Our weekly update on four prior stories, the only marketing blog to do so.
But first, our annual Super Bowl prediction(s):
- Not having seen a single other ad yet, we predict that Americans will call Doritos’s bluff and rank "Slingshot Baby" #1 in USA Today’s “Super Bowl Ad Meter” ratings.
- Oh yeah, the game. Giants 29, Pats 23.
Netflix DVD = D’ose Vanishing Disks
Tol’ ya so. During its approximately seven-nanosecond life, we said the new Qwikster division of Netflix was simply a way to get the DVD-only business ready for a sale. CEO Reed “Gonzo” Hastings of course blew that opportunity, but confirmed our assertion in Netflix’s most recent earnings review.
“We’re not planning any specific retention efforts, and we don’t plan to market the DVD service anymore,” Hastings said. “The plan is not to disturb it—to maintain it and keep it running very well.” Dying Vine Disks?
Dead Media
Tol’ ya so. Demand Media’s stock price continues to churn below $7, roughly 75% under its IPO high. Confirming our assertion that this is dead money, three EVPs resigned last week.
Ka-ching while you can. Four weeks post-Facebook IPO, DMD will roll over for good.
Pay the Man
The only blog that stuck its neck out in defense of the future of paid online content, we’d like to update you on two important stats, the success of each being something we predicted back in the day:
1. Hulu’s subscription service, Hulu Plus, has already reached 1.5 million paying customers.
2. Data from comScore reveals that in February, 2011, before putting up its paywall, The New York Times website had 44 million unique visitors. This past December, its visitor count was 44.8 million. Guess all those people who said at the time “F.U., I’ll get my news elsewhere” found out they couldn’t.
And That’s DESPITE Stuart Elliott
Living up to every part of the takedown we gave him, The New York Times advertising “expert” Stuart Elliott continues to hammer out intellectual and provocative fare on topics such as the new blue M&M character and a user-generated contest for Uncle Ben’s rice.
One of the many pieces of his cut-and-paste approach to “journalism” that we mocked was this one:
“Your opening must hark back to a reference no one under the age of 35 will get.”
True to form, check out this beauty from last week’s scintillating expose about a new salsa sauce:
“ ‘Some like it hot,’ Tony Curtis told Marilyn Monroe in the 1959 movie of the same name, referring to music. Since then, Americans have grown to like something else — food — even hotter, as evidenced by the popularization of spicy fare like Buffalo chicken wings, made with cayenne pepper hot sauce."
Nice one, Stuart. 1959. Not even in this century. 1959. A time when approximately 60% of Times readers weren’t even born yet.
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. – what are you waiting for?
