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OpenAd.Net

What's better than wandering the aisles of Meijer when you're hopelessly awake past 3AM on a Monday?

OpenAd.net

All those wacky / expensive / off brand / scary ideas the AE wouldn't even let you get in front of the client??  ... yeah, whip 'em out. OpenAd is a virtual bazaar of spec creative work.

Read the RFPs. Submit your best idea.Winner takes the purse. And, the credit.

Sign up as a freelancer or make your entire creative department flex their noggins.

Read about it in Fast Company
Or, go sign up.

Rollover takeover

Here's an interesting video ad technique I hadn't noticed before - rolling over the ad causes the video panel to expand and take over the page content without leaving the original page. Nice balance.

Two examples from Eyewonder:
Invasion
Titliest

RSS: Yes, now

For most agencies and clients, email marketing still has a strong hold on interactive communications. In many cases RSS (which some of us rely on daily ... um, hourly) hasn't even really hit the radar.

With email marketing maturing and declining quickly, many savvy marketers are looking to RSS as the next logical opt in communication - and, as a huge proponent, I want to help get the word out.

Here's a great new article on the subject, chock full of plenty of plain-spoken rationale to start to move clients toward adoption. And, below is a super quick primer on just what we're talking about -

Email Morphs Into A Feed: The Progression from Email to RSS Content Distribution & Marketing

RSS [Real Simple Syndication] lets users (also known as people) choose what content they want and where they want to get it. They can look at information when they have the time or desire to do so, rather than planning to get back to yet another message in their crowded inbox.

The most ubiquitous users of RSS are bloggers. But, RSS – or the ability to subscribe to content – can been enabled on most any database-driven Web property.

There are generally three ways to read RSS-enabled content

• Visit the web page
• Use an online new aggregator [Users simply create an account, and then start subscribing to feeds. They can come back to that single portal page at any time and see all the latest updates on the sites they subscribe to]
• Download a reader. [Users also have the option to download a news aggregator, an RSS reader, that delivers the content right to their desktop or inbox. Newsgator, for example, is a popular RSS, which runs in Microsoft Outlook.]

And, with the correct administration, RSS can also be set up to power email – enabling users to subscribe to email updates daily, weekly or monthly.               

Many cell phone companies, free email providers and others are also starting to integrate RSS readers in their products.

If you haven't already, click through and read the article.

Do it yourself advertising

For the client who believes in less, Nick Grouf and David Waxman, founders of PeoplePC and Firefly, have just introduced Spotrunner - a virtual vanity press for low rent TV spots.

Do-it-themselves advertisers pick from 1,000 generic modules of pre-existing, professionally shot spots that cost as little as $350 to lease. They add their own title cards and/or voiceovers and taglines.

It’s not just account execs and creatives out on the street, though. Spotrunner lets users take over the media department, too, with a detailed media schedule featuring  à la carte prices that’s as user-friendly as ordering an item from an Internet retailer. Bravo in Berkeley, Calif. between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. will cost you a whopping $5. Want to advertise pizza delivery on ESPN when the local team is playing? That will run you $88—the profit on, say, 30 large pies?