Marketing

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  Guy Kawasaki

• The 19 bloggers Inc. thinks you should read

  GuyKawasaki

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:20 pm

  Inc. named 19 bloggers that you should read. We’ve aggregated them all in one place: Inc19.alltop.

• How to Get Found

  GuyKawasaki

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:29 pm

  The reality is that people and technology is getting better and better a blocking out unwanted interruptions—aka, “marketing.” Brian Halligan is the CEO of HubSpot, and he explains in my post on the American Express Open Forum “how to get found.” It’s all about creating great stuff and letting Google et al do what they do: find great stuff.

• How I tweet

  GuyKawasaki

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:47 am

  By popular demand (and some complaints), I’ve done a FAQ with myself about how I tweet. Hope this helps you use Twitter for your business too. I explain how I use ghostwriters and why I repeat my tweets among other “unusual” practices.

• Current Twitter Demo Script

  GuyKawasaki

  28 Oct 2009 | 2:26 am

  This is the set of links that I used to demo Twitter by going down through this list to show why Twitter is such a valuable marketing tool. Introduction Home page Profile page Monitor Search Guy Kawasaki or Alltop Starbucks VIA introduction Search for “Prius” or “Civic” Sell Dell Outlet Kogi BBQ Support Comcast Cares Engage JetBlue Virgin America Fandango Prospect Camaro Camaro near Palo Alto Advanced searches Surfing or skateboarding (shows how to eliminate extraneous results such as “surfing the web” How I Tweet - Find Alltop MyAlltop helped me find this.

• How to Avoid Twitter Cluelessness

  GuyKawasaki

  26 Oct 2009 | 4:24 pm

  Over at the American Express Open Forum blog, I explain how to not look clueless on Twitter. The first five ways are: Don’t tell other people how to tweet. Don’t tell the world that you unfollowed someone. Don’t ask people why they unfollowed you. Don’t constantly tweet mundane updates and babble. Don’t use a small picture for an avatar. To read all ten and why they impugn your intelligence, click here.

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  MarketingVOX - The Voice of Online Marketing

• Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2010: Flash, Crowdsourcing, Info-Art

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:25 pm

  As 2010 fast approaches, digital marketers are gearing up for yet another year of changes that will incorporate both the transformational and the incremental. From the economy's influence on the...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marketingvox/rss/~4/-_BbbgMeKV4" height="1" width="1"/>

• Scareware, Rogue Ads Join Up for Hack Attacks

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:24 pm

  Two separate online security threats aimed at publishers and online advertisers are converging to form an even more potent force: Scareware is increasingly piggybacking in rogue ads to cause serious...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marketingvox/rss/~4/1HA21LSGjIQ" height="1" width="1"/>

• SocNet Experiments Bode Well for Holiday Season

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:14 pm

  Inspired by the results of experimental social media campaigns, some major retailers are gearing up to roll out more elaborate social networking campaigns than they did last year. Though overall...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marketingvox/rss/~4/nqrUFR5K6kc" height="1" width="1"/>

• Toshiba Takes Online Contests, Humor to ESPN

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:03 pm

  Online contests and humor are a significant part of Toshiba's new multi-platform ad and sponsorship campaign, which is slated to run on ESPN and ABC next year. The inclusion of the contests and other...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marketingvox/rss/~4/hICj-yH_o48" height="1" width="1"/>

• Industry Buzz & Snippets: 11/06/09

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:31 am

  Ad Strategies: The problem with social media agencies. News Corp.'s Miller: Will the display ad market come back? Ad Campaigns: Sirius kicks off most aggressive ad campaign. Guinness creates...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/marketingvox/rss/~4/KZYPG05GwJA" height="1" width="1"/>

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  Neuromarketing

• Emsense Raises $9 Million

  Roger Dooley

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:09 am

  Neuromarketing firm Emsense has raised $9 million in additional capital. The new round was led by an investment from Technology Partners with existing investor the Foundry Group also participating. This funding will allow EmSense to continue its global expansion in support of its many market research partners. The funds will also enable the company [...]

• Want Some Emotion with That Website?

  Roger Dooley

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:01 am

  As a web community guy, one of the most common problems I see is the failure to communicate emotion properly when people interact online. A remark intended as humorous can be perceived as a personal attack, or an expression of sympathy can be taken as cruel sarcasm. While I always suggest caution (particularly [...]

• College Branding: What if Harvard Moved Next Door?

  Roger Dooley

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:06 am

  Why do most college branding efforts end up as meaningless pablum? I think it’s because most colleges have been relatively insulated from the effects of devastating competition. In fact, historically there have been major barriers to competition in the cozy world of higher education. The biggest have been geography, cost, and reputation. [...]

• Scent Marketing vs. Social Media

  Roger Dooley

  30 Oct 2009 | 5:23 am

  The other day, Ad Age’s CMO Strategy Section ran a column by Harald Vogt on scent marketing. Vogt may not be entirely impartial on the topic – he is the founder and chief marketer of the Scent Marketing Institute – but he makes some good points when he questions why so few marketers employ [...]

• Sugar as Brain Food

  Roger Dooley

  29 Oct 2009 | 5:22 am

  This isn’t great news for dieters, but sometimes sugar can be a good thing. Roy Baumeister, a psychologist at Florida State University, had subjects perform a mentally taxing task – watching a video while being careful to ignore random words scrolling across the bottom of the screen. (Apparently, it takes quite a bit [...]

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  Influential Marketing

• Why Your Business Needs A Concierge

  Rohit

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:21 am

  Adrian Moore is the best concierge in the world. At least, according to British travel magazine Monacle, he is. He works at the Four Seasons in Paris, knows all the best spots and restaurants, is intimately aware of any festivals or special events in his city and is, by any account, an authority on all things about Paris. As a business traveller, I appreciate a concierge like this. Unfortunately, the majority of hotels never have anyone like Adrian. Instead, they staff their "concierge" desk with someone who was checking people in at the front desk just the week before. In those empty cases,…

• A Marketing Lesson From Michael Jackson's This Is It Film

  Rohit

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:32 am

  Deconstruction is a powerful idea. All it means is taking an experience or something real and breaking it down into its individual components. Deconstructing helps you to understand something. Deconstructing tells a story. I remember the first time I saw the movie Amadeus, the Oscar winning dramatization of the life of Mozart, there was one scene that stayed with me. It was the composer Salieri describing (and deconstructing) the music of Mozart: It helped me to understand classical music in a way I had never thought about. This weekend, as I watched the memorial documentary of Michael…

• 5 Ways To Use Twitter's New List Feature For Marketers

  Rohit

  29 Oct 2009 | 3:50 am

  There is no denying that Twitter has had a huge impact on how marketers are thinking about using social media tools for marketing. One thing that is most interesting about it, however, is how the site has managed to avoid overcomplicating itself with more features. Twitter is simple, and it just works. Of course the one overused word that has been used recently to describe Twitter is that it is a "firehose" of information, shooting out at a speed and volume that has threatened to make it unusable for many people. So when I had a chance to try out Twitter's new Lists feature (which I had been…

• 9 Marketing Lessons From The Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer Campaign

  Rohit

  21 Oct 2009 | 8:58 am

  If you have watched any television or been inside a retail store at any point this month in the US, it would have likely been hard to miss the omnipresence of pink where it wasn't before. From pink clothes, to laptops, to banners to shoes and gloves on your favourite NFL players, the marketing blitz of pink has just about taken over the retail landscape. The color and ribbon are the symbols of the fight against breast cancer, and may easily represent one of the most widespread cause marketing campaigns in terms of partners since the RED campaign offered custom branded products to support…

• Do You Know Someone Who Loves Your Brand?

  Rohit

  20 Oct 2009 | 11:54 am

  For years in the automotive industry, marketers have known that getting someone to actually purchase a car depends on much more than the features and latest gadgetry. No one buys a car solely for the face detection alert software - though certainly something like that can influence the decision. What really sells those cars, though, is a person's prior experience with a brand and the opinion of others that they trust when it comes to experiences with the car or brand. Word of mouth and prior experience, those are at the top of the list.Unfortunately, we don't often see automotive advertising…

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  Make the Logo Bigger

• My dog is delish!

  mtlb

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:44 am

  In spirit, according to the sample of Rachael Ray dog food I got in the mail. Nutrish! The package looks like bad candy design from the 1970s, and the actual sample bag inside looked even more odd. Felt like the back of a recipe card for some reason. (Dog ate it so I suppose it’s okay from a “dogs will eat anything’ perspective. Of course, dogs also eat their own puke and sniff each other’s butts.) Have to wonder if this move puts her regular brand on par with dog food too much though. Ya think?

• “Hy-Tech Autobaby, may I help you?”

  mtlb

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:31 am

  As brilliantly as I think Rhett & Link have put “bad” local on the map, they still can’t replicate the well-meaning intentions of the DIY small business crowd. Oh sure, E*TRADE has CGI coming out of it’s diapers, but it’s hard to beat an auto baby operator. Experience the difference!(Via Mat. O.)

• “First, ya gotta know your product.”

  mtlb

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:14 pm

  Chevy trucks didn’t just fly out the door in 1941 by themselves—you had to sell them, mister!

• Hot Pockets—It’s what’s for viral.

  mtlb

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:07 pm

  They’re back. But lose the mascot and just let the skaters do cool shit while eating... Hot Pockets.

• Flickr represent.

  mtlb

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:04 pm

  Old school jazz vinyl covers from the 1960s? Nailed.(Tip to Zeke.)

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  Culture-Buzz

• Lands' End: The Big Warm Up

  Thierry Daher

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:10 am

  Vanksen USA has launched its latest viral video to support Lands' End's Big Warm Up campaign (great flash website created by Firstborn) aiming at enticing consumers in the Boston region to donate their gently used coat for Boston's 8,000 or so homeless people. Produced by New York based Caid Productions, the original viral video not only delivers what the brand wanted but also puts the user at the core of the experience, activating emotions as a powerful trigger to engage consumers. In addition to the powerful creative concept and the flawless production, a new innovative technology was…

• Zappos: "The World's Fastest Nudist"

  Gauthier Lachaise

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:52 am

  Meet Kyle Overstreet. An ordinary man? Absolutely not. Kyle Overstreet, this marginal man appears on YouTube in a few videos in which he is wearing nothing but espadrilles, a pair of socks, and a little Tarzan style skirt. In these videos in question, Kyle runs in New York City, proclaiming himself to be the "the world's fastest nudist". He explains people's comic reactions upon seeing him to journalists: “The first time you run by, they're like, ‘Oh my god, that guy's nude'”. “But the next time you run by, they're like, 'That's the world's fastest nudist!'” Following his…

• The Viral Film Festival On December 2

  C. Werle, Valentine Nancy

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:03 am

  The preparations for the Viral Film Festival are advancing at great speed, so mark your calendars now: the event is taking place on December 2 at "1515", 34 rue Marbeuf, 75008 Paris, France. With over 1,000 submitted videos and a large amount of guests, the 2009 Viral Film Festival is the event not to be missed by fans of video, buzz, creativity, and viral marketing. For an even larger, more festive, and crazy party, Vanksen collaborates with the FrenchiesParty by Barka Zerouali (La Chose agency) to bring together all the actors in communication: advertisers, producers, bloggers... A…

• Nikon Makes A Scene With The Helicopter Boyz

  Gregory Pouy

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:39 am

  No more watching your photos on the small screen of your digital camera, Coolpix projects them on the wall! It is through a rather original exterior event that Nikon has promoted their COOLPIX S1000pj digital camera. Two boys are acting out choreographies over stimulating music. At that point, nothing yet quite amazing. However, their stellar outfits are equipped with Coolpix cameras, which allows for the theatrical projection of images behind them. After the 14th of July, the Eiffel Tower wiggles its hips! This innovation offers new perspectives... Source The original post on culture-buzz.fr…

• TweetedBrands: The Top 50 Brands On Twitter

  C. Werle

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:24 am

  With the explosion of social networks, blogs, and microblogging, monitoring the reputations of one's brand has never been more important. TweetedBrands is an online service that publishes a list of 50 brands that are talked about the most on Twitter every day. Here is a list of today's most popular ones: 1. Twitter (116357 tweets) 2. iPhone (29790 tweets) 3. Google (29169 tweets) 4. Youtube (29039 tweets) 5. Facebook (25258 tweets) 6. Myspace (14267 tweets) 7. Apple (11743 tweets) 8. Digg (7285 tweets) 9. Fox (6623 tweets) 10. Yahoo! (6121 tweets) Sources tweetedbrands.com The original post…

• Photostream from Daylife
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  NYT: Media and Advertising

• John Mashek, Veteran Political Reporter, Is Dead at 77

  By WILLIAM GRIMES

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:56 pm

  Mr. Mashek was a reporter and columnist for nearly half a century for U.S. News & World Report, The Boston Globe and other publications.

• Talk to The Times: The Choice Blog

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:25 am

  Jacques Steinberg is answering questions from readers.

• Fox Wins Election Night Ratings on Cable

  By BRIAN STELTER

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:45 am

  As Republicans won governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, the Fox News Channel saw Nielsen ratings gains.

• Advertising: After a Brutal Year, Marketers Regroup to Share War Stories and Ideas

  By STUART ELLIOTT

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:40 pm

  Attendance at the Association of National Advertisers conference is about the same as in 2008, but the atmosphere has changed.

• Scripps Buys Major Stake in Travel Channel

  By BRIAN STELTER and ZACHERY KOUWE

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:34 pm

  The deal values the cable channel at nearly a billion dollars, a price that some analysts say they believe is too high.

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  AdPulp

• Thanks To Our New Advertiser, ProtoShare

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:27 pm

  "Web prototyping can be cumbersome and expensive. ProtoShare is a smart way for the team to collaborate with clients." - Steve Gray, Technology Director at Razorfish If you have an interest in improving your Web development process, I encourage you to support our new advertiser and learn more about ProtoShare.

• eBay -- Everything You Want At A Price You Can Afford

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:14 pm

  David Gianatasio of Adfreak is not a fan of Goodby's new work for eBay. eBay crested during Web 1.0, and this effort seems hell-bent on delivering old-hat, mostly unfunny schtick from a who's-who of cable-comedy refugees in set-ups that go nowhere. That's kind of harsh, although I can see his point.

• Funneling Towards A Sale

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:43 pm

  Kevin Lee, CEO of Didit, and Gian Fulgoni, Chairman and Founder of comScore discuss branding's importance in the marketing mix and how search alone won't close the sale. [via iMediaConnection]

• Talking Pre-Roll

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:23 am

  Speaking as a consumer of online video, I'm no fan of pre-roll, also known as force feeding. But some of these guys are. Let's listen... According to Beet.TV, the panel above is comprised of Michael Learmonth of Ad Age; Micheal Mathieu, CEO of video ad network YuMe; Rob Norman, CEO of WPP's GroupM; Robert Davis of Ogilvy; and John McCarus of Digitas. I like how Davis goes to bat here for Interactive and what he calls "experience driving." "If the promise of the Internet is just over-the-top programming, or another way to sit back, I think we miss the opportunity," Davis concludes.

• Are You Ready To Get Digital Right?

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:09 pm

  Jon Gibs, Vice President, Media Analytics at Nielsen is offering up a 16-page report on "Integrated Measurement in a Multi-Screen World." Gibs asks: If the Internet has truly "arrived" and is being taken seriously, why have we not yet seen significant brand advertising dollars follow? He then follows the question with this sage piece of thinking: "Perhaps it's because online creative units tend to replicate the print experience instead of redefining the consumer experience." Gibs also suggests that digital specialists acquire a more expansive view (although seeing the whole pie doesn't…

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  W+K PORTLAND

• Halloween Jam with Pyramiddd

  Studio

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:41 pm

  Fresh off the heels of their US tour (and Target Pharmacy spot sound-tracking), local faves Pyramiddd tear it up with one last Portland show before heading off to Europe.   Deelay Ceelay + Nice Nice + Wampire started off the show. Photos: Tyler Kohlhoff

• First Thursday

  Studio

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:08 pm

  New Works in Metal by David Kennedy. Opening November 5, 2009.5:30 p.m. in our very own first-floor lobby. Open to the public.

• Halloween 2009

  Studio

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:33 pm

  Perhaps Arla said it best in the following email: I love planning this party more every year! The people that help out with it are AMAZING! I’m so touched by what length’s people go to make this party great. I mean, DID YOU SEE the Wizard of Oz set up? Or that giant pirate ship?!? Every group that decorated an area, decorated it to the max! And, so many people saved my ass by helping with last minute balloon blowing-upping, color paper hanging, cobwebbing placing, Clifford costume wearing, lunch offering, drink making, and general eager awesomeness!! I really appreciate all the help and…

• Meet The ManIn The Hat...

  Studio

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:18 pm

  At Southwest 2nd + Morrison. Go Forth.

• A Visit From John Maeda

  Studio

  29 Oct 2009 | 1:51 pm

  John Maeda may have gotten his start as a software engineer at MIT, but his passion for design took his life on a journey where these two fields intersect. Thanks to John Jay- Maeda took the time to visit and speak with us in Portland today. His talk focused on human connections, being present and inspiring people to do more with their lives. It sent us all back to our desks (and lives) with a new sense of purpose. John is currently the president of RISD. Check out his book “Simplicity” or view John's profile and speeches for the TED Talks.

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  Buzz Marketing for Technology

• The Tipping Point and your Contact Center

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:06 am

  Back in the year 2000, Malcolm Gladwell published his landmark book called The Tipping Point. And little did he know 9 years later he would have set the stage for how many Contact Centers handle Social Media?Let me explain …Many of the most Socially advanced Contact Centers today are using tools to listen in on Conversations. Conversations that are happening about their brand, conversations that are happening about their competition, and of course conversations that revolve around Customer Support! Customer Support makes for an easy anchor of any good Social Media strategy so it stands to…

• Some Weeks are Hard to Top!

  1 Nov 2009 | 4:45 am

  Last week was the perfect storm of 3 major life moments all coming together in one week to form the perfect trifecta. It’s a week that is going to be hard to top in Dunay history but don’t put it past me to try!It all started Friday, Oct 23rd when my wife came into the house and said “oh yeah, I think your books have arrived – I saw a whole bunch of boxes out by the garage”. Little did she know in that moment I became a published author! I spent the weekend packing up copies of Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley) and sending them to family, friends, long time mentors but most…

• Use Social Media to spot issues before they hit the Contact Center!

  27 Oct 2009 | 10:35 am

  Firey laptop batteries, defective chips, tainted foods, toothpaste that stains teeth – these are just some real examples of issues that struck companies recently that might have been headed off at the pass by Social Media.When you have an issue these days – what’s the first place you go for more information? That’s right – the Internet – most likely Google but increasingly for real time information search you might use Twitter. Conversely most people don’t just pick up the phone and call a company anymore.Some of these issues first showed up on Twitter way before they ever hit…

• Spend More Time Planning your Content Strategy!

  20 Oct 2009 | 7:12 am

  Because of my new book, Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley), which is launching next week - I have been getting a lot of emails and questions from my readers that are very focused on launching their Facebook and Twitter presence.Seems to me like these channels have gone mainstream in the minds of many marketers as evidenced by the number of inquires about these channels and also by my mom's Facebook profile and my dad's Twitter feed! But what scares me even more than that is the seemingly singleminded focus on the launch of these mediums rather than conversational aspect.Everyone seems…

• Why Social Strategies are Difficult for Agencies to execute?

  15 Oct 2009 | 9:14 am

  Many agencies today are offering Social Media services (if they aren’t they need to). But for many of them it is often hard to architect the strategy since so much of the knowledge of ‘who to go to’ for ‘what type of Social Media conversation’ is very internal knowledge.A good Social Media strategy starts with looking at what Conversations you want to engage in, what Objectives you have for engaging in those conversations, what Strategy you will have to fulfill on those objectives and finally what Technology you will use to get there.In order to plan that out for a client, the…

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  JasonKeath.com

• Simply Remember to Take It Offline

  Jason

  14 Oct 2009 | 12:34 pm

  We all know real world relationships are the goal of our networking. We talk to people a world away online. We form relationships with people all over the country on Twitter. But the real tangible benefit of these relationships, personal and business, happens offline. It is important to not get stuck inside of social networks and the virtual interactions they make so easy. Take the conversation to email, call someone, meet them for coffee. When you go to conferences or visit other cities, look for people from your online networks there. Experiences within social media are most engaging when…

• Social Media: The Bad and The Ugly

  Jason

  11 Oct 2009 | 9:09 pm

  In response to Patrick O’Keefe’s ManagingCommunities.com post on his BlogWorld Expo Panel “Social Media: The Bad and the Ugly”. My ugly social media is simply the knee jerk attack responses that I seem to see more and more of each day. I try not to be negative at all online outside of customer service complaints. But especially when a more constructive response or the offering of a solution would be a better response. I hope more people will decide to stay positive when reacting to individuals and companies that are making a strong effort to enter the social media…

• 4 Free Tickets to Social Media Business Forum

  Jason

  8 Oct 2009 | 8:55 pm

  Social Media History Trivia October 9th, 1pm EST Follow @jakrose for questions Random draw from the first 5 correct answers wins a ticket for each question 4 Questions 4 Free Tickets to Social Media Business Forum (October 23rd – Durham, NC)

• Traveling Twitter Design Firm

  Jason

  6 Oct 2009 | 7:06 pm

  DriftingCreatives.com Interview Martin & Gavin just graduated from Texas A&M University and are designing their way across the country. On the road for 4 months now, they are fully transitioned from recent graduates to full on traveling design firm. It is a pretty great testament to the power of social media. Two strangers can travel across the country, city to city, and make a living building a new business. All through the connections they kick off through Twitter. I wish these guys luck as they finish up their trip and look forward to how they use their lessons from the road.

• Speaking with Bank of America and LendingTree

  Jason

  2 Oct 2009 | 11:49 am

  I was lucky to join local Social Media professionals from Bank of America (Brian A. Wright) and LendingTree.com (Nicole Hall) last week for the local Interactive Marketing Association. It was great to hear the unique perspectives from these two financial players and the challenges they face. Overall, I was impressed by how savvy many of the attendees were. It was a great mix of interactive pros from E-retail to NASCAR to Fortune 500. David Wells not only caught the whole thing on video, but took out some of our key points (with Timestamps, wow). Oh, and he has an audio download. Check out the…

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  I Believe in Advertising

• McDonald’s: Burrito

  Filippo

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:45 am

  Advertising Agency: Cossette, Toronto, Canada Creative Directors: Dave Douglass, Pete Breton Art Director: Colin Brown Copywriter: Tom Greco

• Guinness: Stop, Traffic Light, Roadworks, Cliff

  Filippo

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:39 am

  Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia Executive Creative Directors: Adrian Miller, Edmund Choe Copywriter: Christie Herman Art Director: Ong Kien Hoe Photographer: Alex Tow ( threesixty° Photography)

• IKEA: Always check the expiry date

  Filippo

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:07 am

  Advertising Agency: 1861 United, Milan, Italy Executive Creative Directors: Pino Rozzi, Roberto Battaglia Art Director: Edwin Herrera Copywriter: Marina D’Andrea Photographer: Gionata Xerra Post Production: Germano Finco

• CAF Onlus – Center for mistreated children and families crisis: Balloon

  Filippo

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:32 pm

  “Caf gives back to abused children the lightness of childhood.” Advertising Agency: Grey, Milan, Italy Executive Creative Director: Francesco Emiliani Head of Art: Francesco Fallisi Copy Supervisor: Simona Angioni Art Director: Letizia Bozzolini Copywriter: Livia Cappelletti Account Supervisor: Lilli Guacci Account Executive: Vito Plantamura Art Buyer: Virginia Salvucci Photograoher Agent: Multi Photographer: Marco Cremascoli Published: October 2009

• Volkswagen Golf GTI: Bag

  Filippo

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:07 am

  Advertising Agency: Agence V, Paris, France Creative Director: Christian Vince Art Director: Guillaume Meriaux Copywriter: Adrien Plouard

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  Brand Autopsy

• No More Starbucks Gold

  johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:04 am

  Lots of chatter online about the revamped Starbucks “rewards” program. Starbucks will discontinue its Gold Card program it began a year ago. The Starbucks Gold Card program was designed like many membership rewards program where customers pay a yearly $25 fee and in return they receive free refills on brewed coffee, free wi-fi access, and 10% off on all purchases. Beginning December 26, Starbucks will replace its Gold Card program with a "My Starbucks Rewards" program offering customers a free beverage after 15 purchases. (There are a few other small perks in this program but it's…

• WOMMA's Creating Talkable Brands Conference

  johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:01 am

  *** My WOM Enthusiast hat is on with this post. It’s a few weeks until WOMMA’s Creating Talkable Brands Conference (Nov. 18 – 20, Las Vegas). Sign-ups have been strong. And for good reason — the agenda is strong. There are over 40 sessions with 4 learning tracks and 4 keynotes addresses (.pdf agenda). For each of the breakout sessions, WOMMA is pairing up a Brand with an Agency. So you’ll hear both perspectives, the brand-side and the agency-side, in each breakout. To help make sense out of the packed agenda, I’ve been sharing highlights from Day 1 and Day 2 on the ALL THINGS WOM…

• BAKED IN | a dramatic reading

  johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)

  29 Oct 2009 | 5:23 pm

  BAKED IN: Creating Products and Businesses That Market Themselves by Alex Bogusky and John Winsor gets the Marketing Masterpiece Theatre treatment. (Yep ... it's another dramatic reading of an influential business book by Sir Wilton Norman Chamberlain III.) RSS Readers ... click here to view the video. [NOTE: I often receive free copies of biz books from publishers and publicists. However, I spent my money for my copy of BAKED IN.]

• Social Business Design (Flaw)

  johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)

  14 Oct 2009 | 4:57 am

  The Dachis Group is ringing up successes. They’ve hired a talented team. Been backed by big dollars from Austin Ventures. Gone global with the acquisition of London-based Headshift. And, introduced a new business term: Social Business Design. Kudos to everyone involved. However, I need help with the term, Social Business Design. The current design of its definition seems flawed to me.I tried explaining/defining the term to a friend the other day but did it poorly. (I think I know what it means, but I don’t.) It’s about using online applications (like ‘social media’ tools) to help…

• Understanding the New FTC Guidelines

  johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)

  11 Oct 2009 | 7:56 pm

  Clearly my WOM Enthusiast hat is on with this post. (I work with WOMMA.)Last week was a big week for marketing, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released new guidelines (.pdf document) for how businesses can use endorsements and testimonials in marketing. It’s a complicated and nuanced matter. Hopefully the presentations below will help you better understand what has happened and what marketers must be doing now. For backstory purposes ... the FTC is in the business of protecting consumers from unscrupulous business practices, the commission believes consumers must be protected from being…

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  The Internet Strategist

• Build Your Blog

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:45 pm

  We are knee deep in the basics of blogging! click hereto retweet In my last few posts we covered what a blog is, and the benefits of blogging as a technique to boost your business. If you've decided you'd like to blog, or if you just want more information before taking the plunge, there are a few more steps, namely: what are you going to blog about (this one's kinda important) how will you set up your blog how will you market your blog Deciding what you'll write about is clearly a highly subjective decision that goes beyond our scope for today (although maybe a good idea for a future feature?

• Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2

  12 Oct 2009 | 2:00 pm

  click hereto retweet From the comments and emails I've received, the benefits I described in the first half of Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs have hit home but also helped you think of new ways that your blog can help you build your business. I liked the issue raised in a comment by SaveMoneyCostCutting from last week. Sometimes it is a fine line between too much marketing and just enough. It is important to establish a position on this that will work based on what you're selling and to whom you're selling it. There's no one-size-fits-all on that one. Blogging is a tool you can use creatively to…

• Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs

  5 Oct 2009 | 9:34 pm

  click hereto retweet In last week's article I discussed what a blog actually is and its relationship to both your business and to your regular Web site if you have one. The purpose of blogging in general, is usually to establish and/or support an existing brand with an understanding of how that brand generates revenue. This week, as promised, I'm getting into the real payoffs. Why does it make sense to spend hours of time each month, writing content, then giving it away for free and if that's not enough, even more hours marketing that free content to make sure people will know it's there?

• To Blog or Not to Blog

  29 Sep 2009 | 1:24 am

  click hereto retweet Outside of the fact that you happen to be reading one right now, I find that there are lots of smart, business savvy folks out there who when placed in the position of having to explain, strategize or build a blog (or decide if one should be built at all) are at a bit of a loss. Blogs are usually easy for most people to recognize but harder for folks to define. When I hosted a free class on the subject (as I do from time to time) it "sold out" (in the way only free classes can!) the room filled to capacity. Even those who can sort of describe a blog, often find it hard to…

• Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3)

  21 Sep 2009 | 2:00 pm

  click hereto retweet The last 2 posts I've written have focused on featuring real businesses that have created highly successful social marketing strategies using LinkedIn as a key element. I started the series with an overview of LinkedIn concepts, then moved into a guide for creating your LinkedIn profile, followed by a list of the 11 most powerful LinkedIn tools for small businesses. Finally, I outlined 6 core strategies that small businesses use to leverage LinkedIn for building a tribe and covered the first three: Building a live community (LinkedIn tribe part 1) Business development…

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  Church of the Customer Blog

• Kicking out unwanted customers

  Jackie Huba

  30 Oct 2009 | 10:35 am

  "Don't talk during the movie or we will take your ass out." If you've been to an Alamo Drafthouse, the movie theater chain in Austin, Texas, then you've seen that semi-serious warning couched in a fun "public service announcement" before a movie showing. Theater founder Tim League knows that talkers mar the movie-watching experience for everyone else, and he does not tolerate them -- even if they punch the windshield of his car.See, Tim was a customer recently at one of his theaters. A nearby loud-talker was asked by a theater waiter to keep it down. The customer protested, loudly, demanding…

• Twitter: the killer app for customer service

  Jackie Huba

  22 Oct 2009 | 10:31 am

  "Hello, this is Sam Kaufman from the AT&T Internet Executive Office, and I am calling about your tweets."That's what I heard yesterday after posting a few tweets about my less-than-stellar customer service experience with an AT&T DSL technical support rep. The rep was trying to diagnose my DSL problems and after telling me to stay on the line for 10 minutes, he never returned after 30 minutes. I hung up. He never called back.With a few hours of my AT&T tweet, @ATTJohnathon, a customer care rep on Twitter contacted me, asking if he could help. I DM'ed him my account number as he…

• Fees are penalties. Always.

