That may be true, but only if you haven’t leveraged your real estate and can afford the increasing taxes which are likely as state and local governments look to tap any revenue source they can find.

With record foreclosures, plummeting prices and an overhang of supply in the housing market, another real estate crisis also appears to be imminent.

Builders are warning a new financial catastrophe may be looming in the commercial real estate market.

If the story sounds familiar, it’s basically a rehash of the lending excesses which caused problems in the housing market.

Banks, in particular smaller local banks, boosted lending to commercial real estate owners and developers over the past 20 years. The conventional wisdom was business real estate would be a more reliable source of income than individual homeowners.

As is often the case, it turns out the conventional wisdom just meant there were a lot of people making the same faulty assumptions.

With the recession, the owners of shopping malls, hotels, office space and apartment buildings are all seeing falling occupancy rates.

A slowing economy also puts pressure on commercial property owners in other ways:

Massive layoffs have left office buildings with unrented space. The slowdown in consumer spending is hitting owners of malls and retail space where foot traffic has dried up. Hotel owners have been hurt by the slowdown in travel and tourism.

Miami’s ritzy hotel The Shore Club offers one case in point. The hotel was appraised and mortgaged for $176 million as the Florida real estate market got particularly frothy in 2005.

The hotel’s occupancy rate was 54% in the second quarter of 2009, down from 66.5% a year earlier. Revenue per available room was also down 40% to $151.44 from $251.17 during the same period. The hotel recently was declared delinquent on its $111.5 million mortgage.

The good news is the commercial real estate market is much smaller than the residential market. The residential housing market represents a $22 trillion sector of the economy. By contrast, the commercial real estate market is estimated to be around $6.4 trillion.

The bad news: problems in the commercial market could spill over into the residential market as losses on commercial properties could cause banks to curtail overall credit extension and, in many cases, accelerate sales of foreclosed houses in order to help offset more illiquid commercial real estate properties.

There are other problems in the commercial market as well. Commercial loans tend to be much shorter than home mortgages. Many commercial mortgages have terms of only three to seven years and are the mainstay of most smaller bank portfolios.

As MSNBC reports:

For smaller banks with assets under $1 billion the concentration [of commercial real estate loans] is even higher. Some 74 percent of all loans held by smaller banks are secured by commercial real estate. These roughly 6,500 banks represent some 90 percent of all U.S. banks.

As it turns out, Ice-T’s residuals from Law and Order may represent a better deal than any property he holds.

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Just like a real hotel … it’s empty inside.

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: EveryJoe

“I’ll Never Go Broke, I Got Property”

Also jilted by Conde Nast: Modern Bride and Elegant Bride. The company vowed to continue publishing its other bridal magazine entitled simply, Bride, which will henceforth be published monthly instead of the six times per year it had been previously issued.

The closings come three-months after Conde Nast hired management consultants McKinsey & Company to review their operations.

After an exhaustive study of the iconic publisher’s operations, McKinsey & Company collected a large fee for telling Conde Nast they should stop doing things that don’t make any money.

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You’ll have to figure things out for yourself this Thanksgiving…

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: EveryJoe

Conde Nast Tosses Its Cookie

The following ad for the New York Times website appeared on my screen as I was browsing through the Interwebs yesterday.

Like me, I’m sure you’ll appreciate it’s targeted focus on a narrowly defined group of likely NY Times readers. You know, people who give to Harvard, think about taxing soda and kill wolves for fun.

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Hey, that’s me!
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Look for other niche ads which look to sign up to falconers, nuclear physicists and crafters who work with sequins.

This is just one of the many reason why the NY Post is the choice of savvy New York news junkies.

Well … that and the fact NY Post headlines contain way more puns.

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And this year’s Comedy Central award for journalism goes to…

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Post from: EveryJoe

Great Moments In Online Ad History

Their basic response has been to assert less is more, lack of credibility promotes trust and that the commercial is so boring it’s compelling.

Call it the Cartoon Strategy. There hasn’t been this much attempt to create a positive spin since Looney Tunes introduced the Tazmanian Devil character back in the 60s.

McCann Erickson maintains the ad “tested well” with consumers. Unfortunately, “testing well” doesn’t appear to be translating into car sales. It’s like a baseball player with a great-looking swing … who can’t hit.

Ad agency CEO Gary Neel asserts Whitacre “has credibility in the spot precisely because he has such little history with the beleaguered company and the industry.”

