To the likely relief of ESPN and CBS, which will both carry the Masters, Tiger Woods has announced that he will return to competitive golf for the tournament.

ESPN will be carrying the first and second round of the Masters April 8 and 9, while CBS has broadcast rights to the weekend rounds April 10 and 11, writes Mediaweek.

Woods’ sponsors are also likely relieved to hear of his imminent April return, though they will be watching his performance carefully. If he plays well, sponsors like Nike and Electronic Arts may be led to decide that his strong performance mitigates the bad press surrounding his marital infidelities. If he plays poorly, however, they may say Woods is not only “risky” from a marketing perspective, but that he’s no longer achieving the same level of success that drew them to him in the first place, says David Carter, executive director of the Sports Institute at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business (via Reuters).

ESPN is banking on a large audience. “Tiger’s return to competitive golf at this year’s Masters Tournament will surely be one of the biggest stories the sporting world has seen,” John Wildhack, evp of programming and acquisitions for ESPN, says. “We will cover the Masters Tournament and Tiger’s return across a variety of ESPN platforms, both domestically and internationally.”

The highest-rated golf telecast in over three decades was the final round of the Masters in 1997 when Woods won for the first time. The telecast generated a 14.1% household rating. The second highest-rated golf event was in 2001, when Woods again won, generating a 13% rating.

Last year, the Masters without Woods declined by almost 50%, and the golfer’s absence from the PGA Tour this year caused an 11% decline, according to Nielsen numbers. While the audience for the Masters may increase significantly, the audience may not be of much interest to golf advertisers like Titleist and Callaway, as viewers may not be too interested in the actual sport of golf.

Eli Lilly & Co. was the top spender in PGA events last year, with $28.1 million invested between January and October. Other major sponsors include FedEx, with $24.1 million in spending, AT&T ($18.7 million), Pfizer ($17.1 million) and Toyota ($17.1 million). Sponsors for April’s Masters include Coca-Cola, IBM, Mercedes and AT&T.

Advertisers spent an average $104,500 for a :30-spot in 2009 PGA Tour events in which Woods appeared. During his hiatus, that number declined 30%, to $80,200 per :30-spot.

Mediaweek points out that those estimates exclude the four Majors, which typically have a cost of $200,000 per :30-spot.

Source: MediaPlannerBuyer.com 3/16/10

Something I just learned from a four day photoshoot…Everything has a story. Behind every door, every face, every object, every project. As a creative, if you aren’t coming up with anything for that ad campaign, poster, website, branding, or brochure – keep digging and pushing yourself. You have not gone far enough – that story is there, even though it may be shrouded by noise or a case of the blands.

And secondly, if you are sitting at the computer feeling stumped, peel yourself away and open your eyes to a new

experience. Fresh air, a new place, walk – get out of the familiar. Can you imagine life like groundhog day?? Brilliant breakthroughs rarely come out of repetition…unless you are a robot.

Today, I thank the offsite photoshoot, the beautiful people and their wonderful stories, and the wisdom of the creative team for this surge of inspiration.

Looks like the gloves are off in the smartphone battle. Apple is currently the undisputed leader. They reinvented the phone and we all know it. They set the bar very high, and everyone else is trying to catch up. Think of what your standard cell phone looked like before the iPhone and what all the latest ones look like now. An amazing evolution in a very short period of time, spurred in large because of Apple’s innovation. It’s going to be very interesting over the next several months, because Google appears to be a great contender for knocking the iPhone off its throne.

TechCrunch announced today that Tim Bray, the well-known software architect and blogger has joined the Google team to help work on Android. It’s also said that he’s doing it because he hates the iPhone.

This is a significant thing to consider. Apple forges ahead and tells consumers what they will like, and then, of course, we like it. What’s not to like when the package is beautiful, the interface is great, and it handily beats every other alternative? Google’s taking a different approach. They appear to be lining up to offer the more open of the smartphone platforms. They’re also recruiting well-known talent now, too.