  Jackie Huba

  19 Oct 2009 | 1:24 pm

  It's a wonder why some businesses can't grasp this. Consider the U.S. airlines last month: Southwest reported an 8.8% increase in revenue passenger miles. Its load factor, the percentage of seats that were filled, increased 11% from a year ago, to 74.7% — a big increase for a month in which schools reopen and summer vacation travels stop. JetBlue saw a 9.8% jump in passenger miles. Its load factor rose about 1% from the prior year, to 77.6%. Compare those numbers to other airlines. Delta: Down 5% on its mainline operation. It also cut capacity by 5%. American: Down 2.6% domestically. It cut…

• 4 questions with author Jeanne Bliss

  Jackie Huba

  16 Oct 2009 | 1:30 pm

  What makes the difference between having customers who like you and customers who love you? Many businesses are admired, but only an elite few have passionate, loyal, vocal fans. The kind of customers who not only come back time and time again, but rave to friends, family, and even strangers. Jeanne Bliss has been the Chief Customer Officer for Lands End, Coldwell Banker, and Allstate, to name a few. Her new book, "I Love You More Than My Dog": Five Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad,is her take on how companies create beloved brands. Q: You describe…

• A social media truism

  Ben McConnell

  13 Oct 2009 | 8:01 am

  When times are good, participate.When times are tough, participate more.(Doesn't that read better than "advertise" in that old saying?)

• 
  Advertising/Design Goodness

• McDonalds Burrito

  Freddy

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:49 am

  Agency: Cossette, Toronto, Canada Creative Directors: Dave Douglass, Pete Breton Art Director: Colin Brown Copywriter: Tom Greco

• MSN Rebranding

  Freddy

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:01 pm

  MSN has done a major rebrand on its image. I gotta say that I like the direction it’s going with the thinner font, and the new upgraded butterfly. They have released a preview of the new site, which you can see here. If anyone has any more info on the logo please comment. What are your thoughts?

• VW Golf GTI Bag

  Freddy

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  Agency: Agence V, Paris, France Creative Director: Christian Vince Art Director: Guillaume Meriaux Copywriter: Adrien Plouard

• Red Bull City Scramble

  Freddy

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:36 am

  Agency: Kastner & Partner, Sydney, Australia Art Director: Darryn Devlin Copywriters: Luke Simkins, Darryn Devlin Photographer: Mat Bake

• 404 Beach

  Freddy

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:32 am

  404 Beach from carsonting on Vimeo. 404 Beach is a collaborative stop-motion animation piece of a wall mural done by Mike Nowland of Company Policy, Carson Ting of Chairman Ting Industries and Tom Pettapiece. The entire music track was composed and recorded specifically for 404 Beach by Tom Pettapiece. Artists: Mike Nowland & Carson Ting Music: Tom Pettapiece Sponsored By: check out adgoodness.tvview the best commercials, animations, virals, short films, and more.

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  John Quelch

• How to Price US Citizenship

  John Quelch

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:51 pm

  In the for-profit sector, there are three basic ways to price a product: The cost plus profit margin method; benchmarking versus competition; and pricing based on customer value. But how should we think about pricing in the public sector? Let's take an unusual example: the price of US citizenship. Legal immigrants to the US who are resident for five years (or three years for those who marry a US citizen) can apply for US citizenship. Currently, citizenship application and processing fees in the US are $675 per person, up from $60 two decades ago. These fees, which exclude the costs of…

• How GM's Chairman Aims to Please

  John Quelch

  15 Oct 2009 | 10:56 am

  Lee Iacocca did it. Dieter Zetsche of Daimler Chrysler tried it. Now Ed Whitacre, General Motors' new chairman, has become his company's television advertising spokesperson. There are five reasons why this campaign makes sense (and three big reasons why it doesn't!). First the positives. By being the frontman, Whitacre is: Taking charge. GM is now largely owned by taxpayers. GM advertising is being paid for by you and me. Whitacre was appointed by the government. The ad shows he's not in hiding. He's stepping up to take responsibility. Boosting internal morale. The boss is on the front line,…

• How Corporate Responsibility Can Survive the Recession

  John Quelch

  22 Sep 2009 | 5:31 am

  Corporations engaged in recession-driven cost-cutting are trimming or eliminating corporate responsibility initiatives. Though corporate survival is key and consumer skepticism of business CR initiatives at an all-time high, such actions are short-sighted. Now more than ever, businesses need to be saying "yes" rather than "no" to their social responsibilities.There are five key reasons: 1. Critical cross-border global issues require multinational corporations and their CEOs to lead in the search for solutions, recession or not. 2. Recession results in more poverty and exacerbates problems…

• How (Not) to Complain

  John Quelch

  17 Sep 2009 | 6:37 am

  Serena Williams berates a line judge for a questionable call; Kanye West hijacks Taylor Swift's acceptance speech; Joe Wilson accuses President Obama of lying to a joint session of Congress. The worlds of sports, entertainment, and politics seem to be long on self-promotion and especially short on trust and respect. In contrast, the commercial marketplace runs on trust. Billions of transactions occur daily in which both parties in the exchange end up satisfied. Almost all sellers - from multinational companies to individuals selling on eBay - are concerned about their reputations and realize…

• How Harvard Licensed its Brand

  John Quelch

  9 Sep 2009 | 9:00 am

  In a recession, marketers and institutions with strong brands may be tempted to license their names and trademarks. But while licensing can generate easy revenues, those royalties come with a potential risk to the brand. Consider Harvard University's recent ten year licensing arrangement with Wearwolf Group Ltd. of New York to develop and sell a line of preppy apparel bearing the "Harvard Yard" brand and crimson trim. The University, presumably mindful of possible negative reputation effects, carefully avoided licensing the Harvard University logo or name. However, no matter how carefully…

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  Tom Davenport

• The US Is GM

  Tom Davenport

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:02 pm

  The United States, my beloved home country, has become the General Motors of nations in its lethargy and complacency. This is ironic, because the US (and Canada) own a majority share of GM, but I am focused more on economic similarity rather than ownership. The height of complacency for GM was probably about 2004. In that year the automaker still had the title as the world's largest maker of cars, a title it relinquished in 2007. GM was still profitable in 2004 — but not very much so — and it was losing market share in many of its major markets. That was the year that GM abandoned…

• Forwarding Is the New Networking

  Tom Davenport

  30 Sep 2009 | 7:57 am

  Michael Schrage recently wrote a post on this site about the importance of forwarding information as a way to enhance network relationships. He's right about this, although the title — "The Disadvantage of Twitter and Facebook" — is misleading (and inaccurate, since people retweet things all the time — but sadly, editors know that anything with Facebook and Twitter in the title gets a lot of page views and retweets). Forwarding is the new networking. The fact that you can't do it easily on Facebook is about as relevant as the inability to do it over the telephone or the…

• Are Social Media Contributing to the Decline of Civilization?

  Tom Davenport

  10 Sep 2009 | 11:40 am

  I was recently sent a PR message encouraging me to blog about a new "social media for celebrity sightings" website called "OMGICU." (Get it?) Given the sad state of our society, the site will probably be successful. How could it not be, having combined the two greatest time-wasters of the current era: social technologies and celebrity worship! To save you from visiting the site and increasing its page view count, here's a typical sighting: Jill Zarin seen in Upper East Side nnekaj10 says: "And now Jill Zarin and husband have joined their daughter at California Pizza Kitchen... Jill looks…

• How to Make the Classroom as Exciting as a Video Game

  Tom Davenport

  1 Sep 2009 | 11:50 am

  Children in the Northern Hemisphere are headed back to school this time of year. The great majority of them will go back to the traditional classroom, in which every student studies the same subjects in the same way at the same time. The fact that this approach doesn't work very well doesn't seem to hinder its popularity. We know that students are interested in different things, learn in different ways, and proceed at different paces. So why the "forced march" approach to education? This time-honored but silly approach to education, however, is beginning to crack. This summer, for example, 80…

• Singapore: A Model of Judgment for the United States?

  Tom Davenport

  21 Aug 2009 | 12:01 pm

  We often talk about judgment with regard to individuals, but organizations and countries can have good and bad judgment as well. I was recently in Singapore for a SAS customer event. Every time I visit, it has struck me as a country with good judgment. Singapore just celebrated its forth-fourth birthday as an independent country, and it deserves to congratulate itself (although it rarely engages in self-congratulation — another aspect of good judgment). In fact, I'd argue that in many ways Singapore is a great example for the United States. Why? Here are a few reasons: 1. Singapore is a…

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  Bill Taylor on HarvardBusiness.org

• The New Logic of R&D: Rip Off and Duplicate

  Bill Taylor

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:40 am

  There's not a lot of good news coming from the business side of newspapers these days, and nowhere is the situation more grim than at the Tribune Company, which just sold the beloved Chicago Cubs, still owns the struggling Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, and has been operating under bankruptcy protection since December 2008, with little hope of emerging any time soon. But as Plato, that noted corporate strategist, famously said, necessity is the mother of invention — and the troubles at the Tribune Company have inspired at least one intriguing approach to unleashing some…

• Amazon and Zappos: A Savvy Deal

  Bill Taylor

  23 Jul 2009 | 1:40 pm

  It's been one heck of a July for Tony Hsieh, CEO of Internet superstar Zappos.com. A week or so ago, Hsieh passed the one-million-follower mark on Twitter — putting him in the company of Martha Stewart, Miley Cyrus, and 50 Cent. And just yesterday, Amazon.com accounted it would spend more than $800 million worth of its stock to buy Zappos — even as it promised to keep its hands off the company, so Hsieh and his colleagues could keep doing things their own way. So good for Tony! Congratulations. Good for Jeff Bezos, too. Not only is he adding a huge new category of products —…

• Decoding Steve Jobs: Trust the Art, Not the Artist

  Bill Taylor

  23 Jun 2009 | 12:47 pm

  Steve Jobs is back in the headlines, which got me thinking about this unique leader's legacy — and what, if anything, the rest of us can learn from how Jobs does his job. Whoever uttered the words, "trust the art, not the artist" must have had Steve Jobs in mind. There's no doubt that the Apple CEO will go down as one of the most creative, visionary, and high-impact leaders of his generation — or any generation. How many corporate executives can make a legitimate claim to have reshaped not just one industry but four: computing (the Mac), music (the iPod), mobile communications…

• The 10 Questions Every Change Agent Must Answer

  Bill Taylor

  18 Jun 2009 | 10:43 am

  As leaders, we have no control over how fast markets grow or how wisely banks lend. But we do control our own mindsets and "animal spirits" — the phrase coined by John Maynard Keynes in the depth of the Great Depression. If all you've got is a spreadsheet filled with red ink and dire forecasts, it's easy to be paralyzed by fear and resistant to change. But if you can summon some leadership nerve, then hard times can be a great time to separate yourself from the pack and build advantages for years to come. Indeed, when it comes to creating the future, the only thing more worrisome than…

• Recession Leadership: On Sinking the Boat, Missing the Boat, and Rocking the Boat

  Bill Taylor

  18 May 2009 | 8:45 am

  For months, I have argued that a down economy can be a great opportunity for companies to try something different or start something new. I don't mean to minimize the pressures and setbacks that are part of unleashing real change in tough times. If all you've got is a spreadsheet filled with red ink and dire forecasts, it's easy to be paralyzed by fear. But if you've got some leadership nerve, and can muster a few good ideas, then hard times can be great times to separate yourself from the pack and build advantages for years to come. Don't believe me? You can read it for yourself in The New…

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  Scott Anthony

• Why Great Innovators Spend Less Than Good Ones

  Scott Anthony

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:25 am

  A story last week about the Obama administration committing more than $3 billion to smart grid initiatives caught my eye. It wasn't really an unusual story. It seems like every day features a slew of stories where leaders commit billions to new geographies, technologies, or acquisitions to demonstrate how serious they are about innovation and growth. Here's the thing — these kinds of commitments paradoxically can make it harder for organizations to achieve their aim. In other words, the very act of making a serious financial commitment to solve a problem can make it harder to solve the…

• Constant Transformation Is the New Normal

  Scott Anthony

  27 Oct 2009 | 9:13 am

  I picked up an interesting vibe at the Magazine Publishers Association Innovation Conference the other week. For the most part, the industry has had a tough year as it grapples with recession, changing consumer behavior, and a range of disruptive technologies. Yet signs of economic recovery and a sense that the magazine industry could learn from missteps from cousins in the music and newspaper business produced an unexpected sense of optimism. One point I made in my remarks is that the forces at work in the magazine business — increased competition, rapidly shifting technologies, and…

• Nook: Too Soon To Call It a Kindle-Killer

  Scott Anthony

  21 Oct 2009 | 9:01 am

  If nothing else, developments in the e-reader market provide substantial fodder for online commentary. It seems that every week features a story in a mainstream publication about the latest "Kindle killer" followed by endless chatter and eager speculation in blogs and on Twitter. This week's discussion centered on Barnes & Noble's "Nook" device. It's not hard to see why this particular device sparked such discussion. The slick-looking device has unique features, such as the ability to "lend" books that friends can view on multiple platforms for 14 days, use of Google's Android operating…

• Procter & Gamble and the Beauty of Small Wins

  Scott Anthony

  15 Oct 2009 | 11:52 am

  Yesterday I facilitated a discussion at the Magazine Publishers Association annual Innovation Conference with Melanie Healey, the Group President of North America for Procter & Gamble. She told a story with some important innovation implications. The story dates back to the 1990s, when Healey was a brand manager in Brazil. She was responsible for growing P&G's Hipoglos brand of diaper rash ointments. The problem? The product already had 99 percent household penetration. A tough challenge, right? Healey did what good P&G people do — she went out to talk to consumers to find out what they…

• What Baseball Can Teach Us About Innovation

  Scott Anthony

  6 Oct 2009 | 10:55 am

  In a chat last week, Boston Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein explained why he wasn't bothered by J.D. Drew's relatively low number of runs batted in (quotes from Joe Posnanski's blog): "When you're putting together a winning team, that honestly doesn't matter. When you have a player who takes a ton of walks, who doesn't put the ball in play at an above average rate, and is a certain type of hitter, he's not going to drive in a lot of runs. Runs scored, you couldn't be more wrong. If you look at a rate basis, J.D. scores a ton of runs. And the reason he scores a ton of runs is because he…

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  John Baldoni

• Use Humility to Improve Performance

  John Baldoni

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:43 am

  I've written before about the importance of humility as a leadership trait. But, as was recently pointed out to me, humility is an important trait in employees, too. When people act humbly, they are acknowledging their limitations and accepting that they cannot go it alone. This mindset is valuable to a team because it serves as an invitation for others to help. Humility, however, is not an excuse for slacking. It also means having the willingness to help others do their jobs when the need arises. It is a means for allowing different personalities to coordinate with each other. Rick Hensley,…

• How to Create Clarity Amidst Uncertainty

  John Baldoni

  29 Oct 2009 | 12:15 pm

  Companies have the right to demand that employees pay attention to their jobs — it is a base requirement for performance. However, as the recent incident involving two Northwest Airlines pilots illustrates, when other issues are pressing, employees lose focus. As the story goes, the pilots were trying to figure out the new Delta scheduling system that now governs what flights they're assigned. (Delta acquired Northwest last fall.) In doing so, they overshot their destination by 150 miles and did not respond to repeated queries from flight controllers. As reported in the New York Times,…

• Developing Your Leadership Presence

  John Baldoni

  21 Oct 2009 | 2:30 pm

  What about when you are pushed in front of the microphone or given very little prep time for something like an introduction of a guest speaker? This question came from Tonya in response to my previous post on developing your leadership pitch. Here's the quick answer, you walk to the microphone and you smile. You take a moment to size up the audience and then you say what you have to say briefly and to the point. Most importantly, as they advise running backs who score touchdowns, act like you have been there before. The great ones hand the ball back the referee; the wannabes whoop and holler.

• The Smart Way to Influence Your Boss

  John Baldoni

  14 Oct 2009 | 1:21 pm

  How can I sell this idea to my boss? This is something that executive coaches hear regularly. It usually comes from someone seeking to lead from the middle. To begin to answer this question, let me tell you a story. Ronald Reagan is credited with hastening the end of Cold War between the USSR and the USA. While he had long preached nuclear disarmament, his argument gained personal impetus after watching the made-for-TV movie, The Day After, which depicted the destruction of Lawrence, Kansas, after a nuclear blast. The movie, according to The Dead Hand, a recent history of the Cold War era by…

• Three Questions to Remove Ego from Decision Making

  John Baldoni

  8 Oct 2009 | 6:30 am

  As President Barack Obama wrestles with the issue of what to do next in Afghanistan, there is absolutely one thing he cannot do: Make it personal. That is precisely the mistake that his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson made when escalating the war in Vietnam. Again and again, as is made clear by listening to tapes of him in the Oval Office, Johnson personalized the war not as the United States versus North Vietnam (or Russia and China), but as LBJ against the world, be it the enemy abroad or those inside his administration and throughout the nation who protested the war. Let us be clear,…

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  Rita McGrath

• Create a Special Unit to Drive Growth

  Rita McGrath

  15 Oct 2009 | 11:08 am

  As the economy shows some signs of shrugging off its doldrums, growth is back on the agenda. After cutting costs for a year or more while repeating the mantra "do more with less," should companies be looking to special groups to jump-start growth? Corporate venture groups, incubator "greenhouses," and other units dedicated to identifying and incubating growth opportunities have a checkered corporate history. Often begun with flashes of significant enthusiasm, they are often first on the chopping block when executive sponsors change, costs need to be cut, or the fashion of the day swings away…

• Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the Battle for E-Books

  Rita McGrath

  5 Aug 2009 | 11:01 am

  There's a battle emerging over the industry structure of e-books: Amazon has one approach, Barnes & Noble another. Will the clash play out like the computer wars of the late 80s, or the music wars of the late 90s? Let's take a look. Years of declining music sales reflect a grim story for the music business — the amount of music people are willing to pay for has dropped dramatically, the unit of business has shifted fundamentally to music by the song, and the preferred medium for acquiring music is now downloading individual songs, rather than purchasing a complete CD. Who is winning in…

• Hiring the Already-Employed: Savvy or Sad?

  Rita McGrath

  2 Jul 2009 | 7:06 am

  A fascinating article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal caught my eye. It suggests that even with so many great people out there looking for work, employers would still rather hire someone who is already working, thank you very much. Apparently, many believe that those that are unemployed were their former employers' lower-priorities, poor performers or otherwise non-superstars. By hiring someone who already has a job, they reason, they are reducing their risk of picking up someone who is a second-class performer. I guess this is the modern-day version of Groucho Marx's old line that he…

• Competitive Advantage Is Fleeting (And It's Okay to Admit It)

  Rita McGrath

  8 Jun 2009 | 8:55 am

  For as long as I've been working in the field of strategy, a taken-for granted assumption among executives, students and academics has been that the goal of a great strategy is achieving a "sustainable competitive advantage." As the field migrated from a subject called "Business Policy," having to do mostly with the job of the general manager, to the current conception of "Strategic Management," we picked up a vast number of tools, frameworks and analytical approaches that promised to make the world of strategy one of greater rigor, science and analytical depth. The ultimate goal was to…

• Using Smell to Sell

  Rita McGrath

  12 May 2009 | 11:19 am

  It never fails to astonish me how adroit companies can innovate to improve customers' experiences in ways that make me ask, "Why didn't I think of that?" Among the best types of these innovations are those that improve a particular 'link' in a customers' experience to make it better by making more pleasant, less inconvenient or just more fun. So here's one for the record: UK parking-garage firm NCP has explored new technology that can actually make the stairwells in parking garages smell nicer, instead of smelling like...well, to be honest, I'd rather not go into what they smell like,…

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  Conversation Agent

• Is Your Conversation About Scarcity or Abundance?

  Valeria Maltoni

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  You need to decide now, because your results depend on the answer. I have a problem with scarcity mindset - it's myopic, unnecessarily restrictive, and in fact destructive for you and your organization. Scarcity presupposes that you're the center of the universe, that the work box is the only box available for packing a life, and it doesn't have a good ending. It's a very lonely ending. Yesterday we talked about the difference between getting recognition for its own sake and getting the idea done. The latter is in the abundance camp. Which incidentally is the same place or context where weak…

• Participation and Getting Ideas Done

  Valeria Maltoni

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  [Maestro Salieri and the priest, from Amadeus, 2:35]This week, so far, we talked about setting up listening posts to serve customers better as first line of response and to be proactive, building a framework to develop valuable content to deliver as a service, and measurement. Today we focus on participation. That mix of attention, time, interaction, with a sprinkle of human thrown into it that makes relationships start and grow.What did you see in the movie clip above? [hat tip Rohit Barghava for leading me to Amadeus] Antonio Salieri was the most famous composer in Europe. He wrote 40…

• Avinash Kaushik, Web Analytics 2.0

  Valeria Maltoni

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  “In God we trust, all others bring data.” — Framed plaque from the ‘60s at NASA’s Johnson Space CenterWhen it comes to deep smarts, curiosity, with practical advice and sprinkled with a healthy dose of good humor, I cannot think of anyone more qualified than Avinash Kaushik. He's not only a real dynamo in all matters analytics, he's also a genuinely passionate, interesting, and kind person. Think that he wrote the answers to our conversation while his hand was healing from an injury because he had made a promise.Every single one of his posts - and now I can say the same for the…

• Developing a B2B Content Strategy: Start with Who

  Valeria Maltoni

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  Businesses that want to create long-term sustainable growth will be increasingly moving towards connected company status. That is the place where being social benefits the business by providing insights, strengthening relationships with partners and customers, and building and connecting a community with common grounds and needs. In many organizations, the listening post resides within the marketing group. As we discussed yesterday here and on Twitter, customer service should co-own the space and collaborate to develop big ears during customer conversations and interactions. In many B2B…

• Twitter, Customer Service, and Good Brand Management

  Valeria Maltoni

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am

  If monitoring conversations and knowing what you're listening for is the first ingredient in good online best practices, knowing when and how to respond is much more than good etiquette. It's become an integral aspect of brand management and can mean the difference between a flop - or worse, a crisis - and a deposit in your company's reputation bank.It's easy to dismiss Twitter's usefulness as a tool. That is until you figure out that on Twitter you can find mentions of your brand and you can actually connect with customers directly and provide a first line of response. Chances are, that in…

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  PR, Social Media, and Marketing Mentor ?

• 2009 SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards Submission Deadline Extended to Thursday, September 10th

  Each year, the Society for New Communications Research presents the prestigious SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards. The deadline for application submissions for this year's awards has been extended from September 7th to Thursday, September 10, 2009, to allow applicants who are away for Labor Day Weekend to finish and ...

• Some Social Media Humor for Summer Vacation…

  Occasionally in social media training, some humor is called for, and The Onion Newsfeed video clip above takes on the big issue of search engine privacy rights—specifically, while using the ubiquitous Google—and gives us a tour of "Google's Opt-Out Privacy Village." And then, there's this HubSpot spoof on Twitter ...

• Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 — Where is the Web Going, and What is the Semantic Web?

  Sometimes, the best way to learn about something is without using words. Here's a creative example of a video explaining the difference between Web 1.0 and 2.0, by the clever Not in Words producers: Now, back to words and some basic drawings, as we move on to Web 3.0 and beyond. ...

• Join us at NewComm Forum and Inbound Marketing Summit in San Francisco!

  The 5th Annual New Communications Forum April 27th - 29th, 2009 The Marriott Hotel, San Francisco, California   I just wanted you to know that there are still a few seats available for next week's NewComm Forum 2009. Don't miss this special opportunity to participate in a highly-interactive, exclusive gathering of the most notable ...

• Flutter

  OK, I haven't posted here for a while, due to being SO busy, I've barely had time to eat, sleep or recuperate from one of those annoying seasonal colds that seems to drag on while you're doing everything else. So, even though social media is central to my work (the ...

• 
  Thingnamer

• Heavy Hitter Award - WEIGHT WATCHERS FOR MEN

  22 Oct 2009 | 8:13 am

  FACT: 75% of annual weight gain occurs between Halloween and Valentine's Day.This was the sign I passed alongside the gym entrance last night. Thanks Washington Sports Club, I needed that extra kick. There's nothing like the threat of unwanted poundage to really notch up the speed on the old treadmill.  ...

• HOW Now, Brown Cow? (See You In Denver!)

  25 Sep 2009 | 11:04 am

  We just learned that we're headed to Denver in June 2010 to present at the HOW Design Conference. Well, I'm presenting and some of the team members are likely coming along to lob softball questions at me so I'll look intelligent during the Q&A.  The session is one we've been ...

• Obama: This is NOT Healthcare Reform.

  8 Sep 2009 | 11:02 am

  For someone so adept at speaking it's astonishing to find President Obama speaking so ineffectively about something he cares about so deeply.In talking with my peers about "Health Care Reform" as it is being packaged today we noted that the most heated arguments against reform are coming from people who ...

• Drip Drip Droppity Drop...

  28 Aug 2009 | 9:23 am

  Not that your creative juices ever run dry, but hell, why risk it? Come to iMAGINE Alexandria's upcoming networking event (we're even throwing in some laughs n' giggles with DC improv master Shawn Westfall). Tickets available here.  ...

• The Smart Car Award: Honda Insight

  21 Aug 2009 | 10:14 am

  In memory of the much-hyped Cash for Clunkers deal, we're honoring one of the fuel-efficient cars that were sold through the government program. You'd be hard-pressed to find a significant population that doesn’t think Honda is a strong brand. Honda is pretty much synonymous with affordability and reliability. It ...

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  idaconcpts

• How Does Twitter Spam Happen?

  damiandavilarojas

  5 Nov 2009 | 11:38 am

  Some application developers request access to your Twitter account in order for their applications (e.g. Pandora, Mashable, TweetMeme) to work. Here is an example of the application TweetMeme asking you to grant it access to your Twitter account: After granting an application access to your Twitter account, it will be included in your list of Twitter connections. Here is a screenshot of TweetMeme having access to a Twitter account: Twitter Spam happens when application developers abuse that access that you have granted them to your Twitter account. How do you get rid of Twitter Spam? Follow…

• 4 steps to Get Rid of Twitter Spam

  damiandavilarojas

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:49 am

  On the past 2 weeks, I have received a lot of Twitter direct messages (DMs) with offers about “making money with Google” or “make $500 a day online”. It appears that I am not the only one. These Twitter direct messages are not only annoying but they kill in less than a second all the reputation that we took so hard to build through our tweets. 4 Steps To Get Rid of Twitter Spam Step 1: Login to your Twitter account at http://twitter.com/login Step 2: Go to http://twitter.com/account/connections. Here you will see all the applications that have access to your account.

• How to check if your Google Analytics is installed properly

  damiandavilarojas

  29 Oct 2009 | 7:32 pm

  Installing the Google Analytics code into your website is simple as I showed earlier on the post about how to install Google Analytics a a real state brokerage website. This clear step-by-step guide can be applied to any kind of website. (Note: the  website used in the article is currently under renovation.) Why do we need to check if Google Analytics is installed properly? Because you might be missing on key analytics data from your site! Consider this discussion thread recently posted at the Google Analytics group in LinkedIn: The page in question is http://www.contek-office-tech.com. The…

• How Facebook does E-mail Newsletters

  damiandavilarojas

  23 Oct 2009 | 12:38 pm

  On 10/23/2009 Facebook sent out an e-mail newsletter titled “Ads Manager Announcement” to its Facebook Advertising users. This newsletter is a great example of how to implement permission marketing, how to avoid the brochure mentality, and how to do seamless product placement. How to Implement Permission Marketing Click here for a full explanation of e-mail permission marketing. Facebook provides its users with a check-box so they can decide whether or not to give you permission to contact them. Here is a list of the Facebook ads e-mail notifications: Facebook is asking its users:…

• What Online Marketers Can Learn from Online Educators

  damiandavilarojas

  22 Oct 2009 | 2:04 pm

  A MBA degree is a highly coveted degree for online marketing practitioners because it backs up our professional practice. However, throughout our MBA education we are hardly exposed to a field that is very relevant to our practice: online education, also known as educational technology. The field of Educational Technology (ET) explores the potential use and impact of learning technologies in a variety of contexts, and  determines good practices of curriculum design and technology integration. Educational technology programs such as the Master of Educational Technology at the University of…

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  MarketingProfs How-To Articles

• Four Case Studies: How These (Very Different) B2B Organizations Are Succeeding With Social Media

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Even though B2C companies get the lion's share of coverage about the benefits of social media, B2B organizations of vastly different sizes and industries are making striking gains in employing these technologies to increase their market share and solve revenue challenges.

• The Three Most Popular Social Networks for Business (and Why You Should Use Them)

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  An ancient proverb states that a "cord of three strands is not easily broken." By way of analogy, I hypothesize that the more individual connections to a particular person you have, the stronger your overall relationship with that person will be. In constructing my social graph (i.e., my network of connections), ...

• Marketing: Beware of 'Outkicking the Coverage'

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Although football metaphors abound in business, this article explores the idea of "outkicking your coverage," which is when an overly strong player can actually be harmful to a team's performance. "Outkicking" refers to when an exceptional punter kicks the ball so far down the field that the runner for the receiving ...

• Making Your Email 'Social-able'

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Take a minute and think about the folks with whom you socialize. You may have a professional network (LinkedIn) and a personal network (Facebook). You may tweet for fun or business, or for both—or maybe you just follow some sports figures on Twitter to keep up to date on the ...

• Proving ROI for Search-Engine Optimization

  3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Search-engine optimization (SEO) provides several return on investment (ROI) measures that can have a positive impact on a company's bottom line far more visibly than most marketing tactics. Yet despite all the potential, and the many SEO success stories, it can still be surprisingly difficult to make a case for investment ...

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  Social Media Marketing Strategy, Tactics, and Tools

• Chess and Business

  Jacob Morgan

  7 Nov 2009 | 12:20 am

  If you have been a reader of this blog for a while then you know that I’m a chess lover.  In fact, I named my company Chess Media Group after my passion and interest for chess.  I have always applied chess concepts and principles to various aspects of business and personal life.  The ability to think ahead and to develop creative strategies is something (among many things) that is synonymous in both chess and in business.  If you don’t play chess then I highly recommend that you learn how; once you start playing you will quickly see how you can take lessons and concepts…

• There’s More to Social Business Than Twitter and Facebook

  Jacob Morgan

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:57 am

  Call it Enterprise 2.0 or social business, the semantics don’t really matter here.  The point is that we are seeing a shift in how organizations are functioning internally and how they are interacting with their consumers (externally).  We’re going to get into this in much greater detail in upcoming posts but for now let’s start off with the basics. There are essentially two social business challenges that companies must face; internal and external.  Internal challenges can be things such as supply chain inefficiencies or lack of internal knowledge sharing.  External…

• Is Enterprise 2.0 a Crock?

