Because if it’s online it’s sexy, advertising agencies are focusing more analytics on what works when and how on the Web:

Major advertising holding companies like WPP, the Publicis Groupe, Havas, MDC Partners and the Interpublic Group are starting data practices, hoping to latch onto what is expected to be the fastest-growing category of online advertising in the next five years.

Where the data guys were once an afterthought in a marketing presentation, now they are at the core of the online strategy. What’s more, they can help advertisers save money in traditional media by testing different phrases or images online to see what works before producing an expensive television commercial or magazine ad. Who attracts more clicks in a grape juice ad, for example — the blond girl or the brown-haired boy?

The shift to data-based campaigns is forcing marketers to learn new skills and drawing a new breed of worker to Madison Avenue. While most data executives now in the field came from media backgrounds, they are recruiting Wall Street math geniuses because the job requires hourly adjustments in strategy based on numbers.

Something of a disclosure: A couple of months back I was in talks to join Performics, which had just then been purchased by Publicis Groupe, and thus now represents that agency giant’s spearheading into the new media analysis/optimization sphere. I’m actually disappointed that it didn’t come off, because it strikes me as a challenging way to translate traceable data into actionable results. (Maybe the new kid on the block, the fast-hiring Varick Media Management, will give me a shot…)

That said… The data-mining of Web logs is ultimately an attempt to combat the oft-quoted “wasted half” of ad spending:

“I know that half of my advertising budget is wasted, but I’m not sure which half.”

And yet, analysis that relies upon the clicking behavior of the online audience is, in itself, limiting. Like I said before:

Clickthru offers the illusion of advertising-and-transaction tracking, but really it doesn’t — it just spits back a metric on the initial gateway action toward a strictly potential online purchase. Factor in accidental clicks and just plain tire-kickers, and the notion that clickthrus represent real advertising effectiveness becomes awfully shaky.

Truthfully, clickthrus represent merely the fervent desire by advertisers, marketers and syndicates to see some solid linkage between Web exposure and sales. There undoubtedly is — I’m sure a percentage of those clicks brings in immediate revenue. But it’s never going to be the majority. Online tracking is going to have to get a lot more robust before this dream is realized.

On top of that, the obsession with clickthrus as the defining metric disregards the more old-fashioned effectiveness of advertising: Exposure. Getting a logo, slogan and other messaging in front of eyeballs is just as vital as active user response. Probably more, actually: It implants brand retention that can carry over during visits to the grocery store and other points of purchase. The idea that an ad “fails” because it doesn’t prompt immediate purchase ignores this tried and true ad behavior. The lack of precise trackability is the only thing that detracts, and that’s more a deficiency of the Web as a media channel than anything else.

A simple example: No one buys beverages online, so from a data-parsing perspective, response rates for beer and energy drink ads from Budweiser and Gatorade on ESPN.com and various fantasy sports sites should be low and therefore ineffective. But simple exposure to the known audiences that spend big chunks of their media-viewing time on those sites is known to translate into mindshare, which translates into offline purchases at the grocery store. No clicks required.

And actually, that simple example does have potential data-practice application: Comparing the geographic spread of a site’s Web logs with its adspace impressions, and then both of those with the physical in-store sales figures, should give a pretty clear picture of the offline impact of online ad presentations. Further drill-downs can focus on particular timeperiods and promotions. Eventually, I guess it does all come back to the data-crunching…

How much is that candy in the window? Probably dollar-for-dollar equal with the massive dental bill you’d accrue from putting so much sugary-sweetness into your mouth.

This is the storefront scene at Economy Candy, a 72-year-old small-shop institution in SoHo. I couldn’t resist cameraphoning this window-ful of color while walking along Rivington this weekend (actually on my way to another purveyor of super-sweetened foodstuffs, Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery). Bigger and better photographic record on Flickr.

Nothing like displaying your wares to attract business. Handy local for an impulse purchase of a halvah, too.

There was a moment during the final episode of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” that’s really bugged me, and confirms what a douchebag Leno really is:

In the final minutes, as he was doing the customary thank-yous to everyone involved in his 17-year run on the show, Leno mentioned all the camera operators, production workers, and other behind-the-scene workers. He then put special emphasis on how all those folks are union employees, and that “Tonight” was a union-produced show, and that he was “very proud of that”.