In very-related news, John Battelle, author, thinker, co-founder of Wired Magazine and The Industry Standard just wrote an article about the iPad that drums up a lot of the same arguments that the iPhone/Android battle shares. Will Apple’s innovative and elegant interface and closed system architecture win out against a more open platform? Battelle’s article specifically mentions how the now well-known “demo” that Wired showed for the iPad was built and run on another platform. (A Dell using Adobe software.) So to show how great the iPad is, you have to use another computer. That seems a little off.

There are plenty of pundits who will shout at you and tell you that the iPhone and iPad aren’t supposed to be everything for everyone and that the closed system helps maintain stability and performance. Yeah – I’ll buy that, to a degree. And it’s a perfectly good reason/argument. But we’re talking about the competitive marketplace here. Which product or platform will be the front runner a year from now?

I’m going to bet that Google pulls ahead. Why? Because ultimately, I think that the general consumer will win with Google at the helm. Their products and services will be geared toward a more diverse audience, and their system will allow more adaptability to the way that audience wants to use the devices running their operating system. Android already sells two-thirds the number of smartphones as Apple does iPhones, and they’re just getting started.

Google also has their hooks in so many web-connected things, that there’s going to be a natural connection between ALL of the systems that can tap into Google devices, mobile networks, and the Internet. And Google will likely make it easy for people to tap into all of these resources via that operating system and API.

You can already upload any document to Google Docs, which basically makes it a lightweight off-site storage system. You can sync your bookmarks across computers with Chrome’s bookmark sync, your calendar and maps and email can all run through Google’s free services. Add the blogs, video, photos, reader and all the other Google services already in place and we’ve got a pretty significant thing to consider.

It’s all about the interface. And not the iPhone’s, iPad’s or Android’s – it’s about the interface to the Internet. I think Google understands that a little better than Apple. Apple’s making tons of money by controlling how people get and develop apps on their platform and interface. Google’s going to ensure people use their own interface by making it easy to use for the greatest number of people.

This is going to be fun to watch.

Will Flavell will make a presentation titled “Social Media, Your Digital Resume” at the YP Summit of Kansas on April 15, 2010 in Hutchinson, Kansas. Read More

Will Flavell will present the Entrepreneurship and Social Media session “What Your Business Should Know About Facebook” on April 14 at Infotec 2010.

Facebook doesn’t want to be the biggest social network on the Internet. Facebook wants to be the Internet. Late 2009 and early 2010 have shown some pretty big changes in the world’s largest social network from privacy settings, to promotion guidelines to Facebook Markup Language. Come and learn what about the possible pitfalls your business could face with these changes. And see how you can take advantage of recent changes to Facebook Fan Pages.

Often times, when a company launches a sweepstakes, the grand prize and even some of the tactical elements don’t align closely with the brand.  I recently read an article in Marketing Daily, by Karlene Lukovitz, about the new Ghirardelli Chocolate sweepstakes, “Million Moments of Timeless Pleasure”, and I was impressed by the engagement, relevancy and integration that they are bringing to the initiative as they target a large audience and correlate the elements back to the brand.  It’s all about promoting Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares.  And, not too surprising, according to VendingMarketWatch.com, 81% of Americans eat chocolate.  

Ghirardelli is employing social media tactics, among other elements,  and encouraging chocolate fans to go to a micro-site (www.ghirardellimoments.com) and share comments/memories about when/where they enjoy eating the squares.  The comments are broadcast in New York’s Times Square and streamed live on the website.  I would imagine that the comments will be fodder for some future marketing efforts.  Fans can enter the sweepstakes and be eligible to win a number of prizes including a fabulous trip to one of four famous squares in the world, i.e. Times Square, Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, etc.  A tour of major cities utilizing street teams is also a part of the campaign. 

 In the current economic environment people are looking for simple, affordable indulgences – chocolate is one of those.  In addition, leisure travel has taken a hit (leisure travel is still projected to be down throughout 2010 according to a variety of sources) so the opportunity to win a trip is extremely attractive and timely.  These factors that key in on the current consumer mindset,  joined with a dose of fun and creativity,  makes it an interesting campaign to follow.

 It is thematic, engaging, fun, sophisticated, relevant and an integrated initiative that fits the brand.  And when it’s all said and done, chocolate simply makes us smile, doesn’t it?