  Jacob Morgan

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:50 am

  UPDATE: Just want to make a quick note here and say that the conference itself was great; filled with lots of valuable information, interesting companies, and intriguing discussions.  This post isn’t about the conference, it’s about the approach that companies have towards the E2.0 shift…carry on. I’m at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in San Francisco for the past 2 days and after speaking with and listening to many large organizations talk about it both publicly and privately I’ve come to believe that E 2.0 is complete BS.  Let me clarify that, I believe that E…

• Chess Media Group Partners With Biz 360 and I Join the Biz 360 Advisory Board!

  Jacob Morgan

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:33 am

  I’ve been hinting at some exciting news over the past few weeks and I’m finally ready to announce what that news is.  Two exciting things have happened; the first is that Chess Media Group has partnered with Biz 360, the second is that I am now on the advisory board for Biz 360.  I’m going to explain what both of these things mean in a minute but first wanted to say how I excited I am for both the partnership and the advising opportunity.  I had a chance to spend some time with Brad Brodigan (the CEO  of Biz 360) and after chatting about where he wants to take his…

• The Technology Problems With Social Media ROI

  Jacob Morgan

  2 Nov 2009 | 12:02 am

  A few weeks ago I wrote about some of the business problems or challenges that exist with social media ROI.  Today I want to address some of the technology challenges.  Keep in mind that I’m not a very technical person so if you have something you want to add or contribute to the post please let me know.  Note, we are mainly talking about enterprise size clients. Customer tracking There are many companies that have a solid online presence, in fact many of these companies have hundreds of thousands of online connections, but the trouble is being able to understand how to bring the…

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  PitchEngine

• Can You Explain Social Media?

  Jay Deragon

  How may times have you been asked "Can you explain social media to us?" Then you have to think about how to explain the entire (r)evolution of the internet and its present state. Try doing that and you'll lose most people's attention. It has been said that "pictures speak a thousand words". As a consultant I have always found that if you can provide a picture illustration and a simple story to explain something very complex then you have helped a client understand something they need. Given the consistent questions we get asked we decided to try and provide pictures that hopefully convey the…

• Why You Shouldn't Use Social Media

  Jay Deragon

  Using social media just because everyone else is does not mean you should, at least not yet. Before jumping into all the chatter and all the advertising organizations would be better served by asking themselves a series of questions. Finding the answers to the questions will require you to "think" about critical issues which will have serious impacts on the use of social media. First you need to understand what it should be used for vs. what it shouldn't be used for. To answer these questions you must think about how effective are your current communications, internally and externally. Why?

• Public Relations can be Social, Imagine That...

  Jason Kintzler

  PitchEngine member, Esther Steinfeld, interviews the founder and CEO of PitchEngine, a social media platform that supports communication between public relations individuals, journalists and bloggers. And isn’t PR about communication anyway? Could this be a return to the way it always should have been? Esther poses the tough questions and Kintzler replies with no fear. (“Press releases suck!”)

• Are Your Directions Wrong?

  Jay Deragon

  Social media doesn't come with directions. Instead it is a never ending process of learning what, where, when, who, how and why you individually and your entire organization should use it purposely. Social media doesn't come with a manual and it isn't something you should learn by simply copying others. Social media is simply a new communications system and instead of thinking about social media people should think about how communications has changed as a result of social media. What Has Changed? In the past communications was a one way marketing system aimed at getting people's attention.

• Face to Face

  Maria von Losch Rohloff

  Does anyone meet face to face anymore? With all the social networking going on, it seems that meetings are now being handled virally. I'm not putting down technology or all these new platforms (I'm a closeted tech geek) and I love that it's convenient and time efficient. I miss the good 'ol days of meeting face to face. I understand that people are busy these days, heck, I'm busy too but I'm never too busy to meet someone in person if they ask. I'm fully aware there are networking groups that meet once a month at a designated place for mixing and connecting but most of these cost a small fee…

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  HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

• The Rank Nazi: Your Content Is Not Worthy, No Rank For You! [cartoon]

  Dharmesh Shah

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:18 am

  Share Looking to get more organic traffic from Google? You need to create content that's worthy! (Yes, it's that simple.  Not easy, but simple). If you liked this cartoon, you can find more cartoons in the recently released book: Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs. The book's been a runaway success (I think it's because of the cartoons, but my co-author thinks its the marketing advice -- you decide).By the way, if you're a Seinfeld fan, what's your favorite episode/scene?  (I'm looking for more ideas for future cartoons).   Become a Fan on…

• Study Reveals That Online Searches Affect Emotions, Memory

  Shannon Sweetser

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:48 am

  If you’re not creating great content to help your company get found online, you’re missing an incredible opportunity to legitimately connect with people searching for information related to your industry or product.According to a new study from the University of Missouri, out of the 73% of American adults who use the internet daily,  over half of them emotionally responded and remembered content that they found “searching” instead of “surfing.”  This data, published as “The Effect of Searching Versus Surfing on Cognitive and Emotional Responses to Online News” in the…

• Top 5 Inbound Marketing Stories of the Week: Social Media Strategy

  Pamela Seiple

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:11 pm

  Does your company have a social media marketing strategy?  If you're inclined to answer "yes" because you have a Twitter handle and a Facebook page, you may want to re-think your answer.Our top article on InboundMarketing.com this week urges you to take a step back, do your homework and form an actual strategy for social media marketing.  What are your objectives?  What are the opportunities?  What are your competitors doing?  After all, there's more to social media marketing than tweeting and Facebooking... 1.Developing a Social Media Marketing StrategyAuthor: Bernie…

• HubSpot TV - Facebook Halloween Horror with Guest Paul Dunay

  Rebecca Corliss

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:06 am

  Episode #64 - October 30, 2009  (Episode Length: 24 minutes, 43 seconds)IntroHow to interact on Twitter: @karenrubin, @mvolpe and @PaulDunay with www.HubSpot.tv in your tweet.Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.hubspot.tv Guest: Paul DunayBook Giveaway! Go to Facebook.com/FBMarketingForDummies! Global Managing Director of Services and Social Marketing for Avaya and author of Facebook Marketing for DummiesBlog: Buzz Marketing for Technology Question from @KirstenPetra - When I fan someone, I don't feel like I am actually their friend and that I don't actually get anything in return. How…

• You Don't Have to Be a Great Writer to Write a Great Blog

  Brian Halligan

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:30 pm

  I am an engineer by training who had very little writing experience in my career until I started HubSpot.  In the early days of the company, I could not write software, so I spent a lot of time writing articles for our Internet Marketing Blog and was pleasantly surprised by how well it performed.  Today, the blog has over 20,000 subscribers and over 100,000 new visitors per month.The good performance convinced me that I had been suppressing brilliant writing skills for the last 20 years! I was so excited that I sent a note to my eighth grade teacher, Tom Brown, who helped me learn…

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  mediabistro.com: AgencySpy

• TBWA's Modern Warfare 2 Campaign May Have Been too Racy

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:23 pm

  This week we've been chasing down information regarding TBWA\Chiat\Day's campaign work for Infinity Ward and Activision-Blizzard's latest game title, Modern Warfare 2 — which, according to some predictions, could be the highest grossing entertainment release of all time. That means it would be bigger than Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Dark Knight. Word on the street is last Monday, Activision-Blizzard (the game's publisher) pulled the plug on Chiat's campaign, calling it too racy, graphic. Various sources have confirmed the same story, both noting that an outside agency has been called…

• Friday Odds and Ends

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:12 pm

  -Hyundai tapped Havas' MPG to handle its estimated $300 million international media planning/buying account. link -Google advertising Droid on its homepage. link -Agency folks do the darndest things. link -New Zealand lets Kiwis have their say. link -Apple will open its Upper West Side NYC store on November 14th. link -Lookee, R/GA has a new website. link -A federal judge in Kentucky basically said fuck you to Big Tobacco's request to block new marketing restrictions. link -DraftFCB launched a cross-network philanthropic event today called "The Global Day of Giving". link -When is it OK to…

• If Breasts Could Talk They'd, ah, ah, What?

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:09 am

  The first thing that came out of my mouth when I saw the latest Reebok EasyTone ad (above, semi-NSFW)"What?! No way." But I was wrong, so, way. The premise: your ass looks so good thanks to your Reebok EasyTones that your breasts are jealous. Just like a product manufacturer to play up a woman's product by showing close-ups of supple female bits. Ladies, ladies, can't we all be happy, together? No, we can't, because all women are in competition with one another, even the chest versus the buttocks. The only ladies who aren't against eachother: the left and the right. If one of them goes down,…

• YouTube Petition Urges You to Raise Voice about Climate Change

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:08 am

  Tel Aviv-based agency Mizbala has launched "TubePetition", which utilizes YouTube's shared annotations technology to basically create a petition within a video that promotes climate change awareness. As dramatic music plays, you can click in the video to "sign" the petition and leave a note. While not quite as, um, eye-catching as 350.org's climate change campaign, Mizbala's effort is nevertheless intended to also reach world leaders who will be attending December's COP15 conference in Denmark. Credits: Creative team: Guy Dayan, Dori Ben Israel Musical Director: Yishay Raziel (Jingles & music…

• Friday's Illegal Ad: Back-to-School Marketing Gets Bouncier

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  The Japanese sure know how to get us in the back-to-school mood. Here's a spot featuring an enthusiastic lady who's dressed like what appears to be a Hooters server doing her best Billy Blanks/Tae-Bo impression all in the name of selling backpacks. Your move, Jansport. Via More: "The Passion of the Easter Specials" New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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  The Steve Rubel Lifestream

• Five Incredibly Useful Things You Can Do Without Ever Leaving Facebook

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:31 pm

  I have been spending a fair amount of time on Facebook since they updated the news feed feature, mostly because I can get a quick read on what's new. I like how they show you "trends from friends." In the process, I am discovering that it's becoming a one-stop shop for many of my day-to-day activities. Here are five things that I recently found you can do right from within Facebook without having to leave...1) Read, search and post tweets via Twitgether, a full-featured Twitter client2) Watch TV streams via Hulu 3) Catch up with the local weather, using WeatherBug4) Read…

• Moms More Influenced Offline, While Kids Are Online

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:53 pm

  Two new studies point to a growing divide in how moms and kids communicate and are influenced...First up, Nielsen/Pete Blackshaw's Pocket Guide to Social Media and Kids: "In the hands of children and tweens, today’s cell phones are primarily used as text messaging devices, cameras, gaming consoles, video viewers, MP3 players, and incidentally, as mobile phones via the speaker capability so their friends can chime in on the call." And, via AdAge, parents are relying more on offline conversations to make decisions: "A study due out next week from the Parenting Group found that while…

• PR Pros on Press Releases - Meh

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm

  MarketingCharts uncovers some fresh data on how PR people feel about press releases. It's ugly."(only) 49% of today’s professional communicators say they think press releases are 'as useful as ever,' according to recent poll of corporate communicators conducted by Ragan Communications and PollStream."And on why we can't kick the drug..."The poll also found that another 33% of the the 401 respondents see press releases as 'a necessary evil that won’t go away soon,' in large part because of disclosure rules for public companies set forth by the US Securities and Exchange Commission."And how…

• Three Ways to Thrive in the Age of Streams

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:12 am

  The images above should strike fear in any one who seeks attention - be it a brand, a politician or an individual. They come from Nielsen. The first (87) is the number of domains the average American visits in a month. The second (2600) is the number of web pages the average American visits in a month.  This funnel is small when you think about the infinite choices we have today - an era of information abundance. And given that human attention doesn't scale, I anticipate these stats will remain stable. So how do you break through? Here are three steps I am considering in my work as a…

• Defining Media, Cross-Mating Elephants and Zebras

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:34 am

  Five years ago there was media and social media and the two were distinct. You know what was what. It was like there elephants and zebras. You knew the difference. Today all media is social, all social is media. It's impossible to separate the two. The media all actively use social technologies to innovate, converse and collaborate with their audiences. Meanwhile, social content from friends - be it tweets or status updates or videos - all should be considered media. Yes, the elephants and the zebras have cross-mated. My colleague overheard me say this and he drew this little doodle for…

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  PSFK

• (Pics) Good Ideas In Pure Living, Tokyo

  We will be publishing video from the Good Ideas Salon and also one-one-one interviews with the panelists throughout next week. In the meantime, here's a selection of the images from the first talk by Marc Alt, Mark Dytham and Peter Rojas; the second talk with Rie Azuma, Danny Choo and Hiromi Matsubara; plus the talk between Piers Fawkes and Francois Bancon of Nissan.

• Plant-Based Air Purification For Your Home

  Andrea Air is a new air purifier designed by Mathieu Lehanneur engineered to improve air quality by using the filtration of natural plants.

• Vivienne Westwood Designs Wallpaper

  Vivienne Westwood has decided to branch out into the world of interior design, teaming up with wallpaper titans Cole & Son to produce a collection inspired by some of her most signature designs.

• Nike Uses Cinematic Narrative to Launch M6

  In an excellent example of brand narrative, the release of the M6 line from Nike/Jordan is accompanied by the launch of an interactive site full of behind-the-scenes storytelling content as told by the shoe's designers.

• Volkswagen: Influencing Our Actions Through Fun

  Volkswagen believes that injecting a healthy dose of fun into the often mundane tasks in our daily lives, such as choosing the stairs or remembering to recycle, is the best method for positive influencing our behaviors.

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  Publishing 2.0

• High-End Brand Publishers Need to Sell Scalable Premium Ad Solutions, Not Commodity Ad Space

  Scott Karp

  26 Oct 2009 | 9:26 am

  Newspaper online advertising has not benefited greatly from the recent upswing in online ad spending, according to the New York Times and most of the recent newspaper company quarterly results. This is no surprise because most newspaper websites sell SPACE for commodity advertising — display ads and classifieds — and thus are hard pressed to compete with ad networks that specialize in selling commodity ad space by the megaton (or giving it away for free, in the case of Craigslist). Back when newspapers where the only game in town for ad space, they could charge whatever they…

• Content Doesn’t Matter Without the Package

  Scott Karp

  16 Sep 2009 | 8:25 pm

  In response to the launch of Google’s Fast Flip, I observed that Google is correctly focused on creating a new user interface for news, when most media companies are not. A lot of people responded that Fast Flip is not an innovative or effective UI for news — which may be true, but that misses the point entirely. It doesn’t matter so much whether Google succeeds or fails with this particular experiment. What matters is that they are trying to solve the right problem. The challenge for media companies is not to figure out what to do with their content — content in and…

• What Google Understands About the Future of News and Publishing That Publishers Do Not

  Scott Karp

  14 Sep 2009 | 5:37 pm

  Google knows a lot about the future of news — more than many publishers. It’s evident in Google’s new product, Fast Flip, which allows news consumers to “flip” through news stories. What’s striking about Fast Flip is that Google is innovating precisely where publishers used to lead innovation. Fast Flip is a new package for news. The publishing business has always been about packaging content. Newspapers. Magazines. Newsletters In digital media, on the web, the news package is now a function of software — which is why Google is innovating precisely…

• The Briefing: Start at Y Combinator, finish at EveryBlock

  Ryan Sholin

  17 Aug 2009 | 1:54 pm

  It was a busy Monday morning in two corners of the hacker journalist community: EveryBlock is acquired by MSNBC, and Y Combinator announces a “request for startups” to address that whole “future of journalism” question hanging out there in the open air. Want to catch up? Start here: Msnbc.com acquires local news Web site MSNBC.com | August 17, 2009 Ryan Sholin says: MSNBC acquires Everyblock. This brief includes a reminder that they bought Newsvine some time ago. Not a bad stable of news sites to have around. Tags: Media & Journalism, EveryBlock, msnbc, Adrian…

• What I Read Today: Facebook Buys FriendFeed Edition

  Scott Karp

  10 Aug 2009 | 5:17 pm

  Why Facebook Wants FriendFeed GigaOm | August 10, 2009 Scott Karp says: Om Malik calls it “the problem of plenty.” Facebook is trying to solve it by acquiring FriendFeed. Will news orgs compete? Facebook Takes FriendFeed To Take On Twitter TechCrunch | August 10, 2009 Scott Karp says: M&A, as always, is driven by startups building what incumbents should have but couldn’t. karaswisher: Now That There’s FaceFeed, Does That Make Twoogle More Inevitable?: http://bit.ly/fET9I Twitter | August 10, 2009 Scott Karp says: Winner – Best FF/Facbook Post Title mathewi:…

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  CenterNetworks

• Google Maps Gets A New Layer — The NYC Subway

  Allen Stern

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:18 pm

  Last year Google got cozy with the MTA with the launch of transit directions inside of Google Maps. Today the Google Maps team has announced the launch of a new layer on Google Maps that displays all of the NYC subway routes directly on the map. There have been many mashups that created something similar in the past but now the subway lines are displayed directly on the map. So far I haven’t been able to find any errors in the lines and/or stations. I am sure my fellow railfans will find any errors this weekend. The new subway map lines also work on the mobile version of Google Maps.

• Startup Jobs – November 6

  Allen Stern

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:33 am

  Below are some of the latest jobs posted on the CenterNetworks Job Board. Subscribe to the CN Jobs feed and get all of the latest Web industry jobs delivered directly to you. Featured Job: Web Designer at Investor’s Business Daily More Jobs: Product Support Manager at Patch Experience Lead at HUGE Interaction Designer at GravityTank Front End Web Developer at Gucci Executive/Senior Web Producer at Scholastic Employers – Join other top companies on the CN Job Board. Post your jobs today – only $10 CenterNetworks Partner: Check out CloudContacts for your business card…

• Where Did CityFlitz Car Sharing Go?

  Allen Stern

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:59 pm

  We first covered Canadian-startup CityFlitz last September. We learned about the car sharing service via the FreshBooks blog. CityFlitz is a car-sharing service offered in Canada. The concept of car sharing, popularized by ZipCar, is based around many people sharing a bank of cars. I use ZipCar about once a week and think it’s a great service as they take care of everything and I just pay for the hours I use the car. CityFlitz tried a more involved business model than ZipCar employs. CityFlitz wrapped each of their cars with advertising and then only charged members $1/day to use the…

• Today’s Startup and Entrepreneurial Updates

  Allen Stern

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:39 am

  Here are today’s startup updates – congrats to the world champion NY Yankees – 27th series title, 1st in the brand new Yankee Stadium. If you are reading this on the feed, click inside and check out the new CN logo. How to Boost Ad Revenue: Speed is Your Secret Weapon – BuySellAds Drop.io Outlook Plugin Release – Drop.io I’m starting out in Email Marketing. Should I buy an email list? - Toddle Alice makes it even easier to find the best price – Alice Dropbox is to Ubuntu as eucalyptus is to koalas - Dropbox CenterNetworks Partner: Check out…

• Enough is Enough…Stop Blaming Wordpress

  Allen Stern

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:30 pm

  For over a decade I was responsible for posting financial documents either online or, before the Internet, to a variety of reporting sources. One thing was absolutely clear…post early and it won’t be pretty. Financial documents have associated post times and if the content was to be posted early (or late), it could affect the financial markets (e.g. stock trades, etc.). I can’t even count how many times I had to be up at midnight or later to make sure content went to the correct sources at the precise time. Not once did I enter a client document into any CMS system early…

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  The Tom Peters Weblog

• New "Mini-MASTER"

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:07 pm

  I've been fooling around with a lot of formats for recent events in the likes of Luanda, Riyadh, Dhahran, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Toronto. I've also been folding some of the stuff in the new book into my presentations. For my own use, I created a 525-slide monster I titled "Mini-MASTER." Here it is, FYI.

• King Fahd University

  5 Nov 2009 | 8:26 am

  Tom's public seminar yesterday was hosted by King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals in Dhahran. "KFU is as good as it gets in its field," Tom reports. "I had a lovely time. I think we got some good work done—and had a lovely time along the way. As an engineer, I have great fun poking fun at my brethren." He adds, "If it gets any better than Saudi hospitality, I don't know where." (At Tom's request, spaces at the seminar were made available for "a couple of dozen students.") As always, please let us hear from you, and you can get the PPT slides here.

• The Little BIG Things video series

  Shelley Dolley

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:33 am

  As mentioned previously, Tom's been busily working on a new book. The Little BIG Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence will be published early next year. Our talented friends at Enterprise Media captured Tom's thoughts during an early draft stage of the book. The words in the book will have little resemblance to the words Tom uses in these videos, as there have been numerous draft revisions, but the concepts are the same. Our new video feature can be found at the top right of the front page under the banner. The video series starts off with the topic of the recession, the first being…

• Excellence Slides

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:53 am

  Tom's on the road again, this time speaking to the International Conference on Administrative Development: Towards Excellence in Public Sector Performance, in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. If you attended the event which took place earlier today, please let us hear from you in the comments. If you would like to get the PPT slides, you can do so here: Excellence Always, Riyadh Riyadh, Long Version

• Psychology By Any Other Name

  29 Oct 2009 | 6:26 am

  I love the book Nudge—the content's pretty good, the title even better! But I hate—literally hate—the title of the genre. Namely, "behavioral economics." Oh for God's sake. Behavioral economics? Translation? Psychology! (Or as I like to call the field, "Economists discover humans.") But that's actually not the topic of this post. As I write I sit in a beautiful British Airways Club Class lounge in Heathrow's opulent Terminal 5. The lounge is big. The lounge is well appointed. There are two parts. There is no distinction between the two parts in terms of access. The "half"…

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  Brand New

• Big Wings, Tiny Type

  Armin

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

  I'm treating this as an In Brief because there isn't much to go by and details are still sketchy. Not to mention that the available images look like roadkill. As many of you may have caught, Chrysler announced a bunch of things this past week in relation to their emerging from the bottom of the auto industry barrel — our blogging colleagues at idsgn have put together something more comprehensive than I was willing to on this Friday morning. On their web site, Chrysler has made available a lot of PDFs covering their Plan, among them is a PDF on the brand going forward, showing a new…

• New Butterfly not so Fly

  Armin

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:48 am

  It's a rhetorical question since I am assuming thousands of people do but, seriously, does someone use msn.com anymore? With so many cooler and more efficient ways to access the online world, MSN has for a long time felt caught in 1999, both aesthetically and technologically, heck even philosophically. I'll admit that I really like the MSN butterfly from the beginning when it was introduced in 2000 and in TV ads it had a lovely animation. But in the twenty-first century I don't recall ever visiting MSN willingly. Not that that's about change anytime soon but at least if I do, the new scenery…

• Pfizer Moves Pforward

  Armin

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:18 am

  When we talk about "one of the biggest companies in the world" or "one of the leaders in their industry" or any other claim to the top spot in anything here in Brand New it's all relatively, well, relative. Especially when you compare anything to Pfizer, the leading-number-one-biggest-you-name-it player in the pharmaceutical industry. According to their 2008 financial report, the revenue for that year was $48.3 billion. They also produce two of the most popular and well known pills in the market: Lipitor and Viagra, among many others. Needless to say anything further, Pfizer is big. Last…

• Pixelated Blogging

  Armin

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:20 am

  At a time when various blogs are evolving into printed products — Exhibits A, B, and C — it's oddly reassuring to see what started as a zine back in the late 1980s maintain its web dominance a good ten years after it launched as one of the first juggernaut blogs in 2000. Chronicling all things technology, creative and sometimes just plain bizarre, Boing Boing has been an assured time waster for its thousands of readers for what seems like a blogging eternity. I realize that a blog is kind of off topic amidst the corporations, universities and consumer products we regularly feature…

• Magenta Star

  Armin

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:30 am

  In 2007, the 35-year-old Norwegian company Statoil merged with the oil and gas division of the 102-year-old Norsk Hydro, to form StatoilHydro, an energy and oil company with presence in 40 countries focusing on the production of oil as well as the consumer distribution of oil through various gas stations — with different brand names, some of them still named Statoil — around the world. Today, as it prepares to become a stronger global player, StatoilHydro officially went back to the Statoil name and adopted its new identity designed by Scandinavian Design Group. I emphasized…

• 
  Andy Beard - Niche Marketing

• Why Tweetglide Matters – seriously

  Andy Beard

  27 Oct 2009 | 9:45 pm

  When Mike Filsaime first mentioned Tweetglide, I signed up to his notification list but I wasn’t really that interested in the concept. I thought it had a few flaws in the business model he was proposing, and there were already enough Adobe Air Twitter applications on the market.I am saying this as someone who even considered hiring some developers to make an app, or picking up a dying project and adding some viral life to it. There are ways to leverage the Twitter application market that will be attractive.Before Mike really started selling information products, he had a huge amount of…

• Value Trojans & Free Training Webinar (Wednesday 10/28/09 10:45 PST)

  Andy Beard

  26 Oct 2009 | 4:09 pm

  I was meaning to get a post out on this most of last week but I was tied up helping lots of people big & small.Mike Hill is the only guy I know that teaches this stuff, but you will find Value Trojans all over the place when you realise the simplicity and powerful concept behind it.I also mentioned when I offered my bonus for Stompernet that I had plans to add some kind of Value Trojan to this site.Value Trojans First and foremost are about offering insane valueMike goes into incredible detail in his free promotional videos for his launch of sales tsunami and normally charges $25000/day…

• Product Launch Manager Bonus & Video CDNs

  Andy Beard

  23 Oct 2009 | 7:51 am

  If you have been following the theme of Jeff Walkers Product Launch Manager launch, a large chunk of it is that online marketers often have far more knowledge than they think they do – they just have to go out there and sell it.So my bonus is along those lines and will reveal a lot more of my long term plans, which I even hinted at long ago in a comment on Jeff Walker’s blog when he first launched PLF over 3 years ago.Best Existing Solution By FarThe other day I felt compelled to write about Quansite because it is the closest service to what I want to achieve.If you are looking…

• SEO Dojo – What’s That?

  Andy Beard

  23 Oct 2009 | 12:36 am

  One of the smartest SEOs I know who doesn’t run some kind of paid membership site now doesWhilst also blogging together on Collective Thoughts (ok so I have been slacking a little) we also have a chat group on Skype that has been running for 2 years.Dave knows his stuff (like really knows his stuff), and if your primary interest is SEO, I can’t think of a better place to hang out and share secrets.I absolutely refused to promote this as an affiliate as it is something we have chatted about in the Collective Thoughts group for so long, plus in various launch consultations I…

• SEOmoz Pro Review – Coupon Voucher Promo Discount Codes?

  Andy Beard

  19 Oct 2009 | 4:55 am

  Would ranking for these terms bring SEOmoz additional traffic and take traffic away from affiliates? Would that be a benefit to the long-term SEOmoz brand?Tom Critchlow of Distilled has quite a disturbing post today for affiliates on the SEOmoz blog, encouraging brands to rank for their own coupon codes.The suggestion is that brands should try to rank for their own voucher codes and take that traffic away from affiliate coupon sites. Unfortunately in some cases that might be biting the hand that feeds you.Many of the sites that offer various forms of vouchers & coupons are brand…

• 
  The Marketing Minute

• How do you see your clients

  Drew McLellan

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:21 pm

  A client of ours, E-Myth Benchmark, who does excellent work with small business leaders (including yours truly) has this philosophy about their clients:"Our clients are much greater than they know.  It's our honor to help them discover that truth about themselves."Imagine if every time you answered the phone, shot off an e-mail or met with a client, you were filled with that attitude.   How might that change the dynamics of your relationship?  How would a bit of reverence change your company's culture?I've said it before....if you can't…

• Free chapter chock full of marketing "ah ha!"

  Drew McLellan

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:30 pm

  I love many things about blogging and social media.  But the #1 reason I love it is because it has afforded me the opportunity to meet some really wonderful, smart people. And sometimes it feels as though we've known each other forever.  That's certainly true for me of Gavin Heaton, CK, Lori Magno, Luc Debaisieux and many others.  But there's this agency guy named Jay Heyman who lives in New York City -- and he and I connect in a whole different way.  For some odd reason, we end up writing posts on the same subject or about the same subject on a regular basis! Which of…

• What I'm reading (11/01/09)

  Drew McLellan

  1 Nov 2009 | 6:57 am

  Sorry I've been lax with this feature in October.  It wasn't that I was not reading....but I've been on the road and at conferences just about all month and I just didn't have time to get this post built.None the less, here's what I've been reading these past few weeks and my take on each. Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz (buy it here) If you think you've already read this book -- you haven't.  Andy did a revised version in early 2009 and added lots of new case studies, worksheets and even some new chapters.  So don't be fooled.

