Archive for June, 2006
The Cannes International Advertising Festival ended on June 24, 2006, and the winners in every category have been announced.
Apparently, BBDO Worldwide came out on top winning 41 Lions awards, including the grand prize for film (Film Grand Prix) for their “Evolution” commercial created by AMV BBDO, London for Guinness Beer.
It’s a well known advertisement, not in our part of the world, for obvious reasons 
Watch it here.
BBDO won awards in every major competition category including film, press, outdoor, radio, cyber, direct, media and promotion.
In all, 20 different BBDO agencies were awarded, led by AMV BBDO, which was named the runner-up “Advertising Agency of the Year.”
This is the Cannes Winners site with details on every winner in every category.
June 26th, 2006
Bloggers in the Arab World only talk about Flickr, as the main photo sharing site they use.
But, that’s not the case worldwide.
A study published by Hitwise shows that Flickr is actually the number six photo sharing site, with a market share of only 5.95%.
Less hyped sites like Yahoo! Photos, Webshots Community, and Kodak Gallery all rank higher than Flickr.
But here’s the surprise. The number one site with over 43% of the world’s photo-sharing traffic is PhotoBucket.com.
I must admit, up until reading this report, I had never heard of it!
In the past few months, a couple of GCC country’s governments blocked Flickr. Obviously, they hadn’t heard of PhotoBucket either.
So, maybe, we should be using it 
Visit PhotoBucket.
June 26th, 2006
They don’t take a break at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.
It seems we blog about two new Google services every week!
So, here’s some information on the latest. It’s called Google Video.
Google has started testing advertisements on its video site, providing free video downloads (at the moment including old TV shows) which are supported by advertising and sponsorship.
The advertising takes the form of a banner that appears above the video, with a graphic image and a link to the advertisers’ site. At the end of the video, a 15- to 30-second commercial for the advertiser is played.
Google says it plans to run auctions whereby advertisers must place a bid to have their ads displayed on each video. The advertising revenue will be split with the video owner.
Read more here at the New York Times and visit Google Video
Netflix is among the first to advertise on Google Video, take a look here.
June 26th, 2006
The Middle East Public Relations Association (MEPRA) has published its first “PR Agency Fees and Charges Guide”
The idea is to encourage transparent dealings between public relations agencies and their clients in the region.
The rates are detailed, providing different hourly rates to different services, and highlighting exceptional cases whereby higher rates apply (such as crisis managment).
This development comes amidst a situation in which new PR companies are popping up in increasing numbers and providing limited services at low charges, thereby harming everyone else.
So, it’s a ‘regulatory’ step by the industry’s recognized body.
The question is, what happens if some public relations agencies don’t stick to it?
Here’s the announcement at MEPRA’s website, where you can also download a PDF of the rates.
June 25th, 2006
This massive screen, floating on the river Main in Frankfurt, is how the people of that city watch the World Cup.
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands watch every Germany match on both sides of the river.
The sides of the screen carry World Cup sponsor logos, and you can imagine what TV commercials look and sound like on such a gigantic screen blasting sound to all these people.
Sporting events provide this interesting opportunity of unique reach using outdoor screens.
There are 236 giant television screens around Germany, known as Public Viewing sites, to allow non-ticketholders to see World Cup 2006 matches.
June 25th, 2006
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