You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Marketing' category.
“She is not a girl, and she is not a pinup.”
Susan Estrich, Columnist, on Sarah Palin, saying she hates defending her, but is annoyed at Newsweek for featuring her on the cover in running shorts.
“I am applauding Bebo …I don’t understand the logic for the others not following suit.”
Jim Gamble, of Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), saying social networking sites need a help button for children to report predators bullying.and bullies
“we should not make the perfect the enemy of the good,”
Barack Obama, conceding that the Copenhagen summit would not come up with a binding agreement on global warming.
“A portable device with an appropriate wifi connection, and a very powerful browser.”
Google CEO, Eric Schmidt’s definition of a Netbook, in a broad discussion of the future of the internet.
“Huh? If you’re already a Fortune 100 company, ‘brand awareness’ is probably not your biggest problem.”
Fast Company, commenting on a study by Weber Shandwick, that says only about 3/4 of Fortune 100 companies have Twitter accounts, few follow best practices, and most are chasing after brand awareness.
“Would I be cynical if I said I believed Apple was secretly fueling the hype by leaking bits and pieces of information to raise expectations? Does it matter?”
Linda Vandevrede, at ValleyPRBlog, on the role of PR in hype, or whether it evolves in some ‘organic’ way.
“The thrill of naked guys in public aside, this marketing scheme did involve a bit of trickery.”
Advertising Age, revealing the story behind the ‘worlds’ fastest nudist’ in New York this week, who turns out to be a guy doing a stunt for Zappos, via an ad agency, Agent 16.
“Look, people the message is this: Do not tell me you cannot do this.”
Josh Bernoff, on how the Groundswell Awards, and how excellence in social media can come from anyone, anywhere.
“If there’s metadata in there, that’s public record.”
Dan Barr, attorney for the Society of Professional Journalists, on the Arizona Supreme Court decision that now requires public entities to disclose Meta Data, the ‘hidden data’ embedded in electronic records.
“A Friday afternoon news dump…”
Huffington Post on the list of visitors to the White House, released on Friday. The list includes lobbyists and prominent people
“It comes down to data and money.”
Story in Fast Company, that ‘Facebook plans to Geo-tag your life’ by linking geo-location information to users actions on the site.
“Let the little dogs lap, Mr. President. It’s good for the nation’s spleen.”
Kathleen Parker, on the noise from Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh on Obama’s attack Fox News
“For Rush and Glenn and Balloon Dad, the allure of media attention is too powerful to be curbed by a sense of social responsibility.”
John Del Cecato, of AKPD Message and Media.
“So there you have it. Ignite a future for the high-profile navel-gazers of tomorrow with your own bottle of Twitter wine, which goes for $20 a pop.”
AdRants, on Crushpad’s use of Twitter on wine labels
“It’s winemaking, which is usually for us a four or five person endeavor, mixed with Twitter.”
Michael Brill, president and CEO of Crushpad, the winery teaming with Twitter and the pro-literacy group Room to Read.
“Let’s hope the Millennial Generation isn’t becoming the latest Lost Generation.”
Chad Graham, in the Arizona Republic, on how graduates are worried about the present job outlook, their future and even retirement.
“My ‘maternity break’ will end in mid-November.”
Charlotte Shaff, CEO of The Media Push (who blogged about her pregnancy) interviewed by Linda Vandevrede at ValleyPRBlog.com, on ‘Pregancy and PR.’
“First, I felt that after five years my blogging was getting long in the tooth….”
Steve Rubel, SVP and Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, interviewed by Tech Crunch
“For the people, for the planet, for jobs, for you!”
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on the role of the UN, on the anniversary of the United Nations, which falls today –the day the UN Charter on 24 October 1945 was formed.
Just as the aphorism goes that “there are lies, damn lies and advertising,” I wonder if it’s time for someone to come up with one about stunts –especially the PR variety.
Let me be clear. I don’t condemn stunts. In fact it might be construed as another word for ‘tactic’ or creative attempt to make a point.
So I was about to classify this latest ‘underwater cabinet meeting‘ by the President of Maldives as a stunt, but I thought I’d put the question to my readers to check the pulse first. I won’t go into the details here, suffice to say that it takes a bit of effort to get your cabinet to strip down to scuba diving suits –and anchor desks to the coral– to pull off something like this.
