movember motivation

Movember is a social marketing case-study bundled into an amazing and awkward month where all your friends look like they've been banned from all the playgrounds in town.

Well here is some much needed motivation, if not for the growers, for the non-growers.

It get's thicker, people.

google fiber. not for your bowels.

Hey peeps.  I've got something exciting for you.  I have no idea what it means, but I watched this video and wanted to buy something from Google.

It sounds fast and smooth - it's like fiber for your internet.



I wish I could name things that Google makes.  Hmm... what would I choose... Google Kitten?  Yeah, Google Kitten.  It would be something cute, for sure.  Maybe a personal classified?  Ehhh... maybe I should stick to not naming things for Google.

you got cookie, so share it maybe.

Sesame Street decided to do a parody on "Call Me Maybe".  It makes me want to have my baby watch Sesame Street - you've earned my baby's viewership, Sesame Street, now teach him how to go to sleep without crying.

advertising america

Happy 4th of July, blogees (bloger, blogee right?)!

To celebrate, lets look at some of America's best advertisements (best being extremely subjective... that is subject to whatever I want to copy and paste into this post):

 

what actually helps people?

If you decided that helping people was the most important thing in your life, what would you do?  I have been thinking about this a ton lately.  What do people need?  Education?  Water?  Loans?  Shoes?  Money?  Shelter?  Peace?  Jobs?  Hospitals?

Money tends to corrupt and enable, necessities seem to be temporary band-aids, peace seems unachievable, hospitals seem reactionary.  So what would you do?  If you decided every effort and thought and action would be dedicated to helping others, where would those efforts, thoughts, and actions turn?  To be redundant: What actually helps people?

Below are two companies that believe they are making a difference.  They have chosen their way to help people, and while I'm not sure it is the one thing I would do, I am glad they're doing something.

geico made me laugh again. finally.

Geico,

It has been a while since your commercials have made me laugh.  A long while.  Remember that funny woodchuck commercial - "Hey you woodchucks! Stop chuckin' my wood!" - no? yes? Anyway, it has been a while since I got a good chuckle out of your commercials, but this new one with a possum got me.  Unfortunately, not because this commercial is necessarily better than your other's of recent, but because I lived two years in the south, and you nailed possums... just nailed 'em.

So enjoy, you fellow understanders of possums:


I am curious though... how is it that insurance becomes the industry that lends itself to funny commercials?  Hey, I need someone to be there for me, no matter what.  I know, who made me laugh!?

watch this, get warm fuzzies.

This short video may be cheesy and idealistic, but at its core I feel like it inspires altruism and charity.  To me the message is that the synergies that come from helping others are greater than the cost it takes in time and effort to serve, and that is just operationally speaking (not accounting for that warm fuzzy feeling that comes from helping others).



So get out there and do something good for someone.  Better yet, make a habit out of doing good things for other people.  Even better yet, make a life out of doing good things for other people.  Hm, I am going to go take my own advice.

...three months later at jcpenney

Why yes, I am writing a post about not writing posts.  It's like a post within a post.  [insert too easy inception joke].

So what's with the lack of posting?  We moved to suburbia at summertime, and frankly writing a blog post while enjoying the beautiful park right out our front door is harder than it sounds.

So what did we miss?  Nothing of terrible importance - although remember how I posted about jcpenney's new strategy and how cool I thought it was?  Turns out no one else thought it was cool after they lost $30 million.  The stock price tells the story (with a little help from me):

So here's my take: duh jcp is going to lose money.  It is a dinosaur of a company (huge and old) and a change this size is going to cause some growing pains.  Now I don't know if jcp will succeed or fail in the end, but my point is that it is far too early to tell.  Let's give them longer than 3 months to turn things around.  In fact, if I was a stock buying man I might buy some jcp right now.

And to a larger even more boring point, this is the danger of a publicly traded company.  When the public owns your company, they demand immediate returns ALWAYS.  It makes it difficult to invest in long term success when all you hear from shareholders is "we want money now!"

And to an even more large and more boring (and the final - I promise - expansion of this discussion), maybe that is what is wrong with our "government" and our economy.  We, the people, demand immediate gratifcation.  "Fix our debt" we scream, "but don't you dare take away our programs or tax us more," we scream louder.

That is all.

old spice believes in it's smellf

Old Spice has had some pretty terrible commercials (like anything with Terry Crews - his first and last name are separate links to stupid commercials... not bad eh?), and I have just let them all slip away into their stupid graves built out of stupidness.  That is, until now.  This commercial actual got a legitimate chuckle out of me, although it is no "I'm on a horse".



I, too, believe in my smellf. Do smyou?

how to make a store better? another store.

