Talk about a marketing catastrophe. Apparently no one told Pioneer's promotional firm what Black Friday is (hint: it's a day for unprecedented price cuts to get consumers to camp out in the cold for a deeply discounted blender), as it has inexplicably decided to re-coin the holiday "KURO Friday." Why do such a thing? To quote Pioneer, it's to "celebrate the creative visionaries" who helped bring KURO to life. In other words, KURO Friday is not being established to announce sweet, sweet price drops on all KURO wares. Two thumbs way down, Pioneer.

We've heard for years that the DVR was killing marketers' ability to inform and persuade, but a recent survey from IBM points out that advertisers would do alright if they'd simply keep with the times. The research revealed that more and more individuals are turning to their PCs and mobiles for content ingestion, and out of the 2,800 individuals surveyed around the globe, over 70% said they preferred "advertising-supported models as opposed to consumer-paid models." In fact, the majority of respondents admitted to preferring ads shown before of after a clip versus the "interruption" method currently used in TV broadcasts. Researchers also found that some 60% would be willing to provide personal information in exchange for valuable content, with "high quality music / videos, discounts to favorite stores and air travel / hotel points" being among the most desirable. More figures for number lovers are just down there in the read link.

Now here's a promotion we can really bang our heads to. Forget those free HDTVs and 1-year promotional rates -- AT&T is offering something you really want for subscribing to its high-speed internet or qualifying U-verse TV plans. Starting on November 14th, consumers ready to make the switch to fiber will be gifted with Guitar Hero World Tour, complete with the game itself (on your console of choice, we presume) and a guitar. On second thought, we'd actually prefer a service discount.

The stakes are high for Blu-ray this holiday season. As we've stated before, it's the first such season where it's not competing directly with HD DVD, and coincidentally enough, also the first in which it is competing (at least to a small degree) with HD streaming. To that end, a number of studios and consumer electronics outfits have agreed to fund a $25 million marketing campaign dubbed Tru Blu, which involves airing persuasive commercials on channels that "attract heavily male audiences." With Blu-ray deck prices expected to reach the $150 area come Black Friday, we'd say BD still has a good chance of being successful this winter, but it's going to need every ounce of gusto it can muster.

Content owners have long since looked down upon the almighty DVR, but a recent survey suggests that they actually have little to worry over. In fact, over 90% of individuals surveyed by Knowledge Networks admitted that they "typically watch TV during the prime-time hours of 8:00PM to midnight," which is a rate similar to that of four years ago. According to the company's David Tice, "increased DVR usage seems to come at the expense of watching purchased video," hinting that the decrease in home video sales could be linked to the ability to watch one's favorite shows at any time of the day. 'Course, this evidence here does clash somewhat with other numbers, but we aren't shocked at all to hear that people would rather watch something instantly on their DVR instead of going to the video store.

While LIN TV and Time Warner Cable remain embroiled in all sorts of disagreements, two of the company's stations in the Hartford-New Haven, Connecticut area are gearing up to trial Backchannelmedia's TV-to-Internet click through technology. If you'll recall, we first heard of this worrisome interactive advertising platform back in May when MGM Grand at Foxwoods signed on. Now, WTNH (ABC) and WCTX (MyNetworkTV) have also agreed to participate in the company's market trial, which is set to start next month. In essence, it will give viewers the ability to click on "non-intrusive icons at the bottom of the their TV screen" in order to bookmark offers for online viewing; obviously, all of the response data is forwarded on for use in soliciting more cash from advertisers. Why does the idea of having to engage with ads sound so dreadful from here?

Hunker down and find that tin foil cap, pronto! Privacy advocates, we've a new target for you to bang on: Integrated Media Measurement. The 4,900-person media research company is looking to take advertising measurement to a whole new level (or new low, as it were) by embedding tracking modules within cellphones. In short, the module picks up audio from ads and records information about the exposure; in the future, if you were to purchase whatever product you heard about (like seeing a movie that was plugged), it would register a hit and deem you a sucker. As of now, the only testers with these freaky phones are individuals who signed up for this stuff, but you better believe major marketing firms (and TV / movie studios in particular) are perking their ears up and begging to know more.

[Image courtesy of Corbis, thanks ugotamesij]

We're not sure who is in charge of marketing over at Discovery Communications, but no sooner did the company go public than two fairly substantial promotional deals were announced. Right behind the tie-up with Sony comes this, a content partnership with the worldwide leader in online video. The deal will see the creation of nine dedicated YouTube Channels which feature a "robust collection of clips from Discovery's family of world-class network brands." Leveraging the "global" nature of the source, Discovery is planning to introduce "a series of targeted international Channels showcasing localized and native language content for specific regions around the world." Check out all nine URLs in the read link.