Ad week columnist Barbara Lippert disagrees:

“Does he think that viewers will look up and say, ‘Who is he? Oh right, yes, yes, yes. He’s that former AT&T executive who announced he knew nothing about cars. Let’s see what he has to say!’”

It’s a bit early to tell if GM is going to be able to turn it’s operations around but, if their initial advertising foray is any indication, we may want to get another bailout ready just in case.

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GM. Making bike riding look interesting by comparison…

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: EveryJoe

You Say Po-Tay-To, I Say You’re Full Of It

And it has nothing to do with the unique way they user only lower case letters and highlight the typeface in the name of their product.

They’re throwing down the creative gauntlet (or maybe just giving their flavor-inventors some time off) as they let you, the consumer, design the next big thing in vitaminwater land.

Utilizing a “flavor creator lab” on Facebook and a white-coated female avatar who speaks with a Bogart-style lisp, the folks at vitaminwater have pretty much reinvented their entire web presence around the program which gives water lovers the chance to combine flavors and nutritional functions to develop the next flavor of vitaminwater.

I call bacon-flavored with Cialis.

Did I mention that, in addition to bragging rights every time you go into a supermarket, there’s also the chance to win $5,000 for designing the winning entry?

The winning entry will be picked from a field of ten finalists by former American Idol winner Carrie Underwood and rapper 50 Cent.

Which is another way of saying anyone can win.

The format of the contest, as relayed by the folks at vitaminwater, is as follows:

in step one, vitaminwater fans can help choose america’s most wanted flavor by logging onto vitaminwater’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/vitaminwater starting september 8 and voting for their favorite flavor or flavor combination. vitaminwater has created a flavor buzz meter that scours flavor conversations on top blogs and web sites and then ranks flavors based on information gathered from current chatter.

in step two, participants will play a series of games and answer quiz questions to help vitaminwater assess what functional benefit america really needs. from this data, vitaminwater scientists will derive a special formula of vitamins and nutrients that meets the needs of the dehydrated masses.

for the final step, which is sure to be a crowd-pleaser with the creative types, consumers can participate in a contest where they get the chance to name the new variety, design the label and write copy for the bottle. whether it is a life story about summer camp or a steamy tale about a love triangle involving a kiwi, a strawberry and a banana, entrants will help develop the new variety’s name, personality and look.

in step four, you actually get to use capital letters when signing your autograph for all the water groupies you’re sure to attract with your new found wealth and fame.

The folks at vitaminwater and their creative team have designed an engaging contest which will culminate in a new flavor coming to market in March 2010.

Until then, you can have fun, unleash your creativity, and be healthy all at the same time.

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“I came to Facebook for the waters….”

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: EveryJoe

fun with a capital ‘F’ from vitaminwater

The ads will be featured in an upcoming edition of Entertainment Weekly. CBS will be pushing some of its new shows and Pepsi will be marketing a diet cola for men in a joint venture estimated to cost more than a million dollars for for an ad in 100,000 copies of the 1.8 million circulation Hollywood gossip magazine.

Perhaps the only thing more disturbing than marketing a diet cola for men is the idea a couple copies of Entertainment Weekly will find their way into the waiting room of a psychiatrist’s office where patients will see pictures in a magazine moving — thus, setting back their therapy at least a decade.

The ad exec who sold this to CBS and Pepsi deserves a major promotion and a new car for this sale. The video ads are about the size of an iPhone display and cost “several dollars” per copy of the magazine. In contrast, a full page print ad comes in at around nine cents an issue.

To put this in perspective, CBS and Pepsi — in an effort to create a “buzz” — decided to market their products with some spiffy new technology when they could have bought a full page ad every month for the next 8-10 years for the same cost of one video ad in a single issue.

And, by the way, the video ad is about one-tenth the size of what the print ad is.

Wouldn’t you think if the debuting CBS shows or the new manly diet cola were any good, it would be possible to market them in a less expensive and less gimmicky fashion?

For that kind of money you could probably get a cardboard pop-up scene like they have in kids’ books on every page.

Personally, I’d be more likely to buy a diet man-cola if pictures of Brittney Spear’s “new” body were interspersed with a 3-D version of Bob the Builder holding a can of soda than if my magazine was patterned after the Daily Prophet in Harry Potter.

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“I’m just saying, Bob — drinking diet soda’s a good first step, but it wouldn’t hurt you to go to the gym a couple times a week, too…”

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: EveryJoe

Video Pop-Up Ads Coming To Your Magazine

Image: istockphoto

The survey takes just a few moments (it’s 20 questions). Kingfish Media will be compiling the data into an ebook to shed some light on the current and ever-changing marketing trends. The goal is to show marketers how they can use the hot trends to better craft their new business pitches.

