Ok, gang, let’s reiterate this branding nightmare of mixed messages one more time...Monster movie promos+junk food tie-ins=chubby cherubs. Nothing wrong with Shrek promoting apples and milk (though that combo is sour under ANY circumstances, eww!) BUT: if McDonalds is going to be a poseur for guiding kids toward healthy choices, they need to eliminate the beastie from … [Read more...]
There are plenty of spins on the Spider-Man 3 record-breaking $382 million worldwide “priciest movie ever made" buzz...so I’m going to take a deconstructionist view about summer box office biggies, and look at the impact of media hype-fests on kids. Not pickin’ on Spidey, here; haven’t even seen the flick yet, I’m talking about a global web … [Read more...]
The mousehouse has some holes in its cheese, and this one really stinks. Disney's new preteen social networking portal is geared to fill a void for chatty tweens, as TechCrunch reports here. I'm not alone in finding it unfathomable that Disney didn’t do their due diligence on naming it Disney Xtreme Digital, and branding it Disney DXD. Aside from … [Read more...]
Call it a marketing hook, tween baiting, or young teen branding brilliance, Zwinktopia, the online virtual world that just launched Monday has leveraged their growth substantially by familiarizing kids with their avatar site Zwinky, first. Kids have been creating customizable Zwinky identities to plop on their blogs, profiles, IM and chat sites representing themselves for … [Read more...]
The Age of Conversation is not only upon us, it’s within us, and it's coursing through my veins. Some of us are so passionate about this dialogue and excited about finding ‘intelligent life’ in the blogosphere that we simply can’t hush! When marketing gurus Drew McClellan and Gavin Heaton announced they were spearheading a collaborative eBook uniting … [Read more...]
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