ad:tech come and gone...

Another ad:tech has come and gone. Like many of the shows in NYC – it’s a logistical nightmare. The last few years have been slightly better location wise (Hilton), but the overpriced lodging accommodations prevent many people from attending. When I first joined this industry several years ago I used to look forward to the trade shows (Affiliate Summit, LeadsCon, ad:tech). The thought of reuniting with old friends always appealed to me. Now most of those familiar faces pick and choose which shows to attend – making those old reunions more scarce. Sure rising costs and a slumping economy are factors, but NYC is a different animal altogether.

Like many of you we were faced with the cost of housing employees to attend the show. Luckily for me I’m a local, but for my two counterparts we weren’t so fortunate. The price for one night was $529 (Westin on Broadway). After all is said and done the total for attending a typical show in NYC is well over $2k per employee. Arguably that’s not bad considering the end goal (to acquire new business), but unlike Vegas prices for NYC are much too high.

Apples-to-apples Vegas is a much better fit. This time of year rooms are abundant in Vegas. The 5 star Bellagio is currently offering a respectable $189 a night rate – 50% less than any accommodation in NYC. Another factor to consider, hotels in Vegas have banquet rooms that are more than spacious enough to hold an industry event. A further benefit of Vegas is transporting to and from the show. In addition there are a ton of places to dine that require a lot less traveling. At the end of the day we (advertising and marketing professionals) want to spend less time in a cab and more time wining/dinning potential clients.

You don’t know how many times I heard people complain about waiting for a cab to go across town, or complain about the lack of close places to go for lunch. Let’s face it the Javits center is good for a car show or a place to display a particular product, but weak at best for services as intimate as marketing and advertising. Overkill was a word I heard more than once. The one positive from this year’s show was the weather. New York finally came through – the weather was splendid this year.

As much as I love New York I prefer to keep things simple and cost effective. NYC is great, but the city lacks in comparison to Vegas and San Francisco – apples-to-apples.

I Carved a Pumpkin

Spent some time this weekend carving out a pumpkin. Here it is:



I always like to do something creative each year. Working on a Flux pumpkin later this week.

Halloween is creeping up. Time to start really pumping out those Halloween offers. We have several available to you all. Check them out.

Calling all techies - I need your help!

Calling all techies - I need your help! I recently “upgraded” from a PC to a Mac. It’s been almost 4 years since I last used a Mac. Like many others - I was lead to believe in almost every category a Mac would outperform its rival – hands down! We’ve all seen the “I’m a Mac” commercials where Justin Long comically jabs at Windows inability to provide a stable OS. Apple’s ad campaign is one of the most effective marketing campaigns to date. It’s sexy, smart, and the “in” thing to own. So, I have to admit, it worked on me.

Here’s a little background on what I do. Most of my day-to-day consists of using spreadsheets – replying to emails – and creating RFP’s. I’m not a designer or hard core gamer, so most issues associated with Windows OS never really affected me. In fact I even enjoyed having a computer that seemed to respond (compatible) without issue to most software applications. However, I did notice how the system resources my Mac seemed to deliver flawlessly gave my PC a bit more trouble. As a result - after several months of deliberation I decided to make the jump back to the trend setting Mac world. Now, all I needed was an office suite that delivered like my PC.


Microsoft makes an office version for Mac (Mactopia). Much to my chagrin I was in for a rude awakening. Remember, all I use my computer for is minor office applications and I’ve heard conflicting stories on this next piece, but I’m still skeptical something else is at play. According to several blogs and other inside resources the binary code MS uses for it’s famous Outlook application renders the data useless to several other email clients like Entourage, Eudora, and Thunderbird making the migration to the Mac impossible. What I need is export my .pst files into Entourage 2008, or any other email client similar to Outlook.

Sure I could export the files via CSV or another method, but all of the personal files I created over the years would be left in purgatory. I don’t know about you, but I’m a fish out of water without my contact folders and email history. So, now I’m the proud owner of a system that’s incompatible with my most important resource. I’ve searched high and low for answers without luck. I even took the time to setup an appointment with a “Mac Genius” for assistance to only learn I had as much information about the situation as he did.

I understand Mac now allows the use of MS’ OS, but what’s the point? I choose this road because of effective advertising. I wanted to believe I found salvation to my resource issue by joining the masses. The only thing I learned was my effort fell short. Open Source, this – that – it’s all foreign to me. I just want a working computer that allows me to do my job.

I’m open to any and all suggestions. The long/short is – was I really better off to switch, or should I have stuck with worked? I don’t know. What I do know is Apple has one fine marketing team (TBWA\Chiat\Day).

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

conference mania

Adtech, Affiliate Summit, PPC Summit and now Affiliate Convention. I think we could probably go to a conference every month if we wanted to, but there comes a point when you have to wonder if it's worth it to travel to see the saem companies and the same people every few weeks. FluxAds will attend several of these and they're great networking opportunities, but if we start stretching the market too thin, it may be that a few of these conferences start to shake out.

2010 is busy already, and the main ones will certainly remain big, but in the next year, Flux is going to be looking at smaller, more targeted conferences that concern a specific area of the industry we are targeting. Hope to see some of you there, and if we thing a certain program will be of special interest to our clients we'll be sure to let you know.

Cody the Intern is getting married!

Everyone at Flux would like to congratulate Cody the Intern....Cody proposed to his girlfriend this past week, and although it took her a while to answer, she said YES!

We don't have a picture of Cody the Intern to share with all of you, but he does look a little bit like Napoleon Dynamite...so we'll just go with that!

Follow Flux on Twitter!

Just wanted to remind you all that we post any new offer updates or changes, as well as whenever any new campaigns go live on our Twitter account. If you are a Tweeter and would like to receive our network updates, follow us here: http://twitter.com/FluxAds

PPC Summit in Chicago

Hey, we wanted to let you know that the PPC Summit will be in Chicago on November 4th and 5th. A couple of us here attended the one in LA a few weeks back and it was pretty good. The people at PPC Summit asked us if we could mention the Chicago show to all of our clients that promote campaigns through PPC, and we told them we would, but only if they would offer you a discount…and they will offer as much as 35% if you sign up to attend by Friday.

You do have to use this promo code to get the discount: TLA

Here is a link to the convention site: www.PPCSummit.com

They told us they would give us $75 for every Flux affiliates that we get to sign up, so instead of us keeping that $75, we will just go ahead and give it to any affiliate that signs up to attend…so if you sign up, please let us know and we will give you the $75.00 once they pay the $75.00 to us.

Don't drink too much at Ad Tech

This might be one of the funniest things I have see on the Internet in a long time...I'm not sure if it's real, but if it is, then someone needs a few cups of coffee.

The moral of the story for us in Internet advertising is this:

Don't drink too much at the next conference you go to or you may end up looking like this guy.....