The holiday push for Blu-ray is officially on. We've got name-brand players dipping below $200, and now we've got two mega-corps teaming up to promote the format this fall. Sony and Discovery Commerce, the consumer products arm of Discovery Communications, have inked a deal which will provide Sony Blu-ray deck buyers with a "gift-with-purchase coupon redeemable for an exclusive high-definition program sampler, Discovery on Blu-ray Disc, which features episodes from Fearless Planet and Sunrise Earth. The fortnight-long promo will launch on October 5th at over 11,000 retailers in the US, though there's no word on if a better, actually desirable promotion will follow after that.

When Vizio let loose a stable of new HDTVs at CES this year, it was apparent the outfit was beginning to head in another direction. For years it had pushed itself as a discount brand, grabbing market share the only way it knew how: by selling cheap. With a decent foothold in the US, Vizio has finally decided to switch gears and begin to market the more sophisticated aspects of its HDTVs. It won't stop throwing the word "value" around, but rather than honing in on how much cheaper its wares are compared to top-label competitors, it has now hired an ad agency to showcase the high-quality aspects. According to said agency, it wants "consumers to associate premiere audio quality, along with images, when they think about Vizio," and beyond all that, we're also hearing confirmation that the outfit will indeed be pushing out a low-cost soundbar in the near future. Go get 'em, Vizio.

We know our evaluation is a few months old now, but we're pretty darn sure Comcast hasn't made up the huge gap between its HD lineup and DirecTV's in a few short months. Nevertheless, said cable company has apparently lost its mind with a new 30-second spot themed after Deal or No Deal. In the ad, a contestant is asked to guess which provider has more HD options at 7:12PM in Chicago, and after he correctly guesses DirecTV, the badly misinformed host tells him that he's flat-out wrong. Then, a graphic shows up touting "500" HD options for Comcast and just 95 or so on DirecTV, and as if that weren't misleading enough, the spooky narrator reminds us that "Comcast always has more HD." It's not that we don't believe the guy, we just can't figure out on what planet this scenario is actually true. The mind-boggling spot is after the jump.

[Via CNET, thanks Isaac]

It looks as if the days of Time Warner Cable resting on its laurels while laughing all the way to the bank are coming to end, particularly in NYC. Although Chief Operating Officer Landel Hobbs was quoted as saying that TWC was "effectively positioned in Manhattan" while "[Verizon] was just getting started," we'd say it has plenty to fear. The outfit is expected to ramp up marketing in order to push its services over those offered by competing telcos and satcasters, though without a significant boost in HD options in a significant number of markets, we can't see the spots really making much of an impact. Additionally, said exec said that the firm plans to roll out DOCSIS 3.0 "surgically" in order to compete in FiOS areas, and given that this is the company who is actually mulling consumption-based internet billing, we don't find its hesitation to go full-bore shocking in the least. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

Lookee here, our first sight at what Pioneer's bringing to CEDIA. For the audio crowd, it's unveiling a mind-boggling 16 new speaker models including four floorstanding subwoofers. The new line of "dynamic architectural loudspeakers (pictured after the jump) come in three different performance levels – Elite EX Series, Pioneer CST and plain ole Pioneer. As you can likely imagine, we don't have the luxury of space here to cover the sweet sixteen, but everything is laid out nicely in the link below. In somewhat related news, the outfit has also announced a new KURO brand campaign that "embodies transformation." We'll spare you the marketing hoopla, but there's a nice link down there should you want to dive in.

Read - 16 new speaker models
Read - New KURO campaign

Verizon's latest push to get you to switch from your current carrier revolves directly around high-def, as it's offering new customers a HD DVR or HD Home Media DVR for a full year should they sign up before October 4th. According to Shawn Strickland, vice president of video solutions for Verizon, FiOS TV is "delivered over the network that's built for HD," and it's doing its best to ensure that everyone out there knows it. So, do any of you other providers care to match this, or will the leapfrog game end here?

[Image courtesy of PCMag]

You know those situations where everyone knows something yet no one is courageous enough to just blurt out the obvious? Pardon us, but yes, people do actually use their DVRs to skip commercials. In case our word isn't good enough for you, research firm Oliver Wyman has just completed a study which found that 85% of the 1,000 global participants used their DVR to skip at least three-quarters of all commercials. Furthermore, most viewers stated that they would not be willing to "watch advertising even when it underwrites free content," and they wouldn't want to pay extra (in addition to the DVR cost, we presume) to remove ads. Really though, we ad skippers are simply keeping those lucrative media marketing firms on their toes, and trust us, they have / will continue to find ways to circumvent our circumvention. Full release after the jump.