As a disclaimer, let me say that I'm friends with the folks at AgencyFinder and have used their service to conduct a search for a new agency for a client.  The service is free to those who are looking for a new agency - the cost of the service is borne entirely by the agencies registered in the database. 

From my point of view, AgencyFinder's new rating service will help keep things fair and objective (the first round of evaluations is done "blind" - meaning the client doesn't know the name of the agencies they're reviewing).  Keeping everything on an "apples to apples" basis will put small and large agencies on a relatively level playing field.

Congratulations to Chuck and his team on this new innovation.  I can't wait to see it in action.

Middle-class millionaires -- the 8.4 million households in America with $1 million to $10 million in net worth -- are setting the pace for innovation in new and fascinating ways. Although the word "millionaire" may conjure up images of first-class lifestyles and financial peace of mind, middle-class millionaires work exceptionally long hours to maintain their expensive lifestyles and most think of themselves as just plain "middle class."

Though the working wealthy share many of their values with the rest of the middle class, they also exhibit traits that set them apart. For example, they consider themselves to be influential in their community. They are 50 percent more likely to say that they "tell lots of other people about products or services they like" than middle-class survey respondents. They also report "being asked for advice on what to buy" five times more often than our middle-class survey respondents.

I encourage you to read the whole article - you'll find the information to be helpful in your marketing planning and of interest to your clients, as well.

I can say that now, as I'm all of forty-five.  Last week's news of the death of DDB's creative chief, Paul Tilley, hit home for me.  Here's a guy about my age with a bunch of kids and a wife and (apparently) all the upside in the world.

But with the upside comes pressure.  And with the pressure, a darkness.

Ad Age had a very solid piece on Paul Tilley and the reactions to his suicide.  You can read it here.

One line in the Ad Age piece referred to a New York Post story (found here) that referred to the "Blogs of Death" - specifically AgencySpy and AdScam.  The "Blogs of Death" epithet is more the result of bad headline writing than any claim staked by either blog.

Do yourself a favor.  Don't get caught up in the self-indulgent introspection of trying to figure out who's to blame for this tragedy.  It won't bring Paul Tilley back and it won't make life any easier for his wife and kids.  Just morn the all-too-soon loss of a husband and father who, as it just so happens, was a creative director that did some excellent work.

Godspeed, Paul Tilley.

You could put an eye out with your misguided web 2.0 campaign if you're not careful.  That's why I found this article by advertising.com's Nikole Brake to be so useful.

In short, Nikole advises marketers to keep these things in mind before pressing the "send" button and launching:

• Be ready to let go of your content and see what happens.
• Serve a purpose and serve it fresh.
• Stick with standards and partners you know.
• Have some answers for the questions of content distribution.

Read it all here.

For more on the basics/background of marketing with widgets, check out this interview with Lawrence Coburn by The Online Marketing blog.

Help some charities. Pick a brief. Design a poster. Submit it by April 20th.

Do some good.

Laura Ries offers some worthwhile evaluations of celebrity endorsements enjoyed by Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  You don't have to be a political wonk to enjoy her post.

From a marketing perspective, many of the lessons taught through this endorsement excercise carry over to consumer products and services.  A celebrity endorsement isn't worth that much if the celebrity doesn't really understand the "what" and "why" of the brand he or she is endorsing. 

One-dimensional product pitchmen, even if they're well-known sports or entertainment celebrities, can elicit the same response Laura has about Cheer's star Ted Danson: "Does anyone care what Ted Danson has to say? I don’t think so."

But as Elizabeth points out, the process is relatively straight-forward and - when you consider the implications - time well-spent.

Thanks, Elizabeth.

Anyway, the Beyond Madison Avenue blog report on PeTA's latest promotion: The Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door contest.  Poitics aside, it looks like the promotion is fun and well-executed but not particularly well-promoted.

In a slip that might be as Freudian as they come, PeTA has failed to exploit this promotion to their advantage - as pointed out time and again by the BMA bloggers.

With this coming out on May 22 and Lucas launching a Star Wars animated movie this summer, is there any wonder why Paramount has decided to hold off the Star Trek Movie to Summer of '09?

 Look for a big box office this summer.

The Eyes on Creativity blog has been keeping watch on this effort and has some good things to say.

Thanks to Copyranter for bringing this up and several other recommendations of hilarious tv creative.