Strange hearing that, considering that Leno prominently disregarded the picket lines during 2008’s Writers Guild of America television and film industry strike by performing scripted material on his show. As a WGA member, he was expressly forbidden from doing that, and the fact that the other late-night talkshow hosts (including his successor, Conan O’Brien) adhered to the strike rules made Leno’s actions that much more objectionable. No two ways about it, he was a scab.

So basically, Leno supports a union shop — except as it might apply to him personally.

Like I said, a douchebag, and a hypocritical one at that. Either his memory is short, or he assumes the audience’s is. I guess everyone else’s recall is just that short-term, because I’ve seen no one else call out Leno on this. All the media reports on his 11:30 swansong have focused on the schmaltzy sendoff he gave himself, including that cloyingly-sweet group picture with a bunch of children at the end.

Appropriate actually, because it really emphasizes how predictably lowest-common-denominator Leno’s schtick is, and how exploitative he really is. He can rot on his new 10PM gig.

I’ll never claim to know the ins and outs of wedding etiquette, but this situation, which a friend just related to me today, just doesn’t seem right:

A local bride-to-be is calling up everyone on her invite list who declined, and asking for them to return the mailed invitations they got — so she can re-use them for sending out to a second wave of prospective guests. Apparently, the price of a second full print-run is a little too steep, so this is how the bride’s looking to defray costs.

Seems tacky. It’s one thing to recycle the paper from old, leftover invites, and quite another to beg for them back from people who had to beg off in the first place. Might was well just email the remaining guestlist.

Figuring that what worked in wartime would work in courtship, Iraqi men are using their bomb-making skills to land a bride:

The authorities call it a “love I.E.D.,” or improvised explosive device, and it is not just an isolated case. Capt. Nabil Abdul Hussein of the Iraqi national police said that six had exploded in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad alone in the past year.

“These guys, they face any problem with their girlfriends, family, anyone, and they’re making this kind of I.E.D.,” Captain Hussein said…

The police say that many of the men are former insurgents who are no longer trying to kill foreign troops but who have an array of bomb-making skills and a stash of TNT.

So, the logic is: The girl’s family won’t consent to marriage, so the spurned lover threatens to blow them up — so that they’ll then let him into the same family that he was trying to explode.

I’m sure that’ll make the girl’s father change his mind about his future son-in-law’s worthiness. I guess it does demonstrate that the bridegroom is good with his hands.

The chief reason why I never sought out to play “Guitar Hero” or “Rock Band” was because, frankly, I considered gyrating with that plastic guitar controller to be extremely dorky, no better than air-guitaring.

But a videogame-enabled plastic oldstyle vinyl-record turntable, hearkening back to the golden age of rap? That I’ll gladly indulge in, via the musical fantasy-fulfillment spin-off (pun!) “DJ Hero”. No, nothing at all dorky about simulated needle-scratchin’…

I’m actually not running out to buy this game kit, along with a current-generation gaming console on which to play it. But plenty of other wannabe DJs will, which is what’s prompting Jay-Z, Eminem, and other musicians to contribute their work into this outlet:

The complete list of tracks the rappers are providing is still being worked out. Jay-Z plans on including Izzo (H.O.V.A.) and Dirt Off Your Shoulder for sure. Also possible: tracks from his in-the-works Blueprint 3 album. “I have a ton of content, I just need the pipeline,” he says. “I love the freedom of (DJ Hero). I could wake up tomorrow morning with the idea for a song and call the guys at Activision and start working on getting it out.”

Jay-Z has certainly gotten the religion about videogames as an effective and lucrative channel for delivering music. That pipeline seems like a goldmine, despite a recent slump in the genre’s sales.

What I find most amusing: That a good chunk of the fans playing “DJ Hero” will never have come in contact with a turntable in any other context, given the demise of mass-market vinyl. I’m sure the youngest of tykes will assume that it was never anything else but a videogames controller.