• How to make time for social media: Twitter

  Drew McLellan

  31 Oct 2009 | 6:53 pm

  As I traverse across the country talking about social media, whether it's with clients one-on-one or with conference attendees from a stage -- the "I don't have time" mantra is a common response to the conversation.   I'm with you.  I get the time crunch thing.  I'm caught between that same rock and hard place.  But...I have figured out some ways to create time/time savers when it comes to social media.  So, I thought I would share what works for me, with the hopes that you can steal some of these ideas/tools. I'm not saying…

• If they'll play on your site, they'll pay on your site

  Drew McLellan

  29 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am

  Last year, I told you about Meijer, a 180 big box store in the Midwest and the very cool promotion they unleashed on Chicago and Cincinnati around Halloween.  Their headless horseman rode wild through the streets...having some fun scaring the downtown crowd. Well this year, they've upped the ante.  They've created a 3D experience where you can "put on a mask" and record a Halloween greeting.  Basically, it's a digital hologram called augmented reality.  (Kevin Dugan explains it better than I can.)Using this technology and your webcam, you can…

• 
  Brian Solis - PR 2.0

• Rumors of the Death of Blogs are Greatly Exaggerated

  brian

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:02 am

  Source: feministingEach year at Blogworld Expo, Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra presents The State of the Blogosphere as one of the event’s prestigious keynotes. For those who are unfamiliar with Technorati, it serves as a directory and search engine for the blogosphere as well as a benchmark for the ranking of blogs worldwide.While there has been much discussion about the relevance and even demise of blogs as the statusphere and micro updates gained traction in addition to earning prominence in the mainstream spotlight, the reality is that blogs are a vital ingredient to the media…

• RT @Twitter: New Retweet Feature Goes Live

  brian

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:29 pm

  Source: TwitterThis is breaking news at the moment, therefore this post will update as new information trickles in.Twitter is making good on its recent promise to introduce new features to bring users back to Twitter.com.Similar to the way that it rolled out Lists, Twitter is incrementally releasing its new Retweet feature initially previewed in August 2009.As described by @Biz, co-founder of Twitter:Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your followers very easy. In turn, we hope interesting, newsworthy, or even just plain funny information will…

• Social Media Influencers are not Traditional Influencers

  brian

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:19 am

  SourceGuest post by Damien Basille, follow him on Twitter | Read his blogAs more and more brands are moving all of their ad spend online, defining how influence affects their return on investment is necessary and must be done as soon as possible. While some are making inroads to define these calculations many are overlooking the fact that influence affects everything. Without factoring in the real issue of different types of influence you run into a number of problems, for instance focusing on one group of influencers over another or getting broad sweeping numbers instead of knowing exactly…

• The Future of the Embargo

  brian

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:25 am

  CreditIn media and blogger relations, PR typically wields two powerful tools to help boost the effectiveness of pitching and potential placement of news: the embargo and the exclusive.In the case of an exclusive, a story is usually packaged prior to official release for one particular writer, fully understanding their style, nuances, and audience. If the story is accepted, it is not pitched to any other media outlets until after the story runs. The benefit for PR is that it can bank on the publishing of a guaranteed, high profile story. The advantage for the reporter is that they maintain a…

• Twitter Releases New Widget for Lists

  brian

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:14 pm

  Twitter recently expanded its new Lists service to users network-wide and in doing so, injected a sense of excitement, confusion, and also utility. Lists represent a significant milestone for Twitter as it transcends asynchronous conversations and and broadcast messages into a form of intelligence gathering, education, entertainment, and news.Twitter Lists are also stirring controversy as many believe that it sets the foundation for a new level of establishing a metric for influence. Whereas prominence was measured by the number of followers as well as the friends-to-follower ratio, now the…

• 
  Conversation Marketing

• 14 social media lessons we can all learn

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:27 pm

  Yep, my least favorite marketing term finally gets its own list. Aside from my occasional outpouring of hatred. Truth is, though, whatever you want to call it, social media is teaching us how marketing should work, and how it's always worked. Here's a list of my thoughts on the subject: 1. It's just media. Listen to Gary Vaynerchuck. And Steve Rubel. And to me. The secret is that it's just media. What we call 'social media' is a fantastic evolution of media. It's media distilled down to a bazillion conversations, all going on, all at once. Sounds chaotic? That's because it is. Todo: Read…

• 8 marketing messages we all know are lies

  29 Oct 2009 | 8:25 pm

  After a few years in marketing, it's hard to say any of these without blushing. The louder we say it, the more you can depend on the fact that we're lying: We care about your business. Typically said as the customer service department shoves something splintery into whatever orifice you forgot to seal shut. Made with you in mind. Only if 'you' means '30 people locked in a room behind one-way glass, fed caffeine and sugar and then egged on by a facilitator until they were all ready to kill each other'. We will beat any price. Except prices in catalogs, prices from the store down the street,…

• RFPs Suck - Don't take my word for it...

  27 Oct 2009 | 6:12 pm

  RFPs are like a colonoscopy: Someone you don't even know gets to inspect you from the inside out. Sorry, I prefer to have dinner first. Thankfully, I'm no longer raving alone. Tom Searcy has written an excellent book titled, guess what, RFPs Suck! How to Master the RFP System Once and for All to Win Big Business. Unlike me, he provides excellent help to navigate the RFP process. In fact, I used some of his advice in an RFP, and are now in the running for the contract. So his stuff works. Tom was kind enough to do an interview with me about the book and RFPs in general. Here it is: 1. What…

• Sound Transit Web Site Review: They get an F-

  26 Oct 2009 | 9:02 pm

  Sound Transit is soliciting comments and ideas to improve their web site. I've long seen this site as a blight upon all public transit, so I did a special edition video review. Note that I am having a crappy week, and it's only Monday, so any harshness is totally 100% authentic: For God's sake, guys, at least put a map on your home page.

• 13 Internet marketing tips for Realtors

  22 Oct 2009 | 7:39 pm

  Yo, realtors: You guys rock. You help people make the biggest purchase of their lives. But you don't understand marketing. Or at least it seems that way. Here are a few tips: Don't send me canned e-mails with the same content that every other realtor is sending me. It does nothing for me, or you. Do send me a short note telling me about changes in the neighborhood, or big changes you think are coming to my block, or your new puppy. Pick something I care about! Build your own site. Your agency page is nice and all, but it looks like every other agent's agency page. Don't have the time/money to…

• 
  Branding Strategy Insider

• 9 Digital Trends For 2010

  Derrick Daye

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:10 pm

  1: Facebook replaces personal emailQuestion: Google has it, Hoover has it (in the UK anyway), TiVo had it, lost it and has somewhat got it back. Xerox had it, but nobody really cares anymore. So what is it?It's when a brand name becomes the verb associated with its use. So rather than searching, you Google, or TiVo when digital recording a television show. Arguably an even more powerful synonym is when a brand becomes a noun, such as Polaroid, for instant developed photographs, although that didn't end so well.The newest one would seem to Facebook, although it has too meanings.'I Facebooked…

• The Anti-laws of Luxury Marketing #16

  Derrick Daye

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:10 pm

  16. Keep celebrities out of your advertisingIn traditional marketing, stars of stage and screen are very often used in advertising: there is nothing like a David Beckham for selling sunglasses or shaving cream. Nestlé has also got in on the act, with premium brand Nespresso calling on the services of George Clooney, and Nescafé recruiting the famous English soccer player Ian Wright. Nestlé, the world’s number one in food marketing, knows what it’s doing.However, using celebrities to promote luxury products is extremely dangerous. A luxury brand is courted by the stars, in the same way…

• Brands and the Ladder of Life

  Al Ries

  1 Nov 2009 | 9:10 pm

  One of the typical questions marketing people ask themselves is, What’s the lifetime value of a customer?Presumably a company benefits by keeping its customers satisfied over an extended period of time. Nice idea in theory, but this kind of thinking often leads a company down the wrong path.Take Saturn, for example. Here was a brand built on the ultimate in customer satisfaction. Comfortable showrooms, no high-pressure sales people, no haggling over prices. ‘A different kind of company. A different kind of car.’The first Saturn model, the S series, was wildly successful. For a number of…

• Uniting Naming and Promotion

  Steve Rivkin

  31 Oct 2009 | 9:10 pm

  X-13D? What kind of name is that for something you pop into your mouth?Doritos turned naming conventions upside down with its savvy plan in 2007 to generate buzz – and, oh yes, a new name – for its new flavored chips. How? By submitting suggestions on the Web, prompted by these eye-catching black bags of cheeseburger-like chips with the 'classified' moniker.“This is the X-13D flavor experiment,” said the text box on the bag. “Objective: taste and name Doritos flavor X-13D.” This was followed by directions to a website that linked to yet another website. And when snack-happy teens…

• When The Name You Want Is Taken

  Steve Rivkin

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:05 pm

  You've just found out the name you want for your brand is owned by somebody else. So, the temptation is to say, "Let's move on."Not so fast. Names are property, and can be bought and sold (or leased) like real estate.Coors licensed the name of its upscale beer Irish Red from a long-defunct brewery. Yves St. Laurent bought the name of its Opium fragrance for only $200 from two elderly perfumers.The 1999 relaunch of National Airlines came about after the new owners paid $175,000 to buy the name at a bankruptcy sale from defunct Pan Am. (Pan Am had acquired the carrier in 1980.)Not that long…

• 
  mediabistro.com: PRNewser

• Rubenstein Communicates (Yet Another) Yankee World Series

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:52 pm

  The New York Yankees celebrated their 27th World Series today with a parade through downtown Manhattan's "Canyon of Heroes." Rubenstein Associates, the team's PR agency of record, issued the following statement to media on behalf of team owner George Steinbrenner, sent by agency president Howard Rubenstein. continued... New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

• Ogilvy PR Picks Up $9M California Rail Contract

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:22 pm

  It seems Ogilvy PR should be thanking California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration for mismanagement. It helped Ogilvy pick up a $9 million contract with the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The bidding process for the contract was re-opened after Mercury Public Affairs - who was about to win the account - was deemed to have too many close ties to the Schwarzenegger administration. Government board members called the original bidding process, "insufficient." "Under a new bidding process, a staff selection panel that included three representatives from outside transit agencies…

• Survey: United States World's Top Country Brand

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:48 pm

  Does the U.S. have a perception problem? Not so, according to one survey. FutureBrand, in conjunction with Weber Shandwick's Global Travel & Lifestyle Practice, released their fifth annual Country Brand Index (CBI) today. The U.S. came in first, followed by Canada and Australia. New Zealand and France round out the top five. In terms of methodology, the survey, "incorporates global quantitative research, expert opinions, and relevant secondary sources for statistics that link brand equity to assets, growth and expansion." "It's logical to assume that the shift in the political climate and…

• Poll: PR People Say Exclusives More Popular Than Embargoes

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:29 am

  In a recent PRNewser poll, we asked, "Which Tactic Did You Employ the Last Time You Released Big News?" The results: "Posted on a wire and pitched the release," and "Exclusive with one publication" both came in dead even at 32% each. 21% said "News embargo" and 15% said "Posted on company blog/website and pitched the link." Judging from these results, we have to ask: Are embargoes on the decline? Just last week agency Waggener Edstrom assembled a panel to discuss the topic of emgargoes, and reporters in attendance were split down the middle between those who defended them and those who hate…

• Kelly McCarthy Joins Ruder Finn as Director of Business Development

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:55 am

  First on PRNewser: Bite PR Manager of Business Development & Account Planning Kelly McCarthy is leaving the agency to join Ruder Finn as Director of Business Development. "I love Bite, always have and continue to wish them well, but it's a new chapter for me and a new opportunity. [Ruder Finn] is an agency that is growing and has fantastic credentials," said McCarthy. Bite will "definitely" be hiring, said Vice President Sean Mills. "We're taking this as an opportunity to evaluate our new business structure across North America and make sure we have the right resources in the right places. As…

• 
  Hitch: Connecting Marketing Innovators

• Friday Philosophy: Anne Friedberg

  David Wiggs

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:06 pm

  This week’s Friday Philosophy comes from an industry thought leader in New Media, Ann Friedberg, who unfortunately succumbed to cancer two weeks ago at the age of 57.  Yeah, cancer sucks.  A brilliant mind and well respected woman. “How the world is framed may be as important as what is contained within that frame.” -Anne Friedberg

• Watch What Happens! Marketing a Top Chef

  David Wiggs

  29 Oct 2009 | 6:00 pm

  I help companies find their ad agency –An Agency Search Consultant.  It’s a great gig.  I love it.  I’m good at it. Usually I hear from CMOs, Marketing VPs, start-up companies, established brands.  Today I got a call from a Top Chef!  After the surprise wore off, we had a great chat. Since we try to keep searches confidential, I’ll decline to say who it is.  For now, I’ll just call them “Chef”. I enjoyed watching Chef this season as they moved through the competition and was sad to see them eventually go.  But, that’s the way the cookie…

• Ad Industry Innovator # 18: HL2

  David Wiggs

  29 Oct 2009 | 2:35 pm

  I started getting to know HL2 in a recent ad agency search I conducted for a client in the Pacific Northwest.  Their clients include HTC, SBC, Microsoft, HR Block, ATT Wireless, Hotels.com There were a few different long chats with Don Low, one of the founding partners which gave me a lot of insight into this group of 70 creative professionals, but I really started to get HL2 watching the pieces in the 4th chamber–more so than seeing their work. I’d like to hang out at a Fat Burger or shoot hoops with them (I think I could stuff the TaxCut box) –but apparently they’re…

• Friday Philsophy from Jack Poole, 1933- 2009

  David Wiggs

  23 Oct 2009 | 2:33 pm

  The man responsible for putting all eyes on our beautiful corner of the world by bringing the Olympics to Vancouver in 2010 passed away today at the age of 76 from pancreatic cancer. I thought it only fitting that today’s Friday Philosophy come from him, a man who knew how to organize and inspire. “Anything I’ve achieved is because of the people I’ve hired to do it.” Jack Poole

• Ad Industry Innovator # 17: Copacino + Fujikado

  David Wiggs

  21 Oct 2009 | 5:13 pm

  Copacino & Fujikado is a mainstay in the Seattle agency world.  If you’re a marketer in or around the Pacific northwest, you’ve heard of them, or at least their work.  They were REI’s agency of record for years and years.  For the Seattle Aquarium, the agency created the saga of Leonard, a disgruntled pet store goldfish who isn’t cool or exotic enough to be on display in the Aquarium. The campaign was designed to spark a grassroots, viral movement to “Let Leonard In.”  There’s a lot more where that came from, once you start looking into this long time…

• 
  ZackBrandit

• The Word of Mouth Concept… Return to the Sources, Part 1

  28 Oct 2009 | 7:14 am

    Centuries ago, humanity like we know it today was different, especially from a technological point of view. Technology was at its first steps, influencing the methods of production,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Blogworld or a World of Blogs?

  22 Oct 2009 | 8:49 am

    Once in a while you hear things like blogs are passé or blogs are losing ground to new social media platforms such as micro-blogging like Technorati posted recently.... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• We’ve Got Some Nouvelles!

  31 Aug 2009 | 6:24 am

       Our platform is improving day by day and so will our communication. I come to you today with 4 headlines: We have finally launched our French blog.... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Conan the Barbarian Changes Our Social Behavior

  31 Aug 2009 | 3:29 am

  While drifting through my Friendfeed account I discovered a funny little thing that made me realize something big is happening.   I present to you... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Can Social Media Survive Without Cheerleaders?

  3 Aug 2009 | 3:57 am

  Twitter this, Facebook that, Friendfeed here - and you know what!?! We’ve been under the spell of social media for some time now, trying different platforms and every day seeing new... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• 
  Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

• 3 Sources of Grammar Inspiration

  John Jantsch

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:20 am

  3 Sources of Grammar InspirationThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing About once a week I amuse the grammar troops by torturing some aspect of the language in my writing. Hey, I don’t do it on purpose and I love that I’m able to provide an otherwise cuddly group of individuals with a steady flow of chuckles. I’ve had this post in the back of my mind for some time, but I was prompted to write it today by a LinkedIn status update I saw yesterday. (Name of victim withheld) – “Excited to attend my first titter conference today.” In the always on, say…

• Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma

  John Jantsch

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:16 am

  Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and CharismaThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Marketing podcast with Nick Morgan (Click to listen, right click and Save As to download – subscribe now via iTunes Trust – can’t get enough of that as a brand, business, or person these days. Everyone knows that, but what they may not know is that there are things each of is doing that may be unintentionally eroding trust – particularly when it comes to the topic of speaking and presenting. In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast Nick Morgan, author of Trust Me, talks…

• Social Media Training Course Beta Testers Needed

  John Jantsch

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:03 am

  Social Media Training Course Beta Testers NeededThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing This whole social media thing for small business can be confusing, I know, I speak to groups of small business owner routinely and hear things like – “I’m overwhelmed, I’m tired of the hype, what do I do first, how do I find the time.” Update: The good news is a lot of people really want to beta test this program – over 125 left comments for the 10 spots, but I guess that’s the bad news too. Here’s what I’ve decided to do – I will choose 20 beta…

• Biznik Blends High Tech with High Touch

  John Jantsch

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:13 pm

  Biznik Blends High Tech with High TouchThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing Fortunately, it’s starting to feel like the wave of social media hype has crested and small businesses can turn their attention to understanding social media “best practices” rather than obsessing over next week’s new tool. Today’s greatest small business opportunity awaits those who learn to skillfully blend the awareness creating, automating, and filtering aspects of social media platforms with the trust and customer building aspects of education based, face-to-face networking.

• Weekend Favs October Thirty-One

  John Jantsch

  31 Oct 2009 | 5:20 am

  Weekend Favs October Thirty-OneThis content from: Duct Tape Marketing I’ve added a weekend post routine that I hope you enjoy. Each weekend I write a post that features 3-4 things I read during the week that I found interesting. Generally speaking it doesn’t involve much analysis and may range widely in topic. (Flickr image included here is also fav image of the week) Enjoy! Good stuff I ran across this week: Twitter Gallery - Nice collection of free twitter backgrounds. This is an asset that should be branded, but at least dress it up a bit. KnowEm – Search over 340 popular social…

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  Dose of Digital

• A Sneak Preview of My FDA Social Media Hearing Testimony

  Jonathan Richman

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:20 am

  It’s almost that time. One more week until the FDA hearings that everyone has demanding for more than a year. As a refresher, on November 12-13, the FDA is holding a public hearing on the use of social media by pharma and medical device companies (and others). Officially, the title of the hearing is: Promotion of Food and Drug Administration-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools (Document ID FDA-2009-N-0441-0001). I recently posted the agenda for the meeting, but it has been updated. You can download the new agenda here: Updated Agenda for FDA Social…

• FDA Public Hearing on Social Media Agenda and Speaker List Released

  Jonathan Richman

  30 Oct 2009 | 5:05 am

  As most of you know, in a couple of weeks (November 12-13), the FDA is holding a public hearing on the use of social media by pharma and medical device companies (and others). Officially, the title of the hearing is: Promotion of Food and Drug Administration-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools (Document ID FDA-2009-N-0441-0001). Catchy, right? In any event, since this is a public hearing, people were allowed to request both a seat to attend the meeting and also to speak at the meeting. If you haven’t already applied for a spot, forget it, as the deadline…

• Pharma Marketing with Meaning Pecha Kucha

  Jonathan Richman

  28 Oct 2009 | 10:39 am

  A few months ago, I innocently agreed to speak at the E-Patient Connections 2009 Conference. I say “innocently” because I didn’t know what I was getting into. It turns out that I somehow agreed to do a Pecha Kucha presentation. How hard could that be? Well, it was one of the most difficult presentations I’ve ever had to prepare. This is despite the fact that a Pecha Kucha presentation is only 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Minor detail though, you get only 20 slides and each slide is on screen for 20 seconds. After that, it advances automatically. No mercy. You don’t…

• How Pharma Overcomplicates Social Media

  Jonathan Richman

  22 Oct 2009 | 7:40 am

  I just finished a few days at Digital Pharma this week and it was a great conference. One of the trailblazers in pharma social media, Shwen Gwee, was the chair for the conference and, as an advisor, I got to watch him push for the best of the best content and format. It worked. If you want a great recap of what happened, head off to Twitter and pour through the stream for the conference’s hashtag, #digpharm. I had seen and heard a lot of what was discussed at this meeting before simply because I get to spend a lot of my time thinking about it. For others that have a different focus in…

• The Only Way Pharma Can Improve Compliance: Fun

  Jonathan Richman

  19 Oct 2009 | 7:00 am

  [Quick disclaimer: I'm using "compliance" and "adherence" a bit interchangeably in this post. I know they're different, but I'm going to spare a big debate. Just go with it. Thanks.] I’ve been involved in a few discussions lately about how pharma can  improve compliance to their medications. Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve had these discussions and, likely, it won’t be the last. Part of my last job at AstraZeneca was managing our compliance program for their breast cancer products. If you’re in pharma, you know that this debate has been going on for…

• 
  Marketing + Branding + Design

• Update on the Social Media Class at NC State by @cammicam

  Chris Moody

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:09 pm

  As the semester has flown by, Social Media & Management has had a great lineup of guest speakers. @cammicam recently graced the class with her presence and has a great writeup at her blog.

• Social Networks, Media, and Marketing – Evolution: a Prezi by Brent Ward

  Chris Moody

  26 Oct 2009 | 5:53 pm

  Brent Ward's innovative take on social networks and their evolution.

• Social media and its impact on basketball recruiting

  Chris Moody

  23 Oct 2009 | 7:48 am

  Kyrie Irving (@kyrieirving) has been one of the most sought after point guards in the country for several years. Recruiting has traditionally been a bit mysterious and the only way to follow along was listening to rumors, inside sources, and following reputable blogs and journalists...that is changing quickly. Over the last few years, there have been more press conferences, hat donning, and even a few fake announcements. The recruitment of @kyrieirving has been interesting to watch for two reasons: 1) he is very active on Twitter, and 2) one of the universities recruiting Irving has…

• The power of well used typography in a music video by Eric Hutchinson

  Chris Moody

  18 Sep 2009 | 1:01 pm

  It is amazing to me that @erichutchinson isn't huge by now.

• How to ACE Social Media: Alignment, Control, and Engagement

  Chris Moody

  18 Sep 2009 | 8:44 am

  Remember ACE: Align your efforts, Control your message, Engage your community.

• 
  Nettie Hartsock

• Don’t Put All Your Social Media Eggs in One Basket

  Nettie Hartsock

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:27 pm

  As a former (decade long) technology journalist I think it’s very important for people to understand that it is important to not put all your social media eggs in one basket. Always be aware that social media tools are ever-evolving. This is one of the reasons I don’t ever like being called a “social media expert.” No one can really be a social media expert, because even if you live this stuff 24/7 (which sometimes it feels like I do) you’ll still not be ahead of the developers of these tools and the new options or frameworks they are building with them. While…

• Sherman Alexie on BigThink.com – ebooks and more

  Nettie Hartsock

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:26 pm

  Go to Bigthink.com and see Sherman Alexie’s take on ebooks, publishing and more. Really must see if you’re an author or in publishing.

• Be an idea-marathoner…

  Nettie Hartsock

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:54 pm

  “We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves…The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, ‘You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.’ The human spirit is indomitable.” -Sir Roger Bannister, first runner to run a sub-4 minute mile Here are 7 questions to ask yourself about how you are running your blog marathon and how well you are utilizing this long blog-race to get your message out. Answer…

• Book Awards Matter

  Nettie Hartsock

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:44 pm

  Often when I work with authors, one of the first things I will ask them is how many awards they’ve submitted their book to. It’s always surprising how many people have not done one thing in terms of trying to garner an award or two. What’s most surprising is that this is definitely a no-brainer! For the small amount of investment it takes for an author or a publisher to enter contests like the IPPY, Benjamin Franklin, The Ethan Awards, USABooknews.com or the Axiom Awards, it’s well worth doing so in the long run. Even if your book garners only a finalist mention, that helps it stand…

• 5 Reasons to Read “Making News in the Digital Era”

  Nettie Hartsock

  3 Nov 2009 | 11:51 am

  Just finished reading David Henderson’s “Making News in the Digital Era” and I wanted to post the five reasons to read his book! Five Reasons to Read: Making News in the Digital Era 1. Chapter Seven: Twitter Dispatches in 140 Characters 2. Chapter Twenty-Five: Be Clever and Be Bold – love this chapter! 3. Chapter Twenty-Three: The Price of a Forgettable Slogan 4. Chapter Twenty-Two: Mission Statements Are Useless – this is a key chapter filled with ton of good insight. 5. Chapter Sixteen: A Good Story Has Great Legs – quote “A great story has legs…

• 
  GoMediaZine

• Design a Vintage Poster, Part II

  Tim Boesel

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:13 am

  Welcome to part two of designing a vintage poster. If you missed part one, be sure to catch up! Last week’s tutorial covered most of the heavy lifting: concept, color, and composition all took place in Illustrator using elements from Vector Set 16. Today we’re going to take our design into Photoshop for some tender love & care. We’ll learn about adding tactile character using Photoshop’s Bitmap filter, applying Spray Paint Textures for a handmade urban vibe, polishing with motion blur, and finally adding selective contrast with the dodge and burn tools. Phase Four…

• Blank Canvas: How Do You Promote Yourself?

  George Coghill

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am

  Self-promotion is a must for any self-employed or freelance graphic designer or illustrator. This installment of Blank Canvas asks our readers: how do you promote your services? Cold calls? Mailing lists? How do you use the internet for your marketing? Social networking? What works best? What have you tried and abandoned? What services or methods do you recommend as the most effective? I’ll start things off with my own approach. The bulk of the promotion I do for my illustration services is online. The main thrust of this is by proper, Google-recommended search engine optimization.

• Font Sleuth: Find Fonts Fast

  George Coghill

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am

  Font Sleuth is an interesting new font browser application for Mac OS X. The first thing I noticed about this app—pretty darn fast. No font manager I have ever used is lightning fast when it comes to previewing fonts. Font Sleuth however was close. Give it a few seconds to load the fonts on screen and you’re scrolling. Font Sleuth has a very spartan interface, focusing pretty much on the previews of the fonts. There is a slide-out drawer for creating groups where you can store collections of fonts in your desired groupings. There’s no auto-activation plugins, no…

• Vectors Imitate Life with Gradient Mesh

  Christina Rivera

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:03 pm

  A Picture Worth a Thousand Points: To start things off, we need a source image to serve as our template for this gradient mesh image.  For this tutorial I’ll be using a light bulb photograph from the stock.xchng.  I chose this particular image because it has clearly defined edges, as well as components that the subject it can be separated into.  The outline of the light bulb as a whole is crisp.  Also, you can easily subdivide the object into several components, such as the glass bulb, the metallic base, and the wire filament.  This will make it easier to work with, as you’ll see…

• An Interview with Bill Beachy: Go Media President

  George Coghill

  30 Oct 2009 | 10:30 am

  After countless hours of looking at type, learning how type and image work together, filling up sketchbooks, learning how to code HTML and CSS and even sleeping in the art building, two soon to be “little fish” in the big sea that is graphic design wanted to get to know one of Cleveland’s heavy hitters (Go Media President William A. Beachy). Where did you receive your education? I attended The Ohio State University in Columbus Ohio. My degree is in Industrial Design which included studies in product design, interior design and my focus, visual communication. Ohio State’s…

• 
  Digital Influence Mapping Project

• WOMMA to Present at FDA Hearings on Social Media

  John Bell

  1 Nov 2009 | 9:01 pm

  On Friday, November 12th, Melissa Davies, Research Director at Nielsen, and I will present on behalf of WOMMA during two sessions with the FDA. These are part of the long-awaited FDA foray into considering new guardrails for health products marketers in social media. Pharma, one of a few heavily regulated industries, has stepped cautiously into social media over the past few years. Still, pharam is not as paralyzed as some would suggest. Dose of Digital maintains a great list of pharma social media activities from Twitter to communities. WOMMA has just gone through a productive year…

• The Trends in Next Generation Listening Posts (and Looking Glass)

  John Bell

  28 Oct 2009 | 5:18 am

  We have reviewed and worked with many of the leading technology companies curently providing consumer generated media (cgm) monitoring solutions for brands. After having done two enterprise-level evaluations for global brands - each with different geographic focus - it is clear that the market is shifting. We just went through a deep-dive on Microsoft's Looking Glass which points to a further evolution of the market towards in-house and integrated solutions. Is that defiance of the SaS model or are they accurately anticipating where big brands need to go in the future?  …

• Wall-to-Wall Brand Cases, the FTC and Sugarland: WOMMA Summit 2009

  John Bell

  25 Oct 2009 | 9:00 pm

  This year's Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Summit is something else. It is the fruit of two years effort by a lot of smart marketers to bring the best of social media and word of mouth marketing together. We wanted to help experienced marcom experts share best practices in the best way possible - via our peers. As current Board President of WOMMA, I can proudly say that this event reflects the essential and exciting role WOMMA plays now. Here are 7 reasons why this year's WOMMA Summit is a must-attend event for any marketer who needs to apply social media in a…

• The Power of Owned and Earned Media

  John Bell

  20 Oct 2009 | 9:00 pm

  The power of social media going forward is in integrated programs, not stand-alone, "earned" media programs. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that complimentary media - social (the new "earned" media), owned media (a brand's web presence) & paid media will produce a compound effect if they work together. And that is what Group M saw in their recent study. A sister company of Ogilvy inside WPP, Group M, released a bit of interesting research a week back. Essentially, their study pointed to the positive effect of social media on the performance of…

• The New (and Imperfect) FTC Guidelines Are a Good Start

  John Bell

  18 Oct 2009 | 9:00 pm

  There has been a fair amount of discussion about the recent FTC Guidelines on Endorsements and Testimonials.I serve as the Board President of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and we have been supportive of the FTC's effort to try and protect consumers amidst some pretty fast-paced change in online media. We commented on the proposed Guidelines before they were adopted and pushed back pretty hard on some of the points that seemed to put undue burden on the blogger for product claims they make. New Responsibility The final Guidelines do hold bloggers and brands responsible…

• 
  The Hidden Persuader

• Inflatable pop culture

  hidden persuader

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:55 am

  "She has no waist, an interesting face, but all we are really worshiping is two bags of silicone." - Martin Amis on Jordan's boobs

• "Learn something everyday"

  hidden persuader

  2 Nov 2009 | 3:26 am

  "Learn Something Everyday"[Via Dull Neon

• "The human circus"

  hidden persuader

  2 Nov 2009 | 3:22 am

  Guiliano Stroe. Five years old.

• The truth is scary

  hidden persuader

  29 Oct 2009 | 4:36 am

  "80% of consumers no longer believes what brands say about themselves"-- Zenith Optimedia ROI Tracker

• Oh the stereotypes

  hidden persuader

  26 Oct 2009 | 3:56 am

  "Stuff white people buy" - a brilliant "stereotypes' Bible" about the so-called white middle-class.

