Tag Archives: advertising

when it snows it pours

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Selfie Marketing Pitch Popular

Florida’s Pinellas County is the most densely populated county in the state. It’s also the smallest, but that has never affected its ability to draw tourists from around the globe, intent on visiting world-class beaches from Caladisi Island State Park on the northern end to Fort Desoto County Park guarding the entrance to Tampa Bay.

With gas prices at their lowest level in years, an economy that’s on the rebound for the first time in years, and a brutal winter that continues to lash the northeast, convincing northerners to turn their wanderlust into momentum and head south isn’t a heavy lift.

Will Winter Ever End?

Nonetheless, Pinellas County’s marketing arm, Visit St. Pete-Clearwater, came up with a rock solid bit of creative when they launched a campaign centered around a family of nomadic snowmen who began showing up in slush and dirty snow blanketed New York and Chicago.

The edgy “WinterBlows” campaign plants irresistible (and guaranteed to have lines forming for selfies) faux snowmen on the sidewalks displaying sandwich boards headlined “Sunshine or bust!” and the WinterBlows.com URL.

Is it working? I’d have to say yes, considering how congested the main two-lane north-south beach artery, Gulf Boulevard, has become in recent days. There’s nothing that can match a smart, well executed, marketing solution.

facebook says party’s over

Brand reach plummeted after Facebook hit the brakes on organic.

Ogilvy Social describes how brand reach plummeted after Facebook hit the brakes on organic.

Brands, Markets, Budgets Strategy

Once not so very long ago, retail business had a narrow choice of media for advertising and marketing; the Yellow Pages, newspapers, and broadcast. Depending on the size of the market, a newspaper or two may have offered competitive rates, along with radio and t.v. But unless your business was cars, clothes, furniture or groceries, it was pretty much hit or miss.

As broadband began rolling out there was a brief moment when print was cruising laid back at altitude while digital media was taxiing for takeoff. Didn’t last long. Overnight, print and the public airwaves found themselves powerless to head off the rush to the exits by marketers chasing the promise of free forever online homesteads. Woot. Continue reading →

disney’s yellow shoes fit cd perfectly

 

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Will Gay Wears Yellow Shoes At Helm of Disney In-House Creative

What’s it like to head up the in-house shop in charge of Disney messaging? For Yellow Shoes creative director Will Gay, it’s just another day in the candy store, where his clients include Disney Parks, Adventures by Disney, Disney Vacation Club, Disney Cruise Line and Disney’s Aulani Resort and Spa.

Speaking to over 75 Ad Fed Tampa Bay members and guests, Gay recalled his beginnings as an art director and his fascination with how completely the Wonderful World of Disney, an NBC network pioneer in the early days of broadcast television, engaged the audience.

“I realized that what the audience was watching was just one big infomercial, and then it dawned on me that if people can be entertained they’ll forget they’re being advertised to,” a connection made as he studied how Walt Disney approached the marketing challenge.

Yellow Shoes the agency was the solution to a problem the various Disney brands – which includes eight theme parks – were having running their campaigns independently of each other. The agency’s name reflects the color of the footwear of Disney’s most famous icon, Mickey Mouse.

Gay’s biggest success, the recent Free The Goat campaign, was powered by Disney’s highly developed network of bloggers, a healthy portion of social media, and a popular Twitter #freethegoat hashtag that’s still popping up. The goal, aside from driving attendance, was to directly channel user involvement and to capture the unique metrics of a devoted consumer.

dew steps up – 140 characters

And with that sponsored tweet, Mountain Dew defused the latest in an embarassingly numerous string of downright stupid ad hoc ads by major consumer brands in recent weeks/months.

Crisis PR? Sometimes it really is that simple: recognize the problem, acknowledge responsibility, resolve offense. Please notice the refreshing lack of any weasel wordy qualifier, i.e., “…if we’ve offended anyone.” There, done with that.

goodway’s friedman talks digital media

getting to the heart of paid digital media with jay friedman of goodway group

For much needed insight into the confounding world of paid digital media I staked out a seat at American Advertising Federation’s Tampa chapter Doing Digital Media Right meeting when they imported Goodway Group’s COO Jay Friedman from Dallas to talk shop. Thanks to a small class size, comfortable venue, and a generous with advice accessible speaker I got plenty of big data answers to my small data questions. (Also see online spending: search vs. display)

media plan starts with organization

At Goodway, the emphasis is on holistic planning. Just like the health philosophy of the same name, holistic planning encourages Continue reading →

make your mark – logo design basics

logo power depends on design integrity

Logos, logotypes, and trademarks have become integral to everyday life, from the pictograms used to order your lunch at Mickey Ds to finding your way to the next road trip gas stop.

