Scams that marked the internet

From Techcult re EVE Online:

In 2006 a player called Cally (real name Dentara Rast) set up the “EVE Investment Bank”, and in yet another example of the amazing unrealistic things that can happen in video games, people entrusted their money to a man named “Cally”.

Over time the bank expanded and eventually had over 700 Billion ISK (over one hundred thousand real, honest to god “You can buy food or sex with these” dollars) in the account. Then, in a corporate crime that real-life CEOs can only dream of (and I’m sure often do), Cally just took all the money and ran. Specifically, he ran and bought an Ultimega-death clas hyper cruiser, put a million ISK bounty on his own head and cruised off into deep space simply daring anyone to try and kill him. See this? THIS is why people play video games so much - in real life white collar crime is fudged numbers and emigration to tax havens, in EVE we’ve got a bank manager who deals with service complaints with a fusion cannon.

The New Coke debacle

Even Gay Mullins– the man who tried to sue to restore the old flavor– showed a preference for New Coke when subjected to blind taste tests. It has been suggested that if Coca-Cola had changed their recipe but retained the familiar branding, New Coke and its taste-test-winning flavor might have been more acceptable to our primitive brains. Sensation transference was also powerfully demonstrated in a 2007 experiment, in which preschoolers were given McDonald's menu items in both branded and plain wrappers. Although the foods were identical aside from their wrappings, the children said they preferred the taste of the McDonald's-branded burgers, carrots, and apple juice in the vast majority of tests.

Pharmaceutical company marketing methods

Was the research done independently, and if not, was it paid for by a drug company?

And if the results are favourable about a particular drug, can you be sure that other less favourable results have not been censored or suppressed?

Mentions how physicians are wined and dined for some shilling action.

Why things cost $19.95

There were three scenarios involving different retail prices: one group of buyers was given a price of $5,000, another was given a price of $4,988, and the third was told $5,012. When all the buyers were asked to estimate the wholesale price, those with the $5,000 price tag in their head guessed much lower than those contemplating the more precise retail prices. That is, they moved farther away from the mental anchor. What is more, those who started with the round number as their mental anchor were much more likely to guess a wholesale price that was also in round numbers. The scientists ran this experiment again and again with different scenarios and always got the same result.

Also,

... a physician might say that your chance of responding to a medication is “good” or that your chance of responding is 80 percent. The percentage is more precise, but many studies have shown that patients prefer vague generalities like “good,”...

How possessions bend our perceptions

6. Partial ownership: Marketing executives know the power of ownership so they use all kinds of tricks to encourage partial ownership because it often leads on to full ownership. We don't usually return our furniture within the 30-day money-back guarantee period because we've grown attached to it - it's ours.

Selling to children

"Advertising at its best is making people feel that without their product, you’re a loser," explained Nancy Shalek, president of the Shalek Agency. "Kids are very sensitive to that. If you tell them to buy something, they are resistant. But if you tell them that they’ll be a dork if they don’t, you’ve got their attention."

Is the tipping point toast?

Network theory scientist Duncan Watts trashes the theory that a few well-connected, influential people start trends.

Big pharma spends more on advertising than research

Not exactly a surprise.

The Century of the Self -- the science of crowd control

The first part of a BBC doc on how consumer culture was engineered into existence and associated with democracy by a movement founded by Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, using applied psychology.

How to build traffic off-blog to build traffic for no money

Wait, do I have to leave my seat?

AdReady -- create your own online ads

Bringing banner advertising to the little guy.

Facebook's app economy

Coders are making real money riding the Facebook phenomenon. It's been the simple apps that have gone wildly viral.

The 12 kinds of ads

A slide show with an example commercial on each page.

Five ballpark promotions that went wrong

What's wrong with dropping cash from a helicopter? People like cash too much.

Most college kids don't correctly match brands with countries of origin

Well, it would appear that college kids believe everything comes from Japan, Germany or the USA. I was with them, however, on Lego and Adidas. From Anderson Analytics:

How the Wii beat out the PS3 and XBox 360

Bringing a product for the common consumer rather than elite gamers with their demand for ever fancier graphics.
Nintendo tries to compare itself to Starbucks and Apple's iPod, declaring them innovative. I think that's missing a dimension and somewhat misleading. Starbucks and iPods had everything to do with making the customer feel elite and apart. The Wii goes in the opposite direction and is not just good marketing. Actually, the anticipation from gaming critics was really negative.

Promotions that worked too well

In turkeys, swimwear (posters of Heidi Klum, actually), sunscreen, credit cards.