As they gear up for Super Bowl XLIII, advertisers are finding themselves in flux about how to advertise and how much to spend. While the Super Bowl of football is generally also viewed as the Super Bowl of the advertising world, a lot may change this year due to the economy. Predictions are that commercials will be understated compared to past years as a reflection of the state of the economy. There will still be entertaining Super Bowl commercials, no doubt, but many advertisers are reportedly shifting their focus more on value. Advertisers like Hyundai will be focusing on their new insurance policy, Hyundai Assurance, which gives car buyers the chance to return their car if they lose their jobs and can’t make their car payments. Cars.com will reinforce a value assurance that customers will get the best deal if they buy a new or used car through Cars.com.

What’s the most interesting is that while the messaging in the ads is changing, the price tags are not. According to the New York Times, it appears that NBC will sell out all 33 ½ minutes of commercial time available during the big game. And that’s even at a record price estimated to average $3 million for each 30-second spot. This poses a challenge for advertisers given today’s economic climate. Since the majority of the Super Bowl ads are placed by retailers and consumer brands – many of which have been struggling due to the significant decline in consumer spending – what does spending $3 million on a 30-second commercial communicate to their target audiences?

It’s true that the economic crisis probably won’t keep most Americans from watching the biggest football game of the year. It’s also true that each year the Super Bowl commercials are a big part of the entertainment. The challenge for advertisers this year is living up the hype while at the same time setting the right tone for viewers impacted by the biggest recession in a generation; that’s a difficult balance to strike. May the best advertiser win.

Newsflash: there are new ways to communicate today. Blogs are good (shameless self-promotion), and we all know that social networking tools like LinkedIn and Twitter can be effective for businesses and professionals of all kinds.

But, when they’re bad, they’re really BAD. Case in point, this Tweet by media maestro James Andrews about his trip to Memphis:

Feel free to check out the backlash. Now, before you say, “Who cares? So, he doesn’t like Memphis …” a few things to consider:

1. Andrews is a vice president for Ketchum, one of the largest PR firms in the world;
2. Andrews was about to make a big presentation to a little client named FedEx;
3. Someone from FedEx’s Memphis office read the entry;
4. The offended employee zipped the post and a lengthy reply to big wigs at FedEx AND Ketchum; and
5. FedEx is headquartered in – you guessed it – MEMPHIS.

Major oops. Enter lots of apologies. Taken out of context it isn’t a big deal. But, James wasn’t just any outsider. Ketchum gets paid millions of dollars to help FedEx communicate mo’ better. Adding insult to injury, FedEx just handed out 5 percent pay cuts, yet its high-priced communication helper Ketchum was still on board.

To quote Andrews’ respondent, “A hazard of social networking is people will read what you write.” So, use your social media to say what you want, but know the consequences.

Personally, I think he’s as … oh wait, I better not.

Seems perfect right? All us office workers across the world could view the inauguration with the click of a mouse, without even getting up from our desks?  Well, not exactly. While the numbers certainly are impressive, many web viewers found themselves unable to access the videos, staring at frozen images, and experiencing a barrage of interruptions and long pauses.
  

This viewing issue seems to provide a metaphor for a task that Obama and all Presidents’ must take on–balancing the need and desire for change and evolution while maintaining core competencies that keep us going.  As we prepare for the next four years and soak in the now, it’s interesting to look back to March 4, 1901, when a lone cameraman was dispatched to capture the swearing in of William McKinley.
 

Oh how far we have come.  Now we all look to Obama to see how far we can go.

I dropped my subscription to the Philadelphia Inquirer this week.

The final straw – delivery issues – came Monday; when I left to catch a train into work, the paper wasn’t at the end of my driveway. If you can’t deliver the news to me on my schedule, I ain’t paying no more.

Let me explain my morning newspaper reading habits.

About half the time, I drive into work. On those days, I usually read the Inky (and Philadelphia Daily News and New York Times and Wall Street Journal) online. I spend an early morning hour reading as much as I can.

The other half of the time, I ride the train, which affords me the luxury of reading the dead wood version of the Inquirer, which, make no mistake, is a superior experience. (I still spend time earlier on these mornings online with the other papers). When you read the paper version, you see more of the paper and get more of the news.

So, it’s not because I don’t want the news; I do want the news, and lots of it. But because I want to see a lot, it’s incumbent on the provider to make it easy for me. And at some point, you have to give up something to get something. And I’ve reached the point in this busy life where I can give up 10 percent of the Inquirer’s news for a 50 percent increase in convenience.

And that’s what the newspaper industry still hasn’t adequately addressed. They know they need to do something to make the online paper generate more revenue, but they seem to be waiting for someone else to figure it out. In last Sunday’s New York Times, David Carr begged for someone to invent “iTunes for newspapers.” This notion makes sense – it’s all about content delivery – but somebody affiliated with a newspaper needs to create a solution.

The business is in a brutal tailspin that is reaching some big newspapers across the country. The Rocky Mountain News may have been sold by the time you read this. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is hanging by a thread.

Journalists are writing about it. Publishers are worrying about it. Now, it’s time to do something about it. If you can make it easier for me (and a few million others) to consume your service, I’ll even pay for it.