No tags

Today’s the day one of the most anticipated video games ever is released, Halo 3 (Check out this incredible commercial). You shouldn’t be interested just because of the incredible graphics (although they’re almost worth it alone) but because it sold more than a million copies before it even launched. As much debate goes into which console is better it’s clear that the top game goes to Microsoft.

It’s so anticipated that it borders on a cultural phenomenon. Check out CircuitCity.com, BestBuy.com, or even Buy.com to see the prime real estate on their site dedicated to Halo 3. In fact, each has their own section within the site to specialize in the video game and accessories. Not even Madden 08 did that.

Don’t sigh yet, the most impressive part of Halo is the revenue. The Halo franchise is estimated to be worth over $1 billion. Halo 2 generated $125 million in the first 24 hours after its release in November 2004. If you’re one of the willing gamers to plop $59.99 down you won’t have to look far, it’s going to debut in a limited number of retailers. 10,000 to be exact. The most recent edition of Harry Potter opened in 4,285 theaters, not even half.

About the only place you won’t find Halo is on Apple.com. Are they working on iHalo? Don’t buy it right away, it will be discounted two months after release.

The Halo franchise, and certainly Halo 3, gets a $1 billion “Hook” rating from the premier marketing discussion website on the Internet, hookorsink.com.

No tags

Adage.com has reported that NFL Marketing Chief Lisa Baird has resigned to spend more time with her family. That sounds like a great reason to step down from any position and would be tough to rebut. However, has the job she took in 2005 bored her already after stints at IBM, General Motors and Procter & Gamble? Probably not.

Already during her tenure Lisa has been a part of major achievements including the advent of user-generated commercials and the update of the NFL logo. Why so suddenly did she have a change of heart to spend more time with the family?

Could it be the marketing nightmare she’s been dealt by the NFL lately? How about Pacman Jones getting caught into multiple criminal situations? Worse yet was one of the premier players “guilty” plea in accordance with illegal dogfighting rings, Michael Vick. Even the elite football franchise New England Patriots got caught red handed stealing signs from the New York Jets recently.

The products Lisa is used to marketing have never been arrested or even been committed a misdemeanor so it should be no surprise that she suddenly wants to “spend time with her family”. There’s only room for one person in the NFL to get glory from trouble and Roger Goodell, league commissioner, is doing a fine job of that.

For using the “family” excuse to bow out from the latest crime-sports league Lisa Baird gets a “Sink” rating from hookorsink.com a fair and upfront marketing discussion blog.

No tags

The hip-hop music world took a different turn recently when 50 Cent declared he would “retire” if Kanye West sold more albums then him, since they were released on the same day. It seems that the line between boxers and rappers just got a little fuzzier and if you believed 50 Cent then you are a sucker!

50 Cent sold 697,000 albums in the first week, not even close to Kanye’s 957,000. Is he going to retire? Uhhh, no. For the fools who wondered what would happen when 50 Cent lost they were given another bone when 50 altered his declaration. Now the Eminem & Dr. Dre prodige says if West’s sales drop less than 70% the second week he’ll retire.

Hello? Here’s what you missed in the “pre-fight hype”, the last time two albums released at the same time was in 1991 when Guns N’ Roses Use Your Illusion I narrowly lost to Use Your Illusion II. The rap rift sold nearly 200,000 more albums then that though.

This hip-hop hype may be the first time we’ve seen this in the music industry but judging by its success it won’t be the last. Maybe we’ll see some musicians start biting each others ears off.

50 Cent and Kanye West, laughing all the way to the bank, get a Platinum “Hook” from HookorSink.com, the premier marketing discussion blog on the Internet!

No tags

No doubt about it, the competition to be #1 is fierce with enormous implications to the victor. The race to become the best requires the best products. But at what point did the need for innovation turn into acquiring a company that’s already innovated? Doesn’t Yahoo! create anything on their own? Google does, kind of. They’re no purists either though. Let’s not even go down the ugly road of a discussion about AOL and MSN.

Yahoo just acquired Blue Lithium, the fifth-largest online-advertising network, soon after paying in full for Right Media Exchange earlier this year. The two deals alone are worth nearly a billion dollars. If Yahoo had top-quality engineers and innovators would they really spend full-market price for something they should be able to do in-house? What happens to all the innovative people when they are acquired? Maybe we should ask AOL what happened to Netscape when they acquired the leading Internet browser company. Sorry, low blow.

AOL just acquired Tacoda, an ad targeting software based on user behavior. They didn’t create it, they bought it. Instead of $200-$300 million dumped into research and development they took the quick way out.

Google is trying very hard to compete with Microsoft’s business applications, with online software like Google Docs & Spreadsheets. To compete with Powerpoint they have acquired Tonic Company to help work on Google Presentation. Or how about the purchase of JotSpot to integrate Wiki’s instead of creating them? Should Google invest $625 million into R&D or buy Postini to help bolster their “Office 2.0″ applications?

If acquiring small innovative companies doesn’t do the trick try buying the companies that bought the companies. It’s long been rumored that Microsoft has courted Yahoo.

Who could forget Apple’s purchase of Next Software in a move to get Steve Jobs back to the company he co-founded. $400 million is a lot of money. Need an Advil after that one? Me too.

Even the companies that innovate aren’t the corporate Einstein’s you may think they are. Innovation isn’t coming from within, it’s realized through acquisitions. And the race to be #1 is VERY expensive!

No tags