This six-minute primer from the PBS Off Book series looks in on the history, tradition, and uses of a visual identity and establishes the argument for professional design versus the DIY approach that’s emerged as a result of desktop publishing empowerment.

Properly done, visual identities are a powerful marketing tool that work to fulfill an observers expectations. When that design is poorly developed, communication suffers.

clues to cycle world’s future hinted

wsj reports on hearst new media aspirations

One of the first departments to get the ax after Hearst announced last June the completion of the HFM media sale that included Cycle World among others was that brand’s social media department.

That was followed last month by a rumor on the alt-lifestyle site Hell For Leather (subscription required) that the title was already up for sale, again, possibly to the first bidder willing to step forth and make an offer. Any offer.

Today’s Wall Street Journal announcement has Hearst looking very closely at the digital components of their extensive media empire, which now includes 15 dailies, 38 weeklies, nearly 200 magazine titles, and an eclectic collection of local t.v. and cable outlets ranging from A&E to ESPN.

WSJ points out the obvious: Hearst is caught in the same dilemma as very other purveyor of traditional media; namely, a no longer debatable downward spiral of sub and ad based revenue that, like Rosebud, is lost forever.

And it is to that end that corporate strategy now seems heavily focused on building out Hearst’s Interactive Media group and with it a pronounced shift in emphasis from old to new media and with it all the promise offered by the tech sector.

Too soon to tell if any of this will spill over to the Newport Beach offices of America’s most popular two-wheel journal. But if it does, that can only be good.

top cannes PR prize goes to ad agency

But overall, judges panned the lack of results oriented campaigns that can show behavior change as opposed to awareness as the main metric.

Just two years ago the tables were turned when an Aussie PR shop picked up top ad honors for their “dream job” campaign in what many forecasters thought at the time was the resurgence of the Golden Age for PR practitioners in an age of social media dominated communications.

This year’s Cannes results are another important reminder that above all, the core definition of public relations is to physically shift public behavior: bacon with breakfast, a/c not d/c as an energy source, etc., in a look back at what made Ivy Lee and Eddie Bernays pioneers in opinion.

Ad Agency Wins Top PR Prize at Cannes | Special: Cannes – Advertising Age.

tim tebow: just do it just got better

here’s how viral’s done

There’s not much Tim Tebow does that I don’t like. Actually, there’s nothing he does that I don’t like, and a whole lot that I do. His new web site timtebow.com has a fresh look, his YouTube collection’s growing, and he’s keeping his head above water in the Denver altitude.

If this ad was built around anyone else, it would be a laugher. Instead, it just brings a smile to my face. Role model? It doesn’t get any better.

bmw summons orwell in fresh ad effort


In yet another example of how outclassed domestic powersports marketing is, now comes this head-turner from BMW Germany in the form of what could be tagged an alternative form of neuromarketing. The spot stars factory Superbike rider Ruben Xaus onboard an S1000RR in a black and white film noire quick cut that by itself is less than remarkable. Pretty, pouty, and predictable.

but on the other hand

The other hand is a fascinating little tidbit of technology more amusing than motivational. Using what appears to be relatively simple rear screen technology to flash project a logo, the spot, by German uber agency serviceplan, creates an afterimage on the retinas of the audience. Yeah, it’s going to get attention.

A BMW spokeswoman said, “We literally got inside people’s heads, involving them instead of boring them and generating a more intensive connection to our target group. Our brand should be innovative, emotional and dynamic.”

Hmmm. Given how twitchy German bureaucracy is about any kind of Orwellian influencers, let alone a method requiring YOU MUST OBEY! to interpret the eyeball afterglow, this may not be a long lasting campaign. But it will be memorable, make no mistake. And as for the subliminal alarmists: uh, if you have to direct behavior to experience behavior, it’s not.

quit picking up mud

When I see efforts like this, efforts that accept the challenge of creatively differentiating the brand from the same old same old, I say hell yes, go for it! Like Leo Burnett famously said, “When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.”