When people buy shoes, they generally want to take a look at the actual product and put them on their actual feet, but Nike is trying something new that may have folks at least asking for the shoe before ever seeing the real deal.

Nike is using holographs in three different areas of Amsterdam to generate interest in its new Nike Free 5.0 running shoes. Welcome to the future of marketing. Who needs reality?Continue reading...

It looks like 2012 was a good year for global advertising spending, especially in the digital sector.

The latest Global AdView Pulse report issued by Nielsen shows total spending of $139 billion, a 4.3 percent increase in Q3 2012 ad spending over Q3 2011. This increase outpaced the 2.7 percent growth in the first half of 2012.

In North America, ad spending for Q3 rose 10.2 percent. The Asia Pacific region grew 3.5 percent in Q3, with China showing a Q3 increase of 3.1 percent after two consecutive declining quarters. Western Europe's Q3 ad spending, however, declined 4.8 percent.

The most impressive ad growth on a year-to-date basis was in the Middle East and Africa, which saw an 18.9 percent increase from January through September 2012.

Randall Beard, global head of advertiser solutions for Nielsen, cautioned that the Q3 data could be a reflection of spending on the Olympics and the U.S. presidential election. "We'll be watching carefully to see if the growth was sustained in Q4 and into 2013, or if there's a dip in comparison to this year," Beard said.Continue reading...

Say goodbye to the remote control fumble. Better yet, don't just say it — show it, too.

Today at the Cannes International Advertising Festival, Microsoft unveiled NUads, short for natural user interface ads, as a way for marketers and advertisers to bake voice and gesture-based response mechanisms into television ads seen by Xbox Kinect users.

The new advertising platform enables consumers to share content on Twitter, "like" and post on Facebook, and interact with branded content on their mobile phones, all in a quest to engage Xbox users more successfully than traditional TV advertising.Continue reading...