Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Favourite Marketing/Advertising Campaigns Facebook Group

My Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2235882377&ref=mf
All things Marketing and Advertising. Check it out and I welcome you to join. :)

Choose your own adventure

Choose Your Own Adventure
Remember those books? They were a BIG deal in my day.
Anyways, check this out. Choose Your Own Adventure in video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoOCiaxIZF4
I came across this a while ago. Perhaps this concept can be used to give an audience an interactive way to experience a brand. It'll sure keep an audience engaged. Also, it brings people in my generation back to the Choose your Own Adventure book series.

A few months later..Dove came out with their Waking Up Hannah campaign: www.wakinguphannah.com. How do you think Dove did in using it to provide an interactive brand experience?

My current reads

Seducing the Boys Club
Nina DiSesa
- It's NOT the typical and annoying "RA RA GOOoOoOOOooOO Women!"/Girl Power book. No whining and complaining, and NO the "seducing" part of the title is not to be taken literally. This book is amazing and I am relating to it SO SO much.

Hot Button Marketing
Barry Feig
- Great consumer behavior book. It provides great insight on how to tap in to the human psyche and apply it to communicating a brand message.

They are both so far so great! I highly recommend them.

Nintendo Wii capturing multiple markets

We've got Wii Fit with games that enable you to play tennis, bowl, box, and even have your yoga session in the comfort of your own home.

Wii Music in which you have the ability to play over 600 instruments.I guess they've caught on with their success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band!

Games like Animal Crossing in which you pretty much live a virtual life. You can spend your day shopping, fishing, or hanging out with your friends and family. (The commercial for this game targets women. Shopping...ha...of course I guess?)

Athletes/the fit
Yoga-ers
Music lovers and musicians
Women who like to indulge and shop
Those that like the classic Nintendo games (Mario series)
......They've got us all...or are trying hard to at least.

Pepsi's New Logo

www.pepsi.com

New Pepsi Logo.
So....What do you think?

I think it suits Pepsi's brand positioning.
You know: The YOUNG Cola, Hip, Young, Constantly emerged in Pop Culture, Shiny n' New, Trendy.

Coca Cola is the brand of cola that engages you by bringing out warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feelings that make you want to cuddle with your loved ones by the fire place and reminisce about milestones in your life. The red and curvy font = Old school, and classic. Speaking of Coca Cola...where are those Christmas commercials???! I count on those this time of the year to make me feel all tingly.

Clean, and slick designs, with straight smooth lines = a futuristic feel.
I think this does it...and works well Pepsi. However, it IS difficult to judge the success of a logo....especially when it's just an image of one. I'm excited to see it in action in the launch campaign. Let's see how it does. Don't let me down, Pepsi!!!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

New age slang

There's been much debate whether or not slang is butchering the English language. Some think it's a negative development, while others feel that it is an enhancement.
How many times have you caught yourself writing "LOL", OMG!, wtf?!, ttyl, brb.. umm...ok that's all I can think of right now. CLEARLY I'm not "cool" enough to go on.... LOL....errr I mean..."hahha"

This whole phenomenon of the use of slang is essentially creating a new variety of language. Language is always always changing. There used to be a time where slang was only appropriate to use with your friends either in written or verbally form. Did you know that there are many university professors who are accepting and encouraging students to use slang in their academic work? It is not so uncommon to see abbreviations, acronym,and slang in academic papers.

Although I may not necessarily agree that we are ready as a society to accept this type of communication in business reports, formal emails, academic papers, etc... I do think that SOME slang enables people to better express themselves. For example: "LOL" means Laughing Out Loud. However, there is a time and a place to use it. Some may argue that the use of slang is due to pure laziness and a limited vocabulary. What do you think?

Also, The other day I spotted a few TTC transit media buys for the TD Summer Reading club with the Toronto Public Library. "LOL with the TD Summer Reading Club" was the campaign message.

What I find really interesting is that slang like "LOL" is being used in mainstream advertisements now. The campaign is targeted to children. In order to relate and capture engagement of the intended market it is absolutely necessary to be able to speak to them on their own level...and yes sometimes that means taking on a whole new language. These media buys were throughout the TTC so it is being exposed to a large mass audience including those that are not the intended target market. This means that others that have not yet caught on to the new era slang and the evolution of the English language are beginning to learn about it.

I wasn't able to take photos of the posters in the TTC subway trains but here is the website to the campaign: http://tdsrc.torontopubliclibrary.ca/


P.S.
Any guesses as to what these mean?
AAK
AFK
BMA
DIKU
EG
GMTA
HB
IMO

Friday, June 13, 2008

Business Card Etiquette

So I've been to my fair share of business networking socials.....
I don't think people are ever taught business card etiquette. Why not? You could have something great to offer someone...then you destroy the chance to work with them by inappropriately promoting yourself? Yikes.

The worst EVER situation happened was back in the university days. I was at a business conference and there were about 10 people in a group chatting casually. One of the students pulls out his resume and hands it to one of the conference sponsor representatives that we (and I stress WE...because it was a GROUP discussion) and says "If anything comes up, I would love to work with you" We ALL paused in dead silence and in mid sentence. How awkward.

Anyways a few years later...and I go to an event where the age of the attendees ranged anywhere between 25 all the way up to 60. A man came up to me and introduced himself. He asked me what I did and I told him I was in marketing. He responded by saying "ok...cool, I'm a financial adviser....can we exchange cards? We can work together one day" I thought "hold on a sec...did I completely BLANK OUT for a chunk of the conversation? Did I miss out on when we chatted about what exactly we do and established how we could use both of our skills to leverage our businesses??" How awkward....again...YEARS later and with someone that was not 17.