But back to the definition of a PR stunt. Here are some past examples that might fall into this category.
- Pole dancing in the streets of Manhattan
- Admitting to a PR stunt -charging for use of bathrooms on planes
- Boy lost in runaway balloon –a stunt that looks like an accident
I know, there are more. But for our purposes, let’s ask if promoting a cause or a brand validates the approach. Governments are quick to blame each other when an international or bilateral crisis arises, calling it a stunt, even though there had been no specific public facing activity. Headline writers find it a useful 5-letter word to spice up a story. (As in this one, that was clearly a misplaced use of money, rather than a stunt).
I would think a PR stunt is anything that
- Involves an event or a sustained activity that is staged, primarily for gaining media attention
- Is unusual or controversial
- Is connected with an extended campaign that does not involve PR or advertising. Behavior modification, for example
The first --gaming the media –can be dangerous, if done to fool the media. If the balloon incident being debated this week proves to be an act of self-promotion by wasting time and money of a sheriff’s department, that’s a dumb stunt, indeed.
The second –is often creative and harmless. The guy who dons a pizza delivery attire and ‘delivers’ his resume (attached to the box) to a marketing director, is clearly breaking out of the old method (email or mail) to get his application to the top of the pile.
The third –wins my approval, hands down. This is what all good (insert the word ‘marketing,’ ’cause promotion,’ ‘advertising’ as a prefix here) campaigns ought to be.
President Nasheed’s course of action seems more like the third category. He has a point to make, and what better way than for a leader of a country surrounded by –and threatened by– water to do this?
You may not often think about this, but there is a branch within intellectual property laws that covers the illegal use of fonts.
Most designers know this, and won’t recommend paying for a font for one use, and copying it for multiple clients. But wanna-be designers don’t always look at the details.
So this case of NBC being sued by the Font Bureau, may explain how tings work.
I found an interesting document at UNESCO, that goes back to 2003, which states that:
“…the most basic legal rule of font copyright is that unless the license specifically allows it, fonts cannot be shared among multiple computers, even if they are all owned by the same person or corporation, and fonts cannot be given away to others. In all cases the EULA is the authoritative source for specific licensing details.”
Just like software licenses, you can’t purchase a single-use license and use ita cross multiple businesses. Time to look for those errant fonts on the computers in your marketing department, don’t you think?
“The narrow prism of terrorism”
John Brennan, President Obama’s new counter-terrorism chief, saying the present administration won’t be looking at allies and other nations this way anymore.
FACT: You do own your brand and brand messaging
FACT: You don’t own relationships customers have with your brand
Beth Harte, at SocialMediaToday.com on Brand Vs Brand Relationships
“Washington Post Magazine ceases its XX Files feature in Sept. Probably cause?…the essays tended to focus on negative experiences with men.”
“But the pleasure of turning the page! I protested. The feel of something organic, not electronic, in your hands. The crispness…”
Jessica Burnette-Lemon, on looking at the Amazon Kindle
“Scare you away yet?”
Job description for AXIS Inc., for entry-level marketing position that requires knowledge in PR, customer service, sales…
“Successful candidate will have: 1) LinkedIn, MySpace, and/or Facebook account; 2) Twitter account with consistent, frequent updates; 3) Personal blog”
Job description for Social Media Director at ADF
“It’s a big surprise to me that my blog has meant that 250m people have not been able to enter Facebook.”
A blogger names Georgy, on the reason for the denial of service attacks on popular networks Facebook and Twitter.
“Military computers off-limits to tweeting GIs.”
Headline of article about the Marine Corps banning soldiers from using military computer networks to access FAcebook, Myspace and Twitter.
It makes me want to shut up about micro-blogging.
For $27 bucks this guy is selling you five CD’s that will help you make money on Twitter by building 16,000 followers in 90 days. It’s called the Twitter Traffic Machine.
The pitch video is really sleazy. And what’s with the sign up page? Those red arrows give the whole game away, don’t they? Welcome to the automated snake oil salesman.
Now if this was a joke, a way to prove that there are enough dumb people who will actually pay to have followers, more power to Bill Crosby. If not, will someone remind Mr. Crosby that the broadcast model of ‘monetizing’ eyeballs and traffic have crashed and burned?
Recent Comments