New York City – January 19, 2010 – TheFWA.com (Favorite Website Awards) selected WeChooseTheMoon.org as the winner of their prestigious 2009 Site of the Year award. The website, designed and developed by Domani Studios for The Martin Agency and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum, was selected from over 39,999 submissions, 364 Site of the Day winners, and 11 other Site of the Month finalists to take home the industry’s top honor.

FWA’s panel of over 80 international judges – executives from premier design studios across the world – voiced their enthusiasm for the project. Continue reading →

Once upon a time Myspace was the king of social networking and everyone in the land worshipped it for its profile customizability and infamous Top 8 function.

Facebook has long since usurped the throne when it comes to growth and overall number of users, but rather than be bitter it appears Myspace is adopting a familiar adage: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

The End of an Era: Myspace Implements Facebook Connect.

Social media moves so fast, it’s hard to keep up. Here are the week’s top stories in scan-friendly format:

• ICQ Launches New Client With Real time Features
• Study: Social Networks Not Keeping Students Up At Night
• Majority Of Internet Users Use Social Media
• Internet Explorer Declared Unsafe By Germany, France

Social Media Minute: Social Media Popularity Rises, IE Declared Unsafe.

Despite having achieved mainstream status a few years ago, the total audience for online video continues to balloon. And YouTube’s dominance in the category seems boundless, as the site delivered more than 10 times as many video streams as any other site in the U.S. last month.

According to the latest report issued by Nielsen Online, 137.4 million Americans watched Web video in December, a healthy increase of 10.3 percent vs. the same month in 2008. Those viewers streamed over 10.7 billion videos during the month, representing an increase of 11.8 percent vs. the same time period a year earlier.

Audience for Online Video Keeps Climbing.

Sandwich chain routinely spends $80-90 mil. in measured media

Quiznos has named independent WongDoody in Seattle as its lead agency.

According to the client, the shop “will build on Quiznos’ creative brand history while also serving to implement the new look, feel and overall brand refresh of The New Quiznos.”

The sandwich chain routinely spends $80-90 million annually in major measured media, per Nielsen. A Quiznos’ rep said WongDoody was tapped following a review. Media buying was not part of the process and that assignment remains at Pohmedia.

Quiznos Taps WongDoody.

Enough of the Apple ‘iPad’ hype already. Is it an iPod that doesn’t fit in your pocket? An “ebook” reader with even less battery life than an iPhone? Or just a netbook that lacks a keyboard? If Steve Jobs really wants to help his stockholders, there’s something much simpler he could unveil later this month instead. A dividend.

See Brett Arends

This is by no means a mature market consisting solely of immature consumers
An industry needn’t be new in order to enjoy a surge in popularity. The market for videogames is a case in point. A recent report from Deloitte documents a robust increase last year in the number of people engaged in gaming, led by a deepening of the sector’s earlier inroads among consumers who are well into adulthood. This is by no means a mature market consisting solely of immature consumers.

via Videogaming Weathers the Storm.

Marketers get serious about social gaming

Visitors to the sprawling Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week encountered innumerable come-ons from electronics and tech companies. One of the more unusual came from Intel, which at 15 locations throughout the show invited attendees to “check in” using mobile social network Foursquare and earn one of four virtual Intel CES badges, which would enter them into a contest for an Intel-powered netbook.

Game on for Brands.

Olson had most recently handled the assignment
Lee Jeans has shifted its e-commerce business — which consists mainly of efforts on its Lee.com venue — back to independent Kansas City, Mo.-based shop Barkley. There was no review.

Barkley has a nearly 15-year relationship with the iconic brand, handling cause-marketing and public relations chores for Lee, a unit of lifestyle apparel giant VF Corp. Continue reading →

(E Parpis) The Martin Agency has launched its first work for Expedia.com, a campaign that positions the travel site with the tagline, “Where you book matters.”

The push includes television, print, outdoor and online advertising that began last week. A commercial presents the consumer experience of booking with Expedia through the visual metaphor of hands manipulating building blocks. A female voiceover explains: “These are the building blocks of a perfect girls’ weekend.” The ad ends with the message that the site offers “more choices” and “more savings.” (Watch the spot.)

Martin ‘Books’ New Approach for Expedia.

(B. Palmer) The moment technology goes mainstream is the moment you no longer notice it. In some ways, it’s the opposite of what happens in pop culture: when someone is famous, you notice them everywhere, but when technology becomes established, it’s so “everywhere” it sort of becomes invisible. Think about how you used to sit down and log on to the Internet: You made sure you had a free phone line, would dial in, then hear the beep beep beep as it connected. Now you only notice “the Internet” as a construct when something is messed up and you can’t connect. It’s so mainstream it has basically disappeared — it’s a basic utility that we take for granted. Continue reading →

He joins the Omnicom shop from BBH N.Y.

(Brian Morrissey) Tribal DDB has named Robert Rasmussen as its U.S. chief creative officer and executive creative director in New York.

Rasmussen, who joined Bartle Bogle Hegarty, New York, in November 2008 as ecd of innovation, replaces Steve Nesle, who has left Tribal after serving as its N.Y. ecd. The U.S. chief creative officer is a new position.

Rasmussen, an art director by training, joined BBH after 18 months as ecd at R/GA, where he worked on the Nike account. Continue reading →