“Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother, you’re staying alive, staying alive.”- The Bee Gees

When it comes to the future of magazines, we admit at first we were afraid, we were petrified, but just when we thought it was the last dance for big time magazines and traditional journalism, an eleventh hour remix of the genre has been slapped on the turntables. All right, enough with the disco metaphors. But it’s hard not feeling like boogying after witnessing the incredible magazine metamorphosis that has taken place over the last couple of months.

The easy-to-bash but hard-to-love iPad has played a big part in the resurrection of magazines. Magazines from all of the major publishers have all surfaced on the iPad and have proved to be some of the gadget’s most popular applications. Even Conde Nast’s beloved yet defunct Gourmet magazine had a comeback this summer when it returned as a free app for the tablet. Yet the question remained: Would iPad users pay for magazines?

Enter Zinio. Just this week, digital newsstand operator Zinio offered a game-changer when it took on paid content for The Sporting News and National Geographic apps for iPad. This new subscription model works a lot like the traditional version: Readers can get limited content with the apps for free, buy single issues for 99 cents or plunk down $2.99 a month for the whole enchilada, which receives regular updates and is delivered fresh to your iPad. If Zinio’s plan catches on, the iPad and devices like it look to be the future of subscriptions and daily publication.

Yet the iPad isn’t the only beacon of light for magazines. Social media is helping revive the genre as well. Glamour magazine is looking to rope in “young and posh” readers (translation: not old ladies) with a new promotional and advertising makeover that is heavy on the Facebook and Twitter marketing. Announced yesterday, the magazine’s multi-million-dollar campaign is revamping the publication to speak to a younger set, so naturally Glamour has already launched aggressive moves on all the big social media sites. From 3 voices on Twitter to an interactive Facebook page to turning to fashion bloggers to assist in the Glamour re-deux, the publication is hoping to reinvent itself for a new audience.

Also, trying to turn the beat around is Lucky magazine. The shopaholic bible’s unique multi-media duet with Kellogg’s Special K is nothing short of brilliant. Cereal aficionados are encouraged to swipe their smartphones across Microsoft tag 2D bar codes on boxes of Special K that will launch a video starring Lucky’s editor-in-chief Elise Loehnen talking about figure flattering jeans. Lucky has always shameless promoted shopping so this partnership wisely speaks to its core audience in a way old magazines would have never dreamed of.

Now it’s your turn to hop on our soul train. Do you think magazines have another dance left in them? Shout it out in the comments section below!

During the politely termed “economic downturn of 2008,” Starbucks was one of the companies that appeared to get kneed in the financial groin. News of nationwide store closings and slumping stock traveled faster than Frappuccino-induced brain freeze. Layoffs and marketing cutbacks soon followed suit for the more…

Weary film festival junkies are finally at the halfway mark in Cannes. But much like the parties on yachts, the marketing through social media at Cannes never stops.

Not one to miss an opportunity where booze and celebrities are so warmly welcomed, beer brewing company Stella Artois has launched a series of black and white films featuring the suave King of Cannes, Jacques D’Azur. In the films, the King of Cannes may be ruling in more…

Although many would argue that the practices and decisions of the NCAA are prehistoric and out of date, the marketing around March Madness is decidedly 21st century. As the 64 teams were picked, dozens of big name companies have already hopped on Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube to engage basketball fans and potential customers alike in a plethora of more…

This week’s Brandsplat Video report episode 17 covers Twitter’s opt-in location finder, YouTube and Lady GaGa’s newest video chock full of product placement.  Check it out! Or click here for more Brandsplat vids

Brandsplat Video Report on Twitter’s Location Finder, YouTube and Lady GaGa from Enzo Cesario on Vimeo.

The 2010 version of South X Southwest Interactive, or as I like to affectionately call it “Nerdchella”, won’t even get started until the weekend but the stampede of press releases, teasers, and critiques have been hurled out of Texas like empty  shot glasses at Jenna Bush’s wedding.  SXSWi, unlike it’s uber-cool music counter part, which starts on March 17th, is an unabashedly dorky affair celebrating all more…

The already crowded lives of social media mavens might have just become a little more complicated. In addition to regularly updating our Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Myspace pages and waiting for the official launch of Google’s Buzz, Microsoft just announced Outlook Social Connector. The beta site is an add-on that yanks information from social networking sites. Microsoft Office users as well as beta users of Office can download the software to connect with more…

