So, is a picture really worth a thousand words? If the picture's on your website, it could be worth ten times that many.

Considering that the average visitor spends less than a minute on your website, the design of your site needs to quickly and easily communicate who you are and what you do. When you have a small window of time to say, "I am a friendly, thoughtful, customer-service-oriented business with happy customers," good quality images may be the perfect way to do it!

Whether used in print or online, designing an ad is all about one thing: delivering a message that drives a prospect to become a customer.

Most companies change their ad designs over time to reach new and changing audiences. As your company's profile changes, your market matures, and your product offerings grow, your advertising and marketing efforts should evolve to suit your needs.

With the prevalence of email, text messaging and IMs, it seems hard to imagine that conventional mail (a.k.a., "snail mail") could be an important marketing vehicle. And yet, millions of dollars are spent by companies each year to create direct marketing pieces that deliver an experience right to your door.

How do you know if you should reach out and touch someone in their mailbox? Just ask yourself three questions:

For the first time in 14 years,QVC is redesigning itsimage. The television shopping network recently launched a new logo as part of atotal integrated marketing campaign (the first of its 21 years) that aims tooverhaul QVC’s identity from the ground up.

What's growing faster than Internet ad spend (and way faster than tv, print andradio)?AdvertisingAge reports that Shopper Marketing has doubled since 2004 and is on pace foran annual growth rate of 21% through 2010, making it faster than even theInternet juggernaut (which is rising 15% annually). As usual,P&Gis leading the pack among consumer brand powerhouses, spending at least $500million annually on shopper marketing.

From decals on the aisle floor to ads on the shopping cart, brands arescrambling to get closer to the point of purchase, increasing the chances ofinfluencing the purchase decision.

As Brand New noted recently, the NFL is updating its logo. After more than 60 years, it’s probably about time.

According to USA Today, the NFL has developed a “leaner, meaner” version to launch next April. Why the change? The darker blue will increase contrast; fewer stars will make the logo easier to reproduce (apparently vendors had been altering the logo on their own to cut down on the inexplicably numerous stars); the football will look less like a “hamburger” and more like the ball on top of the Vince Lombardi Championship Trophy.

While hot internet properties such as Facebook and Youtube undeniably get eyeballs, marketers have been struggling with how to commoditize that traffic. Just throwing up banner ads hasn’t been working out that well, according to a study from Forrester that recommends moving past run-of-site placements to engage users.

The start-up that turned its Harvard founders into gazillionaires is addressing this issue with an innovative new ad platform. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Facebook is developing a tactic to target its ads based on the details users reveal in their online profiles. While networks like Yahoo! have long used personal data to offer their advertisers behavioral

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported on a recent JupiterResearch study naming Google as the America’s favorite Internet brand. The search-engine-turned-media-company beat out Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, MySpace, Microsoft and AOL, with 35% of the vote.