During an appearance at Wired’s Business Conference, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced the company was going to recognize customers desire for a better in-store wi-fi experience.  Starting July 1st, the company will offer customers a free, one-click wi-fi connection to the Internet through AT&T, in all U.S. company operated stores.

Very nice move.

Schultz also announced that sometime this fall the company will be introducing the Starbucks Digital Network, in conjunction with Yahoo!. Again, only U.S. company operated stores, but the network will offer exclusive and free content, access to some paid sites and plenty of local and community news.  Content providers will include Apple, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and more.

Last year, the industry experienced a record-breaking summer, with huge hits like Transformers, The Hangover, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and many others. Coming up this summer there will be another 13 blockbusters and remakes scheduled for release on the big screen.

Here’s just a few of the flicks you can expect to see this summer at a theater near you:

Iron Man 2

Shrek Forever After 3D

Sex and the City 2

Marmaduke

Toy Story 3D

The Twilight Saga:  Eclipse

For most consumer marketers, cinema is the place to be this summer. And throughout the year, cinema advertising is a fantastic complement to any broadcast TV schedule.  So if you are in the theater, consider yourself a smart marketer.  If you’re not, give True Creek a call and let’s fix that.

Walmart topped the list of the most valuable retail brands in the U.S., followed by Target and Best Buy, per a new report issued by Interbrand today.

The report, compiled by Interbrand Design Forum—a division of the global brand consultancy, ranks retailers based on the value of their brands. The ranking is based on a number of factors: financial forecasting, the percentage of sales and profit that can directly be attributed to branding, and brand strength. These form a net present value, or the economic value of a brand.

Walmart dominated the charts again this year with a 19 percent increase in brand value to $154.1 billion. Target, in second place, saw a jump of 49 percent to $25.5 billion. Best Buy dropped 19 percent in brand value, though it still came in at third place with a brand value of $17.8 billion.

Rounding out the top 10 were The Home Depot, Walgreens, CVS, Sam’s Club, Dell, Coach and e-commerce site Amazon.com.

More about Walmart, Target, Best Buy Named Most Valuable Brands here.

Right now, on the media side, we’re working on the planning and placement for the first half of 2010, in conjunction with Timberlake Media Services in Chicago.

Creatively, we’re working on a new direction that will offer them the ability to communicate their message effectively, while standing out in a very crowded field.

We’re really looking forward to the opportunity and hope to be posting some great work in the coming weeks.

An April 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project shows 63% of adult Americans now have broadband internet connections at home, a 15% increases from a year earlier.

April’s level of high-speed adoption represents a significant jump from figures gathered by the Project since the end of 2007 (54%). The growth in home broadband adoption occurred even though survey respondents reported paying more for broadband compared to May 2008. Last year, the average monthly bill for broadband internet service at home was $34.50, a figure that stands at $39.00 in April 2009.

Download the report here.

By Marsha Lindsay:

What does the worldwide, technologically enabled drive for conversations mean for marketers? It means you’re no longer marketing products or services — you’re marketing conversations. It means marketing-communication planning should be driven by a conversation strategy.

The right conversation strategy answers two big questions: What meaningful content will attract sufficient conversations with the right people? And, how will you jump-start conversations and keep them alive?

When people are starved for time and already engaged in many conversations, jump-starting new and meaningful conversations is the big challenge of marketing today. Just building a website, writing a blog or posting videos on YouTube doesn’t mean sufficient numbers to impact ROI will find them organically, much less take the time and energy to converse with you. By definition a conversation requires others to be present and participate — otherwise you’re talking to yourself. Perhaps therapeutic, but no way to make a living.

Even if people know there’s an opportunity to have a conversation with you — on Twitter or your blog, for instance — you can’t expect them to engage given all the other demands on their time. You’ll need a strategy that both gets them to know you exist and care so much that you exist, they’ll become intrigued about conversing with you. This requires a strategy that integrates search optimization, media, message and contributions of content from consumers.