I recently attended the OMMA Video (#ommavideo) event at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles. A lot of our customers ask us about viral video, so I hope this post sheds some light on the subject. The panel “The Art of Being Discovered: Is Viral Video a Strategy” was moderated by Bob Heyman, (Managing Director, The Digital Engagement Group) and included the following panelists: Andrew Budkofsky (SVP Sales and Partnerships, Break Media), Benjamin Carlson (Chief Strategy Officer, Bradley and Montgomery), Gregory Markel (Founder/President of Infuse Creative), Matt Martelli (CEO/Creative Director, Mad Media) and Bret Wilson (Co-Founder/CEO of TubeMogul). Here are some of the talking points I walked away with that I found interesting:

• The best techniques for driving “virality” starts with content. But it doesn’t end there. Then you have to promote your video via SEO, social media (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace etc.), social bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon etc) and  getting bloggers to review and talk about your video.  Oh, and it can’t hurt to launch a full PR campaign to get a reaction from appropriate media outlets that are relevant to your audience.

• Getting a video to go viral is getting harder and harder because there is currently a glut of video out there and it’s harder to stand out. Video is following the same trajectory as banner ads; at first everyone clicked on them and thought they were novel. But today, people pay less and less attention to them. The idea of going into a teen chat room and asking them to check out your video and expecting a response is kind of creepy and pretty much over.

• Want to spread your video effectively? Consider hiring a Weblebrity (a web celebrity that has a following of a million plus fans). Pay them to review your video. Or, even better yet, have them make a video in response to your video. This practice is becoming popular among viral video marketers and weblebrities seem more than willing to participate.

But at the end of the day, it still comes down to the quality of your content and being relevant to your audience. As one of the panelist said, “sites want good content. They’re going to start banning people who flood them with crap.” Woudn’t that be nice.  If you couldn’tt make the OMMA video event, you can see highlights at the MediaPost Raw >> OMMA Video .

Social media is all the buzz. Marketers are scrambling to harness the power that sites like Twitter and Facebook offer. So if you want to effectively market online, you had better get on the bandwagon. Not so fast, suggests a recent report from ForeSee Results , a leader in online customer satisfaction measurement headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The report findings are based on data, collected in the spring of 2009, from more than 22,000 respondents who had visited the top 100 online retail sites within the previous two weeks. According to the report, the most effective means by which e-tailers influence purchasing decisions was familiarity with the brand. It makes sense that if you’re shopping online, the first place you will go to buy are the brands you are already familiar with. These findings suggest that branding and brand perception are main triggers that drive traffic and purchasing decisions. That means more traditional forms of advertising and marketing are the primary driver for customer aqcuisition. The next two major factors that drive customer acquisition are tried-and-true online strategies like promotional e-mail and Internet advertising. Sounds boring, but these tactics bring in the customers. But how does that compare with social media? According to the report,

“the most lucrative website traffic is still coming from promotional emails and Internet advertising rather than from the latest trendy social networking sites. It will be important for each individual site to monitor the quality of its own various aquistiion sources in order to get the best return on investment.

This may be because social media marketing strategies are fairly new and is unfamiliar territory for many online buyers. As social media grows, I believe this tactic will gain more traction in the arena of customer acquisition.

To download the ForeSee Results, “Online Customer Aquisition: Quality Trumps Quantity” click here.

How much should a pixel cost? Or better yet, how much should carefully arranged pixels that were once free cost? Well, more and more people are expecting their pixels to be free from the get go, that’s what attracted them to said pixels in the first place. Case in point, a new iPhone app for Twitter called Tweetie 2  was recently announced to be priced at $2.99 a pop.  You would think the twitter universe would be gleeful considering the rave reviews for Tweetie 2. Think again. When actress Alyssa Milano let her fans know her displeasure about the new cost of the once free app, she let the world know by tweeting out a big “Boooo”. This, in turn, created a lot of debate on the subject of giving you something for free, then charging you for it later. Another example of how pixel pricing is creating some buzz comes to us from the world of another social media giant.  A recent Business Week blog post titled, “Facebook users can afford to pay” , suggests that Facebook should cash in by charging users for services rather than trying to generate revenue via advertising. But if Facebook starts charging for stuff that people once got for free, wouldn’t that create an exodus to an alternative social media network, like Twitter, for example? As Twitter becomes more Facebook-like, that might not be such a bad idea. Just think, you would only have to manage one social networking platform at a time and you could let the other one collect dust on your browser. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all.