Saturday, March 26, 2011

The Strange Case Of Charlie Engle:Imprisoned For Taking A Liar Loan

A big tip of the hat to Joe Nocera from the NYTimes for bringing attention to the Charlie Engle story, In Prison For Taking a Liar Loan. It is scary to read about what government bureaucrats will do once they put a person in their cross-hairs. The Nocera article is a great read. Given Engle's past association in film with Matt Damon, I wouldn't be surprised to see this in motion picture form.



Long story short, Engle used "stated-income" loans to speculate on real-estate during the bubble period of 2006-2008. He ended up paying the price of foreclosure, yet on top of all that he ended up being prosecution by the Feds for mortgage fraud. He is now serving a 21 month sentence in a Federal Pen. If anything good can come out of this, perhaps Engle's fortitude and benevolence can serve as an inspiration to not only his fellow inmates, but also to us on the outside. His blog is worth a regular read and a bookmark.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Interactive ads beat print in study of readers

For many in the sales and marketing community the pressure to produce more with less has been relentless. The need to demonstrate a return on marketing spend has become a necessity. Given these forces, this recently released study by Alex Wang, PhD commissioned by Adobe makes for a fascinating read .

You can read the Executive Summary here.

I have often presented the argument that interactive digital advertising offers a more captivating and engaging messaging vehicle than the traditional print approach but until I read this study I was operating more on intuition than anything else. Granted, the subjects in the study were at the oldest 32 years old, but if the intent of your marketing is to engage and involve your customers and prospects in your messaging the study offers food for thought .

In essence this study set out to answer a couple questions:
1) Can Interactive ads (ads that enable motion, sound, animation) in a digital magazine format generate stronger engagement, involvement and brand awareness than static ads in a print magazine.
2) Can higher interactivity generated by an Interactive ad generate stronger brand recall, engagement, message involvement, attitude, and purchase intention than a static print ad
3) What are the relations among interactivity, engagement, message involvement, attitude, and purchase intention