It didn’t work in smelling-up movie theaters, but there’s certainly a better synergy for using advanced aroma infusion to imbue foodstuff with calorie- and byproduct-free flavoring:

The latest trend in food packaging seems straight out of science fiction: Jars and boxes lined with “smell technology” emit molecules that push against their contents, infusing the items with different flavors. The concept, however, is steeped in real science: Researchers have discovered that most of what we call taste happens not in our mouths, but through our noses. Aromas, in essence, can trick your brain into thinking you are tasting certain flavors.

So your tastebuds get an assist from your nostrils. Sensory teamwork, I guess.

Considering that it closed three or four years ago — before I even moved back to New York — I really ought to throw away this card from the old Orchid Lounge.

But I haven’t. I’ve kept it in my wallet because the card itself is an appealing little piece of pocket-sized art: Manga-inspired, which I usually don’t go for but in this case do, and good use of negative spacing with the black background. Also, even though I visited the Orchid twice, I really did like it, and still feel the East Village experiences a void from the lack of such a groovy, laid-back Asian-themed lounge.

More curious to me is that, as indicated by the hyperlink above, I’m not the only one keeping the Orchid “alive”. Fact is, there’s a lot of outdated Web content that still holds photos, reviews and ratings of this departed bar. While some are timestamped and/or note that the venue has closed, others don’t. I can only imagine how many clueless types venture down to E. 11th Street every weekend, only to come upon a boarded-up storefront.

It’s not like this is unique. Untold number of zombie listings for defunct clubs and restaurants persist on the Web, spanning the globe. It’s not hard to figure out why they remain: It costs next to nothing to keep such pages online, the work required to manually assess and delete such pages is more effort than it’s worth, and if they generate even pennies a month via syndicated adspace, they earn their keep. Nevermind that the content itself is substantially worthless — I mean, really, what good is a writeup for a bar that’s been closed for years? As long as the keywords tick up occasionally in search engine results, mission accomplished.

Yup, this year’s Stanley Cup round is, improbably enough, a repeat performance between last year’s finalists, right down to home-ice advantage for Detroit. There’s a reason why this hasn’t happened since 1983 and 1984, when the Oilers and Islanders split championships — with 28 other teams in the mix, the odds are pretty daunting against a Cup rematch in back-to-back years.

So that situation alone makes this 2009 Finals worth watching. And if that’s not enough, there are these storylines:

- The eerie parallels between ‘83-84 and now, including the Penguins’ youth versus the Wings’ veteran dominance, the dynastic possibilities, star-player power, etc. The longer-term difference this time around will be keeping the core of this Pens team together long enough to make a run at multiple Cups, with the salary cap working against continuity (sorta).

- The Marian Hossa factor. The defection to Detroit after his Finals run with Pittsburgh last year, specifically to enhance his chance to win a Cup, only to have to face his former team for that trophy, is the most delicious of ironies. It couldn’t have been scripted better.

- While everyone’s anticipating this as the start of an Oilers-like dynasty for the Penguins, I’m more intrigued by the opposite possibility: A Buffalo Bills-like run of four (or more?) championship appearance in a row for Pittsburgh, and coming up empty each time. Not that I wish bad luck to the Pens or their players specifically — but it would be funny.

My casual skimming on an article about the auctioning off Marilyn Monroe’s and Elvis Presley’s more obscure personal effects was stopped cold by this detail:

Medical paraphernalia from Elvis Presley’s doctor is also listed in the Julien’s Auctions catalogue, including a nasal douche and his leather bag.

A nasal douche? Seriously? Was the King snorting such a huge quantity of foreign substances toward the end, that an ordinary tissue didn’t suffice in clearing out the sinus passages?

Suddenly, the fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches don’t seem nearly as bizarre.

Signifying how the global economic slump is impacting institutions both sacred and profane, Vatican Radio will begin running advertisements for the first time in its history:

Vatican officials say an Italian communications firm specializing in publicity for Catholic media will screen potential clients for quality and ethical content. The first ads — for an Italian energy company — will start running July 6.

Hmm. I’m sensing a synergistic opportunity for the Church, in the form of radio ads promoting the availability of sin-negating holy indulgences.

