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Paul Gillen's got it right on HubSpot's latest post

Posted by Matt Kucharski on December 22, 2008 at 2:48 PM

Love HubSpot's latest guest blog from Paul Gillen on what you can learn about inbound Internet marketing at the checkout line. Underscores that no matter the medium, we're still talking human behavior here. Check it out...

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Winner so far of the best e-Christmas card ...

Posted by Matt Kucharski on December 22, 2008 at 2:37 PM

Normally I'm not such a huge fan of e-cards for the Holidays, but I've gotta admit, this one from our Worldcom Group friends at St. John and Partners in Jacksonville tickled my tinsel.

Honorable mention in the "snail mail" card category:

Peppercom's very disturbing take on "A Christmas Carol"

Traverse Collins' card, of which only half arrived in the envelope along with the message "Hey, everybody's cutting back this year. Oh well, Happy Holidays!"

And a Happy Holiday to you and yours as well...

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Pitching Bloggers: PR Pro Kicks Butt While Pitching The Poop

Posted by Bob Brin on December 19, 2008 at 11:01 AM

There is no better praise than a blogger blogging about your pitch. Blogger Peter Hartlaub, from The Poop (labeled "the Chronicle Baby Blog"), said our own Whitney Mare's pitch "made his day." But read the whole thing and don't miss the comment by a follower who wants Whitney's job. Whitney's approach included a bit o' w(h)it, respect for the blog's topic and style and messaging that is humble, yet transparent. She makes no bones that she's cheering for our client Jim Beam on a parenting site, if only because the mention of Beam's competitor compelled her to enter the discussion. A nice dialog ensues . . . It sounds like more than a few parents out there invoke the spirits when the need arises. Cheers, Whit!

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Is this funny or just wry irony? National Lampoon Sued by SEC

Posted by Bob Brin on December 15, 2008 at 4:16 PM

A sign of the times. Even the people with a sense of humor are caught with their pants down; this time not on purpose. Who's next? Spongebob?

And only a month after this blog sang NLN's praises:

At least one company is doing well as the economy crumbles. National Lampoon Inc. (NLN), the purveyor of humor, reported a 1900% increase in revenues for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year ending July 31. The third quarter was its first profitable quarter ever and the fourth quarter was even more profitable.

Can't they hold this stuff till April first?

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Will Smith's ultimate touchdown dance

Posted by Bob Brin on December 15, 2008 at 9:16 AM

Kudos to our buds over at Threevolts who helped Second Harvest with this video in which Will Smith choreographs Bernard Berrian. Berrian then "performed" on his second touchdown in yesterday's Vikings game against Arizona . . . a great social media idea with lots of folks watching to see if the dance got a chance. Touchdown Threevolts!

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PRSA Counselors Academy -- Spring Conference 2009

Posted by Matt Kucharski on December 9, 2008 at 1:55 PM

If you're involved in running an agency, there are few professional development resources better than the PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference (full disclosure, I'm on the planning committee). I'd describe it in more detail, but Steve "RepMan" Cody and Indra Gardiner do it justice, so let's just link to them.

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Toyota Tries Saving Consumers by Zero, Ends Up Mentally Imprisoning Them

Posted by Jason Swartz on December 8, 2008 at 9:10 AM

Last week, AdAge launched an interesting poll asking the question, "Do you think increasing repetition of TV spots is worsening the viewing experience?" Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority has voted yes. The poll cites Toyota's "Saved by Zero" ad campaign as a prime example, for which I'm sure many of you have endured the TV ads. For those of you who haven't, grab a bottle of Advil, prepare yourself for a psychological meltdown, and then watch this commercial.

As you can imagine, this campaign has sparked a lot of negative consumer buzz. For example, there's a Facebook group with 9,200+ members, who continuously express their sincere hatred for the campaign, and Toyota, on a daily basis. YouTube commentators are saying things like, "I will never buy a Toyota because of this" and my favorite, "I recently bought a Saturn 2 weeks ago. The wife wanted a Toyota and I reminded her of this commercial."

In my last few posts, I've brought up the topic of speaking at customers instead of with them. This is especially necessary in today's media environment where consumers can get whatever information they want, whenever they want, almost wherever they want. Social media has created more ways than ever to form actual relationships with the people that buy your products. Yet some companies continue spamming traditional media channels with annoying messages, causing an exodus to Tivo and driving them to take action by voting the spots off the air with social media protests. Remember when we used to talk about one-to-many communication. Now it's many-to-one and the net is Zero.

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Burger King's Whopper Virgins world's purest tasteless test?

Posted by Bob Brin on December 8, 2008 at 8:43 AM

Crispin Porter & Bogusky, BK's agency, traveled across the globe to remote locations finding indigenous people to participate in a taste test: Whopper vs Big Mac. Participants in the study ('Whopper Virgins') had never seen a hamburger or been exposed to ads from the fast food giants. The whole concept (see Ad Age article) has been stirring up some controversy. Just do a Google Search on Whopper Virgins. Big surprise, given they're testing food that's already under fire on people who haven't been exposed to it, and shouldn't. Next, let's test dog food on Arctic wolves.

I don't know. Maybe it's just an expensive spoof on marketing and social media mania. Then let's not make the joke on people from another culture struggling to pick up a floppy slider. I'd rather see Burger King spend the money on helping those people sustain their culture and live better. I'd bet their target market cares more than they realize.

Check out the full-length viral video.

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Twitter Means Business - A New Book on How Microblogging Can Help or Hurt Your Company

Posted by Jason Swartz on December 1, 2008 at 3:33 PM

Here's a new book from author Julio Ojeda-Zapata on how Twitter can be a good or bad thing for your business. I heard him on MPR on the way into the office this morning and he made some interesting points. For example, he explained how Twitter allows a company to speak with their audience instead of at them - something I firmly believe is at the heart of social media. Jason Falls, one of our partners with Jim Beam, is also quoted on the book's Web site giving it praise. The first chapter apparently answers many people's long-standing question, "Why should I care?" I'll give it a read and make a post after I'm finished.

If anyone else has read this book, feel free to let me know your thoughts.

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Web sites should be multilingual for business scalability, not just Web site usability

Posted by Bob Brin on December 1, 2008 at 9:27 AM

Having a global presence really means thinking (and speaking) locally. This causes me to add a fourth D to our 3D Web planning process. So now, we must consider dialect in addition to the desired action of our audiences, differentiation and dialog (ways to engage them in a conversation). Dialect is critical even for domestic organizations because most need to communicate to multilingual customer and employee audiences.

But for large organizations, dialect is not only an audience-targeting or usability issue, it quickly becomes a problem (or opportunity) of scale. Many have multiple Web sites, in multiple languages and with thousands of pages. Managing content is one thing. Managing translations of thousands or millions of pages is a really big thing. Thus there are companies like Sajan with translation management systems and an international army of linguists.

The technology makes sure you get the best use out of the linguists' hard work, by providing a database of translations and tools so that you don't have to reinvent the sentence every time you translate. This drives cost out of the system and, perhaps more importantly, allows organizations to enter new markets and roll out products faster. Globalization is really about localization. The company that can get local faster, and in the dialect that their audience understands, will sell more.

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