The Kingfish Media survey asks questions about the most effective marketing methods. As more and more businesses are establishing an online presence, banner ads, social media, webcasts, corporate websites and other forms of online media are become a larger focus for companies.

If you’d like to take part in the 2009 Survey of Marketing, Media and Movement, you can answer the questions in just a few minutes.

How have your marketing methods changed in the past couple years? Leave your comment here and share some of your experiences.

Post from: EveryJoe

Survey of Marketing, Media and Measurement

Despite NBA commissioner David Stern’s hectoring that everyone should watch women’s basketball and failure to do so makes you a sexist jerk, the league keeps limping along with the NBA continuing to throw major marketing dollars at a 13-year “project.”

The WNBA certainly gets points for creativity.  The Phoenix Mercury recently signed an advertising deal with LifeLock to give LifeLock’s corporate logo the most prominent billing on the Mercury’s uniforms.

LifeLock is a software company that offers identity theft protection.  Some cynics might suggest the best way to remain anonymous and protect your identity would be to join the WNBA.

The WBNA is quick to trumpet it’s three percent increase in attendance over last season as evidence that the sport is “catching on.”  That three percent increase has rocketed attendance all the way up to an average of 7,949 fans per game and represents an increase of less than two fans per game. Teams could leave the doors to their arenas open and they’d attract two extra fans just with the smell of hot dogs and popcorn.

Commissioner Stern, taking a page out of the Comical Ali PR handbook, insists the WNBA is in great shape and poised for another successful season — whatever that means.

A couple of recent items might give you the idea that the league isn’t quite as thriving as NBA and WNBA officials would have you believe.

A recent game between the marquee Chicago and New York WNBA teams (50 Behind the Buzz bonus points if you know either of the franchise names of those two teams) was scheduled for 11:30 a.m. on a Wednesday morning.  There are making-money-on-the-Internet infomercials that have a better time slot than that.

The folks over at Rumors & Rants relay the story about a curious publicity incident surrounding discussions about bringing a WNBA expansion team to Tulsa, Oklahoma.  As R&R details the situation:

On Wednesday, the league president was in town to meet with some business leaders who are interested in putting a team in Tulsa. There was even a press conference to talk about the whole thing.

And this is where things get truly hilarious.

Outside of the arena was a guy who was apparently a big WNBA fan, and even came with a sign supporting a team for Tulsa. But according to Our Guy in Tulsa, Thporth, there’s a reason you won’t find a picture of said fellow in the newspaper.

When asked if he had been paid to stand outside of the arena, the WNBA “fan” replied: “I’m not at liberty to say.”

It’s one thing to strike a corporate deal for advertising space on a team’s jersey; it’s quite different (and more than a little sleazy) to pay someone to pose as a legitimate WNBA fan.

You might even call it a foul shot.

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“Hey! Where’d we get the money to pay all these fans?”

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For a comprehensive list of highlights from the WNBA’s 11th season, check out Onion Sports.

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: EveryJoe

Foul Called On WNBA

Ren Chin, marketing vice president for Yieldbuild, says that publishers should consider three major factors in their overall strategy for bringing in advertising revenue – ad network selection, ad layout and reporting.

CNET/ZDNet recently featured Chin on their Whiteboard video series in a segment was entitled “Online Ad Strategies.” Check out the video for tips and details.

Post from: EveryJoe

Online Ad Strategies

Users can see how their products and services are being discussed on news websites, blogs, Twitter and other media. There are three main components – Listen, Learn and Analyze.

The Listen section allows you to search for specified keywords. The Learn tab features a list of websites, blogs or social media that have featured content related to your campaigns. The Analyze section offers graphs, charts and other metrics to show the popularity of your search terms, etc.

The interface is user friendly and it encompasses a lot of different aspects. If you are interested, you should check it out now while it’s in public beta.

From BuzzGain:

It is an ideal DIY solution for marketing, PR, Advertising, Competitive analysis, Knowledge, Research, Sales, Product Development, and Customer service.

BuzzGain provides a socially networked suite that connects companies to the conversations that will help foster valuable relationships, increase customer acquisition and loyalty, and garner invaluable market intelligence.

BuzzGain is currently free for its public beta period. Later on it with change over to a monthly subscription rate starting at $99 per month.

BuzzGain Listen

BuzzGain Learn

BuzzGain Analyze

Photo credit: BuzzGain

Post from: EveryJoe

BuzzGain Launches in Public Beta