• 
  The AdHole

• Technical Difficulties

  J Fox

  14 Oct 2009 | 7:21 pm

  The joy of WordPress upgrades has wreaked havoc on The AdHole. All posts have been restored (I think), but I will have to redo Categories, Links and the About section myself. Since I have forgotten whatever PHP I had to learn when I first set this up as WP blog, things should get interesting. And not in a good way. Copyright © 2009 The AdHole. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@adhole.com so we can take legal action…

• Some Things Don’t Need to be Rebranded

  J Fox

  7 Sep 2009 | 11:40 am

  Last April, President Barak Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. The act created a National Day of Service and Remembrance. Hmmm. Service and remembrance. Two things that, while valuable on their own merits, aren’t typically seen combined into a National Day of Anything. It’s not as if service and remembrance are the peanut butter and chocolate of things in need of a national day, yet not quite important enough to have one individually. Oh, wait. Looky there. The National Day of Service and Remembrance is 9/11. Of course, how silly of me. It makes perfect sense…

• Mmmmmmmm, Donuts

  J Fox

  1 Jul 2009 | 2:44 pm

  Finally found something worth breaking my two-month-long silence for: This campaign for Dunkin Donuts from Hill Holiday. Featuring famed OU and Dallas Cowboys football coach Barry Switzer, these spots follow Coach Switzer as he attempts to instill the fighting spirit of football into other sports. Honestly, they don’t make a lot of sense from a traditional branding perspective. But they’re hilarious (if you’re into that sort of “Arrested Development” or “Rushmore” aesthetic). Which makes me love Dunkin Donuts all the more. Which is kind of the point…

• We Really Can All Just Get Along

  J Fox

  30 Apr 2009 | 6:32 am

  This commercial was produced by a couple of guys named (maybe) Rhett and Link. The duo claim to make “Custom-built, Micro-Budget Commercials for MicroBilt Customers.” I think that’s all the introduction this spot needs. Later, Fox !Viagra and buy^ !Buy diet online phentermine pill prescriptioncom viagra^ !Cialis medicine online order rx viagra^ !Wwwrxfamilycom buy cheap cheap kamagra uk viagra^ !Viagra online purchase^ !Buy onlinecom phentermine viagra^ !Buy cheap cheap kamagra uk viagra niy cheap cgeap kamagra^ !Buy viagra for cheap^ !Mail order viagra in uk^ !No…

• Bust Out More Cowbell

  J Fox

  28 Apr 2009 | 8:41 am

  You can’t turn on the idjit box lately without hearing about the encroaching evil of the swine flu. Sorry, but I’m having a little difficultly throwing the freak-out switch over an illness that’s easily treated and more easily barbecued. Mmm, pulled virus on bun with fries. Besides, this thing isn’t new. Take a look at these swine flu PSAs from 1976. If them bastage pigs couldn’t stop our bicentennial, I don’t think they’ll stop us now. Oh, wait. Best line: “But Dotty had a heart condition and she died.” The voice over just cracks me up.

• 
  Everything's Better With Brentter

• McDonalds – Favourites

  Brent

  23 Oct 2009 | 3:23 am

  It is copywriting like this that gives me hope for the future of advertising. Warm and with a hint of playfulness, the narration for this McDonalds spot is simply beautiful. A tip of the hat goes out to creative-pair Tony Malcolm & Guy Moore from Leo Burnett London for dreaming up this piece. Credits: Agency: Leo [...]

• A Great Example Of “Living” Statistics

  Brent

  23 Oct 2009 | 1:45 am

  Here’s a pretty creative example of combining seemingly random bits of statistics to form something that is visually stimulating. Created by Gary Hayes and featured on his blog, PersonalizeMedia, the flash widget uses various reported statistics to compute the running totals. Sources range from use-data mentioned in the official YouTube blog all the way to [...]

• Skype Launches Click-To-Call Program in EU

  Brent

  6 Oct 2009 | 5:29 am

  Skype just announced a new business spin-off of their popular VOIP service partnering with European Directories to offer free click-to-call services for their business listings (free to the consumer at least). Pretty much it takes your typical yellow pages a step further by allowing the user to connect directly to the service provider by clicking [...]

• Sesame Street Mad Men

  Brent

  1 Oct 2009 | 12:30 pm

  Sesame Street decided to do a Mad Men sketch and the result is 3x more awesome than the level of awesomeness you’re currently imagining it could be. Yeah, that awesome. Enjoy!

• Coke Zero – Happy Kingdom

  Brent

  30 Sep 2009 | 11:02 pm

  Hoping to see similar results to w+k’s Happiness Factory from last year, Ogilvy Argentina teamed up with London-based Passion Pictures to create this :60 animated masterpiece for Coke Zero. I know I’m not alone when I say that I’m a big fan of this style of commercial and I wonder if there are any [...]

• 
  Why Advertising Sucks

• File under “Things that Keep on Happening”

  RestrictionsApply

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:21 am

  She’s 44, the single mom of a 13 year-old boy.The only job she’s had in her life is at this company – She’s been here for 20 years.She’s always been pro corporate.She’s put in her share of “over time” – nights, weekends, cancelled vacations, etc.She even “went the extra mile” during her arduous chemo sessions.She’s the epitome of team player and all that crap.Yesterday, she was laid off.

• The Terminal was sort of based on a true story. WTF?

  Me

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:31 pm

• Holy Jesus... I got my Prenatals.

  Me

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:12 am

  Just a quick update. So... I bought my Prenatal pills today. We both went to the pharmacy and stood in the supplement section together. I took that bottle and I swear to you, my eyes got teary eyed. We were all smiles, gave each other a kiss and went on our way. This is actually happening!!! I'm still choked up. Whoa. What an experience this is turning out to be.

• Just because you're called a copy doesn't mean you have to

  Joker

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:12 pm

  As time passes by and I'm two weeks away from having been a full year away from advertising, something becomes abundantly clear, people will continue to shove out knockoff ideas without one hint of remorse. If anything I'm proud of my 5 year stint and all the freelance work I did is that I never copied from anyone and was actually fortunate enough to have people copy some of the work I produced

• Marge, give me more of a reason to help make donut holes

  Joker

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:59 pm

  If you haven't heard, Marge Simpson "posed" nude for Playboy. Seeing as Marge missed out on my top 69 fictional women, it comes as no surprise that what I've been able to see of the Blue haired mistress left me wondering why she didn't show more. Trust me, when I heard she was posing, curiosity bit me on the balls and it was an itch I almost scratched by buying the mag. Then I said, let me wait a

• 
  Brains On Fire Blog

• Ideas VS the opportunity to make them happen

  Eric

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:21 am

  I’m sure that in our relentless pursuit of internet wandering and entertainment (er, inspiration), that many of of us have already seen the Volkswagen sponsored Fun Theory project. If you’re not familiar, they have a simple and powerful idea: This site [thefuntheory.com] is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better. And that idea looks like this: It is always refreshing to see creative and talented people use a unique lens to look at and re-think conventional activity. It’s even more encouraging…

• Writing inspires thinking.

  Robbin

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:40 am

  Scott, the name tag guy, gave me this great line awhile back. I use it often. “Writing is basis for the creation of all wealth.” Sorry, Scott I can’t remember who said that but I love it. Love it! Think about that sentence and let it sink in for just a moment. “Writing is basis for the creation of all wealth.” There is an enormous amount of writing going on in our industry, so much so that it sometimes makes my head hurt. But perhaps more important than writing, we have a mountain of learning going on. I am learning from everyone who takes even one minute to respond to my occasional…

• Dear Creatives, co-created tools are the ones that get implemented

  Spike

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:01 am

  Greg came back from a talk he gave a couple of weeks ago where he presented about bringing word of mouth marketing and identity development together. Having world-class designers in our midst (I’m not one of them, so I can brag on them, okay?), we’re always curious to see how other creatives react to the idea of co-creating online and offline materials/tools for a word of mouth movement. And, ultimately, the question arises: “How much of what you present gets actually implemented and produced?” Creatives ask this question because most traditional shops are used to…

• Paranormal Word of Mouth

  Geno

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:46 am

  Another Halloween has come and gone and sadly with it goes the yearly bubble of scary movies. It was refreshing this year to see a surprise movie come forward “Paranormal Activity” and have huge success. A couple of us BOFers are wanna-be ghost hunters, so we were attracted very early on with Paranormal’s trailers and the indie feel, and the limited release. Blair Witch here we come… Paramount/Dreamworks bought the $12,000 movie after a few movie festivals a year ago. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that a giant like Paramount would do a smart slow it down marketing campaign with…

• Why You Don’t Need Social Media Consultants

  Spike

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:45 am

  You can’t swing a tweet these days without hitting a social media consultant. Those kids are EVERYwhere. You can usually find them traveling in packs and holding events where they talk to one another and tell each other how great they are. Good times. Good times. But you know what? If you listen REALLY closely to their advice, you start to realize that most of it you already know. Because you have all the basic tools you need: Your humanity. Your ability to communicate with people around you. And your intuition. Because when you think about it, using social media is just a natural…

• 
  Where's My Jetpack?

• Let's Talk About the Weather

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:36 am

  Mine's better than yours.

• Rock Lyrics as Spoken Word

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:25 am

  Another random, throwaway creation made possible by the fun diversion known as Xtranormal. I heard this on the way to work and decided it would sound good as a poem. It doesn't really. Rarely do rock lyrics translate well when spoken aloud, but this little Lego man puts in a nice effort in what Xtranormal calls the "Australian English Male" voice, one of a few accent options. We'll pretend he's standing in the middle of a street in Adelaide.Final stanza of "Hump de Bump."See the real video (directed by Chris Rock) associated with these lyrics here.Note for the audiophiles: On the original…

• The Arrogance of His Heirness

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:04 am

  Michael Jordan's son, Marcus, plays basketball for local school the University of Central Florida. That alone tells you Marcus did not inherit his father's skills, as UCF is a perennial "hopeful" in most sports. Nonetheless, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, and Marcus, demonstrating that he did inherit his dad's ego, decided he would not wear Adidas shoes, even though UCF was in the last year of a contract with Adidas. The young Jordan said he will wear only his father's Nike Air Jordan shoes because "they hold special meaning to my family." The university relented, still giddy…

• Super Saturated Street Scenes - Volume II, No. 2

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:58 am

  Renda l'immagine più grande!Still in Italy on the European leg of our Google Street Views Tour, we find ourselves on Via Valassina, just south of Bellagio, on the shores of Lago di Como, where a cyclist is about to be passed by a Porsche. The Porsche has been following the Google car for miles. I might have to string a bunch of stills of this together and create a Porsche spec spot.Previously on the Tour.

• Vacationing in a Connected Age

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:03 am

• 
  Junta42 blog

• Custom Print Magazines - Why Can't MasterCard Produce Inc. Magazine?

  Joe Pulizzi

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

  I don't know about you, but I've been reading more print magazines lately.  Seems odd at first, but in a way, it makes perfect sense. I spend most of my business day and night on the computer. When I'm on my computer, I need to get things done. But when I want to relax and engage in an inspiring story, print is my choice...books and magazines. At the top of the list is probably Inc. magazine. This month's article about how 37Signals founder Jason Fried spends his day was priceless. Speaking of "priceless", shouldn't MasterCard be producing an Inc-type…

• Less of Me, More of You - A Stella Pop Content Marketing Video

  Joe Pulizzi

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:38 pm

  Big thanks to Mike O'Grady at Stella Pop for putting out the latest edition of eVidmagazine featuring yours truly.   Although Mike was originally thinking a two or three minute video interview, he decided that the video worked best as a 10 minute segment.  Hey, he's the expert, so I'm not going to disagree with him. My biggest takeaway from the video was this - Less of me and more of you (well, not literally since it's almost 10 minutes of me).  What I mean is that brands are starting to focus much more on you (the buyer) and much less on the "me" (themselves). In simplest…

• BtoB Custom Media / Custom Publishing Special Report

  Joe Pulizzi

  29 Oct 2009 | 9:49 am

  BtoB Magazine just did an outstanding custom media special report for business-to-business brands. Here's an overview of the special report. Media, Agencies Battle to be Kings of Content: Publishers, advertising agencies, direct firms, pr firms - everyone is battling for the money flowing into content marketing and custom media. This article offers perspectives from both media companies and agencies on the battle for content. Custom Media Moves Closer to the Core: Great examples from the CME Group, Sherwin-Williams and IDG on how brands are leveraging both print and online custom media as…

• Who's Outsourcing Content? - A Junta42 Annual Report

  Joe Pulizzi

  29 Oct 2009 | 5:33 am

  We just delivered the Junta42 annual report email to the Junta42 content marketing vendors and I thought I would share it with the community.As you'll see in the email, these are high-level numbers.  Over the next few weeks, we'll be putting together a "State of Content Marketing Outsourcing" (better title to come) that will take the mounds of data we have on content marketing projects and put it together in a handy report.  If there is anything specific you'd like to see, please let me know.>>>>Start of EmailHi John:  First off, I wanted to…

• Personal Branding Success in 15 Steps

  Joe Pulizzi

  27 Oct 2009 | 7:35 pm

  Dan Schawbel has put together a first-rate magazine about personal branding called (of course) Personal Branding Magazine. The latest issue includes an article from yours truly, which I've included below.  I also included one of my PowerPoint presentations when I do in-person workshops on personal branding (this article was based on that presentation). If this topic is important to you, I suggest you check out Dan's magazine (get the free trial issue here). 15 Steps to Personal Branding SuccessBefore talking about the how of personal branding, it’s essential to talk about why…

• 
  Remarkablogger

• Headway 1.5 Changes the Game… Again – Meet Your New Visual WordPress Theme Editor

  Michael Martine

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:58 pm

  If you can’t see the Headway Sneak Peek video below, please visit the Remarkablogger blog to watch it. When Headway 1.0 was released, it shook up the WordPress premium theme market. Why? Because we gave bloggers what they really wanted: visual control over their blog designs with little-to-no complex coding. Well, now we can add the word total to that description. You now have total visual control in Headway 1.5, which you can now get as a developer preview (which means you have to have the developer’s license). For all you non-developers, though, Headway 1.5 is going to be your…

• The Tao of Blog Conferences

  Michael Martine

  26 Oct 2009 | 4:31 am

  Watch the blog conference survival video on the blog if you don’t see it below. My advice for surviving big blog conferences? Flow like water. Here’s some of the story of what happened at BlogWorld Expo ‘09 and how I managed it. People mentioned: Grant Griffiths, Naomi Dunford, Christine O’Kelly, and Joel Williams. Email this to a friend?Tweet This!Share this on FacebookStumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUponShare this on MixxPost this to PosterousShare this on del.icio.usShare this on FriendFeedSphinn this on SphinnPost this on DiigoAdd this to Google…

• How to Use the Secret Desires of Your Customers

  Michael Martine

  22 Oct 2009 | 3:06 am

  What are Your Secret Desires? No, no, not those kind of secret desires. As a business owner, you have daydreams of what success looks like to you. You probably don’t go around talking about these publicly, because they feel private and personal to you. You’d likely be a little embarrassed to lay them bare before others. Right now, I want you to take a moment to catalog your business success daydreams. I want you to write them down. Seriously, write them down, because there’s an important point to this. I’ll wait while you do. All done? Okay. Here are some of the ones…

• Why You Are Not A Service Provider

  Michael Martine

  20 Oct 2009 | 8:46 am

  This post was inspired from a conversation I had with Chris Brogan at BlogWorld Expo 2009. Chris is so damn productive, I have given him a nickname. Henceforth, he is “The Broganator,” but that is beside the point. We were standing around in a little circle with a couple other people after a session Chris had paneled, talking about business. Any time we dig a little deeper into our blogs to make them more successful, we’re reminded they have a business end. We’re reminded which end is dog, which end is tail, and which end is supposed to be wagging the other (most…

• More Photos from BlogWorld Expo 2009

  Michael Martine

  17 Oct 2009 | 2:46 pm

  For many of these, you’ll need to click on the pic to see it at full width. Me and The Broganater. Me and Derek Halpern of Prevential. Proof that the A-listers are, in fact, demonspawn. Sonia Simone, Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, and Chris Brogan. Me and Shama Hyder. More later! I’m squeezing these in between various sessions and conversations. If you’re serious about blogging in general and specifically monetizing a blog or business blogging, you need to come to this event (any event, really). The difference when meeting people face-to-face is HUGE. Networking matters, face…

• 
  Stage Two's blog

• Client News: worlds collide as Blake Krikorian joins board of Clicker.com

  Jeremy

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:23 am

  We had a great announcement this morning from one of our newest clients, Clicker.com.  Blake Krikorian, the founder and former CEO of Sling Media (makers of the Slingbox) has agreed to join the board of directors at Clicker.  He’s also investing in the company personally. This has special significance to me as Blake was my old boss back in the day. Blake joins CEO/founder Jim Lanzone (former CEO of Ask.com) on the board, along with Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital and Geoff Yang of Redpoint Ventures.  Clicker’s mission is to be the ultimate programming guide for television on…

• Client News: VUDU Internet Apps are live

  David

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:15 am

  VUDU today releases their Internet Apps for the embedded streaming HD movie service.  This means that VUDU customers on embedded devices like the Mitsubishi Diamond Unisen HDTVs will be able to use some of the hottest Internet apps around, including Pandora, Flickr, Picasa and others.  Owners of the original VUDU box will recognize this as the VUDU Labs feature. Now it has come to VUDU enabled embedded devices. A few folks have picked up the news, which went out via blog post on the official VUDU blog this morning. We will update the list of coverage below as we see it. Engadget Engadget HD…

• Helping BOKU Stand Out At The Virtual Goods Summit.

  Ken Yeung

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:39 pm

  Last Friday, Stage Two helped our client, BOKU reach out to its fellow industry professionals through some creative guerrilla marketing during the Virtual Goods Summit in San Francisco at the Westin Hotel. The conference was quite fitting for BOKU since it is focused on being a mobile online payment system designed to make it easy for people to “pay for digital goods and social experiences” across the Internet. The issue that BOKU had was that it needed to draw some attention to its product even though it was a sponsor but didn’t have a booth on site. Stage Two was tasked…

• Client News: EnCorps Begins Recruiting Great Minds for 2010

  msullivan

  28 Oct 2009 | 11:59 am

  Stage Two is proud to help promote the 2010 recruiting season of EnCorps. EnCorps is a San Francisco based non-profit that  recruits retiring engineers, scientists and technology experts to become math and science teachers in California’s under-resourced public schools state wide. Today they begin recruiting great minds to begin teaching as soon as the fall of 2010. With math science test scores faltering in a state that is known for technological innovation,  EnCorps taps  the knowledge of experienced math and science professionals to teach a new generation. In 2009, EnCorps…

• Now Hiring: Office Manager/Admin++

  Jeremy

  12 Oct 2009 | 10:09 am

  Stage Two Consulting, a self-proclaimed top-notch marketing agency in San Francisco, is in need of a diamond in the rough to join our team as a combination office manager/admin and double-junior-level marketing associate.  The job will be roughly a 60/40 split between office-related tasks and some hands-on entry level marketing work.  This is a great position for someone new to the job market who is organized and detail-oriented and capable of helping make a small office run better, and at the same time is interested in learning about marketing. Qualifications: Fast learner: you need to be…

• 
  The Viral Garden

• Stop asking the wrong blogging questions

  Mack Collier

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:47 am

  Whether you are a new or seasoned blogger, many of you likely have many of the same questions:"How do I get more readers?""How do I get more comments on my posts?""What about blog subscribers? How do I get more of them?""How can I use Twitter to drive more traffic back to my blog? Or Facebook, or Friendfeed?"Notice that all of these questions are focused on YOU, the blogger. How YOU can get something.What if you instead asked this question: "What superpower will I give my readers?"I'm totally channeling Kathy Sierra here, but think of your blog as a telephone booth, and your reader is Clark…

• Social media needs fewer rockstars, and more rockstar ideas

  Mack Collier

  26 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am

  Last week at the Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer, I was struck at how many amazingly deep and brilliant conversations I had with so many people. Well this is to be expected, you might say, when you spend a few days in the company of such social media smarties as Ann Handley, Beth Harte, David Armano, Jay Baer and Amber Naslund.But here's the thing; most of those great conversations didn't happen with these people. In fact, they were with people that most of you probably haven't heard of. Heck I hadn't heard of many of them till I was introduced to them at the event.And that's been…

• Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer: Recap

  Mack Collier

  22 Oct 2009 | 8:00 pm

  It's officially 'The Morning After' the latest Marketing Profs conference, the Digital Marketing Mixer. People are always asking me 'What are the best social media conferences to attend?' and the Marketing Profs' events are always at the top of my list.I think if there was a general theme at this year's event for me, it was 'How do we integrate social media into what we are already doing?' And this is a progression from where we were last year, which was still 'What the hell is Twitter/Facebook, anyway?' The problem I see (and this is in general, definitely not just at this event) is that too…

• Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer : Day One

  Mack Collier

  21 Oct 2009 | 8:31 pm

  My brain is full of social media and marketing goodness from the Marketing Profs Digital Mixer, but I wanted to give you my takeaways and thoughts from Day One.The day for me started with the Blog Hot Seat Lab, and in talking with the attendees, I think blogging companies should keep these points in mind:1 - Assume every visitor to your blog arrived there by accident, has never heard of your blog, and has no idea what it's there for. The point is, you need to organize your blog so within 3-4 seconds, any visitor can see who you are, what you do, and why the blog is there. Make this info very…

• Social media is worth making time for

  Mack Collier

  20 Oct 2009 | 12:40 pm

  This is my current view as I sit in the airport waiting for my flight to Chicago for the Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer. The past couple of months have been a very busy time for me professionally, and work with clients has taken up a lot of my time. Which is a great 'problem' to have, and I am grateful for it. But I've often caught myself putting my writing here and at my business site on hold, to spend more time helping my clients get their social media efforts off the ground.And I realized that I was doing exactly what I've told clients and others that they cannot do. I was putting…

• 
  Viaspire

• You and Your UX Team Of One

  Viaspire

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:39 pm

  UX Team Of One @ IA Summit 2008 View more documents from Leah Buley.

• Is Email Dead in the Era of Facebook, Twitter & the iPhone?

  Viaspire

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:09 pm

  Clara Shih, author of "The Facebook Era," examines the question is email dead in the era of Facebook, Twitter and the iPhone? With eight billion minutes being spent on Facebook a day, people are not only logging in, they are engaged and communicating actively there. So what role does email play going forward? Watch this BNET video to learn more: Also, be sure to take BNET's poll: What’s the Etiquette for Social Media and the Workplace? Give them your insight.

• FLF 10.30.2009 - Procrastination

  Viaspire

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

  I guess it wouldn't be hard to imagine that I actually came across this great video short story while procrastinating on a Thursday afternoon. While I am surprised that a creative would describe Procrastination as finding the perfect pen, making a cup of tea, or looking out the window, the message itself is - if you are doing anything outside of getting at the heart of the task, well, um, you are procrastinating. Now, I feel this may fly in the face of the creative process, because many "bird walks" can lead to a perfect and innovative solution, it's just that these bird walks are a detour to…

• Lessons Learned from Project Managers - "Focus on the User"

  Viaspire

  27 Oct 2009 | 4:38 pm

  BNET talks to project heads from GM, Nokia, Mehtod and Facebook to find out what they consider "lessons learned" from working on high-stakes projects.What I loved about each response was that the "user" was an influential factor in each take-away.The perfect enemy is the enemy of the deadline."When you’re late, nothing happens ...and you’re not learning anything [from your customers]." — Bill Wallace, engineering group manager for GM’s Volt batteryAlways know whose problem you’re solving. "Never forget who your customer is. Make that person real — it’s the key to getting the…

• A Perspective on Twitter Analytics

  Viaspire

  11 Oct 2009 | 7:49 pm

  Twitter Analytics View more presentations from Stephen Dann.

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  Churbuck.com

• Back in the US –

  David Churbuck

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am

  While grabbing an hour of power and free bananas at the Red Carpet Room in San Francisco, some random observations: The essay on Griefing by Julian Dibble, taken from Wired — “Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual Work” is a very good read. Andrew Sullivan’s contribution on blogging is incredibly good. So is David Talbot’s Technology Review piece on “How Obama Really Did It.” danah boyd’s screed on the Myspace bullying case is not …. The collection is skippable — too many…

• Links for 2009-11-04 [del.icio.us]

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider’s Confession Ah, the bottom feeders of the internet.

• Random flight to China thoughts

  David Churbuck

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:50 am

  Basically 24 hours from the time I woke up on Cape Cod to the time I pulled into the Crowne Plaza Zhongguancun in Beijing. Read all of Linda Greenlaw’s “All Fishermen are Liars” Read most of Stephen Johnson’s “Best Technology Writing of 2008″ Watched part of Pixar’s “Big” Started “Final Voyage” by Peter Nichols about the Arctic whaling fishery Trudged through dozens of powerpoints. Slept about an hour or two — hence now feel like the usual POS — but passed the heat sensor test on the way in and was not administered…

• Whereabouts Nov 2-7

  David Churbuck

  1 Nov 2009 | 6:24 am

  Off to China in the morning for a digital marketing workshop with our Emerging Markets team — then back to the States by Saturday. Following week — first half- working from Cotuit, second half San Francisco to speak at a CMO conference with Autonomy — our content management system provider (Interwoven Teamsite), then Cotuit. Week after that – RTP – last travel before taking off Thanksgiving week.

• Links for 2009-10-29 [del.icio.us]

  30 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am

  Why Lenovo still lags in consumer PCs (and how it plans to fix that) Computerworld on Lenovo consumer PC strategy

• 
  Ries' Pieces

• Under Armour: Too Big for its Shirt?

  Laura

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:19 pm

      It's amazing how many of the world's most successful entrepreneurs quickly forget what made them famous.     The latest example is Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour.     What made Under Armour famous? It wasn't a Super Bowl ad. It wasn't a massive marketing campaign. It wasn't ego or hype. What made Under Armour famous was "performance apparel" a new category Kevin created and carefully nurtured.      As an ex-Maryland football player, Kevin Plank was sick of wearing sweat-soaked cotton T-shirts. So he visited New York City’s garment…

• Brand Makeover for the Swift School

  Laura

  28 Oct 2009 | 10:47 am

         I am proud to announce that the branding makeover of the Swift School is almost complete. The process has taken many months but the results are extraordinary.    Just to recap, back in April 2009, I was part of the On The House team that donated a total of $100,000 worth of services to a local non-profit organization in Atlanta. The winner of the prize was the Swift School, a non-profit school that serves elementary children with dyslexia.     The mission of On the House was to give a branding makeover to a non-profit that was doing great work, but was not reaching its full…

• How Crocs Crashed

  Laura

  21 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm

    Success is sometimes your own worst enemy. Just ask the management and stockholders at Crocs.   A hot brand ends up in one of two different ways. It burns bright too fast and fizzles. Brands like this are known as fads. Or a brand burns hot then continues at a steady simmer. Brands like this are known as iconic.   Believe it or not, whether your brand will become a fad or an icon depends on your strategy more than you think. The good news is the fate of your brand is very much in your control. The bad news is it may be too late for Crocs.  While it’s true that no…

• Starbucks is Shooting Itself in the Cup

  Laura

  1 Oct 2009 | 10:45 am

            Starbucks latest offensive isn’t against McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts it is against itself. And if Starbucks weapon is as successful as it says it will be then they could be shooting themselves in the cup.           Starbucks new weapon is its Via instant coffee, a brand that went nationwide this week after several months of testing in Seattle, Chicago and London.            To support the Via launch, Starbucks…

• GM & the Implication of the Opposite

  Laura

  15 Sep 2009 | 3:09 pm

                             Sometimes the harder you try, the worse off you are. Why is that?             Branding can sometimes be like trying to pick up girls. It is not what you say that counts. But the implication of what you say that counts.             Asking a girl out for a Saturday night date on a Thursday afternoon doesn’t…

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  Ryan Stephens Marketing

• Do You Work Harder Than Your Boss?

  Ryan Stephens

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:44 am

  Ryan Holiday shared a slide show with me from author Robert Greene and some guy named 50 Cent. The slide show, 10 Lessons in Fearlessness (embedded below), features 10 short lessons adapted from the book “The 50th Law.” There’s a lot of value within, and one of the slides addresses something I’ve been encountering and thinking about a lot lately. “Complaining and haranguing people to work harder has a counterproductive effect. You must adopt the opposite style: Imbue your troops with the proper spirit through your actions, not words. They see you working harder than…

• How Many Posts Should You Write a Week?

  Ryan Stephens

  29 Oct 2009 | 5:11 am

  Easy Answer: However many you want. But in thinking about the nature of blogging lately I’m wondering if I should be blogging more often. Why Should You Blog Every Day? It’s easy to see that many of the top bloggers post virtually every day. Of the bloggers I regularly read David Armano and Jason Falls are two of the exceptions. Seth says you should post every day. (Sure, you think he’s over-hyped and you’re tired of him and his books are too short, blah, blah… but he’s never steered me wrong.) I can take a quick glance at my stats and see that I get significantly more traffic on…

• Do Bloggers Put Too Much Emphasis on Niche?

  Ryan Stephens

  22 Oct 2009 | 6:32 am

  The easier answer is: Depends on what your goals are. The long answer is: “I don’t know!” … Which is precisely why I’m asking all of you to weigh in on this dilemma. I know I’m not the only blogger who consistently struggles with whether or not I should define my niche. I started really accumulating subscribers for the first time when I wrote primarily about Gen Y topics, but to be honest I didn’t want to get typecast in that niche. I realize the irony in that statement considering I continue to put out the Top 10 Gen Y Blog list on a bi-monthly basis. I re-evaluated my…

• 15 Essential Blog Posts from Sept ‘09

  Ryan Stephens

  17 Oct 2009 | 5:10 pm

  These are blog posts that I enjoyed reading, for whatever reason. Perhaps they were valuable for me, merely entertaining, thought provoking, were about something I’m interested in or potentially something I thought you all would enjoy. As always, I would love feedback. Did you catch these posts during September? Did any of these resonate with you? What are some of your most recent favorite reads? Even better, what’s your favorite thing YOU wrote during September? Share it with me in the comments section. Seriously, I’ll read it. I promise. Slides: What’s the Future of Business…

• One Size DOES NOT Fit All

  Ryan Stephens

  13 Oct 2009 | 7:29 pm

  What’s a fool proof way to showcase your laziness? Thinking one solution works for everyone, for every client. I get that you want to have a consistent entrée of services. That’s a good thing, especially when reinventing the wheel isn’t necessary. It’s when you insist that what worked for IBM will work for Hewlett Packard that you fully illustrate your incompetence. I don’t walk into Dillards and buy a size large Polo without trying it on just because that’s the same size t-shirt that I wear from Urban Outfitters. That’s lazy, and there’s enough of that to go around without…

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  brandflakesforbreakfast

• this week at Plaid

  darryl ohrt

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:12 pm

  Here's what happened this week at the greatest agency in all of the land:Some costumes arrived for a production that's in house. Long story, but we're stoked to have another costume around the office for a couple of days.We shot a screen test for something top secret for someone that we can't talk about. We're bursting at the seams wanting to share the details, but for now we'll have to tell you that it's been a load of fun hanging with someone in tv, and getting a unique perspective on that side of the entertainment industry.Our skateboards arrived for the Bordobello event! This is an…

• bringing twitter to the classroom

  darryl ohrt

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:43 am

  W. Gardner Campbell, director of the Academy of Teaching and Learning at Baylor University believes that Twitter can be a valuable resource in the classroom.Imagine a classroom where students can tweet their questions and comments on the subject matter, projected on a screen at the head of the class. Imagine students having access to that stream after class, for additional discussion and additional input. Sound far fetched? Actually, that's exactly the scenario that exists at SXSW (above) and other conferences. Why not bring the same level of communication and information to students? Some…

• when is it ok to start your xmas campaign?

  darryl ohrt

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:33 am

  AdWeek has some interesting poll results from a survey about when it's socially acceptable to begin your holiday advertising campaign. (I saw my first Christmas display this year mid-October!)According to the poll, if you wait until Thanksgiving, 77% of the population won't hate you. Thanks, Jim Cioban

• twitter = second youngest of all social networks

  darryl ohrt

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:24 am

  ReadWriteWeb has some super interesting perspective on the population of the socialverse. When you look at the median age of each social network's audience, here's how they line up:Twitter: 31MySpace: 26LinkedIn: 39Facebook: 33The report also shows that Facebook is getting older, as the retirement class continue to flock to the network. They also report that Gen Y is warming to Twitter - 37% of those 18-24 now use Twitter when only 19% did back in December 2008. Celebrities? Because their workmates are doing it? Who knows. What we do know: LinkedIn is for the super old. ;)

• how to introduce the carbon economy

  darryl ohrt

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:14 am

  To promote the upcoming Carbon Economy Summit in Washington D.C., the visually brilliant team over at XPlane put together a clip that demonstrates the importance of the task and the opportunity that lies ahead. Beautiful, important work.