Target announced recently that they are going to be bringing in a bunch of little shops inside the Target store.  If they (or should I say we) can't win you over with Target, we'll win you over with "polkadogbakery" or "privet house".  Their tagline is, "The shops we stumbled upon and couldn't help but fall in love with".

Here's a little video about it.


Target's not the only brand to jump on the store inside a store, in jcp's big strategy announcement they included a little snippet about a "main street of shops" to showcase their best stuff.

If you like this, wait until they put even smaller stores inside these stores - your money will practically spend itself.  Kristy (my wifey) said it's the inception of shopping.

awesome dancing makes me want to buy

I am a huge sucker for dance, especially street dance like hip-hop, break dancing, and dubstep (my new favorite).  The adrenaline that the audience can get from seeing this kind of dance makes it a prime candidate for marketing messages.

I chose a few of my favorite to show you whazup.

This one's a bit long, but to get the idea go to :35 and watch for 30 seconds and then skip to the last 10 for the brand message.


This is one of the first I remember seeing, featuring break dancing.  Also, a funny line at the end.


Also there this "popping and locking" spot from IKEA.  If you watch So You Think You Can Dance, you'll recognize these people.

I almost cried, guys.

This masterpiece from the P&G for the 2012 Olympics is a tear jerker for sure.  P&G's tribute to moms.  All of us have one, most of us love ours, and those of us with kids know too well the endless service a mom is asked to give.

The whole point of advertising is to arouse some emotion and tie it to a product or idea to motivate behavior, something that this spot does exceptionally well.  I also love when an advertisement shows what power a non-suggestive, non-violent, non-sexual ad can have.

A part of me feels manipulated, though.  I feel a little like the big bad muli-million $ firm is tricking me into feeling something.  Oh well, P&G, you win; I felt something and I think I like you more because of it.

one of these things...

So this commercial is kind of cool.  Nothing overwhelmingly inspiring from Honda, but take a close look at the family in the car.  I can't help but sing, "one of these things is not like the other" in my head.  And if you are still scratching your head, it is the little dark-skinned boy in a car full of very pale parents and kids.

Here's a screenshot, the video is below.

The full commercial:

you smell bad. now read my blog.

I guess I'm on a viral-videos-from-brands kick (can that even be a thing?) what with my post about TNTs drama stunt and Nintendo's mockery.

Here is a stunt from Tic Tac to make people feel bad.  They are basically saying, "You smell bad.  Now buy Tic Tacs". I don't know if that is the best strategy... but I guess that's just the point, I don't know.  I think I'll try it out by making it my blog title.

nintendo makes fun of "going viral"

When I was watching this parody video from Nintendo, I almost felt like Joel McHale was trying to hard too try too hard to sell.  Does that make any sense at all?  Am I trying too hard?

Anywhooo (my Minnesotan accent), I thought it should be funny if nothing else.

so much real, fake drama

So TNT decided to bring drama to real life.  The ridiculous things brands will do to "go viral".  I guess it worked, it is on my blog, after all.

I wonder if after it was all over they felt super disappointed that only 20 people stopped to watch?

whales are depressed and jim gaffigan is brilliant

Yeah, that's right, you didn't misread the title, whales are depressed.  Listen to this hilarity from Jim Gaffigan to see what I mean... er... what he means.



I do love the marketing for the video.  Super simple, and undeniably clear: $5 for 75 min of funny stuff.  There's a sample, an invitation, and a clear direction.  I bet their sales are stronger than the typical stand-up video.  No seriously, I would like to bet you - $10.  I keed, I'm not a betting man.

nike hates boys. take this nike.

So it recently dawned on me that Nike hates boys.  Why, Nike?  Do boys have to be weak and whiny for girls to be great?

Whhhaaaaaa!!!  Why are boys always picked on?!?  :(  Haarrruuummph.



I don't know why we can't harken back to the good ol' days when advertisements were sexist in my favor.  Take this Nike.

an easter cocktail. of movies.

Today as part of our Easter celebration we drank in a dangerously moving and motivating cocktail of wonderful videos helping us remember the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  I thought I'd share.

A series of bible videos detailing the life of Christ.  This is a compilation.


A special testimony of His importance:


Another testimony of Him:


Maybe a more practical lesson in application from Christ's teachings

mormon marketing

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (AKA the Mormons, AKA my church) has put together a very clever (biased opinion? yes.) marketing campaign for Easter.

The internet campaign revolves around the Mormon.org Facebook account and a website created just for Easter, http://www.mormon.org/easter .

So what's so clever?  The campaign is undeniably simple with a laser focus on the central message of the campaign, that Christ lives.  From my marketing education, the best campaigns know exactly who they are talking to and what they want to say, and that is what I see here.

