MOTHERBRAIN

Signs of the Times

From my two-block walk from BART to the office this morning:

Eat Fresh (tm)

For future reference...

(via FFFFOUND)

Wednesday

Friday

Bonkers

Make yer head asplode

(Via Amber)

Advergaming Works.

Water Cooler Games points us towards a study done by the Missouri School of Journalism that shows advergaming to have a positive affect on brand opinions. This makes a lot of sense if you subscribe to Raph's theory that games are essentially teaching mechanisms.  I think that work like this shows that there is incredible value in understanding why we game ... Here's hoping we see a continued emphasis on research like this. 

 From their incredibly academic mouths:

Our results provide further evidence that the transfer of positive affect elicited by entertaining media content to the sponsoring brand likely involves a mental process that could improve brand attitudes. According to an associated network view of human memory, advergame features that increase the mental connection between game content and the sponsoring brand also should increase the ease of positive affect transfer, leading to a stronger relationship between attitudes toward the game and brand attitudes. Our finding that increasing the thematic connection between an advergame and the sponsoring brand makes attitude toward the game a stronger predictor of attitude toward the brand is consistent with a theoretical explanation of this phenomenon based on affect transfer.

The immersive and interactive nature of the advergame might distinguish it from other advertising platforms such as product placement, which in turn could facilitate stronger affect transfer in advergames than in product placements. However, it remains unclear how the relevant/irrelevant distinction might differ between these two context. Researchers also have suggested that these features may weaken memory for in-game advertising by increasing demand for cognitive resources (Yang et al. 2006). These distinguishing features of an advergame provide a unique opportunity for researchers to study nuances in the relationship between ad attitudes and brand attitudes, as well as memory for advertising messages.

Palin Didn't Know Africa Was a Continent

Under the bus she goes ... but also, how did they pick someone so shockingly ignorant?

44 Presidents in Convenient Chart Form

(Via Agency Spy, Thanks Krissie)