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  RefreshWeb B2B Search Marketing

• Morphing from Selling Service to Product

  John Rasco

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  If you’re come to the blog via the home page, you probably noticed all the design changes, namely boxes defining some prospects’ needs, pointing to new pages addressing how we can address this particular problem. This was all possible because last Thursday, we launched our SEO dashboard at InnoTech in Austin, in combination with more flexible, less expensive service offerings. This is a big milestone, because it’s the first fruit of our strategy to evolve into a product company. As a bridge from here to there, we’re only selling the dashboard in combination with…

• TED strikes again…rethinking advertising

  John Rasco

  27 Oct 2009 | 11:24 am

  A friend of mine who is an economics professor sent me this from the Global TED in Oxford. “The wonderful Rory Sutherland wows the audience at the TED conference in Oxford with a superb sixteen minute talk on advertising and aspects of behavioural economics.” As a repentant ad guy, it’s refreshing to see a “practising” ad guy leading the way for less is more. Enjoy!

• This time, don’t forget to budget for SEO

  John Rasco

  1 Oct 2009 | 12:19 pm

  October is usually the month that companies are working on budget for the next year, so I wanted to be prompt in reminding you that the continual improvement offered by site optimization is a great investment. We talk to a lot of companies who a) didn’t know they were missing 90+ percent of their potential new prospects by having an unoptimized site, b) had no idea they would need to rework their website to reach these people, and c) didn’t budget for it. Well, what other marketing investment is going to increase your leads and web sales by 50-100%? That makes the ROI on the…

• Bing: Do Something Amazing!

  patrick

  1 Sep 2009 | 10:58 am

  Now that all of the excitement has died down from the launch of Bing and the announcement of the Yahoo-Bing partnership, I would like to reiterate the words spoken by Gord Hotchkiss to all of Google’s competitors before all of this took place. Last December at the Search Insider Summit in Park City, Utah, he took Yahoo and Microsoft to task for not mounting a more significant challenge to Google’s dominance. In short, he said, “Do something amazing!” We now know that Microsoft is spending $80 to $100 million on a branding and marketing campaign to promote Bing. This…

• At Last: How to Optimize PDFs

  John Rasco

  31 Aug 2009 | 9:53 am

  Here is a great post for B2B marketers on “What you don’t know about optimizing PDFs can hurt you.” While my pet peeve is the PDF that gets posted using the designer’s PDF, which was intended for the printer (say, using 17×11 paper), the real shame is the wasted potential of PDFs. One of the most effective contributions we make to optimizing a B2B site is to go in and specify the document properties, thereby creating a title tag and description. This is a comprehensive guide to best practices. Read it and reap!

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  Flooring The Consumer

• Simple Marketing Now - October 2009 Update

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:03 am

  I'm late issuing the October 2009 Update for goings on at Simple Marketing Now...Blame it on getting ready for my very exciting User Friendly Thinking Radio interview taking place tomorrow, Friday, November 6, 2009 at 1pm EST with Paul Chaney and John Munsell from Bizzuka. I hope you understand... It's going to be great fun and I'd love it if you would tune in.Back to the October Update...If you are new toFlooring The Consumer, I also write theSimple Marketing Blog where I discuss marketing strategy and creative, practical, simple marketing approaches and best practices - many of which may be…

• Bathroom Blogfest 09 - Recap

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:06 pm

  Bathroom Blogfest 09 is over. And, what a wild week it was. Did you enjoy the variety of perspectives? Here's a recap of the action I took part in here, at the Simple Marketing Blog, and also on the Carpetology Blog.On The Carpetology Blog:Design Your Bathroom Around Your Rug!On The Simple Marketing Blog:+ Bathroom Blogfest 09: Ready to Flush The Recession & Plunge Into Forgotten Spaces + Liane Evans Blends Social Media & Search For Greater Marketing Impact+ Listening to Customers & Bathroom Blogfest 09+ Making Things Simple is Not Simple - Simplicity In Design Solutions+ BJ…

• Bathrooms & The Hospitality Experience: How Much Is Too Much?

  30 Oct 2009 | 11:00 am

  I have a question for you. As it relates to your Hospitality Experience - think hotels - how much bathroom is too much bathroom?Read through this fascinating New York Times article from 4/5/09 titled "Bathrooms That Are Part of the View." What do you think?According to the article, open bathrooms are a new trend in hotels, particularly swanky ones or ones eager to communicate in a bold way that these aren't your grandmothers' tubs.Imagine, having a tub in the middle of the bedroom, or simply a glass partition to separate [and probably contain humidity] the bed from the bath rooms...Some of it…

• The Best Bathrooms Remind You Of Home

  30 Oct 2009 | 7:11 am

  Today's Bathroom Blogfest 09 post comes from my friend and former partner in Carpetology and Bathroom Blogfest crime, Elizabeth Hise.---------------There’s No Place Like HomeWhen Christine asked if I wanted to take part in the 2009 Bathroom Blogfest as a guest blogger, I jumped at the opportunity. As I mentioned in my very first 2008 post, I’m practically an expert on bathrooms. The bathroom can make or break an experience, retail or otherwise. Plus, I’d get to work with Christine again — always a bonus.So I started thinking about the bathrooms I’ve enjoyed (or didn’t) in the past…

• Hotel Bathtubs Going the Way of the Fingerbowl - Bathroom Blogfest '09

  29 Oct 2009 | 8:35 am

  This post about Hotel Bathtubs Going the Way of the Fingerbowl comes from my friend and fellow Bathroom Blogfest 09 contributor, Bethany Richmond. I think you'll enjoy her Reflections on a Life Immersed.------------------I read something recently that I was sorry to hear. It seems that hotels are doing away with bathtubs. Evidently business travelers are too busy for baths, preferring “a gutsy shower” to a lazy soak. Bathtubs tend to be lawsuit magnets, and females report that there’s something “icky” about hotel tubs. Only 2% of hotel guests say they use the bathtub in a hotel, and…

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  Search Engine Watch Blog

• 5 Google Updates for 11/6/09: News, Maps, Books, Music and Mobile

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:38 pm

  It's the end of another eventful week in search blogging, and once again there are several Google updates just piled up waiting to be written about. So, we're saving everyone some time and just compiling them into one post. Check them out: Google News has a new sitemaps interface. You have six months to adopt the new sitemap. Google Books now has a magazine search page. Via Google Search's new music search, you can now access exclusive songs hosted by MySpace and Lala for artists such as Lady Gaga and Arctic Monkeys. Google Maps has released imagery of Berlin from 1945 to 1953. The Google…

• PRSA 2009 International Conference Features Two Online Marketing Heroes

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:25 pm

  I'll by flying to San Diego this weekend to speak at the PRSA 2009 International Conference next week. Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and a member of the SES Advisory Board, will also be speaking at the annual Public Relations Society of America event. Odden is speaking on Monday, November 9, at 10:15 a.m. about "Help Google Find Your Releases: Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Tactics for Public Relations Professionals." Nine out of 10 journalists, reporters and editors use search engines to do their jobs, according to a recent survey by TopRank Online Marketing. In this…

• Google AdWords Updates Conversion Tracking Options

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:06 pm

  Google AdWords has updated the interface for Conversion Tracking. There are three tabs to manage data: Conversions, Webpages, and Code. Conversions Under this tab, you'll view details about the conversion actions you're tracking. The "Tracking Status" column shows whether those actions are being tracked properly. The "Value" column displays the accumulated value of the conversion actions. This is based on the value you assign to each action. Use the "New Conversion" button to set up the conversion actions to be tracked. These can also be imported from Google Analytics. Webpages Under this…

• AOL Completes Financial Team, Names Additional Board Member in Advance

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:55 am

  In preparation for being spun off from Time Warner, AOL has hired executives to their financial team and announced one additional board member. Here's a list of the financial execs: Mike Suffredini - Vice President and Treasurer Eoin Ryan - Vice President of Investor Relations Don Neff, currently a Senior Vice President of Finance, will become Senior Vice President of Internal Audit. Ned Brody - rejoining the company as Executive Vice President of Paid Services Meanwhile, Susan Lyne, Chief Executive Officer of the online luxury retailer Gilt Groupe, Inc. has been named to the Board of…

• Click Forensics Unveils Online Audience Verification Platform for Shopping Engines

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:45 pm

  At ad:tech New York this week, Click Forensics unveiled a new online audience verification platform for comparison shopping search engines. The technology evaluates traffic to determine its value to merchant partners. "Comparison shopping engines and other content aggregators need a simple way to optimize the money they spend on search engine marketing, while improving the quality of leads they send on to merchant partners," said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. "The solution we're delivering does just that. To our knowledge, it's the only system available that provides the ability for…

• 
  Being Peter Kim

• Binary thinking

  Peter Kim

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:03 am

  A couple months ago after Snow Leopard was released, I was speaking with a friend about base 2, base 10, and base n numbers in general. Over the past month, I've been thinking about the definition of Social Business Design and considering the range of reactions from supporters and detractors. All business discussions can be reduced to a single binary argument focusing on the bottom line. Does it improve profitability, yes or no? In practice, the range of decisions a manager must make consists of a multitude of choices better described by real options theory and system dynamics. To make a…

• A conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk

  Peter Kim

  27 Oct 2009 | 6:01 am

  A couple weeks ago, I had a public, online conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk aka @garyvee. He’s on a PR blitz to promote the release of his new book “Crush It.” If you’re not familiar with Vaynerchuk, he’s a self-trained wine expert who has used social media, online video in particular, to drive exponential growth in his family's wine business. At the same time, he's built a kingpin personal brand, signing a seven-figure, ten-book deal in Spring 2009.  Vaynerchuk stands as proof of how participating in one’s customer ecosystem leads to business success. To view the entire…

• Defining Social Business Design: Style vs. Substance

  Peter Kim

  26 Oct 2009 | 7:26 am

  Since communicating the definition of social business design earlier this month, I've noted a wide range of reactions to the concept. For the most part, people understand that we're talking about what's on the horizon for business. However, most detractors seem to take issue with the style of the idea's communication rather than its substance. Some say they don't understand. I'll take that at face value and suggest they try harder. Others ask why simpler words weren't used. Well, as a certain bald-headed guru told me, "words matter." Words do matter. When I began my stint as a Forrester…

• How open are you?

  Peter Kim

  19 Oct 2009 | 6:19 am

  A couple weeks ago, my company launched its online presence, The Collaboratory. Part of the site contains a feed of our communications activity - whether public tweets, private "yams", or messages emailed. Each channel carries a varying level of opacity, for good reason. After operating the live stream in public view for a couple weeks, each of us has reflected upon the experience and shared our thoughts. My take: The Collaboratory made me rethink my perspective on authenticity in social media. For the most part, people live by the old T.S. Eliot quote, "prepare a face to meet the faces you…

• Enterprise 2.0, Social Media Marketing, and Social Business Design

  Peter Kim

  14 Oct 2009 | 6:01 am

  How do you refer to "this space"? If you're from a marketing or communications background, you likely refer to "Social Media Marketing." If you're from an IT background, you likely refer to "Enterprise 2.0." Recently, thought leaders have been shifting focus to "social business." This evolution is natural - and fully anticipated. There's nothing wrong with these terms, but it's time for us to straighten out terminology, especially when it comes to Social Media Marketing, Enterprise 2.0, Social Business, and Social Business Design... Continue reading on the Dachis Group Collaboratory

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  TrishaLyn

• Game Changer: Prfessor.com

  Trish

  15 Oct 2009 | 11:14 am

  According to a May 2009 report by the U.S. Department of Education, “Online learning… is one of the fastest growing trends in educational uses of technology.”  This is a great opportunity for ANYONE to share their knowledge of any subject with others and actually make some money.  This is a game changer as it takes education to a level more easily accessible for everyone.  Anyone with extensive knowledge on any topic can create their own university and spread knowledge to others. Prfessor is to online universities what Blogger is to online weblogs – a super easy, brandable way…

• VSEO – Ranking Factors Behind YouTube

  Guest

  5 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am

  Guest Post By Ryan Sammy Everyone knows the importance of video marketing as well as the tremendous potential YouTube offers in creating a strong presence for your brand and company image. However, does everybody know how to use YouTube optimally to gain the desired advantage and leverage for your videos and thereby your company? Just creating a good video of your company, or a video containing information intended for your target customers and uploading onto YouTube is not enough to get the desired results. There are many ranking factors behind YouTube that you should know if you want your…

• Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 16: Wade Tonkin & Blog World Expo Guilt

  Trish

  2 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm

  Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A Publisher (Mike Buechele) and an Affiliate Manager (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more! This week we are FINALLY joined by Wade Tonkin of GTO Management and the man  behind the Christian Affiliate Marketers Association.  We had a fine conversation, accidentally recorded in Mono instead of Stereo since I forgot to switch the defaults on this new computer.  I think the sound quality is good though, but welcome any feedback.  Since we’re all busy people, I…

• Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 15: Be My Yoko Ono

  Trish

  18 Sep 2009 | 8:00 pm

  Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A Publisher (Mike Buechele) and an Affiliate Manager (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more! We kept it short & sweet this week, but hey!  We did two weeks in a row!  YES… I’m patting us on the back for that.  We talked briefly about some things that have been going on in the industry this week, and had a short & sweet conversation with limited tangents.  And almost no discussion of Twitter, other than a third party service mention.  Since it…

• Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 14: Eric Nagel in the House

  Trish

  11 Sep 2009 | 6:00 pm

  Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A Publisher (Mike Buechele) and an Affiliate Manager (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more! Once again, our schedules just were not fated to correspond this week.  So we enlisted the help of good ol’ Eric Nagel, the king of awesome business cards, to co-host with me.  Watch out Mike – Eric may give you a run for your money!  It was a good conversation, a bit more focused than some.  And in Eric’s honor – no intro music!  It’s a…

• 
  WebMama's Look at the Web

• Using Keyword Clouds for SEO and User Insight

  Barbara 'webmama' Coll

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:43 am

  Using Keyword Clouds for SEO and for User Insight is a valuable tactic in the goal of high visibility in search results. First two definitions:A Keyword Cloud or Tag Cloud is a visual representation of frequently used words on a website. Keywords having higher density are displayed in larger fonts, so the more frequently a word appears on your site, the larger it appears within the cloud. The following is an example of a keyword cloud that appears on the TrustTheVote.org. In this case, the tags link to a page of community postings that are tagged with the keyword.Keyword Density is the…

• Do Searchers Still Start with Google?

  Barbara 'webmama' Coll

  2 Nov 2009 | 2:48 pm

  In reading a report/analysis on the ecommerce market I read with interest the following statement: Bazaar Times: Online Specialty Retailers Thrive. Deep selection, wide variety, product information, interactive education and shopping tools, as well as third party product reviews and recommendations will continue to drive retail sales to online specialty retailers, in our opinion. Companies such as Art.com, Blue Nile, eBags, Hayneedle, U.S. Auto Parts, and Zappos are positioned well to thrive in this long-tail environment.Each of these sites has created a way for the engines to navigate the…

• eMarketer's Revised Online Ad Forecast for 2009

  Barbara 'webmama' Coll

  19 Oct 2009 | 8:21 am

  Factors Behind eMarketer's Revised Online Ad Forecast - eMarketerHighlights from ReportIndications such as relatively strong Q3 results from Google suggest an increase in search spending. Even in down years, second-half growth is stronger. eMarketer predicts a smaller second-half 2009 decrease of 2.9%, which will mean a decline of 2.9% for the year. (Note that 52% of 2009 spending will occur in the second half of the year.) Internet video advertising will be the main channel for these deep-pocketed companies to increase their digital brand marketing spends, said Mr. Hallerman. Search…

• The Synergy of Search and Social Media - eMarketer

  Barbara 'webmama' Coll

  15 Oct 2009 | 11:57 am

  eMarketer has produced a quick overview of some reports that are saying social media mentions/visibility/advertising increase search volume for the subject's brand. Any increase in search volume whether through the paid search ads or natural search visibility should increase sales or leads. I agree with the premise of the article. Care must be taken so that people don't replace search engine advertising with social media efforts. The social media work, paid or not, increases the volume of searches. If your brand and/or product is not represented on search, then you have lost the benefit of…

• 10 Mind-blowing Microsites - Definition and Uses

  Barbara 'webmama' Coll

  13 Oct 2009 | 8:32 am

  Microsites let you take more risk? As corporate content continues to fragment more and more, is a microsite a way of controlling some of that fragmentation or does it just mess with the brand message? Different groups within a company will certainly give you different answers.If you look at from the Search point of view: it gives you a targeted destination for converting keywords, it provides more content associated with your brand that you control, and the sites may get you another place on the coveted first page of results. On the down side: many developers of microsites do not design them…

• 
  AdFreak

• Are we laughing with eBay or at eBay here?

  Adweek Blogs

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:27 am

  Would you buy a snowmobile on eBay because Jim Gaffigan tells you to? The answer, of course, is no. Could you enjoy his attempts to persuade you in a TV commercial? Well, yes ... in theory. In practice, however, viewers might hit the fast-forward button. Sadly, the same is true of much of this new campaign from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners for the fading auction powerhouse. See a whole bunch of ads here. eBay crested during Web 1.0, and this effort seems hell-bent on delivering old-hat, mostly unfunny schtick from a who's-who of cable-comedy refugees in set-ups that go nowhere. Even the…

• The 'ridiculous charade' of recording an ad

  Adweek Blogs

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:51 am

  Few people suffer under the heavy egotistical load of the ad industry quite like the sound engineers who record audio for commercials. They're micromanaged by everyone from the client to the junior copywriter, so it's nice to see them get their revenge in this anonymously produced British video, created with the same Xtranormal text-to-movie software that gave us the bitter robot designer. Via American Copywriter. —Posted by David GrinerSee also:Robot designer gets screwed over yet again

• Kids would prefer you not destroy the Earth

  Adweek Blogs

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:22 am

  Zig's cinematic spot for Moms Against Climate Change pits child protesters (shouldn't they be in school?) against cops (don't they have parking tickets to write?) to illustrate that if kids knew what was at stake, they'd take action. There's no denying it packs a punch. That said, something feels off. I think I was expecting a boffo climax to really drive the point home. Why not have the sides embrace, each kid finding one of his or her parents among the riot squad, to symbolize that we're all in this together? Conversely, acid rain pouring from above and "frying" every last person? That…

• HBO still taking shots at George W. Bush

  Adweek Blogs

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:54 am

  The George W. Bush era is thankfully gone, but HBO and Venables, Bell & Partners channel the former president's less-than-lucid vibe and penchant for incoherent phrasing in this banner and billboard push touting the DVD release of the Will Ferrell special You're Welcome, America: A Final Night With George W. Bush. The election-poster-style ads include Bush-inspired slogans like "Never misunderestimate me," "Celebrate the era of strategery" and "Mission still not accomplished." The work's amusing, but the tongue-twisted ex-leader of the free world is such an easy target, attempts at parody…

• 1993 Taurus a great car for today, says Ford

  Adweek Blogs

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:51 am

  Great fake press conference here from The Onion, in which a Ford exec explains why the '93 Taurus is the best vehicle for today's cash-strapped consumers. If the $650 price tag doesn't grab you, surely the free cassette tape of Primus's Sailing the Seas of Cheese will. Via Consumerist. —Posted by Tim Nudd

• 
  Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

• Cup of Joe: The Secret to Getting Rich on the Internet, is in Las Vegas – Part 1

  Joe Hall

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:56 pm

  It seems that around every corner on the web there is some one selling a get rich quick scheme or program. There’s always someone talking about a magic formula, or amazing tactic, that will make money fall from heaven. The truth is, there isn’t really one program or set of rules that are guaranteed to make anyone rich. The truth is, that some programs work for some and not for others. Some programs work for many and some don’t work for any at all. However, after a few years of building a business online, I have discovered that there is one tactic that most successful…

• Consumers Sharing Brand Opinions on Social Networks

  Jordan McCollum

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:26 pm

  Performics reports that Twitter may be the place to get your brand mentioned if you want social networkers’ attention, according to MediaPost. Nearly half (48%) of those who saw a brand mentioned on Twitter turned to a search engine to research that brand. Other social networks lagged far behind, with 34% researching. However, the study of 3000 active social networkers showed that 70% were on Facebook, and 22% were on Twitter. So of those respondents, 32 researched a brand from Twitter, while Facebook sent 714 running to their search engine of choice. 30% of those surveyed admitted…

• Most Bloggers Discuss Products/Brands

  Jordan McCollum

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:06 pm

  According to Technorati’s 2009 State of the Blogosphere report, 70% of bloggers talk about products or brands on their blogs, eMarketer reports. And obviously some of these mentions would be prompted by free sample products, etc.—a practice popular enough to draw the notice of the FTC, which now requires disclosure on such review products. Interestingly, corporate bloggers were least likely to blog about brands and products (lawsuit anyone?), and hobbyist bloggers were second least likely. Technorati defined hobbyist bloggers as those that blog for fun. They don’t make money…

• Skype Founders Re-Found in Settlement

  Frank Reed

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:07 am

  The drama surrounding Skype as of late played out like a business soap opera. The accusations flew from both sides of the fence with founders and owners going at it tooth and nail. Check out Kara Swisher’s account over at All Things Digital for the blow by blow description. Now it looks like the ‘all clear’ can be sounded as an agreement has been reached. Here’s a synopsis for you from TechCrunch Earlier this morning, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis settled their lawsuits with eBay and a syndicate of investors in return for a 14 percent stake in the company they founded. The…

• You’re Facing a Reputation Crisis, Now What?

  Andy Beal

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:09 am

  There’s a growing interest in online reputation management. Over at Wildfire Marketing, I answered some reputation management questions for their Thought Leader Thursday series. Here’s a taster… What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve seen people make when it comes to responding to a reputation management crisis, and how someone salvage the situation if they’ve already made one of these mistakes? The biggest mistake is simply not having official channels in place to allow your customers to complain. Most disgruntled customers post to blogs and Twitter because…

• 
  Lucid Marketing to Moms

• Links for 2009-11-06 [del.icio.us]

  Kevin Burke

  Offline Trumps Social Media for Brand Influence

• Links for 2009-11-04 [del.icio.us]

  Kevin Burke

  5 Must-Read Social Media Marketing Studies

• Links for 2009-10-28 [del.icio.us]

  Kevin Burke

  Sorry Steven Levitt, To the Contrary, The Baby Einstein Refund Is Genius Former Martha Stewart Living Editors Launch Site For Moms

• Sorry Steven Levitt, To the Contrary, The Baby Einstein Refund Is Genius

  Kevin Burke

  28 Oct 2009 | 11:11 am

  From the title,“Baby Einstein’s Refund: Not so Smart?”, Steven Levitt's story could lead one to surmise that he feels Disney is making a mistake with their recent extended refund offer on Baby Einstein DVDs. It does make a good headline and is very ReTweet-able, but in truth, he doesn't feel this way. He merely points to the fact that used-DVD eBay sellers have the most to gain from the new policy. In my opinion, that is a myopic view of the situation.What were seeing here is a ginormous brand do something unusual; compromise. [disclosure, Disney is a client, but not The Baby Einstein…

• Links for 2009-10-27 [del.icio.us]

  Kevin Burke

  Watchdog Group Calls for Baby Einstein to Change Name

• 
  THE FUTURE OF SEX AND TECHNOLOGY

• "Developers have to spend more money on advertisers to get users now that the viral channels are shut..."

  1 Nov 2009 | 5:25 pm

  “Developers have to spend more money on advertisers to get users now that the viral channels...

• How to Find Your Facebook Status RSS Feed

  1 Nov 2009 | 12:26 pm

  How to Find Your Facebook Status RSS Feed

• leff: using yahoo pipes to beautify facebook imports

  1 Nov 2009 | 12:23 pm

  leff: using yahoo pipes to beautify facebook imports

• 5 internet power user tips for OpenDNS, Yahoo! Pipes and Facebook

  1 Nov 2009 | 12:23 pm

  5 internet power user tips for OpenDNS, Yahoo! Pipes and Facebook

• Watch this video. Navigation from Google with, search by voice,...

  28 Oct 2009 | 8:40 pm

  Watch this video. Navigation from Google with, search by voice, fresh traffic, navigation on satellite maps and StreetView when you get close. Who’s Tom Tom? Google Navigation video hands-on: you want this

• 
  brandSTOKE

• Retail clinics vs. your doctor: it may come down to branding

  Kirk

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:06 am

  They treat cuts, burns, sprains, rashes, allergies, fevers, and infections. They are called MinuteClinic, Take Care Clinic, RediClinic, The Little Clinic, The Clinic at Walmart, and Target Clinic. They are located in the aisles of Walgreens, Walmart, CVS, Target, and Kroger. There are more than 1,100 of them in the U.S., and more are on the way. (Find the one nearest you at Merchant Medicine.) They are retail-based medical clinics — and your doctor doesn’t like them. The primary advantage of retail clinics (also known as walk-in clinics and convenient care clinics) is convenience.

• Absolut Strategy.

  Kirk

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:55 am

  BrandSTOKE Book Review: ♦♦♦ The Absolut Vodka ad campaign is so well established and formulaic that it now seems as if any art director could develop a new ad in the series. Even Richard W. Lewis, author and account director, says, “Some people say we had an easy time.” Which is to say the campaign is brilliant. What is obvious when reviewing the beautifully reproduced ads in Absolut Book.: The Absolut Vodka Advertising Story is how well crafted they are, featuring interpretations by renown artists (Warhol), photographers (Newton), fashion designers (Piccone), and many more.

• Brand loyalty … for all of eternity

  Kirk

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:07 pm

  In the spirit of Halloween, I share this personal story: A couple of years ago, my father died unexpectedly. While arranging the funeral, my brother and I found ourselves in a casket showroom adjacent to a funeral home. (My dad’s family favors caskets over urns.) If you’ve never shopped for a casket, trust me — it is an experience both sad and surreal. Despite the funeral director’s (read: sale representative’s) efforts to make the event comforting and meaningful, a casket showroom is not a place you ever want to be. I didn’t see that I had a choice, so I…

• What every non-marketer should know about branding

  Kirk

  26 Oct 2009 | 7:45 am

  The words “brand” and “branding” are thrown around in casual conversation so frequently now that I’m still surprised to find not every business person knows what they mean. (In fairness though, I don’t understand supply-chain logistics.) Some business managers refer to their products as brands, probably a carryover from the early P&G days. Some still think their logo, package or trademark is the brand. Some mistakenly believe they have total control of their customer’s brand experience. And many think branding is just another word for marketing.

• Apparently we care about cosmetics, not banks

  Kirk

  20 Oct 2009 | 11:33 am

  We care about cereal, not insurance. Vodka not water. Brand Keys, a research firm specializing in customer loyalty and brand engagement, recently released their 2009 Loyalty Engagement Index, a list of rankings of customer loyalty toward 440 brands in 63 categories. In the survey, 26,000 consumers were polled about the degree to which brands were able to meet or exceed their expectations within each category. The results reveal a number of interesting insights. First, loyalty and dominant market share are unrelated. JetBlue and Southwest, for example, tied for the lead in the airlines…

• 
  Marketing Interactions

• Is Your Content Marketing the Conversation?

  ArdathAlbee

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:06 am

  B2B marketers are focused on getting response to their content and outreach initiatives. They want click throughs and replies and inquiries to result from the calls to action they flow through their marketing programs. But, what B2B marketers of complex sales need to focus on—in addition—is marketing the conversation. There are a variety of conversations we need to influence and enable: Sales conversations - Yes, this is the big one that all marketers are focused on achieving. This is the one your sales team expects you to generate. A lot of them. Prospect conversations - As inside sales…

• CSO Insights Sales Performance Optimization Survey

  ArdathAlbee

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:03 pm

  I don't know about you, but I look forward to digging through all the intelligence that CSO Insights compiles every year about what's happening with sales performance. In fact, this is their 16th year in doing so which pretty much makes them the authority on sales data.The other thing I think is important is that they get close to 2,000 Chief Sales Officers to participate, sharing their knowledge about more than 100 sales performance metrics. In an age when aligning marketing and sales is paramount, marketers can glean a lot of insights to help them work more closely with their…

• Answer Questions with Content

  ArdathAlbee

  1 Nov 2009 | 1:30 pm

  Questions are a staple of our lives. They are what inspire us to explore, learn, achieve, challenge and wonder. Imagine your life for just one day without asking a question — whether out loud or in your head. What the heck would you do all day long? (See, I can't do it.) Well, neither can your prospects and customers. Each challenge that arises is a question generator. What, where, when, how and why is a thought-process structure we've embraced since childhood.We're demanding. We want proof, knowledge and evidence before we believe. (Well, most of us do.)The trick to…

• What Nuances Differentiate Your Company?