Below are a couple of samples from the campaign.

This is the video on the "front page" of the website:


One of the "Easter cards" from the Facebook campaign:

The campaign is personally meaningful to me as well.  I believe that Jesus lived in Jerusalem long ago, that he performed miracles and taught.  I believe that he came to make our success on Earth possible by suffering to for our sins and our grief.  I believe he rose from the dead, triumphant over death and sin.  It is in Him I trust and structure my life the best I can to follow his teachings.  I have felt his love, forgiveness, and peace.  Happy Easter!

ragu is getting rag-diculous

Ragu is trying on silly for size.  They just released a new commercial marketing campaign that hosts the numerous predicaments that getting children to eat can pose, and silly solutions.

I guess you can be the judge of how silly suits Ragu's size, and see some seriously sickening solutions to some of the sticky situations these parent's encounter.  Yeah, I got carried away with my alliteration just now.  Oh, and there are more after the jump, this one's just my favie-fave.

 

target says color changes everything

I've spent plenty of time highlighting the neatnesses of other companies.  It is about time I show some home-crowd favoritism and talk about Target.

Target released a full blown spring marketing campaign all around color ("color changes everything"), and while it has nothing to do with food (I work in grocery at Target), it does make me say, "awesome".  It also makes me say, "That commercial was brilliant; the colors, the music, and the touch of parkour really came together to make a timely and relevant message that was hard to ignore, not to mention the..." well, you get the point.  I like it, and I think it is amazing and fun, and I am now sharing it with you:

commercial:


Jason Wu (exclusive design partner) commercial:xx


In store marketing:

the bible and book of mormon

It's Sunday.  Why not do a religious post?

Remember Tagxedo, the word cloud making site?  Well I found plain text versions of the bible and the book of mormon, two books I believe to be the word of God, and turned them into word clouds.  Then I compared 'em to see which words were prominent.  Here's what I saw:

Not trying to prove a point, just thought it was an interesting comparison using a cool tool.

can you spot all the viral web content?

This particularly fantastic commercial is brought to you by Vitamin Water (owned by Coke).  Now, other commercials have tried to incorporate viral web content (videos/pictures/fads/whatever), but I've never seen anyone do it as well as Vitamin Water does here.  So can you spot all the viral web content?


I took screen shots of each after the jump.

me in an apple

So Kristy found this awesome website (Tagxedo) that can create a word cloud based on text you enter, a URL, Twitter account, and many other sources.  You can then choose a shape and font and color.  It is amazing. 

So of all the things I could choose to showcase this neat tool, I chose me.  Surprised "narcissism" didn't pop up in there; although, now I suppose it will. 

why healthcare costs so much

I had a most enlightening chit chat with a good friend of mine.  We will call him... "Rayqwan Jose Peters", but "Ray" for short (to protect my friend's true identity, I changed hist name to a racially ambiguous smorgasbord).

ANYway, Ray works for a large hospital now and is currently in an MHA program.  In short, Ray knows his stuff when it comes to healthcare.  But that's not all, his current job in the large hospital chain is to determine the cost of new services.  Ray decides how much you and I will pay for our healthcare.

I made a visual for what he told me.  I was fascinated.  He didn't use the example of a shower, but I thought I would.

So here's what I took away:  healthcare is so expensive because half of the patients in the U.S. are on government aid, a program which doesn't reimburse hospitals for what they need to have a viable business model.  To stay in existence hospitals are forced to charge people who pay twice as much.  Let me put this in other words:

We are taxed through our healthcare payments.

Here's another way to put it:

We fund medicare and medicaid when we go to the doctor.

I totally understand the motives behind government assistance programs.  Helping others who cannot help themselves is a great source of joy for me in my life.  I also don't feel comfortable being forced (in yet another way) to incentivize dependency. Unfortunately,  I don't have a solution to the problem.  Hopefully whoever's president will figure it out.

mormon infographic

I thought this infographic was neat, being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (AKA a Mormon).  Okay let's be honest, that sentence should have read, "I thought this infographic was neat, being a total nerd.

Anyway, my business/numbers-minded head thought this was a fun snap shot of some Mormon stats.



Source: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormonism-101#C3

two hilarious kids

To combat the heaviness of yesterdays post, I'll get about as light and silly as possible.  Two hilarious videos of super funny kids.

The message is the same in this video!  If you believe in yourself, you can do anything (and, for those of you wondering, anything = ride a bike).  This video didn't allow embedding, so you'll have to click to see the greatest child motivation speaker ever.


