We have sort of a platonic internet love affair with the guys at Less Everything. When we started Jackson Fish Market we had to pick an accounting package. QuickBooks and PeachTree looked so ugly and complicated that I just couldn’t bring myself to use them. They made my eyes bleed and my head hurt. I [...]

A few months ago we wrote about (and were quoted in) an article in AdAge lamented the lack of support for branded apps (and widgets) from big advertisers. Here at JFM we have always believed that brand sponsors, looking for engagement, will ultimately realize that software is the single most cost-effective way to engage users [...]

When we started Jackson Fish Market, the first problem we decided to address was the lack of great options for brand advertisers online. Our simple premise was that useful and entertaining software on the web had the capability of engaging online audiences (both in terms of minutes spent and depth of engagement) much more cost-effectively [...]

Even though we’re on winter break here at JFM we had to interrupt the peace and quiet of our blog because Bob Garfield wrote a huge and thoughtful piece for AdAge on widgets. Given that we’re at the very early stages of having advertisers fund useful consumer web apps, any time someone super influential, like [...]

You certainly don’t need this blog to tell you that the economy is in trouble and there’s a lot of uncertainty. And while reviewing all your efforts with a careful eye, and spending conservatively is always good advice, it’s certainly something that everyone is doing now. I think everyone is asking themselves: “am i doing [...]

Video gaming has always been a hobby of mine, and though I don’t delve into the game world as much these days, I still get excited about the different news items that pop up from time to time. I’m particularly keen on old games making a comeback on new systems, although I generally like the [...]

JC Penney’s got a branded UGC site – Rock Your Look. Users can pick from a handful of songs and then make a karaoke video using their webcam. It’s also got a contests element (you marketing guys love contests) that’s connected with the Teen Choice awards. The site isn’t super novel but it’s not bad [...]

There’s no need to convince most marketing folks that a presence on the web is critical. They appear to understand that. There also appears to be no need to convince them that they need to stand out on the web. The problem comes in the conception of what it means to stand out. Over and [...]

When it comes to brands doing digital marketing, I’m a big fan of trying to incorporate your online presence into the audience’s life on an ongoing basis instead of trying to get a bunch of their attention for a brief moment before they move on forever. MSN definitely took the latter approach when creating the [...]

When we first started out, one of the only examples out there of a genuinely useful website that was built with exclusive advertiser sponsorship as its driving force was Change Everything built by the folks at Social Signal. I wish I could say a lot has changed, but there aren’t exactly a plethora of sites [...]

We’ve discussed the evolution from banner ads to branded widgets to full blown branded web applications. Many marketers are starting to understand the value of delivering useful “content” to their audiences as a means of engaging them. However, it’s worth spending a moment to examine the word “content” and how it’s used. It’s critical that [...]

It didn’t take long after advent of the internet for marketers to look at it as a medium for advertising. And as most creators do when they see a new medium, they create for that new medium using the techniques and approaches that have served them well in more established mediums. In our specific example [...]

Back in November of 2006 when we founded Jackson Fish Market we felt like a lonely voice talking about creating experiences online that functioned both as useful destinations as well as opportunities for brand marketers to connect with audiences. Here we are almost a year-and-a-half later and we’ve happened upon two companies telling the same [...]

Billboards and 30 second tv spots have been among the iconic advertising formats for decades. (The web has its own version in the form of banner ads, interstitials, and the torrent of video advertising inserting itself in our streams.) And yet NBC is moving towards having advertisers sponsor entire shows. From the Times: “At a [...]

We create “branded utilities” — what we’ve been calling “branded software experiences”. (Or for those of you who’d like it without the fancy jargon, we make web apps and get brand advertisers to sponsor them.) “[Branded Utility] is where the brand creates a commitment to a relationship. It’s where the brand creates something useful to [...]

Mike Masnick at TechDirt responds to the original AdAge post with more enlightenment: #3 Content is advertising. Might sound like a repeat of the point above, and in some way it is — but it’s highlighting the flip side. Any content is advertising. It’s advertising something. Techdirt content “advertises” our business even if you don’t [...]

Today the ad industry trade press finally wrote the story we’ve been telling for the last 15 months: Think Different: Maybe the Web’s Not a Place to Stick Your Ads — Matthew Creamer Asks Whether We’re All Missing the Point When It Comes to the Internet This is exciting for us as we’ve been trying [...]

…with Deb, Brian, and Tara. Our initial reactions below.

I think it’s hard to find folks who will argue with the premise that advertisers are funding (or soon will be funding) the bulk of consumer software development on the planet. And when it comes to brand advertising, those sponsors are finding that the higher they go up the software evolutionary chain, the better results [...]

I just sat through Nick Brien, the CEO of Universal McCann’s keynote here at ad:tech. Much like the keynote I saw at AAAA by Jim Stengel, P&G’s chief marketer, Nick did a great job rallying the troops to embrace the new digital world and the upheaval in the media industry. He talked about experiences instead [...]

This morning I’m at ad:tech in NYC. I really have no idea what to expect as already it’s become clear that most of the people in the ad world don’t recognize software as a medium for what they do. Don’t get me wrong, they love technology and the internet. But as far as I can [...]

The folks who make the Wilkinson Sword razor (I think more popular in Europe than here) have put a lot of effort and I suspect money into a new promotional site called Fight for Kisses. (The fightforkisses.com domain redirects to the much “easier” ffk-wilkinson.com.) First up is a long video of a super creepy baby [...]

Right on the cusp of Branded Software Experiences is a set of flash-based sites from the printing group over at HP. Basically, the folks at HP worked with Gwen, Jake, and Paula to create little sites focused on print-based activities that reflect the personal brands of each of the personalities the sites are built around. [...]

Several months ago I was at a party where a friend mentioned that they were thinking of what to do next with their career. He did pretty well at their previous gigs and was under no major pressure to get a job soon. He told me that despite his experience making software he was looking [...]

My friend Steve pointed me this morning to a site brought to you by the nice folks at Perrier called Show Me Sexier. You get to the site and there’s this cute animated cartoon about a guy choosing an aftershave (I thought people stopped doing that in the 70′s) and sprinkling himself with Perrier and [...]

You may have noticed that the crane has left and there’s a new store open for business on the street at the top of this page. Over the past couple of months, we’ve been steadily crafting our first Jackson Fish “Experience”. This first humble offering is They’re Beautiful! – Gorgeous, Free, One-of-a-Kind Flowers. It’s our [...]

A few months ago, to much fanfare bud.TV launched. This is Budweiser’s online presence chock full of Budweisery goodness. As you can imagine, I am a huge fan of brand advertisers embracing the online space. And embrace it they did. Back in September when the Anheuser-Bush marketing department was full of excitement and optimism they [...]

Get On Board is the latest branded software experience to come across our screens. (See our index of branded interactive experiences). Built to support the new movie Evan Almighty (sequel to Bruce Almighty) the site is much closer to our definition of Branded Software than some of the other sites coming out these days. It’s [...]

Last week Hillel shared some thoughts on Let it Out, a brand experience sponsored by Kleenex. The TV spots do a bang up job in telling really engaging stories about the most emotional and important events in peoples’ lives. The message is clear and meaningful. But when you get to the site, Let it Out [...]

We’ve started keeping a list of every Branded Software Experience on the web that we can find. As more brand marketers investigate this as a path to get their brand messaging out, it will be helpful to learn from others successes and missteps. There are now a grand total of five! Branded Software Experience Index [...]