If you’re going to text or check email while at the dinner table with other people, you might just as well eat alone — which is what that compulsive behavior probably will lead to anyway:

“Maybe people think they can time-share: both texting and talking at once,” said Harry Lewis, a Harvard computer science professor and one of the authors of “Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty and Happiness After the Digital Explosion” (Addison-Wesley, 2008). Beware, he says: You’re not fooling anybody. “No one thinks someone on the cellphone can really be paying attention to another person.”

Texting while eating has become a major issue among couples in counseling, says Evan Imber-Black, a prominent family therapist. And, yes, she says, it seems the men are the ones who can’t sit down for dinner for a half-hour without tapping away at their phones. (The reverse is true among teenagers, where the girls are the nonstop texters.)

It’s an evolutionary development. Around the middle of last century, most households considered it rude to take phone calls during dinnertime (no answering machines/voicemail back then, so they either had to let it ring or answer it with a curt request to call back later). That’s more or less out the window these days. Other modes of communication are now horning in, and they’ll prompt a behavioral adjustment over time.

The key difference is that texts and emails are supposed to be asynchronous — you don’t have to reply in real-time. Yet, paradoxically, everyone does. And because you’re differently engaged, most feel they can divide their attention between face-to-face talking/listening and a digital back-and-forth.

I’m not a big fan of texting anyway, so this just reinforces my disinclination. Now, checking Web and email is a different story, and I’m as guilty as most in that area. Good thing I take most of my meals solo.

I can’t find anything online, but at some point today, I could have sworn I overheard a quirky promo commercial for this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee that invoked — of all things — the funk-rock ’80s classic “Word Up!” by Cameo:

Nice synergy. I guess as far as pop-cultural tie-ins go, it was either this or The Trashmen’s “Surfin’ Bird (Bird Is The Word)”.

Cameraphoned this brick-wall graffiti just off the corner of 27th Street and Lexington Avenue. It’s a little blurry, especially in the embiggened Flickr version; but for once, I’m glad for that unintended distortion, because it actually enhances the already-abstract look of this street art.

This slice of the Gramercy Park neighborhood is heavily Asian Indian, so I’d assume this spraypaintjob would reflect that. But the afro-tastic head portrayed here looks more African than subcontinental, so make your own assumptions.

Federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor could make history if her nomination to the Supreme Court makes her the first-ever Hispanic SCOTUS Justice.

Unfortunately, the announcement, as reported by the Associated Press only a couple of hours ago, has already flubbed a fundamental aspect of her background:

Sonia Sotomayor: A ‘Newyorkrican’ for the high court…

Sotomayor is a self-described “Newyorkrican” who grew up in a Bronx housing project after her parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico.

I supposed it’s possible that Sotomayor calls herself a “Newyorkrican” — except that, since 1974, the accepted term has been nuyorican. Which anyone in New York would readily recognize; I’m assuming the AP reporter is from elsewhere, and either misheard or else figured that the term was too nebulous to make sense to the rest of the country, and therefore figured it required the clunky restructuring.

There’s some level of irony in such an introduction into the socio-political mainstream…

Survivalism with an upper-middle-class sheen has been in vogue for more than a year now. But the late economic collapse has encouraged a surge in food-and-security stockpiling in residential subdivisions:

Art Markman, a cognitive psychologist, said he’s not surprised by the reaction to the nation’s financial woes – even though it may seem irrational. In an increasingly global and automated society, most people are dependent on strangers and systems they don’t understand – and the human brain isn’t programmed to work that way.

“We have no real causal understanding of the way our world works at all,” said Markman, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin. “When times are good, you trust that things are working, but when times are bad you realize you don’t have a clue what you would do if the supermarket didn’t have goods on the shelves and that if the banks disappear, you have no idea where your money is.”

Those preparing for the worst echo those thoughts and say learning to be self sufficient makes them feel more in control amid mounting uncertainty – even if it seems crazy to their friends and families.