  ArdathAlbee

  28 Oct 2009 | 7:09 pm

  B2B marketers are so used to talking about their products that they forget about what makes them unique to specific markets. You've got to get your marketing content refined down to nuances to attract prospects who will become buyers. Why? Because, unless you do this, you sound like every other vendor selling the same product or solution that you sell. Seriously. Think about it. Do you want to do battle based on feeds and speeds? Companies can spin numbers to say the same things—or better—than you do. Numbers, usually used without enough context for clarity, are funny that way. Or,…

• Constant Contact Really Knows Their Customers

  ArdathAlbee

  26 Oct 2009 | 1:48 pm

  I had the pleasure of speaking with the folks at Constant Contact last week about their new Event Marketing tool. It sounded pretty cool. So I tried to push them about how it could be useful to mid-size and larger companies whose marketers get stuck in the IT queue, waiting for their stuff to get posted. The timeline is horrific. I pushed about customized templates, about integration, about a lot of ideas that occurred to me. You know what they told me? That's not our market. Bravo! They then went on to share with me just how well they know who they are and who they serve. "Constant…

• 
  Biz Growth News

• Dublin Twitterville Tweetup With Shel Israel Thanks To @Twtvite

  Krishna De

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:54 am

  I’ve always wanted to find an excuse to use the great Tweetup platform of Twtvite after I saw an invitation for an event that my friends Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson were organising for a Tweetup in the US. Today I tested out the platform when creating a Tweetup invitation for an event with another Shel – this time Shel Israel author of the new book Twitterville. Long time podcasting pal, Adrian Moss, who I met a few years ago at the Corporate Podcasting Summit where we were both speaking,  dropped me a direct message on Twitter some weeks ago to say that his company Parity…

• Facebook Changes Groups To Build More Buzz On Your Home Page

  Krishna De

  20 Oct 2009 | 9:49 pm

  Are you a member of a Facebook Group or an adminstrator of a Faceboobook Group? Then you are going to see some dramatic changes when you take a look at your Group this week (did you know there are currently over 45 million Facebook Groups?). Until now, Group activities have been isolated to the group page. This week Facebook have made changes to Facebook Groups – changes are being rolled out across all groups over this week if you don’t see the changes yet. In summary: Facebook Groups will now look similar to PagesFirst, we revamped the design for Groups so that they look similar…

• Sunday Business Post: Out On Your Own Conference for Entrepreneurs, 21 October 2009, Dublin

  Krishna De

  19 Oct 2009 | 9:16 pm

  Are you thinking of starting a new business? Then an event that is taking place on the 21 October 2009 hosted by the Sunday Business Post is a must for you – especially as the investment is just €25 per person. The programme starts at 8.45am and closes at 5.15pm. The conference promises to cover areas including: Tips for surviving an economic downturn Entrepreneurship and business planning Creative marketing on a shoestring Funding your start-up company and getting your pitch right to investors guiidance if you are thinking of investing in a franchise. Speakers include: Sean…

• Burson Marsteller Social Media Use in the Fortune 100

  Krishna De

  19 Oct 2009 | 5:56 am

  via slideshare.net The adoption of social media by the Fortune 100 companies was recently researched by Burson Marsteller. In summary the research found that: 54% of companies were using Twitter 32% of companies had a blog 29% of companies are using Facebook. Of the companies only using one social media platform, 76% of them were using Twitter, 14% were using Facebook and 10% had a blog. Of the companies using two social media platforms, 64% used a blog and Twitter and 36% are using Facebook and Twitter. The research identified that Twitter is being used primarily: to distribute news and…

• Are you addicted To Facebook And Twitter?

  Krishna De

  14 Oct 2009 | 9:31 pm

  via retrevo.com When do you Tweet? When driving, at work or on vacation? A recent Gadgetology study by consumer electronics shopping site, Retrevo.com found that most people check Facebook and Twitter a couple of times a day. 27% of respondents to the survey who are under 35 years of age however are checking Facebook more than 10 times a day. The survey also found that that 36% of people under the age of 35 often use Facebook or Twitter after sex – men being more likely to do this than women – and iPhone users are three times more likely to do so than Blackberry owners. The…

• 
  Marketing Strategy | Business Articles

• Getting the Job (or life) You REALLY Want

  Mark F

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:16 pm

  Getting the Job (or life) You REALLY Want Posted using ShareThisSimilar Posts: Proven Life Coaching as seen on NBC… Therapy Services in Plano TX that Get your Life back Faster. VisionClarity VisionBoard Workshop Plano Frisco McKinney Allen Richardson Texas August 23 engadget.com Recession – I hear you struggling business owners Post Words: marketing, marketing strategy, services marketing, executive coaching, Marketing Ideas

• Free Think and Grow Rich Book

  Mark F

  29 Oct 2009 | 10:34 am

  Tell us where to send it, and we’ll send you the number onesuccess book of all time. My friends Vic and Lisa Johnson are doing this crazy marketingtest where they’re giving away Napoleon Hill’s “Think & Grow Rich.” I’m helping them with their big giveaway and wanted to make sureyou got your copy before they take this offer down. Get the details here: http://www.FreeTGRbook.com/rapidsuccessnow Feel free to pass this on to friends. They can get one too if theyact right away. This is one of my favorite books.  I know you’ll love it! Tina…

• Integrating Talkshoe with Wordpress Blog

  Mark F

  28 Oct 2009 | 10:47 am

  So you have a show on talkshoe and would like to do more with your RSS feed by integrating it with your wordpress blog. It is easier than every with just a few tools. Tina Ferguson has integrated her blog with talkshoe and here is how she did it. Well her husband and Troy at http://veluzarwebdesign.com/ design did it.   What  you need for talkshoe and wordpress before you get started. Feed wordpress Plugin – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/feedwordpress/ A self hosted wordpress blog – http://www.site5.com or some other host FTP access to your website or some way to get…

• Former Champ Serves Up Volleyball Training Center

  Mark F

  19 Oct 2009 | 7:24 am

  A Plano engineer and former beach volleyball champion spiked his old job to open up a volleyball training center in Allen. View more news videos at: http://www.nbcdfw.com/video. Similar Posts: Therapy Services in Plano TX that Get your Life back Faster. Twitter Marketing Tips – 7 Unorthodox Strategies to Use Twitter For Business How to Start a Blog With Great Keywords Westford Asset Management is located in Boca Raton FL Consolidate Your Blog Reading into Microsoft Outlook 2007 Post Words: marketing, marketing strategy, services marketing, executive coaching, Marketing Ideas

• Is the Letter of Intent a Worthless Document?

  Mark F

  18 Oct 2009 | 10:06 pm

  By Karl Benson A Letter of Intent (LOI) is a common way to express your intentions to purchase a property without having to write a formal, legal binding contract. The Letter of Intent is presented to a seller in the very preliminary stages of a project. The intentions of a buyer are spelled out clearly and simply so the seller knows exactly how the buyer wants to purchase the property, and under what terms. Essentially a Letter of Intent is to open a dialogue and create a framework for that dialogue between buyers and sellers. Definition of a Letter of Intent “A Letter of Intent is…

• 
  OnlineMarketerBlog

• Experience Marketing

  OnlineMarketer

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:11 am

  (This is guest post contributed by Yolanda A. Facio who writes about marketing at MarketingUnhinged.com. Follow her on twitter @yolandafacio.) Are You Giving Your Customer Something To Talk About? It’s spa day, I’m jazzed. I’ve been waiting all week for this! Time to relax, unwind. Just mellow out! I pull up the spa’s website one more time; the pictures look great, so peaceful. And now I’m thinking I might need to get one of those cucumber things… It’s 10: am, I’m on time. I pull open the big glass door and pull off my sunglasses… and blink. And, then I blink again. It’s…

• The Most Difficult Conversation? – The Marketing Minute #2

  OnlineMarketer

  31 Oct 2009 | 1:33 pm

  Last week’s Mad Men inspired my second Marketing Minute vlog. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below. Tweet This Post! If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for free updates via email or RSS. Otherwise, I hope you share it on digg, StumbleUpon, or the other social media tools found below. You can also show some love by buying stuff from the nice people advertising to the right.

• MarketingProfs Digital Mixer Was Definitely A Different Kind Of Conference

  OnlineMarketer

  29 Oct 2009 | 5:08 am

  Last week I attended the MarketingProfs Digital Mixer here in Chicago. It was, in short, a fantastic event. I’ve written about it in detail on Experience Matters (Critical Mass’ blog). I really encourage you to read it. The information provided and connections made were great. But this conference went beyond that. In fact, it’s become something of a living, growing thing. Connections are still being made. Attendees are still pouring over presentations and research reports that were shown. Here’s a short quote from my post: Now, conferences have to be more. Your…

• Here’s To The Rabble-Rousers

  OnlineMarketer

  28 Oct 2009 | 4:04 am

  I failed last week. I got into a big argument over a project I’m doing on the side. That’s not the big failure though. The big failure is that it took this long to have the fight. I’d acquiesced and tried to find parity and compromise. I had grown too tired too quickly of defending my ideas which, after so much work, have proven prescient. My strategy was sound, but I hesitated. It doesn’t matter that the ideas were correct. Because I didn’t fight for those ideas, they’re long gone. So, here’s how I hope to ensure this never happens again. I’m…

• Guest Bloggers Welcome

  OnlineMarketer

  27 Oct 2009 | 4:28 am

  During the month of November, I’d like to feature your ideas as a guest blogger on OnlineMarketerBlog. I hope to post one guest post per week during the next month. To request a slot, email me at OnlineMarketerBlog [at] gmail [dot] com with your post idea. We’ll talk it over and, if it matches with the theme of this blog, we will run with it next month. New writers are as welcome as experienced bloggers. This is a chance to show off your smarts to a new audience. I’m going to be making some changes to the blog in the days and weeks to come. While I focus on that, I’d…

• 
  ClickZ News

• ComScore: E-Retail Sales Down, Holiday Ad Budgets Should Steady

  "Cash for Clunkers" program may have played a roll in Q3 decline in online retail spending.

• Ad:tech Panel Urges Deliberate Approach to Social Media

  Participating in social media can help a brand in many ways, but to be successful, the brand's strategy needs to tie social media into business objectives.

• EU Proposal Could Cripple Common Web Ad Practices

  A proposed revision to EU privacy law could have a crippling effect on the online advertising industry.

• Chick-fil-A's Cows Graze on Social Media

  New site follows brand's rapid growth on Facebook.

• New NAI Opt-Out Tool Protects Against Cookie Deletion

  The behavioral ad sector's self regulatory group hopes its latest initiative quiets concerns about cookie-based tools that allow consumers to opt-out from ad targeting.

• 
  A Source Of Inspiration

• The Box

  Armando Alves

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:35 am

  The third movie of Richard Kelly (@JRichardKelly) of Donnie Darko fame premieres tomorrow, with some promising visuals in the trailer (even if the first reviews aren’t that promising). And one thing i love about the fantastic genre is the extra care establishing their internet presence. With The Box website, i was particularly impressed with the visuals (and no, it was not about Cameron Diaz) and the masterful aural experience. Along with the typical sections (downloads, cast, trailers, etc) i’m starting to detect some ARG inspiration integrated in movie websites, by launching…

• Big Warm-up

  Armando Alves

  29 Oct 2009 | 4:14 pm

  Land’s End is sponsoring this year the Big Boston Warm-Up, an effort to make the season warmer for the homeless people in the Boston area. Collecting one coat at a time (donated at Sears), but also setting up a beautiful website, developed by Firstborn NYC. The infographic rich website also informs about the installation at Boylston Plaza with 738 figures waiting for a warm red heart, meaning that 10 people have donated coats for each figure. Finally, do check the also special and personalized video after the jump. Source: @brianjeremy Cross-posted at Osocio.org Content under a Creative…

• The world’s first creative (ad) agency built on crowdsourcing principles

  Armando Alves

  29 Oct 2009 | 4:51 am

  Whatever that means. At least they don’t have a flashturbated website, and Evan wants to Be Fucking Awesome. And they have skull pictures and are hiring. Content under a Creative Commons License. (Digital Fingerprint: bfff8c3002d3e0f3f95495bddf32fef0)Also of InterestWill Come Borat friend.OFFF Lisbon titles by Devoid Of YesterdayDesign with whitespace

• To API or not to API, that shouldn’t be a marketing question

  Armando Alves

  28 Oct 2009 | 2:47 am

  Crossposted at The TrendWatch Yesterday, the quintessential online ad resource BannerBlog featured two ads for Smart. Both pulled dynamic data — weather and maps — to build a display ad unit. I could be wrong, but the data source was probably some sort of API. For those not so versed in acronyms, Wikipedia to the rescue: An application programming interface (API) is an interface that a software program implements in order to allow other software to interact with it; much in the same way that software might implement a user interface in order to allow humans to interact with it. Flickr…

• LG sets the image free

  Armando Alves

  22 Oct 2009 | 4:12 pm

  Yes, the Internet is wonderful and all that stuff, but sometimes we do indulge ourselves with a good sofa evening, watching a film on TV. To celebrate this escape from the smaller mobile and laptop screens, the Image Freedom movement was launched a few days ago. You can find lots of video testimonials of people playing around this idea, with channels on Vimeo and YouTube feeding the large video experience on the website. And just a few minutes ago, LG launched the product website at liberteaimagem.com, a full 3D experience, showcasing the borderless concept of the LG SL9000 model, the new…

• 
  AttentionMax

• Password-Protect Your Mobile Devices

  Max Kalehoff

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:35 pm

  I found Tuesday morning a BlackBerry on the ground while walking to the train station. I picked it up with hopes of returning it to its owner. There was no obvious contact information on the casing or the home screen, though I still had no problem identifying the owner. How? I easily accessed the owner’s AOL email application, which enabled me to identify the email address. From the BlackBerry address book, I easily cross-referenced the person’s name and home address. I wasn’t snooping around for personal information; I was only trying to find a way to quickly contact the…

• No Costume? No Candy!

  Max Kalehoff

  1 Nov 2009 | 6:17 pm

  Halloween is a big deal for U.S. children as well as many adults. According to Wikipedia, Halloween is an annual festival celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints, but is today largely a secular celebration. Dressing up in costume and trick-or-treating are the two customs that signify Halloween more than anything else. Having loved Halloween as a kid, I’m always eager to participate by giving out lots of candy to trick-or-treaters. It’s fun to see little kids (including my own) dress up and embrace the…

• Inward Versus Outward

  Max Kalehoff

  29 Oct 2009 | 6:38 pm

  One of my strengths as a marketer is my outward focus. I love to evangelize and sell the dream. I love to get out in front of crowds and cultivate inbound advocacy and love. I love driving thought leadership and building a stellar external reputation that greases the skids for products and services to achieve utmost market traction. But that’s only half the game. The other half is focusing inward. It’s critical to pay equal attention to the gears that make the machine run, and ensure they’re properly oiled. Are your team and products in tune with an intimate understanding of your…

• Resurrection Of The Handwritten Letter

  Max Kalehoff

  24 Oct 2009 | 12:05 pm

  People obsess over the latest flavors and innovations in digital communication and interactivity. I’m talking about everything from new email technologies to social networking tools, even new hybrid interaction platforms like Wave. Many of these innovations are exciting and have permanently earned a place in our lives. Their growing popularity drives volume and efficiency of one-to-one communications. However, the growing volume of communications in digital form also drives attention deficit, dehumanization and diminishing returns. It’s a tragedy of the commons where digital…

• New Camera To Capture Your Entire Life (Available Soon)

  Max Kalehoff

  19 Oct 2009 | 7:06 am

  I love the Flip video camera because it’s so compact and simple. It makes it easy to capture life’s precious moments. I use it all the time. So where do video cameras go from here? Perhaps as pendant, around your neck, to record every single moment of your life. A UK-based firm will soon launch one, according to the New Scientist: Originally invented to help jog the memories of people with Alzheimer’s disease, it might one day be used by consumers to create “lifelogs” that archive their entire lives. Worn on a cord around the neck, the camera takes pictures…

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  Strategic Public Relations

• Fort Hood, Twitter and Real-Time News

  Kevin Dugan

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:22 pm

  Social media detailed a tragedy today.   While I learned of the Fort Hood shootings earlier this afternoon, it was a late afternoon scan of Twitter that connected me to the real-time news source set up by The Austin American-Statesman.   @fthoodshootings is an account quickly set up by the paper to create a dedicated line of real-time news around this sad and tragic story. In just a few hours the account already has more than 3,200 followers and is on more than 85 different lists as of publishing this post and climbing.   Unfortunately it’s not the first bittersweet…

• Storytelling’s Link to Social Marketing Success | SummitUp 2009

  Kevin Dugan

  20 Oct 2009 | 8:37 pm

  SummitUp brought together some of the best and brightest in Ohio's social media scene as well as industry luminaries like Chris Brogan and Bob Garfield. Fueled in no small part by the passion and determination of David E. Bowman, the event was a complete success and I was honored to kick it off with my keynote presentation. "What's Your Story?" details how the craft of storytelling can help us deal with the challenges social media creates. I consider these challenges a bit of a paradox as my slides and video will explain. But the very technology that is bringing us together with people from…

• Marketing Meets Augmented Reality

  Kevin Dugan

  14 Oct 2009 | 10:53 am

  Like most marketers, augmented reality popped up on my radar when GE used it to unveil its Smart Grid technology.The ability to create a digital hologram is intriguing, but it always seems to be applied to sci-fi technology or futuristic plans. I’ve wondered how someone might put it to more practical use.Meijer*, a client of Empower MediaMarketing, answers my curiosity with the “Be Transformed in 3-D” promotion.Having Fun with MasksThe microsite allows you to try on four different masks – using a web cam and augmented reality. You can record a :30 second video message using a voice to…

• AMP, #PepsiFail and staying on brand

  Kevin Dugan

  14 Oct 2009 | 6:03 am

  There's been lots of discussion around the iPhone App "AMP UP Before You Score" from Pepsi's AMP Energy Drink. Let me see if I can sum it up. The Issue: The AMP app profiles 24 types of women, from "Cougar" and "Athlete" to "Out of Your League" and "Married." Each profile provides unfortunate content including pickup lines and other information to help the user "score." It also has a brag function which allows users to promote and share their efforts via email, Facebook or Twitter. The app states: "Get lucky? Add her to your Brag List. You can include a name, date and whatever details you…

• Much Ado About Avatars

  Kevin Dugan

  11 Oct 2009 | 9:32 am

  From the minutia department, I’ve been talking a lot about Twitter avatars lately. I enjoy swapping out my avatar. It’s my version of a t-shirt --expressing my personality in a small way. And, as I have my pic on my Twitter background, people can put a face with the name the first time a person follows me. This goes against conventional Twitter wisdom. In Trust Agents, Brogan and Smith recommend using your picture across all social site profiles in an effort to be more human online. Even Twitter notes: “A real picture of yourself is encouraged. It adds personableness to your tweets.”…

• 
  Kent's Official Blog

• On Not Sucking and Having “Something”

  kentnichols

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:23 am

  There’s a great thread over Cinema5d.com on Making a Living: Being an Image-Maker in Times of Change.  This comment from Chimay cuts to the chase: No matter how happens, one must embrace changes. Complaining will not put food on the table. New technologies are awesome. And, in the end, quality work will always prevail. Digital filmmaking is so affordable these days that lots of independent films are being released. Some of them are really bad! But, in the midst of all these, a few extraordinary talents are emerging. Yes! The real question is how can you be one of the emerging talents…

• Thoughts on 10 Years of Digitalfilmmaking

  kentnichols

  1 Nov 2009 | 7:50 am

  Writing this and not coming off as a grumpy old man is tough.  But we truly are living in the most exciting time ever to be a filmmaker.  I am approaching the 10th Anniversary of my leaving college to become a professional storyteller, and in that time we have seen such an amazing growth in the capabilities of the tools and an intensification of the competition.  It’s almost unthinkable where we will be in the next ten years. When I started editing movies I used the first iMac with Firewire and the first version of the iMovie.  The 1.0 of iMovie didn’t even have an…

• Thoughts on the First Streamys

  kentnichols

  30 Mar 2009 | 11:46 am

  Well the Streamys happened and it was a marvelous party.  It was one of those nights that was a marker in the quick history of online video.  Ten years ago at the edge of Web 1.0 there were some brave video pioneers making shows for the net alone in the wilderness with no standards of delivery, business model, or format.  Shorts like 405 and series like Homestar and Red vs. Blue and many, many others that haven’t endured are the giants upon which we all are standing. Four years ago the second wave of video shows appeared, embracing podcasting and the first iterations of flash video…

• Tom Bodett Says Pwned in a Motel 6 Radio Ad

  kentnichols

  17 Mar 2009 | 7:35 pm

  I was driving around the other day and I hear Mr. Tom Bodett come on and do an ad for Motel6.com.  Nothing too unusual there, but then Tom says ‘Totally Pwned”.  OMFG. I went to Tom’s site and Motel 6’s and googled, and couldn’t turn up the audio. So I went oldskool and sent Tom an email and here was his response: Kent, Attached for your listening pleasure is the one.  Go forth and multiply. Best, Tom So with that here it is! (the streaming sounds awful for me, but clicking on the file link sounds great!) The Whole Ad Just Totally Pwned

• “Stealing” Indie Business Models

  kentnichols

  12 Mar 2009 | 2:42 pm

  I’m sorta in the middle of an indie-filmmaking online scuffle, I know both parties involved and this post is meant not as a critique of any one party, but as an attempt to bring a larger perspective to the whole situation. In this corner: Jessica Mae Stover, creative force behind ArtemisEternal.com, a site which is dedicated to destroying conventional filmmaking by raising $100,000 through small donations to make a 10-minute short film with the title of “Artemis Eternal.”  I appear in an upcoming promotional video for the site/film and know Jessica socially. And in this…

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  BLITZ | Blog

• SoDA 1/2 Day unConference and Mixer in NYC

  ccotillo

  26 Oct 2009 | 3:30 pm

  Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA)’s next event is a dynamic unConference being held in NYC at the Art Director’s Club on Tuesday, November 3, 2009. The conference will feature an afternoon of knowledge exchange and networking 2pm to 5pm. The great conversations will continue during our evening Mixer from 6pm to 8pm and will feature an array of hors d’oeuvres and cocktails. You may register for the full-day or for the Mixer only but this is an intimate event so register soon because seating is limited! To register and learn more about the event, please visit:…

• Adobe Peapods earns FWA Site of the Day

  ccotillo

  23 Oct 2009 | 11:17 am

  This might be the third blog post about this incredible project—yeah, I guess we’re a bit biased—but our quite discerning design and development community has spoken. Today, October 23, 2009, marks the day our Adobe Peapods Plant Your Ideas campaign has earned a spot on The FWA as Site of the Day. w00t! w00t! As an agency who regularly visits the popular Web site about “favorite” Web sites, we’re pretty dang ecstatic around the office today (can you hear our BLITiZen banshee cries?) about receiving the honor. Again, congrats to all who put their heart into this project. It really…

• BLITZ brings home two W3 Awards

  ccotillo

  21 Oct 2009 | 10:44 am

  Look ma’, more awards. The other day we received news from the W3 Awards that we scored a couple wins for NakedJuice.com and Gormiti.com. Both sites received “silver” awards for outstanding Web sites—and we can’t agree more, they’re pretty dang outstanding. The W3 Awards recognizes exceptional work in regards to the online space—our normal playing field—and honors creative excellence for Web sites, video and marketing programs. Both of our wins are for Web sites within the Food & Beverage and Toys & Hobbies categories., respectively. Congrats to all the team members…

• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 5

  ccotillo

  19 Oct 2009 | 2:26 pm

  For season five of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, FX wanted to create a site that builds upon the growing community and devoted fan base. In designing and developing the show’s online extension we drew upon the BLITZ-created template, as a means of maintaining consistency with the overall FX microsite structure, and the show’s city-based façade, as a way of incorporating the urban, Philly concept. Beyond being a standard EPK site, we wanted to give users more ways of engaging with the show and its quirky characters. Elements nested within the experience include…

• Universal Pictures Couples Retreat Theatrical Destination Site

  ccotillo

  19 Oct 2009 | 2:26 pm

  The goals of nearly every motion picture marketing plan are twofold: create buzz and get butts in seats. With Universal’s latest romantic comedy, “Couples Retreat,” we aimed to do both. Because the title had enlisted such stars as Jason Bateman, Vince Vaughn, Kristen Bell, and Kristin Davis, we had great talent to work with when creating the all-Flash site. Leveraging much of the keyart, production stills and rich imagery, we created the site as a destination (of sorts) that places the user on location in Bora Bora with the characters—not a bad place to take an Internet…

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  Business is Personal

• King for a Day: Verizon

  Mark

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:07 am

  Download audio file (KingForADayVerizon.mp3) photo credit: Sister72 I‘d like to introduce a new series called “King for a Day“. For the acronym-challenged, you might see me refer to it as KFAD now and then, so don’t assume I’m talking about a local radio station. King for a Day is a series that will discuss some steps I’d take or issues I’d address if I was to become what else… “King (of a particular business) for a Day”. The idea is to use big companies that many are familiar with and allow you to extrapolate from there to your…

• 100 things waiters, real estate agents and mechanics should never do, Part 2

  Mark

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:45 am

  photo credit: paintMonkey Yesterday, we went over the first 50 items on the NY Times’ “100 things restaurant staffers should never do”, and mentioned a few other folks that might also use those things even if they don’t own a restaurant. Today, the NYT published the next 50, and once again – they might be focused on a restaurant staffer’s duties but you have similar, little tiny, insignificant things in your business that matter JUST AS MUCH. Hopefully this list from a restaurant will help you find them in your place and do what makes sense for the…

• 100 things waiters, real estate agents and mechanics should never do, Part 1

  Mark

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:09 am

  photo credit: goldsardine If you don’t own a restaurant, the temptation might be to turn the page and blow past part one of the NY Times’ “100 things restaurant staffers should never do” story. Or maybe you’d read it like a diner, thinking “Yeah, #2, 13 and 34 really annoy me”. Don’t waste it like that. The list is all about whatever *you* do, no matter what that is. I guarantee that your oil change store, dry cleaning store, clothing store, bar, coffee shop, software business or consulting firm can adapt most of these for your business. You…

• Taken a pulse lately?

  Mark

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ Ten months of 2009 are gone. Take the pulse of your business and ask yourself: “Is the business where I wanted to be by now?” Before you think this is all about the finances, it isn’t. It’s all about where you wanted to be. Maybe it’s about finances, but there might be more important indicators. It’s easy to be profitable and still heading in the wrong direction, for example. If you’re behind, what can do add, change, delete, correct or adjust to get your progress back on track to meet/exceed your…

• Are you thinking about 5 years from now? Really?

  Mark

  2 Nov 2009 | 5:41 am

  What about in other markets that affect yours? Ever want to know at least a little bit of what Google might be thinking? This 5 minute excerpt is the meaty part of a 45 minute long discussion about the future with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Listen to what Schmidt says about the inevitable intersection of TV, radio, video, internet – ie: of media in general. Sure, it’s obvious. And it’s just one aspect of what he’s speaking of. But are you considering it in your marketing? In your product delivery? In what your products and services look like? In who you have on your…

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  emergencemarketing.com

• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-11-06

  francois

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:41 am

  @kencamp – I would love one in reply to kencamp # @SherylBreuker @kencamp – thank you both! # (for me too – we need an insomniac community) RT @jhagel: Hope for me – drugs may save memory of sleep deprived http://tinyurl.com/yg4fug6 # funny how I have been anti-social while finishing a book on hyper-sociality….happy Halloween everyone # @SherylBreuker – just got the invite, thank you! in reply to SherylBreuker # lurking is a style of participation in communities that has value – http://bit.ly/3pmK4P # @mbjorn fascinating, how "active"…

• CMO 2.0 Conversation with Gail Galuppo, CMO at Western Union

  francois

  2 Nov 2009 | 2:16 pm

  My CMO 2.0 Conversation with Gail Galuppo, the CMO at Western Union was both fun and refreshing. Talk about the challenge of being in charge of a legacy brand that totally had to transform itself, with the added complexity of serving 15,000 distinct customer communities. Not an easy task, for sure, but one that Gail and her team seem to enjoy thoroughly. As usual we started off with Gail giving us some context by describing her background. In her case, she learned to put the customer at the center of all decision making while being trained on Six Sigma at GE Capital. She then had a career…

• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-10-30

  francois

  30 Oct 2009 | 6:41 am

  @iceman65 – thanks for the comment on my blog in reply to iceman65 # Really interesting discussion on whether brand communities exist or not – what do you think? http://bit.ly/1Zx8hK # @prem_k @mlees – thanks for the RT, I am interested in your opinion… # @dc2fla – great point…I am familiar with the Ben & Jerry, I interviewed the Mother of Inventions there…not familiar with Nutella comm in reply to dc2fla # @dc2fla – I just noticed that, but Nutella is also known for a vibrant community in Europe in past – looking it up and emailed CMO…

• One-to-one marketing and product customization wave – the things we never wanted

  francois

  29 Oct 2009 | 8:48 am

  One-to-one marketing was supposed to be the holy grail of customer relationship management. Companies would no longer have to isolate us from the rest of world as a group to sell to us; they could actually do it on an individual basis. Problem is that we are hyper-social beings who prefer to operate within our tribes. We do not want to be isolated from our group so that sales people who know more about us than we feel comfortable with can give us the hard sell. We want the buying process to be a social process. We don’t trust companies to be on our side and prefer to get the information…

• CMO 2.0 Influencer Conversation with Alan Webber, author and co-founder of Fast Company

  francois

  26 Oct 2009 | 7:39 am

  Having been a customer of Fast Company since the first release and having been an early advertiser in the magazine, I truly enjoyed having my CMO 2.0 Influencer conversation with Alan Webber, the co-founder of Fast Company, and most recently the author of a great book called Rules of Thumb. As usual, we started by having Alan give us some context about himself – incidentally, one of his rules of thumb (#32 – “content isn’t king, context is king”). I had forgotten what the first cover of the magazine said: work is personal, computing is social, knowledge is power,…

• 
  American Copywriter

• Attention Media: Quit fucking trying to terrify parents.