And the most watched comedy video on YouTube: David at the dentist.  I know these are old - oldies but goodies.

kony and invisible children

Be warned, this post is a bit heavier than my usual.  I was touched by this viral-video masterpiece.  Aside from my fascination with how this video has become a YouTube sensation, I was moved by watching someone do something motivated by sincerity and love.

The lesson for you and for me from this video is not necessarily to support a specific cause for Africa (although it surely is a worthy cause), but to reevaluate our most urgent efforts, and to assign them a worth, and to re-prioritize our efforts based on what we truly want to stand for.

Before the big unveil of the video (below) can we talk for just a second about the brilliance in marketing that went into this?  Now, do I think that the Kony 2012 campaign holds lessons for marketing managers everywhere? No.  I don't.  Kony 2012 is (or appears to me to be) a sincere effort motivated by love of our fellow man.  Their guerrilla marketing and crowd-sourced marketing are really only applicable for that type of effort.  But man! the action kit, the video, the movement, the messaging, the graphic design, the colors, the social media, the storytelling.  If nothing else, this is a brilliant case study in marketing in our modern day.

I watched the whole video.  I couldn't turn it off.  Really great job to everyone involved:

i think i hate politics

I tried to write about politics.  I wrote sentences, then I deleted them.  I wrote them again, and then went back and deleted them.  I think I hate politics.  Or maybe I'm just too thick to comment.  Regardless, I don't think any sentences will ever be written by me about politics.  Except for arbitrary ones like the last 7.

Anyway, I did think this commercial that just came up from Cain was hilarious and really weird (yeah, Cain, that strange fellow who dropped out months ago just came out with a commercial - or rather his Super Pac did).

Enjoy it.

turnaround: a jcp story

Remember how when we watched that Kohl's commercial I speculated that it could be a move to preempt JCP (or should I say, "jcp"?)? <- side note: ?)? doesn't look like a real thing allowed in the English language. Please forgive.  Also I'll tell you, out of fear it won't be noticed, that I purposely flipped the phrase in my title to suggest that jcp invented the turnaround.  I fear my brilliance will be lost on the less observant.  I digress...

JCP, now lowercase jcp, has made some pretty "boss" moves (what kind of nerd says "boss" in quotes.  also, what kind of business-y person says "boss" at all?).  I could tell you, but instead, let me show you:

logo:

stock:

and of course, commercials:

so much americana in this one:

ellen's commercials have almost all made the YouTube most watched front page the last few days.


You might have a hard time finding stories about jcp's strategy change, so let me point out a few obscure publications that have been tracking it: forbes, business week, chain store age, cnn.  Notice how I put them all in lower case?  JC-Penney-ed!

3 ads to make you cry (in a good way)

Contrary to popular belief (AKA my mom) I don't love overt sex appeal in advertising.  Contrary to my belief, though, I did say in my last post that I loved an ad with... some covert sex appeal.

Here are some ads I do love.  These are unbelievable.  Beware though, I ha... people have been known to cry at these.  Interesting: Google made the top 3 twice.  Figures.

So heart warming:

Most tear-jerky of them all.


For me, this is the ad the started the love of companionate relationship-based advertising

i hate kohl's. now let's go buy stuff there.

I want to buy Rock and Republic right now.  at Kohl's.  I don't even like Kohl's.  Or Rock and Republic.  That is the power of this unbelievable commercial.  I don't know if it is the music or the moderately attractive couple or the fun night scene.  In fact, contact me if you can psycho-analyze me - I'm curious what terrible thing happened in my childhood to make me irrationally like this commercial.

Kohl's may be reacting to JC Penney, who is just killing the whole reinvention story.  More on that sweet little turnaround later.

selling sex

While I have to admit this paper I wrote is much less of a fair examination of both sides to an argument and much more of a rebuttle to the ever-so often quoted business mantra "sex sells", I still think it is compelling and worth a read.  Here's a taste.  The full paper is after the jump.

Selling Sex: Misplaced Marketing Dollars

Selling Sex: Misplaced Marketing Dollars

Erotic images intended to incite intense sexual emotions expose themselves to us daily.  Ultimately, marketing managers and advertising planners everywhere are determined to drive traffic to their products and increase sales.  The purpose of advertisements is to evoke powerful emotions and link them to products or services in the consumer’s mind.  Sexuality is a powerful emotion that exists in nearly all humans and is therefore a natural candidate for advertising messages.

Research on the effectiveness of sexuality in advertising has been done for more than 30 years, and for 30 years no conclusive results have been reached.  The often uttered phrase, “sex sells”, may not be as intuitive or obvious as it seems.  Because sexuality in advertising implants negative brand perceptions, distracts consumers from the ad message, and faces possible censorship, marketers are misplacing their marketing dollars by selling sex rather than their products.