That’s all it comes down to: A hands-on attempt at peace of mind. Really just one more instance of conjuring up a persecution complex among those affluent enough to lack for things about which to worry. If this paranoia is manifesting in the suburbs, I can only imagine the Unabomber-type McMansions that are setting up in the further-flung exurbs…

I had absolutely no intention of Twitter-following Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor.

But that was before I saw that he was using a Robotron: 2084 graphic for his @trent_reznor avatar. Since I’m rather fond of that game myself, and like to use the above screenshot image detail as a default glyph for this blog’s Videogames category, that was enough for me to click on the Follow button.

I don’t know how often Reznor switches out his avatar. I suppose as soon as he does, I’ll have an excuse to unfollow him. Wouldn’t be the first time I determined what appears in my Twitter-stream content on the basis of those little pictures.

Celebrity stalking, 140 characters at a time? That seems to be the premise behind a planned Twitter-based television show:

The social-networking service has teamed with Reveille productions and Brillstein Entertainment to develop an unscripted series based on the site, which invites brief, 140-character postings from members all over the world.

The show would harness Twitter to put players on the trail of celebrities in a competitive format.

The producers call their planned series the first to bring the immediacy of Twitter to the TV screen.

“Competitive format” tweeting? Sounds a bit shaky to me. And I’m sure it’ll piss off the hardcore Twitterati by deflecting focus away from regular folks, in favor of the likes of @THE_REAL_SHAQ, @oprah, and @britneyspears.

If this TMZ-patterned concept tanks, maybe they can repurpose it by selling it to C-SPAN as a Congressional online reality show.

Disney’s sorority of princess characters has spawned a backlash, as parents and academics question the long-term effects on the target audience:

“It just encourages parents who put their kids on a pedestal – and who encourage their kids a lot and rarely criticize,” says Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State who’s done research on the way parenting affects children. “You could label that kind of parenting ‘princess parenting.’”…

Among other things, she and co-author W. Keith Campbell found the rate that college-age women were developing narcissistic traits was four times that of men, when analyzing surveys taken from 2002 through 2007. It should be noted that, overall, men of that age group still are more likely to exhibit narcissistic traits, including the belief that “If I ruled the world, it would be a much better place.”

“But women are catching up, fast,” Twenge says. And she thinks the princess syndrome is a factor, given that this generation of young women was young when some of the newer and most popular Disney princess films were released.

I thought it was pretty obvious that a lifelong princess mentality had gotten ingrained when Disney Bridal came out. Although with a choice between animated princess and soft-core porn starlet, maybe the staying-single option is most appealing of all…

As far as an overload of tykes in tiaras, I don’t see how that fantasy roleplay is any more insidious than other childhood fare. The ditzy types who cling to it past elementary school have deeper issues anyway, and would have glommed onto any other motif to fill the void; a princess fixation only makes it that much more obvious.

This fist-sized piece of graffiti was planted at the corner of Bleecker Street and Broadway, on a big brown building. Black spraypaint filling in what’s obviously a stenciled outline. Nice, clean lines on a slick piece of artwork, so I took the 10 seconds necessary to snap a cameraphone photo (full-sized on Flickr).

Why this long-eared rabbit is wearing that kerchief mask, I have no idea. Reminiscent of bandit wear, so maybe he’s getting set to do a crime — aside from the obvious public-defacement one that he represents.

This is the second instance of bunny-based street art that I’ve noticed recently. I like this one better.

Clutch Tees delivered! After I blogged about the Caddyshack “Bushwood Country Club” t-shirt my friend sent me as a birthday present, I promptly emailed the permalink to get a gift certificate for another Clutch shirt. Sure enough, they sent back the $25 voucher, to be applied toward the purchase of another tee.

And I chose the one pictured above, which I’m wearing right now. Frankly, it was the only other one in their collection (aside from the Bushwood one I already have) that I could see wearing without incurring lost-youth embarrassment. The “Give Peas A Chance” tagline is cutesy, but I can live with it, and I liked the simple smiley-faced green sprites. They look good against the light-blue cloth, too (which is much darker in real life than in the photo here). Worth the minor-grade blog shilling.

So the net result is that I got two birthday t-shirts. I guess I could submit this post for yet another gift certificate, but I think I’ll stop at just two.