The growing legion of foursquare users can now start following and friending celebrities via the location-based mobile service through a new pact with Viacom networks MTV and VH1.

Foursquare, which enables members to earn points by visiting businesses — and automatically alerts their friend circles of their whereabouts — is using the partnership to kick-start its new Celebrity Mode tool.

Users can begin following MTV stars such a Jersey Shore’s Pauly D., who will start letting fans know where he has traveled and share tips on his favorite locales. Other stars from MTV shows The Hills, The City and the upcoming Real World: New Orleans are scheduled to begin using foursquare, said officials, as will talent from the VH1 vehicles The T.O. Show, Fantasia for Real and What Chilli Wants. Continue reading →

It didn’t take Ron Cooper long to figure out Clear Channel Outdoor’s (CCO) strategy as it emerges from one of the toughest ad years ever. After spending three months visiting nearly 20 local offices, the new CEO (who replaced Paul Meyer in January) for CCO Americas is ready to ramp up the company’s digital assets, a key contributor to the parent company’s growth.

Clear Channel Outdoor this year plans to add at least 120 new digital billboards to its portfolio of 472 digital boards in 33 of its largest markets. In a first for the out-of-home industry, CCO also plans to introduce later this year full-motion digital screens in bus shelters beginning in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

CCO’s digital expansion is already under way in San Francisco, where it is erecting a high-profile digital board at the base of the Oakland side of the Bay Bridge. In Dallas, it’s adding two boards to the 11 currently in operation. Digital video screens are also being added to CCO’s inventory in airports, such as Denver and Chicago O’Hare.

Digital signs were a proven winner last year, especially in a depressed market. In 2009, spending on digital billboards grew 15 percent to $551 million, per PQ Media. The firm predicts this year spending on digital billboards, about a fourth of all digital OOH expenditures, will grow 19 percent to $657 million.

While other out-of-home companies froze digital rollouts, the additions made by CCO kept revenue for CCO Americas from dropping more than 13 percent to $1.2 billion (parent CCO saw its revenue drop 18 percent to $2.7 billion). Digital “led our company in revenue growth,” said Cooper. “The signs cost several hundred thousand each, but the high capital costs are supported by the revenue that the signs generate. It’s a different medium [from traditional static boards] with a different set of economics.” According to estimates, digital boards in high-profile locations are able to command rates up to three times higher than static boards.

Marketers such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Fox Television increased their OOH presence during the recession. New advertisers such as Clearwire and Fifth Third Bank have also started using it.

Advertisers are even becoming more sophisticated in how they use the boards, blending content and marketing messages. For example, a Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla.-area hospital posts the average waiting time in the emergency room. CCO is even trying to turn some outlets into news sources, having launched the Total Out of Home Network in Chicago, featuring real-time traffic from CC Radio (and sponsored by the Illinois Lottery). Continue reading →

Machinima’s already won over the Halo geeks. Now it’s going after the millions of Madden maniacs.

Today, the 10-year-old gamer media company, which has quietly amassed a large and loyal audience on YouTube, will roll out its third channel on the site, Machinima Sports. Premiering on the channel is the series Replay, which will consist of user-submitted sports game highlights, and Playmakers, which will re-create classic sports moments via games.

According to CEO Allen DeBevoise, Machinima already produces 24 original series and pumps out 600 animated clips per week. On YouTube alone, those shows reach over 23 million unique users monthly and have generated more than 1 billion streams.

Machinima tested the strategy of syndicating its content all over the Internet but decided to cultivate its YouTube fans. “It’s a question of focus,” DeBevoise said. “We found that you don’t need a channel everywhere. YouTube is the biggest bang for our buck.”

Kenji Arai, strategic partner manager at YouTube, credited Machinima with using several of his company’s free tools, like YouTube Insight, to respond to its audience’s viewing patterns — as well as to program more effectively. “Machinima really gets how to use YouTube,” he said. “They don’t just post a channel and let it sit there. The whole company thinks about its YouTube strategy.” Continue reading →

Weaving through the throngs of St. Patrick’s Day revelers at the Hoboken, N.J., parade earlier this month was the usual turnout that you’d expect for an event like this — local girls wearing green-beaded necklaces and green-tinted sunglasses, frat boys in green-felt top hats and tape-on leprechaun beards, and sturdy men stomping the asphalt in kilts. There was a lot of singing, of course, and a lot of beer. It was, in other words, a standard holiday turnout.

via Marketing 0.0: Promos on the Cheap.

While some people blithely put all sorts of personal information online, a seven-country Financial Times/Harris Poll finds plenty of others worried about what might happen to their data.

One question in the survey (conducted online last month) asked people to say how concerned they are “about the amount and security of personal online data that can be accessed by search engines you use.” In the U.S., 24 percent said they’re “very concerned” about this. The “very concerned” tally was higher in China (26 percent), but a bit lower in Spain (24 percent) and France (23 percent). It was lower still in Britain and Germany (17 percent each), and lowest of all in Italy (11 percent). Adding in the “somewhat concerned” votes, Germany and Italy were the only countries in which a majority of respondents didn’t voice at least that much worry about this matter. Continue reading →