There definitely was a learning curve, and establishing the work relationships with the publisher websites wasn’t always easy.

In 2012 we will further develop our online advertisement offering. There are also plans of re-doing our own corporate website. Re-working a website is always a big project, I know from personal experience, so I don’t want to talk too much about it, until it’s actually ready to go live.

I was the one who built this website back in 2006, so I will be a bit sad to see it go. But now that we also offer online marketing services, it is time to change our online image.

L.A. resident Amber Duick received an unsettling e-mail from someone she didn’t know who, oddly, seemed to know her very well.
…
As the week went on and Sebastian seemed to get closer to L.A., there were more e-mails and even some videos chronicling his trip, and numerous references to tussles with the law.
…
It was only days later that Ms. Duick received a final e-mail containing a link to a video which explained the entire thing had been a virtual punking: It was, in fact, an ad campaign for the Toyota Matrix.

Reade the full story on the Globe and Mail here.

I am no artistic director, but it is pretty clear to me (as it should be to any reasonable person) that pulling prolongation pranks, over the course of numerous days/weeks, and putting people in uncomfortable situations for so long, cannot in any way be a good method for selling a product.

Not only are consumers getting wary of traditional advertisement, because of the barrage of ads that attacks them in print, on TV and on the web, but now consumers will also be turned-off from the so called “interactive advertisement”. This is not the first case of interactive advertisement backfiring; remember the fake-tourists that were in fact actors posing as tourists and asking passers by to take photos of them, which was all a stunt to promote a certain digital camera (I forget the name of the culprit camera maker at the moment).

But what really cough my attention in the article was the following quote:

“Years ago, you could put a message out there and control who was going to see it by carefully targeting,” notes Jack Neary, the chief creative officer of TBWA\Canada. “If you wanted to reach a fisherman, you put an ad in a fishing magazine. But now with the Internet, which is fundamentally still a mass medium because of its pervasive nature, anything – even if it might be targeted to a very young gaming-oriented young guy – can get out there into the world, and anyone can stray into the path of that stuff, can get subjected to it.”

And here I come back to printed ethnic press: it allows you to do that careful targeting that is mentioned in the quote above. Sure it might not be as sexy as actors impersonating someone or some event, but it gets the job done! It reaches exactly the people that you wanted to reach, and gets the message to them in straightforward and clear way.

This is just one more example of a growing trend: a move away from what was considered “traditional” media 10 years ago.

Complementing the free OTA high-definition digital TV stations, plus the cheap Netflix (less than 10$ a month), plus the free streaming on the Internet (did you know you can watch all the CBC’s hockey games live streaming on their site), and the effect is, the customer saves close to a thousand dollars a year, while maintaining their TV watching habit pretty much the same, if not better (less time in front of the tube can only do you good).

This “non-traditional” TV media consumption is becoming more and more “traditional”.

How are marketers to react to this? The fact is that people are not consuming less media, they are consuming a richer cocktail of media. We went from 40 hours a week of cable TV (which made reaching the consumer easy for advertisers), to 10 hours of free OTA digital TV, 20 hours of web surfing, and more hours reading traditional or digital displays, free newspapers in the Metro and more and more different media sources.

I am no media guru, but the general answer seems obvious: like in investment, diversifying your media reach seems to be the key strategy today. Getting your message across many different platforms seems like a reasonable idea in the face of this changing media consumption patterns.

And coming back to the ethnic press, advertising in such media is just one more (powerful) way of diversifying your media offering.

This is a problem that does not plague the ethnic printed press. There is no AP or Post Media or Reuters written content in ethnic press. Because of the difference in languages, ethnic newspapers must have all their own articles written specifically for them, and by their own staff.

This availability of fresh content is an extremely powerful and positive point, propping-up the ethnic press and keeping its readers captive.

So it comes to no surprise to me to see that the ethnic press is getting some recognition in the current federal election in Canada. As the following article by The Globe and Mail points out, politicians are now actively meeting with representatives of the ethnic press.

Yet another sign of the impact that printed media by the different ethnic communities can have.

