Kit Kat App Reduces Social Media Stress With Automated Status Updates - PSFK

Users of the KitKat app can link their account details for Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and choose how often they wish for the software to automatically send updates.

Random messages are also generated to reply to comments or tagged posts.

Another step toward the all-bot future of social media. I’m looking forward to it. Just waiting for a sponsored bot to run this Tumblr for me.

A Commercial, Sandwiched Between Lines of Dialogue on 'Hawaii Five-0' - NYTimes.com

For nearly a minute, the unfortunate actors (Alex O’Loughlin, Grace Park and the former sumo wrestler Taylor Wily) stepped completely out of the story in order to plug Subway sandwiches, as the food-truck vendor Kamekona (Mr. Wily) is found eating five subs as part of his new diet. “Trying to eat smarter, brother,” he says. “These Subways sandwiches? So ono” (Hawaiian slang for “delicious,” though it’s also the name of a fish popular in island restaurants and presumably more healthy than a Subway sandwich). The spot — it’s a 50-second commercial, pure and simple — also works in references to the Subway pitchman Jared and several specific menu items.

Songs With a Brand Name

productdisplacement:

Shameless self-promotion… Please follow Songs With A Brand Name … where we explore examples of brand dropping in music.    

Naming our kids like products and our products like kids | MetaFilter

Laura Wattenberg of The Baby Name Wizard has announced 2011’s Name of the Year. And the winner is… Siri.

Whereas in the past, names were typically chosen with an eye toward personal significance (a baby was named after a grandparent, say), today’s parents increasingly focus on the public image projected by the name. Now, as companies introduce technologies that function like people—Siri being the most extreme example to date—they suddenly find themselves with the same kinds of naming challenges as today’s parents-to-be. They have to consider the complex web of cultural meanings that each name carries. They have to ask, as parents do, “What kind of person are we creating, and what name represents that?” It’s no coincidence, then, that brand names and baby names have begun to converge, as in the case of the Sienna minivan and baby Siennas. Both corporate parents and real parents are trying to launch their offspring with the best possible positioning.

The Future of Intelligent Ads: Reading Your Weight : Discovery News

If the camera senses an overweight population, the location might be ideal for advertising healthful foods or exercise-related products.

Skipping The Ads On TV? Get Ready For The Shows That Are The Ads

Not really news, but: noted by NPR.

Advertisers Create Content to Lure Elusive Customers - WSJ.com

For Kmart, a unit of Sears Holdings Corp., “First Day,” began as a four-page pitch in 2009 from “Gossip Girl” executive producer Alloy Entertainment. For the current season, the show’s second, Alloy pitched a story about a girl who wants to go to the prom with her crush.

The retailer liked the idea, but wanted to use it to hawk its line of back-to-school clothes. So it suggested changing the focus to a fall dance, rather than a prom.

In rounds of back-and-forth story development, Kmart also asked Alloy to shape each of the four main characters to reflect several clothing brands that Kmart wanted to push.

The protagonist, for instance, was written to embody the Dream Out Loud by Selena Gomez brand.

Kmart also pushed Alloy to change the protagonist’s original name, Bree, to which it thought its customers wouldn’t relate. They settled on the name Rosie instead.

At Colleges, the Marketers Are Everywhere

This fall, an estimated 10,000 American college students will be working on hundreds of campuses — for cash, swag, job experience or all three — marketing everything from Red Bull to Hewlett-Packard PCs. 

Corporations have been pitching college students for decades on products from cars to credit cards. But what is happening on campuses today is without rival, in terms of commercializing everyday college life.

ever wondered what the ad networks know about you? | MetaFilter

Collusion is a firefox add-on that visualizes in real-time which data collection companies track you across different websites on the web and what they’re learning about you. Atul Varma describes how this project came about. Safari meanwhile has ghostery, an extension that gives you a roll-call of the ad networks, behavioral data providers, web publishers, and other companies interested in your activity.