The last Summer Olympics were in 2008. That’s seven katrillion years in technology years. Much has changed since then and marketers are planning to put extra emphasis on an area that has grown exponentially in the last four human years: social media.

Brand marketers are particularly interested in using Facebook to boost their brands this summer. After all, you fish where the fish are — and Facebook had 794 million people visiting it each month of last year, spending an average (per comScore) of six hours per visit.Continue reading...

With hyperbolic lines like "You have to go a long way to find anything as disgusting as a night on the town with Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger..." and "the real pariah is the lone athlete not carrying Nike’s water," The New York Times breaks out the soapbox and climbs on up.

NYT's Opinionator blog this week, in a post titled "Nike's Women Problem" by Timothy Egan, savages Nike for maintaining ties to athletes embroiled in sex scandals, asking, "What, exactly does it take for Nike to dump a jock?"

It's a terribly simplified rant with a poorly-thought-out title. (Way to stay classy and make it about women; isn't it a "man" problem?) But does the author have a point when he wonders, "Perhaps a certain creepy cred does help move product?"Continue reading...