  Tug McTighe

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:11 pm

  Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Am I sick and tired of the media's constant attempts to scare the shit out of us. The latest target: Rice Krispies. Seems they've got an added antioxidant claim on their box. (Antioxidants, if you didn't know, are being pimped hard lately because they theoretically help keep you from getting sick by strengthening your immune system.)But what really chaps my hide about this situation is this quote from a USA TODAY article. "Kellogg, based in Battle Creek, Mich., said it has heard very little concern from consumers about the claim, but is responding to…

• An Era Ends as Cliff Freeman & Partners closes

  Tug McTighe

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:19 pm

  If you're a Gen Xer ad creative, then, like me, as you read the news yesterday about the passing of heralded agency Cliff Freeman & Partners, you most likely felt a terrible pang of loss over this agency and the work it created.Because, you see, when Cliff & Co were in their heyday, I was in my truly formative years in our business. I was soaking advertising up and was striving to learn everything I could about who was doing what, where they were and how they were doing the kind of work I could only dream of. When I first learned about Cliff & Co, I had no idea how they could…

• Booking an Audio Session: So true, it's almost not funny.

  Tug McTighe

  29 Oct 2009 | 1:54 pm

  Thanks Marty.

• Uh, hey Microsoft, have you ever seen an ep of "Family Guy"?

  Tug McTighe

  27 Oct 2009 | 2:53 pm

  Attention Microsoft, if you don't want to associate your global brand's new product with stuff like pedophila, making fun of guys in wheelchairs and the diabolical escapades of a baby that's trying to kill his mother, you may want to find another promotional partner.Seriously, how the fuck did they ink this deal without knowing the content of the Family Guy? Promotional Fail to say the least.

• If you build it virtually will they buy?

  John

  1 Oct 2009 | 9:38 am

  A glimpse at what AR will be up to once the novelty factor has worn off. Amazing what happens when creativity is tied to usefulness. Found via @dabitch.

• 
  Adverblog

• Jordan M6 video experience

  martina

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:13 pm

  I love the multimedia journey that my colleagues and Nike/Jordan created for the launch of the M6 model. I like it because it has a rather fresh approach with video product storytelling divided in small but effective pills. It's a...

• KRINK MINI

  Rocco Stallvord

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:41 am

  MINI claims to have a lot in common with street art. Both urban phenomenons, both part of metropolitan streets. That's why they teamed up with Craig 'KR' Costello. Craig created the KRINK brand, which stands for highest Quality markers and...

• Trivial Pursuit battle of the sexes

  martina

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:55 pm

  The touch of sense of humour you won't expect from such a traditional game like Trivial Pursuit: to promote the latest version of the game they launched an online challenge that cashes on a neverending rivalry. Can women prove they...

• Dunlop Volley

  marka

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:13 am

  Old school x 10. I loved my Dunlop Volley's when I was 7. They are back... Campaign for Dunlop Volley - it's a shoe. Crazy campaign and worth a look....

• Virgin Atlantic, don't panic

  martina

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:13 pm

  Virgin Atlantic has just released an iPhone application to help flyers who don't like flying. The application presents the pretty well known "Flying without fear course" aimed at anxious flyers. It features a video explanation of the flight process, frequently...

• 
  The B2B Lead

• Tracking Lead Source in Salesforce – B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #269

  If you read our post about metrics Marketing should care about and you use Salesforce here are some easy to follow instructions for putting lead source tracking into place. Lead Source (the field with the big red arrow next to it), is a standard field in Salesforce, so it’s easy enough ...

• Seven Infectious Diseases of B2B Marketing — And Their Cures: Glitzitis

  Kathryn Roy, marketing consultant and friend of The B2B Lead, has a great eBook, Seven Infectious Diseases of B2B Marketing — And Their Cures, that we want to share with all of our readers.  We will post excerpts that cover the diseases one by one but feel free to download ...

• What Happens After the Campaign? – B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #268

  As B2B Marketers we spend a lot of time, effort and resources on creating lead generation programs that drive prospect conversions.  But what happens next? As we become more sophisticated marketers with more promising tools, we are now not only filling the top of the sales funnel but we are also ...

• What NOT to do when sending a one-to-one email – B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #267

  This was and actual email I received last week: Hello, Please ensure that this is forwarded to the network infrastructure team lead. Given COMPANY X success with multiple SaaS providers, I wanted to ensure that you were aware of our company and service offerings. We have been winning many key deals from a ...

• How to Organize Your Resources Page – B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #266

  If you are anything like us, your resources page on your website is overflowing with whitepapers, eBooks, tearsheets and more.  How do you organize all that great content so your prospects can find what is relevant to them? The most common way I have seen is to organize it by format: Whitepapers eBooks Podcasts Webcasts Videos Case ...

• 
  All You Need Is A Good Idea!

• DON’T COUNT ON THE WORDS

  Jay Heyman

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:25 am

  It’s not that words don’t count. It’s that you shouldn’t fall into the trap of counting words  because you believe short headlines will always be better. Here, for example, are two different ten-word headlines. In both instances they are the only copy in the message, so the words are obviously very important. The first example was reported in the New York Times. It was commissioned by FirstBank of Colorado, which hired a local marketing firm to design ads that promoted the regional bank’s conservative lending practices. At the Colorado Rockies’ first home game of the season,…

• FREE BONUS CHAPTER

  Jay Heyman

  1 Nov 2009 | 7:27 am

  This bonus chapter contains some insights that never made it into my book, All You Need Is A Good Idea!, as well as a gathering of more recent observations and ideas. Just click "Free bonus Chapter" in the sidebar, under my photo, to download the (FREE) PDF. (Yes, it is FREE. As in no cost, no e-mail address required, no hidden “gotchas,” no need for you to buy something else to get the bonus.) WHY AM I DOING THIS? Giving information away is the new business model. Ideally the result is that one person tells another, more and more people hear about your product, viral word of…

• WHAT’S A NICE PRODUCT LIKE YOU DOING IN A PLACE LIKE THIS?

  Jay Heyman

  30 Oct 2009 | 5:59 am

  It was a long ago copy exploratory for Anacin. (A copy exploratory is where the ad agency is in crisis mode and the entire creative department pitches in to come up with new ideas. It is more panicky than a new business pitch, because here the business is yours to lose.) You can read the exciting details about my good idea for the TV campaign in my book, pages 134-138. But it is the print executions I want to discuss. My plan was to put my tag line, with no other copy, in places no aspirin ads had gone before. Sections of a newspaper, for example, that were inherently headache provoking, such…

• DON'T PUT ME TO SLEEP

  Jay Heyman

  28 Oct 2009 | 6:30 am

  There is a saying that there are no dull subjects, only dull writers. And I have done several blogs over the past year or so about the importance of passion when creating your marketing. (Here is the link to the post about audacity.) Basically, if you don’t care, why should I? I’ve got a lot on my mind, mostly dealing with my problems. I certainly don’t care about your stuff even if it can help me solve a crisis…unless I hear about it. And with 5,000 or so messages a day fighting for my attention, a me-too, bland, halfhearted attempt to get my attention probably won’t work. So even…

• HAVE A MOST SPECTACULAR, INCREDIBLE DAY

  Jay Heyman

  26 Oct 2009 | 6:37 am

  I first noticed it at my local Starbucks. It started out, as I recall, with, “Have a nice day.” This was fine for a while, but then escalated to, ‘Have a great day.” When this had worn itself out as a welcome, it was replaced with, “Have a wonderful day,” and, “Have a glorious day,” soon, I am sure, to be one-upped to, “Have the most fantastic day you have ever had, including past birthdays and the day you won the lottery.” It is difficult to stick to one adjective; repetition quickly causes it to lose its original purpose of offering something extra, especially when all…

• 
  Seth's Blog

• Everyone is clueless

  Seth Godin

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:29 am

  The problem with "everyone" is that in order to reach everyone or teach everyone or sell to everyone, you need to so water down what you've got you end up with almost nothing.Everyone doesn't go to the chiropractor, everyone doesn't give to charity, everyone has never been to Starbucks. Everyone, in fact, lives a decade behind the times and needs hundreds of impressions and lots of direct experience before they realize something is going on.You don't want everyone. You want the right someone.Someone who cares about what you do. Someone who will make a contribution that matters. Someone who…

• The unclicking 84%

  Seth Godin

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:36 am

  Mark points us to this great set of stats.Basically, all of the clicks for all the ads online come from only 16% of the surfers, and most of them come from just 4% of all internet users.So, if you optimize your ads for clicks, it means you're ignoring a huge population.If your business is built around the kind of person who clicks, you win. If it isn't, you either need to not buy ads online or buy ads optimized for attention and familiarity, not clicks.Imagine that only left-handed people clicked on ads (it's about the same percent). What are you going to do if you make a product for the…

• When data and decisions collide

  Seth Godin

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:54 am

  Until recently, most of the decisions we were called on to make were based on hunches, insight and a little bit of data. Occasionally, a field like direct marketing would develop into something quite data-driven ("I don't care if you like mailer one, Smythe, mailer #2 did three times, better! Number 2 it is.") but not often.It took Ignaz Semmelweis more than twenty years (he died before it happened, actually) to persuade doctors that washing their hands could save the lives of mothers giving birth. He had the data, he had the proof, but that wasn't enough to change minds.Data mining and the…

• Limited edition boxed set available today SOLD OUT!

  Seth Godin

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:41 am

  [We ended up selling more than three a minute. You guys are so cool. We had a few counter problems, but it didn't effect the number we sold...they're all gone, 800 in total, and I won't be able to sell any more. Thank you for the energy and support!]It seems as though the Apple tablet is unlikely to be ready in time for the holidays... what to get? How about a boxed (a wooden box) set of five of my books? Very limited (only 800 will be sold, ever). Sold at a discount from retail, with cool packaging, assembled by elves, delivered by Martians, blessed by enlightened goats. My goal was to make…

• Ms. In-between

  Seth Godin

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:50 am

  The either-or world continues to decay, confronted by a shifting economy and the tools of the net.It used to be easy to tell if someone was a journalist. Either you were or your weren't. So giving special privileges to journalists was easy. Parking permits, press badges, first amendment protections... no problem, you're a journalist. Everyone else? No way.It used to be easy to tell if someone was an entrepreneur. Either you had a full-time job or you ran a business. So we could treat employees the same (health insurance, no moonlighting) and assume that the few that didn't have jobs were…

• 
  Ogilvy Blog Aggregator

• TWEED Flashback

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm

• Vampires Sell Cars

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:36 pm

• Influences du jour #17 : du futur des digital natives au Mentoring

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:53 am

  Listiti : les alertes Google des listes Twitter : Louis Gray Une semaine après le lancement des listes Twitter, de nouveaux outils au service des fanatiques du site de microblogging ont fait leur... Lire l'article en détails

• Off the wall

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:24 am

  YouTube video link Twitter is a great way to find inspiration if you know the right people to follow. Thanks to @BenShaw for sharing this site which showcases 11 urban artists. Related creative inspiration:Blogilvy.nl teams up with Twitter!Like a VirginA world of twitsTwitterificSplash

• We Must Do Away With "Social Media"

  5 Nov 2009 | 11:22 pm

  We've got to kill the term social media as a way of describing what we do.   You suffer from serious lack of situational awareness if you haven't noticed the eye-rolling at the mere mention of the phrase.How dare you Ian??Really?  Watch the videos and visit the websites.  I'm not making this up.  This is happening.  It's funny, right?  Hopefully it makes you a bit uncomfortable [it did for me].  I know I'm not the first to raise this concern.  And I sense the drumbeat getting stronger.  I realize it's been widely socialized,…

• 
  Spare Change

• The Tip Jar - 10/15/09

  Nedra Weinreich

  14 Oct 2009 | 11:59 pm

  Here are some assorted bits and pieces I've collected for your reading pleasure:Starting next week I'll be offering a new webinar series on Social Media for Social Marketers. The four 60-minute webinars (at 11 am Pacific time) are:October 22 - Designing a Social Media Strategy for ChangeOctober 29 - Blogging and Beyond: Tools to Build Your MovementNovember 12 - Twitteracy for Social MarketersNovember 19 - Monitoring and Evaluating Social MediaIf you are interested, but can't make a particular event live, you can always view the archived events and ask me any questions afterward. For more…

• We Can't Afford to Lose the National Center for Health Marketing

  Nedra Weinreich

  31 Aug 2009 | 3:09 am

  When the new director of the CDC, Dr. Thomas Frieden, took his position in early June, it was inevitable that he would make some changes -- perhaps even some big changes. I believe I speak for many social marketers in saying we were very hopeful that health marketing (the CDC's name for social marketing) would fare well in the new administration.Unfortunately, I have just found out that the National Center for Health Marketing (NCHM) is slated to be eliminated. What this means exactly for the practice of health marketing within the CDC is unclear, but it bodes poorly for the field of social…

• The Path to Health Marketing Collaboration

  Nedra Weinreich

  16 Jul 2009 | 10:26 pm

  When's the last time someone wrote a superhero comic about people in your profession? Sure, if you're a reporter, nuclear scientist or even a reclusive millionaire, you're used to this type of thing. But we health marketing types are usually the ones on the development side of the media, not the target audience. So I'm sure you'll be as excited as I was to discover that my longtime blog friend Fard Johnmar of Envision Solutions and the HealthCareVox blog has created both a fun set of different types of media to draw people like us in, and a more serious project that underlies it.His mission…

• I Get Around

  Nedra Weinreich

  8 Jul 2009 | 8:23 am

  John Haydon invited me to share with his readers how I "rock the web" on his excellent blog on social media. In my guest post, I talk about some of the tools I use to take control of my time online. Take a look at the other posts on his blog for insights on how nonprofits can use social media effectively - John is a great resource (and an awesome musician). My other favorite nonprofit social media blogger, Beth Kanter, also put up a guest post from me while she's getting settled from her cross-country move. This one is an oldie but goodie from me on how to select your target audience: should…

• Marketing Games for Health

  Nedra Weinreich

  29 Jun 2009 | 6:00 am

  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation invited me to write a guest post on its Pioneering Ideas blog, along with several other people who are investigating how games can be used to promote health. This guest blogger series is tied into the 2009 Games for Health Conference, which happened a couple of weeks ago, as well as a recent report from the Sesame Workshop’s Joan Ganz Cooney Center, which looks at how video games can be a positive force for children's health.The question they posed for us to answer was:"There is a growing consensus that digital games can be deployed to support learning and…

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  adliterate

• Shock and awe

  27 Oct 2009 | 2:42 pm

  From 30 ways to shock yourself. Image courtesy of Bre Pettis If there is one enduring fascination the mainstream media has in our business it is with shock advertising and specifically whether shock advertising actually works. Other preoccupations of the journalistic classes come and go – greenwash, teaser campaigns, neuroscience and the like – but the one they keep coming back to is shock.

• Who is to blame?

  22 Sep 2009 | 2:48 am

  Image courtesy of Planoscorpio Say what you like about Cannes but at its best it still serves as a barometer for where our industry and our product is heading. Most notably the Titanium shortlist, packed as it is with the coolest work from the coolest agencies and representing the new creative dividend that is on offer to brands that put participation at the heart of their work. But the obvious question is that if this is the sort of work we all admire from the sort of agencies we all admire how come the UK is so poorly represented? Having offered the industry creative leadership for so many…

• Dynamic micro brands - Toms

  14 Sep 2009 | 1:54 am

  Image courtesy of StephanieNguyen I’m a bit of a latecomer to the Toms party but then I’m not an environmental activist and I don’t live on the West coast. So I had to wait until the TED Global goodie bag to come across this brand of ethically driven footwear and mighty fine they are too.

• Is it the end of the line for the digital agency?

  14 Sep 2009 | 1:31 am

  Image courtesy of Ackers-Schoolboy Hero!!!! Some time in the early summer the Met Office rather confidently predicted that this would be the summer of the BBQ, so hot, dry and altogether splendid was our weather going to be. Alas it turned out to be a rather different meteorological kettle of fish and once again this summer has been unremittingly dreary, anything but the summer of the BBQ. Similarly at the beginning of this recession the soothsayers of the digital community rather confidently predicted that this would be the recession of the digital agency, basking as they would be in the…

• Brand respsonse - a case of having your cake and eating it

  8 Aug 2009 | 2:41 am

  Image courtesy of Blake E. Marquis. Eddie Izzard has a standup routine about how useless the Church of England would have been at the Spanish Inquisition, because everyone appearing before it would have been given the option of cake or death. Naturally most people end up choosing the cake option.

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  Web Social Architecture

• Too Much Marketing

  Ryan Turner

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:35 pm

  I really like David Armano’s Conversation Starter post from earlier this week with predicted trends in social media for next year. In particular, his first point hits on exactly what I think is going to be the key to success for marketers in social media: 1. Social media begins to look less social With groups, lists and niche networks becoming more popular, networks could begin to feel more "exclusive." Not everyone can fit on someone's newly created Twitter list and as networks begin to fill with noise, it's likely that user behavior such as "hiding" the hyperactive updaters that appear in…

• Vote for the Presentation Youd Most like to See October 15th at ZAAZ

  Ryan Turner

  1 Oct 2009 | 8:51 am

  Below are the submissions for our next social media event. Read the descriptions here, and then vote over on our Facebook page. The eight with most votes will be our presenters for 21 Slides! For those not in Seattle, by the way, we are working out details on setting up a webcast for the event. We’re considering TwitCam, but we’re happy to here any other suggestions, if you have a favorite tool. 1. Lessons Learned from LOLcats. There's a lot to be learned from the popular LOLcat meme. Why is www.icanhascheezburger.com so successful? What attracts users and keeps them coming back? Are…

• A Tour of ZAAZ

  Ryan Turner

  18 Sep 2009 | 9:45 am

  This is kind of fun. The folks over at Drifting Creatives posted a video of our Seattle headquarters, with my colleague Rachel as tour guide. I like how they captured our vibe, especially with the tunes that take me to my happy place: Rachel walks you through our usability lab, talks a bit about web optimization, and even takes you behind the infamous Z-Bar. You should come visit us too! See my previous post about our upcoming social media event.

• October 15th is the Next ZAAZ Social Media Event: 21 Slides

  Ryan Turner

  14 Sep 2009 | 9:51 am

  Mark your calendar: Our ongoing series resumes October 15th. And this time, you can participate. Here is the announcement: What is 21 Slides? 90 minutes. 8 social media presenters. Five minutes each. No more than 21 slides. Add beer. ZAAZ is inviting local social media digerati, strategists, and media dabblers of all backgrounds to submit presentation ideas to compete for the eight available 5-minute presentations slots. The submissions are reviewed by the event directors to assess quality and social media relevance (no vacation slide shows, please) – then the approved submissions are…

• Social Media Teams: Different on the Agency Side than Internal

  Ryan Turner

  10 Aug 2009 | 7:22 pm

  One of the things I've been saying a lot lately is that over the next couple years, we can expect to see corporations adding dedicated internal social media teams. Does this sound like a statement of the obvious? Then maybe the corollary is more interesting: I think agencies should do the opposite. I've seen a similar pattern in a dozen or more corporations in the past year: Responsibility for social media falls to the person or people who get interested and raise their hands. They come from PR, customer service, marketing--and sometimes just out of the woodwork. Good! In other words,…

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  Marketing.fm

• Google Dashboard

  info@marketing.fm (www.Marketing.fm)

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:01 am

  Image via CrunchBase The amount of services I use through Google is now summed up in a simple dashboard showing everything. They sum it up as transparency, choice, and control which is a nice way of softening the realization of how much data Google actually collects about you. Here are the services they list and my usage: Account – Yes Alerts – Yes Blogger – No Calendar – Yes Contacts – Yes Docs – Yes Friend connect – Yes Gmail – Yes Health – No iGoogle – No Orkut – No Picasa – Yes (Paid) Product Search – Yes…

• Data Exhaust

  info@marketing.fm (www.Marketing.fm)

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:02 am

  One of the most powerful things I have learned over the past year is the immense amount of data that comes out of using a computer system, specifically some form an online web based experience. At Union Square Ventures, we refer to this as data exhaust, or sometimes called digital exhaust, because it is the excess valuable information that is left in the wake of using a service. The best services capture this information in an elegant and effortless way, without any barriers or friction. This remains one of the core investment thesis ideas in my mind when I look at a company that lives on the…

• An evening with Steve Blank in NYC

  info@marketing.fm (www.Marketing.fm)

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:40 am

  Steve Blank, author of Four steps to the Epiphany, will be joining a group of customer development mavens on November 12, 2009 in NYC. He will be discussing the CDP (customer development process) and lean startup methodologies as well as do a Q&A with the entrepreneurs present. We hope to record the event and share it here. If you are interested in attending this Steve Blank discussion with entrepreneurs event tickets are now open to the public and are $25.00 and help cover costs associated with the event. Be sure to checkout Steve Blank’s blog for more information. A big thank you…

• Google Music

  info@marketing.fm (www.Marketing.fm)

  28 Oct 2009 | 6:49 pm

  Image via CrunchBase Google announced the ability to search, find, and play music via their search experience tonight. This is a huge business development boon by the companies involved and a major kudos goes to Imeem, MySpacePandora, LaLa, and Rhapsody. This also seems like a big win for the record labels. Below is a video that explains ramifications of bringing the power of Google search to music, lyrics, titles and others: This Google onebox deal has far reaching implications for a few different reasons. It first deep links to music site providers giving users a (hopefully) better…

• CNN NewsPulse and the future of content

  info@marketing.fm (www.Marketing.fm)

  28 Oct 2009 | 7:02 am

  CNN relaunched this week with a complete redesign. Along with having some smart advertising introduce the new layout, integrated well with the IAB standard units, they highlighted another section at the top of their navigation: CNN NewsPulse This dashboard approach combines a few items you have probably seen elsewhere on content sites. You have probably seen “most emailed”, “most read”, or “hottest” articles from an internal system or a company like Surphace powering a module – but this is first time I have seen this done in front of a large audience.

• 
  the weekly ramble

• Dream on

  David

  2 Nov 2009 | 8:52 am

  Dream on…greatness comes from marrying actions and dreams: http://weeklyramble.wunderman.com/ad-tech/tweet Now – let me add another twist. Truth. Truth is what we often mistake for credibility; facts (which we often mistake for truth); proof of our positions and points of view and a general certitude that we are right and others are wrong. Needless to say, the more on the fringes you are, the more your truth is the truth – the only truth; the ultimate truth. In politics it always amazes me how many True positions can be found around one seemingly simple issue; in life it’s astonishing…

• Tweet

  David

  26 Oct 2009 | 7:57 am

  Tweet, BBM, IM, ICQ, Ping, Email, Post, Call, Fax (still) – all are methods of communication that allow us to correspond quickly and efficiently. And they are all ways that allow us to answer questions, make our opinions known, get a point across and, in general, feel in control of the communications stream – 24/7. To that end – we carry devices that enable our connectivity – Microsoft Windows based, Google platformed, Apple supported, Nokia sourced, RIM facilitated. Our Smartphones, iPhones and BlackBerries are always on – instant response mechanisms that enhance our control and…

• Millions long for immortality

  David

  19 Oct 2009 | 8:17 am

  Fame and fortune. Your name in lights. Stardom! Who doesn’t want a shot at it? The question is how do you achieve it? Some people just seem to have the knack for it; others work hard at it; there are those that actually earn it; some stumble into it; and others pursue it forever and never achieve it. Think Paris Hilton for the knack; think Madonna for the hard work; think Captain Sully Sullenberger as one who deserves it; think Susan Boyle as the stumbler; and the ground is littered with the remains of those who have tried – and tried hard – but never achieved it. So you have to ask…

• Are you the person who brings your significant other a blanket knowing they will be cold?

  David

  12 Oct 2009 | 7:53 am

  Are you the person who brings your significant other a blanket knowing they will be cold? Have you noticed that a great waiter, in any restaurant, knows when you want service; anticipates your needs; pours and serves before you ask? Don’t you envy the people who always seem to have tissues, corkscrews or a sweater? How proactive are you? By that I mean how often are you ahead of any issue? Any opportunity? Any challenge? And there you have it. Anyone can do it when asked; anyone can be prepared for specifics; anyone can be seriously “buttoned up.” But how many of us are really ahead of…

• What would you do if your computer crashed?

  David

  5 Oct 2009 | 9:20 am

  What would you do if your computer crashed? How about if your smartphone ran out of juice? The microwave blew a fuse? Or if, God forbid, you lost your Internet connection? What would we do? Some of us (yes – me too) can’t keep our fingers off our mobile devices and start getting the shakes if we sit in a meeting where they are prohibited. I added the microwave scenario because I have a friend who has never, ever turned on the burner on his stove – and has lived in the same place for years. So what would you do? How would you cope? Get work done? Eat? … I am serious – think about…

• 
  Hard Knox Life - Dave Knox Brand Management blog

• The Virtual Goods Gold Rush

  Dave Knox

  31 Oct 2009 | 8:40 am

  I have to admit, I have been fascinated by the Virtual Good / Social Gaming market lately.  It is something I am going to be thinking / writing about more often in the coming weeks for sure.  In the meantime, here is a great presentation that was recently given at the Virtual Worlds Conference.   Great primer for those new to this space.  [presentation embedded below]. Virtual Goods in Asia View more documents from Benjamin Joffe.

• Digital Strangelove (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Net)

  Dave Knox

  24 Oct 2009 | 2:28 pm

  Talk about a presentation getting some nice buzz.  First Fred Wilson posts about this new presentation he just saw and then Henry Blodget writes about the same presentation on Silicon Alley Insider.  Looks like David Gillespie knows how to catch the eye of the right folks in the marketing blog world. But then again, after taking a look at the presentation myself, I needed to jump on the bandwagon because it really is filled with some great insights.  Hands down my favorite quote is this: Advertising got really good at speaking in 30 second chunks to a captive audience… Then quickly…

• Mary Meeker’s Web 2.0 Summit thoughts on the Economy & Internet

  Dave Knox

  22 Oct 2009 | 5:04 am

  For the past 6 years, Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker has been one of the highlights of the Web 2.0 Summit.  Last year was the first time I saw her presentation in person but every year is a must read report / powerpoint.  This year is no exception as Meeker gives an overview of the economy and then dives deep into why the “Mobile Internet is and will be bigger than most think.”  The full PowerPoint is embedded below and filled more valuable nuggets than I could possibly hope to capture in a summary.  Take the time to read this thing all the way through…it is a must…

• Etsy shows the power of consumer co-creation

  Dave Knox

  21 Oct 2009 | 4:02 am

  Are your fans passionate enough about your brand that they would make your ads for you?  If you are Etsy, than the answer is yes thanks to their Handmade Moment contest. I don’t know about you, but if I saw this on TV, I would have never guessed it was “Handmade.”

• Can Cincinnati be the Silicon Valley of consumer marketing?

  Dave Knox

  20 Oct 2009 | 9:57 am

  News came out today of a national marketing campaign that aims to position Cincinnati as “the Silicon Valley of consumer marketing.”  As the Cincinnati Enquirer states, “the work grew out of the Agenda 360 community-wide plan sponsored by the Cincinnati USA Regional chamber, which set as one of its goals the creation of 50,000 jobs by 2020.” In support of that goal, this work will specifically “support entrepreneurial companies in consumer marketing in Cincinnati.” In this regard, the effort seeks to build on a substantial core of marketing talent already…

• 
  Marketing Safari

• The liberation!

  Hjortur Smarason

  22 Oct 2009 | 1:33 pm

  There are two things changing the world today. One is technology: the ability to record everything that happens where ever you are, the mobile device with a camera, GPS, videorecorder, transmitter and the ability to live broadcast globally from wherever you are. The other is community: the ability to share what you record with people all over the world, and their ability to spread the word even further.We call it: social media! Many people, specially corporate people, are terrified of the devastating effect this has. The reason for this fear is that it's no longer possible to sweap…

• Catch of the week - October 18th

  Hjortur Smarason

  18 Oct 2009 | 4:31 am

  Swineflu and Pneumothorax. Yep, that's about it folks. Caught both this week and not really anything else. Been lying in hospital so sick that I couldn't even be online. Well, almost nothing. There was one thing I managed to do this week though. I managed to post my interview with Rohit Bhargava, author of Personality not included, on the IMinnovation blog. In the interview Rohit tells about the importance of including and keeping the personality in start-ups. I asked my twitter friends what they had come across this week, and here are a few of their favorites: Mikkel deMib, the Danish SEO…

• Catch of the week - October 11th

  Hjortur Smarason

  11 Oct 2009 | 3:27 pm

  Each (ok, sometimes monthly) Sunday I post links to the most interesting articles I've come across that week. Most of them are found via Twitter, Sphinn or my RSS reader. Enjoy! Marketing, SEO and Social Media Jill Whalen disagrees with SEOmoz's Rand Fishkin about which should come first, the search engines or the users. An excellent article.Seems like everyone is becoming a social media expert now. Some people have actually been doing social media marketing for well over a decade, like Marsha Collier, author of eBay for dummies. She might know a thing or two to check out.So how can you tell…

• You can't milk a dead cow!

  Hjortur Smarason

  10 Oct 2009 | 3:02 pm

  Today it is exactly one year since I wrote my "Surreal Reykjavik", describing the feeling of being in a collapsed country. So I think it is appropriate to give you an update on live in Reykjavik, Iceland, one year after the economic collapse.   It's all about the money The third government since the collapse, a left wing coallision government, seems to be about to collapse. The reason is the same in this coallition government as in many marriages - and divorces - in Iceland at the moment. Money. People can't agree on the money and on the debt. They're not satisfied…

• Next courses in Internet Marketing

  Hjortur Smarason

  22 Sep 2009 | 4:48 am

  For my Icelandic readers, I'd like to announce that I've got three two day courses in Internet Marketing lined up in Iceland in the comming months on the following dates:24.-25. September22.-23. October26.-27 NovemberMore info in Icelandic can found on Náðu árangri á netinu!CheersHjörtur

• 
  DR4WARD

• Teaching with Twitter

  William Ward

  20 Oct 2009 | 7:26 am

  Last week I spoke on "Teaching with Twitter" to a group of educators in Michigan. Here is the presentation which includes teaching with Twitter examples, links to resources, and teachers/social media experts to follow and learn from.  Below the "Teaching with Twitter" presentation you will find links to other Social Media / Social Network resources to supplement your teaching and help improve student learning. Teaching With Twitter View more documents from William Ward. I make the case that we must use Soc