Attention: DM News will launch a blog in two weeks in conjunction with DMA•05 in Atlanta. If you want to be part of the “in” crowd and see what all the fuss is about over blogs (those Web logs that are sprouting every second), check out www.DMNews.com starting Oct. 16. Best of all, you can join in because feedback is part of the blogging experience.
During the conference, our blog will feature things you don’t see in our usual show coverage – or anyone else’s, for that matter. Yes, our daily newsletter still will include the big news, keynotes, sessions, announcements, buzz on the exhibit floor and more. But our blog will present another perspective, one that’s more personal and takes you behind the scenes. You’ll find out what’s really happening: the issues that are on people’s minds, overheard comments and gossip as well as what the parties are like in words – and pictures.
Helping us with the blog will be our friends at the Wunderman agency who will give their point of view on aspects of the show, events, food and parties. Yes, it’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.
Now, if our blog had been operating last week, we would have had lots of fodder for content: Coverage of OMMA East, the MIXX conference and Advertising Week. What I’d point out with Advertising Week was the time direct marketing got in the spotlight: one measly session – and it had to share the stage with branding. However, that’s better than last year, when DM wasn’t even mentioned.
Or I could have blogged about a story in last week’s New York Times mentioning J.C. Penney’s image mishap over a back-to-school circular selling T-shirts emblazoned with beer logos to teen boys. Oops. It sounds like Penney’s took over Abercrombie & Fitch’s role in being the poster child of impropriety, but the company quickly apologized, something A&F rarely did when it published its controversial magalog.
Or I could have blogged about The Wall Street Journal story saying the national no-call registry is under fire two years after taking effect. A recent survey found that 51 percent of registered consumers said they still get calls they think the list is supposed to block. Umm, maybe that’s because the consumer press never explained the exemptions properly in its eagerness to hang the telemarketing industry.
Yes, we could have blogged about those things but we didn’t because we don’t have a blog … yet. Come to DMNews.com in two weeks and see what all the buzz is about.
Tad Clarke is editor in chief of DM News. His editorial appears Mondays on www.dmnews.com and in our e-mail newsletter. You can subscribe to our e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