See, it's not all bad.

Meet the Non-Expert.

It's a humorous series of information (or is it misinformation) about a wide variety of topics.  Which begs the question: "What kind of questions do the Non-Expert(s) answer?"

Well, for starters:

"My understanding is that the term “begs the question” has essentially been bastardized, whereby laymen (i.e., us) have misconstrued or broadened its meaning, and in the process have pissed off a very small group of anal-retentive, scholarly types (i.e., them).

Now, I assume that when you use the phrase, like most other people, you use it to mean something like, “Well, that opens up another can of worms.” For example: Your 16-year-old son gets in a fight with a bouncer at a strip club. Sure, it’s bad enough he’s rumbling with bouncers—and you are probably in need of some parenting books—but you might say the whole situation begs the question: How did he, being underage, get into the strip club in the first place? And did he at least get a lap dance before he was thrown out? (Let’s hope so.)"

And so it goes ...

It's not the first time a lickable ad has been used by a national advertiser, though.  CBS ran an ad for its Jimmy Smits-vehicle, Cane, that featured a lickable ad promoting the rum produced by Smits' character's distillery.

First Flavor, a small company in Bala Cynwyd, PA that created the lickable technology handled the assignment for Welch's.

I call "slug bug"!

Thanks to the guys at CoolzOr for this one.

Thanks to our friends in Norway for pointing this one out to us.

But if you've ever been to any of the other Brand Central Station blogs before, you know I've migrated everything (as well as most of the usable content from my old web site) to this new blog.  Yeah, it's been nearly three years - I figured it was time for a change.

But I didn't know how right I was until I ran across this post from the Webtivity Designs blog.

Why not tell me what you think?

According to the release from Wizards ...

“Wizards has been growing our online community for 15 years, so our name has a lot of equity with our gamers,” said Ilja Rotelli, Director of Online Media at Wizards of the Coast. “Intergi brings to us the ability to connect our gamers to their network of relevant advertisers.”

As gaming continues to grow as a viable media, we're seeing more ad rep networks and firms spring up to help generate significant ad revenues.

As for the pronunciation of the product name, it may be a "tomato" versus "tomahto" thing, but I think it's hysterical.

Seriously, a TIDDY bear?

Very cool.

Well done, Pepsi.

Case 1: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has thrown down the glove and insisted the service remove all "unathorized clips" of the movie industry's group hug ... er, Oscar telecast. YouTube has complied with the request - but not before over 250,000 viewers got a chance to watch Will Ferrell sing with Jack Black and John C. Reilly (along with other video snippets).

Still have to satisfy that Oscar-driven anxiety? You can see select video clips on Oscar.com - although none of the shows musical numbers nor host Ellen DeGeneres' monolog are available.

Case 2: CBS, on the other hand, is planning on leveraging the power of YT to generate additional madness on top of the traditional March Madness that is the NCAA finals. According to an article in today's NY Times, the CSTV Networks division of CBS is starting a campaign today entitled "Are you fan enough?" that invites viewers to upload do-it-yourself video clips.

NBC is reportedly close to closing a deal with former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham for an upcoming reality show. England's Daily Mail values the deal at just under $20 million.

An NBC spokesperson declined to comment on any pending deal.

Now imaging finding out your food might have been exposed to Hepatitis A.

A PR disaster in the making? Maybe.

Reuters reports that the LA County health department recommended all attendees to the Valentine's Day party get treatment to avoid developing the serious liver disease. A spokesman for Wolfgang Puck Catering said the company was working closely with health officials on the matter.

Is a health emergency more of an emergency when it happens to celebrities? Just askin'.

Runners-up receive a pizza party for themselves and 99 of their closest friends. How many job candidates that miss out on their dream job still receive a "consolation prize" if they don't get the job? The only ones I can think of are the girls that win "Miss Congeniality" in a beauty contest.

Official rules can be found here.

All comments (c) 2007, Brand Central Station - all rights reserved. For more information about BCS, please visit our website.

Don't miss the timing here, folks. It's getting to be March Madness time (the Division-I college basketball championship series) and that means sports marketing is shaking off its Super Bowl hangover and starting to ramp up for roundball. All to the delight of Fathead and other sports licensees.

The Fathead product is pretty cool. As a kid, I would have loved to have a nearly life-size sticker of my favorite football player in my room.