With 4 newspapers in my bag I get to my office, where I am greeted by the BBC News and the Google News websites, with their dozens of developing stories every hour.

Then my RSS feed presents me with everything brand new and that I should absolutely read. Then I discover that my friend’s blogs and Facebook profiles are updated with some more links, some more stories, more pictures, more and more and more…

Finally, every link I make the mistake to follow on the web, has text ads, contextual ads, banner ads and all sorts of flashing boxes and numerous other links with catchy headlines of more stories I have to follow. Clicking a single story leads to 2, 3 or more other stories on completely different topics.

I call this “media pollution”. I probably didn’t come up with the term, but I sure like to believe I did. For me, “media pollution” is that overwhelming of the senses that happens when consuming today’s media: it’s all those extra links, links to top stories, links to related stories; it’s all those short blurbs in the free daily and on all the blogs and all the news sites, always repeating, echoing each other, retweeting each other all day long.

And this is where the traditional (quality) newspaper steps in, as the antithesis of media pollution. This is the role newspapers could and should have if they wish to survive. When I grab the pages of the Globe and Mail there is nothing flashing, no hyperlinks left and right; there is nowhere to go, but to turn the pages, and go though this one single newspaper.

With unique stories, which don’t repeat themselves, with topics treated in depth and in length, with varied opinions, the newspaper could position itself as an island of calm and depth in the sea of “media pollution”.

Everything is free, short, massively linked and repeated over and over again on the web.

A good modern newspaper should be the opposite: thorough, deep, unique and relaxing. And not-free, because I am glad to pay for this insightful and relaxing product. Have you ever tried enjoying the Internet with a coffee on a Sunday morning? I know I can’t.

If newspapers, be it national, ethnic or regional, manage to position themselves as the anti media pollution, they will thrive for many more years.

Odd, but that’s exactly what I am telling you to do: go read my guest blog spot on FabriceCalando.ca about how the CBC Radio 1 in Montreal uses Facebook in a smart way. Why am I doing this? Because of the hyperlink: it takes no energy or time to click on some text on a web page and follow the hyperlink to the original article. This obviously cannot be done on physical paper.

Yet, some experienced minds here at Ethnique Media would argue that this physical limitation of paper has its value and importance. All this to say that this world is made of shades and diverging opinions and ideas. Without this diversity, the world would be a dull and ineffective place; and Ethnique Media wouldn’t be here.

La théorie selon laquelle l’information est commune et indivisible et tout un chacun peut y puiser à pleines mains, médias sociaux aidant, est fausse. Les  médias sociaux sont une mode, cette mode s’appuie sur deux apparences;  convivialité des rapports entre nous, et abondance de l’information qu’on nous sert. Rien n’est moins vrai. Le fait qu’une personne voit sa photo reprise par des centaines d’amis, qu’un politicien échange – mon Dieu quel mot! – avec ses commettants,  contribue à créer l’image de la convivialité en question. Mais il suffit de tomber malade, et les centaines d’amis oublieront de mettre votre photo de l’hosto, ils vont oublier que vous existez. Le politicien, lui, vous enverra balader dès que vous le confronterez – il est dans les média sociaux pour vous séduire, si ca ne marche pas, tant pis!

La surabondance de l’information est l’autre abject mensonge dont se nourrissent les médias sociaux. L’accès à l’information est restreint à ce qu’on appelle communément des décideurs et ils n’ont aucune, mais aucune intention de mettre de la vrai info dans leur profil Twitter par exemple. Ils, les décideurs, peuvent partager leur points de vue sur les meilleures boîtes en ville par exemple….

Ressaisissez-vous avant qu’il ne soit trop tard. Un journal, on le jette, un livre on l’oublie – s’ils n’ont rien à vous apprendre. La télé, on l’éteint, la radio on ne la met pas; un CD de choix, c’est mieux.

Mais que faire du besoin qui nous démange jusqu’aux tripes, d’informer nos amis-sociaux de notre nouvelle coupe de cheveux par exemple? Saisissant besoin.