The right strategy begins with the end in mind: What message can work across multiple platforms and be scaled so quickly and broadly it can drive sufficient revenues to support a business model?

Very few companies have the luxury to let conversations build slowly over time. And no business can afford to risk a high-waste and low-impact effort. More often than not, high-impact campaigns with reasonable returns don’t materialize solely from online ads and social media. Traditional media must be a major component of the mix.

Stefan Olander, Nike’s global director of brand connections, noted at Lindsay, Stone & Briggs’ Brandworks University 2009 that many of Nike’s online campaigns received overwhelming response at launch. Colleagues at Nike were excited about the prospect of dropping expensive traditional media campaigns in favor of these successful digital campaigns. Olander reminded them that, despite how well-known the Nike brand is, to optimize online conversations they still must jump-start initiatives with traditional media.

That’s because traditional media can do what social media cannot: aggressively interject messages into people’s lives in a socially acceptable way. Research conducted by the Advertising Research Foundation indicates that messages delivered by TV may, in fact, be the fastest and most cost-efficient means to jump-start productive conversations in the digital and real worlds.

Experts at the World Advertising Research Center have also studied what it takes to optimize engagement in a conversation economy. They recommend this media priority:

1. Mainstream media.
2. Open networks such as blogs and websites.
3. Closed networks such as Facebook and MySpace.

A multimedia mix framed to spark conversations requires a compelling message concept that can work across a multimedia platform. Its foundation has to be far more than a one-time promotion or product attribute; it must be a message strategy that connects brand meaning with search habits and accommodates ongoing contributions that can range from casual conversations to consumer-generated content.

This is a tall order, but not impossible. That’s because the solution can be found in the motivations of the conversationalists themselves. Some psychologists say that people subconsciously come to a conversation with a desire to be changed by them. This makes sense. Conversation is mankind’s natural search engine.

Well, we’ve crossed the threshold.   In my travels today, I had the chance to stop off at the local Wegman’s to take advantage of their snappy food bar.  Lunchtime can be pretty busy in that place and today was no exception.

What was interesting was seeing what I will call “The New Sweatpants Society.”

Men and women, meeting, then having lunch with their significant others at the grocery store.  That is no big deal.

What was interesting was that in almost every case, one of them was dressed in business attire.  The other, in sweats.

It was striking.

Couples all over the place, dressed entirely differently.  Someone obviously didn’t get the memo.

So, do you think it’s a statement of the times?  The extremely casual nature of their dress could mean that one of the two is working from a home office, works in a very casual environment or perhaps they have a day off.  But this is Tuesday, yes?

Unfortunately, I suspect it’s something a little more sinister.  One of them is out of a job.

On the bright side, I’m sure most of these couples are relishing the chance to break some lunchtime bread together.

But on the other, perhaps it’s a sad commentary on the current employment situation in our country.

I plan on checking in again in a month or so to see if the things have changed any.  Let’s all hope I see a few more shirts and ties!

So many in fact that it has become extremely difficult for an advertiser’s message to stand out from the pack.  Add in the prospect of the increasing use of DVR’s and other time shifting technologies and you have a real advertising challenge on your hands.

There is however, one advertising tactic that is gaining greater acceptance. That tactic is cinema advertising.

In “The Arbitron Cinema Advertising Study”, the evidence is very clear:  consumers are showing increasing acceptance of movie theater advertising. Younger viewers and those who frequent movies now see the on-screen commercials “as part of the entertainment experience.”

What a wonderful treat.  We finally have “a willing and attentive audience.”

According to the study, more than 45% of the respondents had gone to the movies at least once, with 60% of those watching the commercials prior to the start of the movie.  It was also determined that the perception of the method of advertising is positive, with over 63% stating that they “did not mind the advertisements they put on before the movie begins” with the younger audience being even more receptive.

So, give cinema advertising a try.  Better yet, just give us a call and we’ll get things moving.