Your Girlfriend Did What to Your PS2?

Ads are truly getting daring... and it's not often that an ad gives me pause... but this pair that PS2 is running in India sure did!

You can see them full size here and here.


Read the MSN post about it here.

It's not so much the copy - which didn't make a ton of sense and looks like a maniac cut it out of the newspaper - but the tag line! Gasp. Check it out in the bottom right corner. Yes, you saw it.

I'm not sure... but I think I'm offended. And I know if I were the Indian girlfriend of a PS2 owner, I'd mad as sh-t. :)

Just what I always needed

How to translate hip hop music:


Pop Culture Translator

Great marketing too - it's by a college. Of course, I have critiques of how they could have made it a little more effective marketing-wise, but it's cute and fun nonetheless.

you're nobody unless Google loves you

Remember the New Yorker cartoon - On the Internet Nobody Knows You're a Dog?

Well, as it turns out, they probably do know, and they know what kind of dog you are, and whether you're into tennis balls or squeaky toys. But whether you display first (or someone with a like name) or what displays first is how you want to be known... well that's not always the case. But, how you Google is vital in today's online-focused world.

I've recently been engaged to fix the online persona of a prominent business leader. He wants the online realm to prominently display him and his business when a search is run on his name (not others by the same name, and not irrelevant results about him, ie, 10k race results). Like your business's name, your name is your brand, and that brand has an enormous amount of exposure on the internet.

This article from yesterday's WSJ just reinforces the whole idea: Does Your Name Google Well? . Evidently, parents are actually considering the search engine implications for their children's names - that is - nothing too common or they won't be found in their future lives. Nothing too hard to spell either. Clearly, the internet rules our worlds: 62% of people say they Google people before meeting them - to get an idea of who they are meeting (WSJ poll associated with the article above). Based on that, spending some time on your online persona seems like a good investment. If a first impression is critical, then a pre-first impression must be uber extra super critical.

Get to it. Or call me and I'll help you out.

Giving to the community....

In the tag cloud of my thoughts, online community and giving to the community have recently had very bold, very large fonts. (Ok that reference just goes to show you... I am SOOO geeky).

As a result, I found this article very engaging: Consider the Small Things. The author, writing for the online marketing trade site ClickZ, has some really great ideas.

Basically, he goes one step further than the ideas I put forth in this work of my MBA academic prowess, completed in December of 06: The Case for Social Media. In my paper, I suggest that marketers get involved in the online experience, make wiki entries, play Second Life (don't just slap advertisements there), post to blogs, things like that. They should do all this with their brand in mind - not overtly selling, but just keeping in mind that they are representing the brand. They can do this in tandem with overtly sponsoring some online activities/sites/etc.

Chad thinks that we can one up that - by really giving to the communities - not just our two cents - but GIFTS.

Some of the most active blogs and forums relevant to your brand and products may be run as a hobby by a single or group of passionate consumers....

While these sites may accommodate advertising, consider something different, such as sponsoring a user prize-giveaway contest. How about asking site operators what features they would like added, then provide those services to keep the site humming along. A rounding issue for your marketing budget could go a long way for an online community.

Go read the article, it's short, you can do it. This is good stuff - and you can really take his ideas and run with them. Run! Go! and let me know how it goes!

PS: Lots of corporations make a big deal out of sponsoring community (real space community) causes and events. If you can sponsor a community event around your brand... well... isn't that just all the more effective?

Quotable...and Readable...

"Marketing has really taken a backwards step. We’re still doing marketing the way we were doing it 50 years ago, and everything else has moved forward…. We’re still spending a lot of money broadcasting and creating a brand, but brand today is created by what you’re associated with…. I think marketing is remiss, in that it’s still relying on the old ways, and not experimenting with the new."

Marketing Guru Regis McKenna – in an Interview with PodTech.net

Translation: It's not effective for marketeers to "throw money at the problem" - we're going to have to use our noodles and come up with a way to get in with the in crowd...

Action: Well? You tell me. Here's what I pitched to work:

Technology Marketing 2.0: The Case for a Social Media Strategy

Building Community, Building Brand

It's a strange thing to start a new blog. Hi everyone (everyone everyone everyone). Ah, the echo of no readers on a new blog. But hopefully we can fix that soon. I've been blogging over on Live Journal for several zillion years, but this blog promises to be more professional and more well... topical: thus the name. So here we go.

Today's tidbit: Toyota has created a "MySpace" like site for hybrid owners.

From the article....

"Toyota's more than 600,000 hybrid owners are very passionate about their vehicles and the reasons they drive them," Gregg Benkendorfer, National Manager of Media Strategy and Digital Marketing for Toyota, said in a prepared statement. "The new community site taps into that excitement by letting users visually represent themselves through graphic art and video."

Brilliant? Not really. It just makes a lot of sense. I can't see people going back there again and again to talk about their cars, but the site will surely generate a lot of buzz and a ton of content and ideas for new campaigns....