A worthwhile read, although the overall complaint is weak. They're saying Facebook fan pages don't work unless the brands put some effort behind them. Duh. But here they are, trying to compare a social media campaign to a multi-million dollar TV campaign, and they're saying for the social media campaign to work, you have to put something more into it than no time and no money. Really??

A good article on how tough this business can be, irregardless of success. One note regarding how Office Max is evaluating the 'Elf' series: OfficeMax plans to measure the success of this year's promotion based on brand metrics. Last year, according to the company, 40 percent of those who created elves associated the experience with OfficeMax. Over 30 percent said it made them more likely to shop there.

Unilever is projecting continued rates of online spending, despite the downturn. The 'I can't believe it's not butter' campaign hit around 300k monthly visits at its peak, according to Compete.

Unilever's Sr VP of Marketing delivers an insightful line: “I have constantly said no self-respecting forty or fifty year old woman is going to be playing online games at night and the data has proved me wrong.”

Analysts are stressing that "being organic or all-natural isn't enough ... successful manufacturers are creating emotional ties through use of compelling narratives about their brands, along with producing consistently high-quality products." Not to mention, of course, the use of online social networks.

In this case, HD basically means you can zoom in. It sounds interesting, and certainly has potential. The possible issue I see is how people understand that it's 'HD', when the HD component isn't readily visible. It's the same issue expandables run into. You pay a lot of rich media serving and only a sliver of the viewers ever experience the rich part. It's going to be running on AOL from May through October. Finally, a reason to go to AOL.com.