Sur de besoins similaires repose le monumental succès de Google entre autres. Facebook, Twitter et compagnie ne peuvent pas le rattraper, ils diversifient simplement nos activités, relations, pensées, et les modulent pour que tout soit cool.

Rien ne reste de la distance que j’ai avec mon journal-papier, que je feuillette, par-ci quelque chose m’attire, ailleurs autre chose me fait sourire. Le papier a ce côté rassurant d’une technologie vieille de plusieurs siècles.

Oui mais, au Québec on détruit la Forêt Boréale pour faire des hebdos! Hélas, l’industrie forestière du Québec fait vivre 45 000 personnes, vous dirait Gilles Duceppe.

Entre la fluidité des médias sociaux et l’aspect anti-écolo du papier, il y a une solution.

Contactez donc Ethnique Media inc. et demandez.

Instead I want to tell you about a good friend of ours, who is an amazing photographer and is now offering baby, maternity and newborn photography services. Pepita Photography is the project of Mariana Dankova, a creative graphic-design artist and photographer, with which Ethnique Media Inc has been working for years.

Pepita Photography specializes in the photography of kids, newborns and babies as well as of expecting moms. You can see ample samples of her quality work online: just visit the link for her babies gallery or her children gallery.

With the advent of digital photography, parents all too often snap hundreds of pictures of their babies or kids, thinking that it is enough in order to immortalize this all-so important period in their children lives. What a mistake; because nothing can replace the services of a professional photographer. If you don’t believe me, just visit Pepita Photography’s galleries and you’ll be convinced.

You can also follow Mariana on her photography blog, where she regularly discusses and posts examples of her work.

These beautiful photos could be of you or your baby. Just contact Pepita Photography.

Malheureusement, hier, La Presse a publiée un article sur les medias ethniques. Il n’y a rien d’intéressant ou de nouveau dans cet article, mais ce qui me choque c’est qu’il a même des erreurs. D’âpres les deux “chercheurs” citées par le journaliste:

Mon intuition, c’est que cette diversité va prendre sa place dans les médias sociaux, qui deviendront le nouveau lieu d’échange communautaire.

Donc d’âpres ces “académiciens” des medias ethniques, les medias sociaux ne sont pas encore devenus le nouveau lieu d’échange communautaire. Doit-on comprendre que les media sociaux et le Web 2.0 est pour le moment le domaine exclusif des communautés “non-culturelles”, c’est à dire les communautés de “souche”, et que les communautés culturelles n’ont pas encore pris leur place dans le Web 2.0? Cette affirmation est complètement fausse, peut-être même insultante. Mais surtout cette conclusion me fait rire et démontre que les auteurs de ces “recherches” ne sont probablement pas présents sur le Web 2.0 eux-mêmes, et ne comprennent rien du tout a la consommation des medias fait par les membres des communautés culturelles au Québec.

The print-edition cover is a classic example of men’s-mag know-how: a gorgeous woman (singer Rihanna), pretty much naked, printed so vividly you can count the lashes on the big brown eyes that reach deep into your soul and beg you to buy. But on the iPhone, poor Rihanna stares dimly from a tiny screen like a little mouse.

and

Reading GQ on a phone is like browsing the Internet, following a succession of disembodied pages who knows where, with pop-up ads ambushing every path. The pages are not much more than snapshots of the print edition rather than proper Web pages.

Clearly making the jump to the digital world isn’t that straight forward. The print magazine is tightly coupled to its technology and platform (quality large print on quality paper) and when transfered to the digital world, if not done so properly, looses these main selling points and distinguishing characteristics. Because the reality is that people that purchase these 10$ glossy magazines do so for the glosiness and the quality of photos and easy of flip-through. The value of magazines isn’t only in their text stories and gossip. These are already available in large quantities and free on the Internet, and if this textual content was the sole value-added of magazines, they would have long ago disappeared in favor of free web-based blogs and sites like TMZ.

The key for magazine publishers is not to emulate the web and make small-rez and hardly-navigable textual versions of their magazines available online. The key is to identify the main differentiating points of glossy magazines, discover what makes them unique and sellable, and somehow replicate or add to this experience with digital tools.

I know, it’s easier said than done.