Check out some small businesses leveraging the power of blogs in today’s WSJ, such as Bean Bag chair maker Sumo Lounge International. They worked with tech blog powerhouse Engadget to successfully get exposure for their products directly in front of the right audience. "2 years after the initial deal with Engadget, Sumo Lounge has been reviewed by 250 bloggers and has tripled profits."
The April issue of Fast Company
shows a nice image of Barack Obama, which makes sense since the feature story is about the presidential candidate. Why do I think the mag is showing a lack of creativity? Two reasons. One, they had basically the same cover in their July/August issue. Again with a democrat heavyweight, Al Gore. Black and white photo, white space background, red and black headline. Two, the headline reads, "The Brand Called Obama." Enough with the "Brand Called You" thing already, they've been milking this for nearly a decade. We still love you though, Fast Company, don't worry.
Thank you Springwise, who alerted us to 5starbaby.com, which offers personalized birth announcements fashioned after movie advertisement posters. Not the cheapest announcements ever at USD 2.50 but what a great, unique way to announce the birth of your baby.
The gold blazer people have launched a dedicated channel on YouTube -- the first such channel by a real estate company.
Well, maybe not a crisis, but it certainly has Denmark's knickers in a bunch. They claim that Swedish home furnishing giant IKEA names its rugs and doormats after Danish locales - saying it in effect says to the world "Denmark is the doormat of Sweden." IKEA says its just coincidence.
I guess the folks at Dubaimetro didn't pay attention to the naming debacles during the Internet boom, where start-ups instantly had enough money to buy the rights to sporting venues, only to have to sell them off once the market tanked. Then again, Dubai doesn't really fit the mold of any other situation, so more power to them. This print ad (pg. 14 of this week's BusinessWeek), caught my eye. Even more than the idea of advertising the naming rights themselves, check out the bottom left corner...the process is being handled by IMG, the super agents of celebrities and professional athletes. Building's as celebrities...hmmm.....
Like Virgin Mobile's print ad, everyone's getting in on the Spitzer situation. Check out the Spitzer "No. 9" t-shirt from ShirtADay.com. The company, besides having funny and unique t-shirts, has an interesting model, not unlike woot, where they focus on a specific design every day. And even more cool, they have a progressive discount that builds based on the volume of shirts sold during the day.
"London-based Matter works with product manufacturers to compile collections of items carefully designed to please specific audiences, and it sends them out to consumers at no charge. Each participating company creates and contributes an item—something that explains what the company does, says something about its ideas or values, or can be tried out."Check out Matter
Up until last night, I thought I knew why Starbucks closed its doors back on Feb 25, 2008 - they were stopping to re-educate their baristas. Publicizing it as they did, it thought it was a pretty clever PR effort, sending the message that they are refocusing their efforts while training at the same time.
Eliot Spitzer got nailed for being "Client #9" in a prostitution bust - I imagine much to the joy of the businessmen he put in Sing Sing. But leave it to Virgin Mobile to make even more hay about the story, and drive their brand and business in the process. AdRants reported on the print ad Virgin Mobile in Canada put out which shows a picture of the NY Governor waving to the congress with a thought balloon that reads "I'm tired of being treated like a number..." The ad copy says "At Virgin Mobile, you're more than just a number. When you call us we'll treat you like a person, not a client. Whether you're #9 or #900, you'll get hooked up with somebody who'll finally treat you just how you want to be treated."
It sheer genius - not simply because its shocking and brash, but more importantly because its relevant to the value message of their business. And kudos for being so opportunistic to move on this while it was a hot story.
"MySpace personalities will star in a fall campaign from lifestyle brand Airwalk, which hopes to connect online social media with traditional print ads. The campaign, themed "A Day in Our Life," will spotlight, among others, indie rock band Lorene Drive and Airwalk pro skateboarder Rodney Mullin, both of whom have big followings on the Fox Interactive social networking site."From BRANDWEEK
Divinity Metrics has put together a chart measuring the top 20 brands in online video. Top 20 brands are static and were chosen beforehand by analysts. They are: BMW, Disney, Audi, Nike, Pepsi, Toyota, Mercedes, Sony, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, EBay, McDonald's, Budweiser, Hyndai, Motorola, Taco Bell, Chrysler, Dell, Fedex, and American Express. BMW is currently leading with 129,953,103 streams. Streams are based on videos aggregated for the brand by Scope, a video measurement platform.From AdRants
I understand Google's stock is off 36% from its peak of $741.79. But c'mon, the sky is not falling - the stock is still at a whopping $471 per share. It still has a stranglehold on the Internet. mentions this week is something to really think about if you're an advertiser....It found that just 6% of Web surfers account for more than 50% of all clicks on display ads, such as the rectangular banner ads that stretch across the top of many Web pages. In addition, most of these heavy clickers earn less than $40,000 a year, and they account for less than 15% of the actual shopping online.It is about conversions, not clicks. Is your site up to snuff from a usability standpoint? Is it purposed to make certain actions happen? Are you using effective landing pages? Have you specifically thought, "what do I want a visitor to do when they land on my page, and have I made whatever that thing is excessively easy for them to do?" Simple questions that are often overlooked, but very much need to be addressed if you're going to place ads on Google or Yahoo!.