I really really loved this latest post by Seth Godin. If we could dedicate more time to “wondering,” then more creative ideas would come forth. We spend a lot of time wandering and grasping at ideas and thoughts on the top of mind – especially when we are so slamming busy, we do not have time to stop to breathe. these moments of breath, air, white space – those are the times that brilliant ideas or at least seeds of brilliance come forth. Allow yourself these quiet wondering moments. You will be amazed at what emerges from your mind. Enjoy:

Wondering around

I stumbled on a great typo last night. “Staff in the lobby were wondering around…”

Wandering around is an aimless waste of time.

Wondering around, though, that sounds useful.

Wondering why this product is the way it is, wondering how you can make the lobby more welcoming, wondering if your best customers are happily sharing your ideas with others… So many things worth wondering about, so few people actually taking the time to do it.

Wondering around is the act of inquiring with generous spirit.

http://tiny.cc/dnNon

When was the last time unsubscribing to an email made you chuckle? This was sure a first for me. I meant to click ‘view in browser’, but clicked ‘unsubscribe’ by mistake on today’s Groupon email. I’m glad I fat fingered it because I stumbled upon one of those marketing gems that I wish I’d thought of first.

Click here to see what happens when you click unsubscribe. There’s no audio track, but it’s pretty easy to create your own.

Such a simple idea, yet full of personality. And it sure gets talked about.

Surprising. Clever. Smart. Very smart.

Good ol’ P.T. Barnam. He famously said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Oh how often I see that to be true. Then just when I’m getting a little bit of hope – the next thing hits. Love it or hate it, the Internet has been making suckers of more and more people for a good long time now.

The latest incarnation for me has just appeared in a recent “Page Invitation” on Facebook. I was invited by a friend to become a fan of the First 20,000 Fans Get a $1,000 Best Buy Gift Card!!! page. Really? Can reasonable people actually think that something like this would actually be true? You think Best Buy would spend TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS on getting Facebook fans?

Ahhhhhh… classic! Time to party like it’s 1999 – or 1993 – or anytime on the Internet because hoaxes like these have been going around forever. I remember getting my first one via email even before there was a World Wide Web. Snopes even has a nice listing of several of the classic schemes.

So this is nothing new. But it is the first time I’ve seen this type of ploy on Facebook. Turns out it’s going strong, as this particular “fan page” has nearly 10,000 so-called fans. Ten thousand people who either actually thought this offer was real or who decided that the barrier to entry was easy and harmless enough to at least give it a shot.

And that’s the kicker.

Becoming a fan of something on Facebook seems innocuous enough. What harm can it do? Probably not much. But it does get you on a list of profiles at least. It might help people target advertising to you. It might indicate you are gullible. What else do you let people know about you through your Facebook profile? Any of that information becomes easy to get to when you join a group or become a fan of a page.

Then it’s a matter of who set up the page and why. Is it a joke or the prelude to a phishing scheme?

Facebook is just the latest breeding ground for scammers. What I see as the big difference is the inherent trust that people currently have of some communications on Facebook. It’s a community made up primarily of people you know. People you have accepted into your network voluntarily. So information coming from them should be more trustworthy, right?

Not at all.

Most people know that email can’t be trusted anymore. Even if it comes from “someone you know” most people have started to recognize the basic characteristics of strange emails. Uncle Toby usually sends questionable PowerPoint shows, not offers to save money on your mortgage. Facebook is different, though. And people don’t use the same filter on Facebook as they do for email. Not yet, anyway.

A Facebook blog post from last summer recounts that phishing and spam are at an all-time high. Please – always use your best judgement and think about what’s being presented to you as an offer online. The medium makes no difference.

Be careful out there.

Ed. Note: Barnam may not be the originator of the actual quote, but since everyone basically thinks he did, it sounded better in writing. Plus – I did say “famously” and not “actually.” See? Gotta watch what you read online…

… and now Lindsay?

Lindsay Lohan has sued E*Trade for $100 million, saying the “milkaholic” baby girl named Lindsay in one of their recent ads improperly invoked her “likeness, name, characterization and personality” and that Lohan has the same “single name” recognition as celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey.

If you haven’t caught this ad on TV, have a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEXZ2hfD3bU